(yes, I realize I am the "self promoter" type of person, as per the '12 types of Facebook users' article going around. My background is in PR & Media, what do you expect?)
Really, I just want to share and connect and let people know what I'm into, in case we can mash up and work together in the future on other things. So here is my recent music history for your reading and listening pleasure:
Summer 2008, I joined the band 'Dead Violets' as a vocalist/lyricist.
Before I joined up, they were strictly noise/experimental.
The members are Jeff Surak (director of Sonic Circuits experimental music festival, head of Zeromoon Records), and Thomas Ekelund, of Gotham, Sweden.
On our
Dead Violets MySpace page, we have three tracks up. The first and last include my vocals.
'In the Garden' and '
Banish'. 'Banish' is actually a 19-minute track, and was our first internationally released single, but only a few minutes of the track are uploaded to MySpace. They're not too keen on 19-minute long tracks. The one in the middle is a very typical Dead Violets track. Creepy, noisy, static, haunting, various changes throughout. No vocals on that one however. But listen through the whole thing.
This kind of music limits the vocals a bit, and I found myself using a combination of dramatic spoken-word and singing. Although my next band project will probably be more of a return to my roots, which is jazzy-bluesy alternative rock stuff, this was quite a creative challenge for me, and I enjoyed the opportunity to reach into the raw, crunchy, intensely dark side of my self. I was actually at a point where I was recovering from an abusive two-year relationship, and the song 'Banish' is my creative therapeutic release.
In addition, Jeff and I got together with another DC experimental/noise musician this summer, Chester Hawkins, (they are long time friends from the DC scene), and put together a 'Throbbing Gristle' tribute performance at the 2009 Art-O-Matic 'Sonic Circuits' installation. We called our project '
Slug Bait'. This was even MORE challenging for me as a musician/vocalist/performer because of the heavy nature of the subject matter in the songs.
Here's some of the tracks from the live performance May 2009 in DC:
Persuasion:
http://www.archive.org/details/DvPersuasion
Convincing People:
http://www.archive.org/details/DvConvincingPeople
Hot on the Heels:
http://www.archive.org/details/DvHotOnTheHeels
OK so this next track is a little complicated to explain, due to multiple separate contributions. Dead Violets put out a track called "
St Vitus Dance" that doesn't have prominent vocals, but they did mix and bury some of my vocals in there, but it's very subtle. Another musician friend of ours in DC, Christian Fackrell (Burntsystems), took that track, and then took this a capella recording I had laying around of a song I wrote and sang called '
They Warned Me', but obviously hadn't put to any kind of music yet. He put all these elements together and made a pretty stellar remix track out of all of that.
It is probably the best representation of my vocal style.
So here is the
Burntsystems remix of Dead Violets' 'St Vitus Dance':
http://www.archive.org/details/DvStVitusDance_remix
To round this entry out, the final track I'm sharing is one that Christian Fackrell wrote and produced and recorded himself. The kicker is that he was inspired by me, I was his muse, and he asked my permission before publishing the track. It's called "
Rock & Roll Crush", and the lyrics describe "Steady Betty"... that's me. :P It was odd to be approached by a musical acquaintance and be told "hey I wrote a song about you...", but it was actually really GOOD, and I ended up spinning it when I DJ'd with DOOMLAUT this summer.
Rock & Roll Crush (Burntsystems):
http://www.archive.org/details/RrCrush OK! That's it for now, I swear!!
until i record more... muhauhahahahhaahhahah!
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