The City Veins

All of us would like to congratulate our former guitarist Adam on his recent engagement to Haley. We sincerely wish them both the best.

And I thought that Adam left us because Aaron frequently refuses to bathe.

I realized that I forgot to post a Tarr fact on Friday. Since he still has not posted to the blog, I now offer this one:

When Aaron can’t remember lyrics (which is virtually always), he inserts the word “backwards” into every line.

“I just sang lyrics that came into my head; sort of like freestyling but not that coherent”

This is a quote from Aaron from the City Paper article, and in essence this is the biggest problem facing this band right now. I have come to realize that this is a pretty big problem. As a band, we suck a lyrics. A lot.

The problem is that none of us are lyricists. Personally, when I am listening to a song, I hear the lyrics as just a sound and a note. I can recite complete lyrics to some songs, and yet have no idea what they are about. Incidentally, I think this is why I can listen to, and love, opera despite having no idea what is being said. This also explains why I am not a huge Bob Dylan fan.

For example, Aaron and I wrote a new song last weekend. While no where near finished, I think it has potential, and features an interesting little experiment. Aaron sings a Bb at the end of the chorus, but we change the chord underneath so that the Bb serves a different purpose each time. After the 1st chorus, we play Bb major, and thus the note Aaron sings is the root. We play an Eb at the end of the 2nd chorus, and that same note is now the 5th. After the last chorus, we play an F# minor, and now that Bb is an A# and the third of the chord. Each of these changes propel the song in different directions.

Right now, the song is an interesting little exercise, but nothing more than that. What I have come to realize is that without lyrics, there is no real point to the experiment. Aaron and I did a quick recording of the song, and Aaron uses his patented “freestyle” lyrics. The lines all end in an open O sound, which is good for singing (Incidentally, I think this is why I prefer Italian operas. I think that Italian is by far the best singing language, lots of open vowels.), but gives the song a weird faux-Jamaican/Raffi sound. It is horrible, and almost ruins the song. Also, I think that New Orleans has suffered enough, and should be spared from hearing the way Aaron pronounces “Bayou.”

The answer is obviously to write lyrics, and I have started to do that, but writing lyrics is hard. The goal is to say something meaningful, without being cheesy, or trite or, and this is a personal preference, The Decemberists. There is added pressure because bad lyrics stay with you for the rest of your life. Occasionally my Ipod will play Roosevelt Roosevelt songs, and then I am subjected to my 20 year old ideas of poetry. And no one should be subjected to their 20 year old ideas of poetry.

So this is my charge for the next couple of weeks. Wish me luck.

Photo by Flickr user ildalina.

By my count, it has been 20 days since Aaron posted on this thing. 20 days!

Where has our fearless lead singer gone? Well, physically nowhere but mentally who the hell knows. I think he thinks WAY too much about what to put on the blog. Each posting tries to be more profound than the last. I think he over analyzes what to write about and puts this pressure on himself, giving him blog-tile dysfunction.

So, in an effort to 1) motivate him to blog and speak for himself and 2) publicly humiliate him until he does, we will posting facts about Aaron until he gets his ass on here to post.

Today’s Tarr Watch 2007 Fact is: Studies have shown that trained monkeys are proven to use a computer more effectively than Aaron.

Also, if you see Aaron, please don’t tell him about Tarr Watch. We want to see how many days it takes him to catch on on his own.

ALSO, we’re in The City Paper this week. Click HERE to read it.

We got mentioned in this week’s City Paper. It is a nice writeup, and Aaron did a good job on the interview. He managed to sound like less of an idiot than normal.

Also, Spencer and I are pretty sure that Aaron doesn’t actually read the blog. He certainly has no interest in updating it. So we are just going to continue to insult him on it, until he says something.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention this, but here is the song referred to in the article:

 Toe The Line [3:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download