So last month I played the annual Htown Circle Jerk gig, where Hamilton musicians past and present get together and play covers of each others’ songs (hence the title). Since I perform live with a laptop loaded with pre-recorded samples, it was a logical step to releasing studio versions of the songs - so here they are!
You can download the three-song EP for free using the widget below, or clicking here.
The songs were originally by Love and Violence, Tweeter and Amy Racecar. All three are now defunct (I believe so anyway… though I could be wrong), but were great bands in their time.
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago at 11:27 pm. Add a comment
Sometimes you read that a song had a really long gestation, and then you read Wikipedia only to find out what differentiates a ‘long’ gestation from a short one is the number of hotel rooms and hookers, multiplied exponentially, the guitarist had to pass through in order to come up with the band’s next hit.
In contrast, the main riff to ‘New Electra’ was one of the very first I ever came up with on picking up a guitar. Which was in the mid 1990s. As a reminder, ‘Battletech’ came out in July, this year.
The base of the song was laid down in the late ’90s, early 2000s, and pretty much left to rot. I never brought it up for consideration in any of the bands I was in, and never considered it for recording in my my previous solo iteration, luna spark, which wasn’t as ‘rock’ oriented as ‘Battletech’.
But new technology and such let me try it out, and though it evolved greatly in the mix, I don’t think it could have come out any better. It’s a far cry from what I imagined in 1996 or whatever, but if you knew what lyrics used to hang off the riff, you’d be worshiping the ground Charles Darwin used to listen to music on.
‘Cause really, the whole song is pretty much that riff. And to have some whargarbll over the top of it, with some crappy AutoTune, w0uld just be lame.
The verses aren’t so hot, so AutoTune there is required, for sure.
If you’ve got the album, and it’s a free download, so if you’ve read this far I’m guessing you do, you’d notice the snare sound is different to most of the other songs. It is, yeah. I used a different sample, and to this day, I’m not entirely sure why. It has a more generic session-bad pop sound to it.
The synth sound in the second verse you’d recognise as one I’ve scattered throughout ‘Battletech’, and it’s cropping up a bit in the new recordings I’m working one - perhaps a little too much! I’ve had some troubles with one of my wrists this past year, and combined with the fact I’m now a freakin’ dad (”freakin’ dad” ’cause it’s still a freakout that I’m a freakin’ dad) I’ve not been on the guitar/bass so much.
In its place is that pulsing, so-very-1990s sound. Or ’80s. I”m not sure. Needs more guitar to sound like Rob Zombie, less to sound like Ultravox - the dilemma of my life.
I say in the blurbs (and soon, hopefully, the interviews) I’m heavily influenced by Nirvana, yet no one seems to get it. People hear drum machines and think it’s synthpop, and/or hear distorted guitars and assume because they’re accompanied by drum machines, it’s Nine Inch Nails I’m ripping off.
Whilst both assumptions aren’t entirely false, I think it’s a little lazy to write off just how much an effect Kurt Cobain’s songwriting has had on me.
The first album I ever bought was Nirvana, Unplugged in New York. I’m not sure there’s a cooler album for someone my age to have begun with; I suppose I was a late starter, being 14 at the time, but I was doing alright for a fan of Australian rugby league who switched his allegiance from balls (balls) to penis substitutes (guitars) almost overnight.
I remember sitting in my mate’s garage when we were 15 (he’d been kicked out of home, and moved to the garage - it sounds lame, I know, but when you were 15, in 1995, the fact he was allowed topless (not full-frontal) pics on his wall, simply because he was no longer in the house, was pretty awesome), listening to Nirvana pretty much non-stop.
It was the same at home - mum once came into my room, and asked: ‘Do you like any other bands, apart from Nirvana?’ I thought about it for a few seconds, and replied, ‘No.’ Obviously.
A few months later I’d jump on the whole mid-90s Britpop/Beatles wave, but anyway, years later…
I’d learned a bit about using semitone discordance from Placebo, using single-string riffs from Muse, yet still loved the basic, ‘happy’ C-F-G power-chord progressions of your everyday Weezer song… and one day in early 2004 hit upon the main riff. I used the fact the riff - based in E - landed on C, giving it that minor kind of sound, to switch to F-C-G in the choruses, but keeping an angry melody, and somehow it resulted in something that was simultaneously catchy as hell, without being a total cheese-fest.
That sounds totally nerdy, but I insist - I have absolutely no musical training or knowledge, honest. It just sounded right.
The first time it was played live in my band at the time, Vetox, was the drummer’s… something. Engagement party? It was an odd audience anyway, and he hadn’t been in the band long, but it was draining, which yeah, made me think there was something to the song.
And as for the parts everyone says sound like the Killers, a) I’m actually quite proud I managed to pull off a song that equally ripped off Nirvana and the Killers, and b) one review said instead it was White Zombie I was channeling. Which you cannot argue with, or Rob Zombie will kill you, or something.
The recording obviously uses a lo-fi approximation of Muse’s Chris Wolstenholme’s distorted basswork, and if you listen carefully - it’s more apparent on the dynamic, alternate mix - drum machines in the intro and from the second verse onwards.
If you’ve read this far, you might even be interested in what the song is about - well, it’s a clumsily-written simplified view of what Pakistan, the country, seemingly wants from the United States. Crossed with wanting a girl. Heavy shit. This is where I insert the ‘in a post-9/11 world’ quote to get people’s ears on fire, I think.
It’s no secret that ‘Battletech’ was frontloaded, which led to a few internal debates over whether to put the best ’songs’ at the beginning of the album, or go with what felt natural, soundwise; I aimed for a balance, which resulted in the first four songs sounding pretty much nothing like each other.
So after the electro-psychedelic ‘The Purpose Of Man’ and new wave/industrial ‘Anti-Human Nous’, there’s ‘Images Of Bliss’ - which has survived its eight-year genesis surprisingly intact.
I wrote the song in 2001, in true John Lennon spirit - my sister had delivered me her latest artistic masterpiece, and being seven years old at the time (her - not I, obviously), it was of some people, a house, the sky, etc etc. Not to discount her effort, but you know what kids paint/draw at that age.
It got me thinking - kids, when they’re not brought up in wartorn societies or being sung about by U2, almost always draw happy scenes. Yet, if you’re old enough to vote, drawing a guy with a near-perfect sphere for a head with a shit-eating grin is near enough to land you in the loony bin. Why?
And that’s pretty much the story behind the opening line - “Have you noticed how little children draw images of bliss, and talented artists don’t? Says a lot about growing up these days.”
In late 2001, I was a part time dole bludger living in the ground-floor room of three-storey apartment owned by a [as far as I could tell] rich American guy who used to be in a hardcore punk band, and then worked in 3D TV screens which had some connection to the US military, and his girlfriend who was a fellow Kiwi I met whilst doing the night-shift at a semi-student radio station.
The best part of this odd-sounding arrangement was that my room was seperated from their room by an entire empty floor, and I had pretty much all the time in the world to just crank my 25W amp and learn how to rip off Weezer and the Dandy Warhols. It was a fertile period, split down the middle by 9/11, which had a marked effect on my writing - as in I went from writing songs about crayon drawings by children and pretending to be attacked by vampires (I’m not sure that song will ever see release…) to tackling, you know, issues. as clumsily as any half-a-world-removed 21-year-old does.
The initial demo contained perhaps 80% of the final recording’s DNA, obviously minus the eight years learned production experience. Over the next few years, it was demoed again and again, and played live in bands I had going, yet barely changed. I have to mention the repeated drum fill added by - I can’t remember if it was Simon or Nat - but it was sub-Ringo in its simplicity, yet just fit so well I kept it for the recorded version. I owe whichever of you it was a beer, or something.
And being one of the songs that had been repeatedly played live beforehand, I have to thank the other guys in the band - it’s probably too far removed to remember exactly what contributions to its arrangement they made, but Tonamu and Gareth - and Nathan, as late as you came on the scene - if you can hear any of your influences/suggestions in the arrangement, thanks. The song hasn’t made any of us millionaires - or even ten-a-naires - but it was all good fun.
‘Deja Vu’ - it was a track that didn’t make the cut for the ‘Battletech album’, not because it wasn’t good enough but ’cause it just didn’t fit. I’ve remixed it significantly, and figure I’m not gonna bother recording it again from scratch so might as well put it out there - and here it is - free download, etc.
Posted 11 months, 2 weeks ago at 8:01 pm. Add a comment
Keeping with the zero-budget theme, here’s the music video to ‘Images Of Bliss’, from ‘Battletech’ - which is now available on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, etc as well as on radioovermoscow.com.
The album ‘Battletech’ is out! And here it is, in two different versions… if you’re not sure which to grab, well, the first one is louder, shinier and will slot in with the other albums on your iPod; the second, alternate mix, is quieter with more dynamics, more suited to closer, dedicated listening. The former you can download free at 128k mp3 quality, or pay-what-you-want for any quality right up to and including FLAC; the latter is pay-what-you-want only.
If you download the full album (of either mix), there are two remix bonus tracks.
And that’s it! In the time I’ve spent working on this album, I’ve learned to drive, had a baby, moved house, started a new job and had two birthdays. I hope you like it. (If you can’t see the widgets below, you may need to install the latest version of Flash, or go straight to radioovermoscow.bandcamp.com and try downloading from there).
BATTLETECH
BATTLETECH - ALTERNATE MIX
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 1:52 am. Add a comment
I know I haven’t even released the official version yet, but I was mucking around last night and put together this little remix - in other words, stripped out most of the guitars and drums, stuck in a drum machine and some synthesizers, tweaked everything a bit, and voila!
Should be getting some more of the album proper done this afternoon - had a few weeks off - and Rob will be up in a few weeks, maybe we’ll get the vocals to The Purpose of Man done. We wrote it in like, 1996 or something, and it’s a psychedelic britpop-electro weirdo thing that pretty much sounds like nothing else on the album. Remixing that one will be fun too.
I haven’t blogged much recently - most of it’s been on Twitter and Facebook, haha. Shows what kind of attention span I’m forced to have at work when there’s actual news happening.
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago at 3:18 pm. Add a comment
Radio Over Moscow - ‘Anti-Human Nous’. First single from the upcoming album ‘Battletech 1′, out later in the year. The video’s a no-budget fuckaround, as you’ll see, but was something to do, nonetheless.
You can download the song (and others, in proper quality) from: http://radioovermoscow.com
I promise the next one won’t look as if it was shat out the back of an Atari in half an hour.
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 7:06 pm. Add a comment
I’m aware there are problems with the pics not appearing on the Radio Over Moscow site - seems I forgot to update the image links from the old site, which has now gone offline. Oopsy…
EDIT: All fixed now!
Posted 1 year, 4 months ago at 6:32 pm. Add a comment
The album ‘Battletech’ is out! And here it is, in two different versions… if you’re not sure which to grab, well, the first one is louder, shinier and will slot in with the other albums on your iPod; the second, alternate mix, is quieter with more dynamics, more suited to closer, dedicated listening. The former you can download free at 128k mp3 quality, or pay-what-you-want for any quality right up to and including FLAC; the latter is pay-what-you-want only.
