The City Veins

We got our first review of the new CD a few weeks ago. It was from my mother and it was basically, “this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be.” My mom then asked me why we can’t write songs with melodies that she, and presumably others, can sing along to.

I think this is a fair complaint, and one that we are aware of. In fact, Aaron and I have tried to write a simple pop song. We felt that it is easier to get away with songs in 9/8 if we can play something major and catchy as well. The problem is that we just are not very good at it, and struggled for a few hours before abandoning what we were working on.

I think that sometimes we give off the impression that we consider ourselves above writing pop songs. Writing songs in shifting time signatures, and with altered chords, certainly contributes to that impression. Personnally, that isn’t the case. I love pop music. Anyone can feel good about having Justin Timberlake’s album on their iPod, but what about *NSync or the Backstreet Boys? Anyone who has problems with “I Want It That Way” has problems with me.

The problem is that we don’t have the confidence to write and perform a pop song. From my perspective, a pop song is either really good, or really bad. If it doesn’t hit all the right buttons, and hold up to repeated listens, it is a failure. I just am not good enough to write like that. A pop song has to be perfect, and the process of trying to write one only reveals your own faults. It is a lot easier to write a song in 9/8. If people don’t like it, it is because it is too difficult and smart, and besides we are only writing for ourselves anyway (these are the lies you have to tell yourselves when you are in a band with very few fans). If you someone doesn’t like a pop song, a song meant to appeal to people, well then the problem is with the writer and not the audience.

The other reason we can’t write a pop song is because we are not good lyricists.

Also, Aaron’s melodies tend to be high because that is where he has to sing to hear himself in our practice space.

When Aaron and I abandoned our last attempt to write a pop song, we ended up writing Boy Makes Good. The verse is stolen from the first chords of Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.” You can take a listen to it over at our MySpace, or at our Facebook pages.

Photo by Flickr user kb35.

In an effort to get you all out to the Rock and Roll Hotel tomorrow night we have put two rough mixes of new songs for our EP on MySpace. We are going on at 8:30, so get there early.

Aaron and I worked on the lyrics for “The Boy Makes Good” online through Google Docs. It is a fascinating document, much more interesting than the song. It has Aaron and I typing back and forth, using different colors to connoted different things It is something like 4,000 words long, and mostly crazy. I would link to it, but then people might come to lock us up.

Photo by Flickr user Augapfel.

As time marches on, pressure mounts on us to try to get the ball rolling on our EP. We had a very good practice on Saturday; all of our stuff sounded better than it has in a while. We’ve worked out a good 7-ish songs to record for the EP. As of right now we are undecided about how many songs we’ll release, choosing instead to wait to see how things turn out. In the end it could be any number between 4 and 8…we just don’t know right now.

Charles and I had written the beginnings of a song about a month ago that was based on a Billie Holiday chord-progression. The song as it stands sounds nothing like a Billie Holiday song; ultimately it is just a pure rock song. I believe I blogged about the process of writing this song a while back, but its final incarnation is actually the straight forward rock song that we had been trying to write but failed. Though I stated that we had finally settled on something more complex and “intelligent”, everything is subject to change when you add the drums. The fact is that in a three-piece band each member can drastically influence the feel of a song with even the smallest of actions. I am not trying to say that Spencer dumbed-down the song, although his inclusion in any activity does make those around him dumber (do you see what you get when you mess with a warrior?). But Spencer has an amazing capacity for doing what any good drummer should: arranging a song through influencing its dynamics. He can add power or pull a song back for some space. To his credit he has been doing this very well since the band moved out of songs written before he was in the band. If you are going to be a great DC band, you have to have a drummer that can influence a song. The musical legacy of the district is based around the drums, so your boy better be good.

(Note: This post was written before Spencer called me snarky. This is not attempt to mend fences….generally, I still think he’s an ass, but you put up with it for talent)

In addition to the drum-led legacy of the district, it’s pretty-clearly punk that has traditionally driven this city forward. But there is certainly a difference between west-coast punk and DC punk. Actually, there’s a difference between DC punk and almost all other punk scenes. For my money—though I am certainly biased—the DC scene is willing to borrow from multiple musical formats, while punk from other scenes can be guilty of sticking to a script. I think this allows us to try to use the DC scene as a strong influence without actually being a punk band. A punk mentality can be a huge asset to people who like to think to much.

As we’ve continued discussion on our upcoming recording/EP release plans, we’ve turned our talk to what to call the finished CD.  Naming things is always one of the worst parts about being in a band.  It’s a fine line to walk to choose a name that both represents what you want to represent without being one of the following: cheesy/cliched (see: this Toby Keith CD and most country CD titles in general); pretentious/obtuse/confusing (see: the full title of Fiona Apple’s “When the Pawn”); or just dumb (see: this Elton John album). (NOTE: Thanks to Cracked.com’s “20 Worst Album Titles of All Time” for these titles)

Fortunately, in the hierarchy of naming band-related things, naming CDs is not the hardest thing. Naming the band itself is the hardest. CDs come and go, and one bad title can be made up by a great title after it. Also, people will often forgive a dumb title if the music is great, such as with Sufjan Stevens’ “Come on Feel the Illinoise,” an inane title for a collection of brilliant songs (which themselves have dumb titles).  Songs are the least hard to name, though with them it’s much harder to avoid cliches.

Album/EP titles fall somewhere in the middle.  You want an accurate reflection of the songs contained within, but you’d also like it to convey some greater meaning.  Well, this may not be true of everyone, but it’s at least true for us.  Our first disc, “A Weekend Affair,” referred to the fact that those 4 songs were largely written and recorded over the course of 2-3 weekends.  This was back when The City Veins was a band in name/concept only; I didn’t know Charles, Aaron, or our former guitarist Adam yet and those guys put computer drums on the tracks when they were first recorded; I added the live drums to those tracks a few weeks later.  They hadn’t practiced or performed together yet. Now, we’ve been performing for a year.  We’ve defined our sound and musical direction through a year of evolving and experimenting (and the aforementioned line-up change).  We’re looking for something that sort of brings that all together. Plus, we’re most likely going to have cover art this time around, so the title will have to invoke some kind of idea for that too. It’s an interesting choice to make.

That being said, we’re leaning toward 2 choices, both taken from different lyrics Aaron has written: “Something Much Louder” and “By Sight and By Sound.”  Both are by no means final.

Your thoughts?

As my good friend Charles and that dick that sings for us have recently mentioned here, we are going to be doing some new DIY recording soon. However, we don’t have the capacity (technical or mental) to record drums ourselves, so if you know of a good engineer with a knack for getting awesome sound of the drums, we’re happily accepting recommendations.