Week 46- Maybe by Charles Allison

Players:
Brian King: Acoustic guitar
Scott Courter: Electric guitar
Callie Harmon: Electric guitar
John R Lazenby III: Synth
Charles Allison: Programming, Voice

Week 45- Who decides by Charles Allison

Players:
Callie Harmon: Microkorg, guitar chink
Charles Allison: Reason, microkorg, beats, voice

Week 44- There is no light without dark by Charles Allison

Players:
Callie Harmon: Electric guitar, drums
John Lazenby III: Piano, bass
Charles Allison: Voice

Week 43- Your karma ran over your dogma by Charles Allison

Playas:
Charles Allison: Nord, beats, bass, synth, voice

Week 42- Shaky faith by Charles Allison

Players:
Callie Harmon: Guitar, farfisa
Bob Stagner: Drums
John Lazenby III: Bass, organ
Justin Cox: Voice
Charles Allison: Voice

Week 41- And then fade to black by Charles Allison

Players:
Callie Harmon: Acoustic guitar, electric guitar, groovebox
John Lazenby III: Bass
Bob Stagner: Floor tom, hihat cymbal
Charles Allison: Vibraphone

Week 40- All the stars i named with you by Charles Allison

Players:
Klaus Wunderlich: Wersi Organ
Callie Harmon: Electric guitar
John Lazenby III: Bass
Charles Allison: Acoustic guitar, beats, synth, voice

WEEK 39- They’ll leave a light on for you by Charles Allison

Players:
Aaron Distler: Drums
Callie Harmon: Electric guitar, acoustic guitar
John Lazenby III: Banjo, mellotron
Charles Allison: Voice, bass

Week 38- I’m waiting for your dissipating by Charles Allison

Players:
Bijan Dhanani: Guitar, farfisa, chorus bass
Charles Allison: Beats, verse bass, kaoss pad, tambourine, voice

Week 37- You set yourself up by Charles Allison

I started this week off like many of these with the hopes and opportunity to do something with my band Land Camera. We had a session on tuesday that was good but i wasn’t terribly motivated to pull something out of it for this week’s song. I’ve made an incredible amount of these songs with them and they’ve been amazingly fluid and fun to make but this week just wasn’t as happening as most of those.

So later in the week. ie: last night, i started thinking about what i wanted to do. I needed to so something on my own and i wanted to get in a different space to do it; physically and mentally.

I’m building a woodshop out in my detached garage, and i wanted to do something out there. Its very rough and dirty and Its a much more live space than my studio and i wanted to use that for character. Even though its close to the studio, the logistics of setting levels and running back and forth was not at all appealing so the obvious choice to record it was my battery-powered Zoom H4 stereo recorder.

I wrote the song in a about 30 or 40 minutes and i recorded it in a few takes. I recorded some vocal harmonies on the copperphone once i imported the track to PT. I decided about half way through that i wanted to video the song also. That, as with all my video endeavors, was a complete disaster and is why you don’t see a video.

Players:
Charles Allison: Acoustic guitar, voice

Week 36- Some Italian ice cream truck by Charles Allison

Players:
Bob Stagner: King of the world, vault of lost/found sounds, chattanooga canister, homemade xylophone, fanned thunder spring drums, Bosch drill, etc.
Callie Harmon: Old fan, plastic Walmart bag, hand saw with mallet.
Charles Allison: Wine glasses, propane tank, cooking pots, bars from a toy piano
John Lazenby III: Didgeridoo

Land Camera went into this week with the idea that we wouldn’t be using any instruments. At least not anything you would normally consider a standard instrument. One could argue that everything is an instrument. I might argue that myself. All matter has a resonant frequency, be it audible or euphonic. This is all semantic, and i don’t mess about with semantics much anymore.

At any rate, we entered this week’s challenge excited about checking any pop music conventions at the door. By the time I got down to the studio, Bob had surrounded himself with a bevy of stuff. That’s what it was. Just random stuff you’d find anywhere in your house. There were some wood blocks, a small electric fan, a propane tank… I think that was a propane tank. I had a pot and some shaker-ish things and some thin resonant wine glasses and a water bottle to experiment with tuning them to different pitches. Bob shared his wealth of stuff with the other guys. We started right away at honing in on something that made sense. It didn’t take long. John’s courageous “last breath” stopped us all in unison. And then we had a good laugh and it was over.

Week 35- Barking up the wrong tree by Charles Allison

Players Club:
Bob Stagner: Drums
Callie Harmon: Electric guitar
John Lazenby III: Bass
Charles Allison: Voice

Week 34- Sex warrior by Charles Allison

Aye-yeah
yeah eah eah eah!
Sex warrior
Sex warrior

Our bodies are our only weapons
we only use them to quiet the past

but a new day’s on the horizon

mr. copper, just keep going
i saw a sign for all-night breakfast down the road

but a new day’s on the horizon

Aye-yeah
yeah eah eah eah!
Sex warrior
Sex warrior

Aye-yeah
yeah eah eah eah!
Sex warrior
Sex warrior

Aye-yeah
yeah eah eah eah!
Sex warrior
Sex warrior

Players:
Callie Harmon: Bass, drums, electric guitar
Kyle Malone: Piano
Charles Allison: Voice, melodian

Week 33- Even Lake Louise by Charles Allison

Even Lake Louise can’t wash soiled memories from a clean conscience
So my heart cries on sleeves tied as tourniquets
tighter as the swell ebbs

A thousand miles away but my father’s cologne fills my olfactory
making pine more Brut
Groping thorns imbed like white knuckles and heat
and i hear my mother’s scream in the night wind

Trails wind around the lake but always back to the same place where tourists park and make out
with a still life
Japanese please to thank you
Man’s architecture crumbling at F/2 stop
this mad cyclical family ritual

Can’t seem to escape that i hate twenty five years of batteries gone too low to play
Co-robbery of youth and wanting to stave the damn beast

Even Lake Louise cascades to some less beautiful place
more impure as it does
And all innocence spirals down the same drain
at war with filth
we’re at war with filth

Players:
Bob Stagner: Drums
Callie Harmon: Electric guitar, Vibraphone
John Lazenby III: Bass
Charles Allison: Voice

Week 32- My life has just come unraveled by Charles Allison

Players:
Callie Harmon: Electric guitar, piano
John Lazenby III: Bass
Charles Allison: Kaossilator, drums, Voice

Week 31- That’s my gang by Charles Allison

Players:
Bill Kent: Drums
Callie Harmon: Electric guitar
Charles Allison: Bass, Voice

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Players:

Callie Harmon: Bass, Omnichord, electric guitar
John Lazenby III: Acoustic guitar, cinnamon girl
Charles Allison: Beats, mandolin, voice
Bob Stagner: Drums

Lyrics:

All you want is a warm place to sleep and a boyfriend who doesn’t call you dirty names, but wants to call you late at night

I’ll take you down by the piers today and buy you something nice
and i know one day that you’ll feel wanted

All want is my friends to be happy and call me often with good news of how their life’s improving
but i guess thats too much to ask

I’ll take you down by the piers today and buy you something nice
and i know one day that you’ll feel wanted

I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know
that one day you’ll feel wanted

I’ll take you down by the piers today and buy you something nice
and i know one day that you’ll feel wanted

Players:
Callie Harmon: Bass
John Lazenby: Cough, cool hat
Charles Allison: Chord organ, beats, voice

Thanks to Bill Johnson for the use of his Magnus chord organ.

This week’s premium installment is brought to you in partnership with A Steady Drip. A Steady Drip is an experiment in grassroots independent publishing. Check out A Steady Drip’s table of contents for more great forward-thinking multimedia production.

Week 28 of the song a week project features the band “Land Camera” and very liberal use of Placid Audio’s “Copperphone” microphone. All verse sections of acoustic guitar and voice were done with the Copperphone. As per usual, it was written and produced in less than one week over the course of several evenings.

Lyrics:

It’s high time you got me high and we sat there in silence
We never talk anyway
Life is just like a video that no one’s rewound and the static is deafening
All this just for a melody, your number’s been called and your paper’s been graded

Oh no don’t you offer me something
I don’t want it now and I won’t want it later
Oh no don’t you offer me something
I don’t want it now and I won’t want it later

I guess its not as bad as I know that it could be and thankful I am for that.
Life is going the right way but knowing in your heart that you’re gonna have to stray
And I know if I had to choose again that I’d do the right thing and there’d be no choice to make

Oh no don’t you offer me something
I don’t want it now and I won’t want it later
Oh no don’t you offer me something
I don’t want it now and I won’t want it later

Players:
John “Little Italy” Lazenby III: Mandolin, bass, Juno
Callie Harmon: Electric guitar, Farfisa
Bob Stagner: Drums
Charles Allison: Glockenspiel, Celeste, Vibraphone, Piano, acoustic guitar, voice

Week 27 was a collaboration between Charles and Carl Cadwell and Josh Green of Summer Dregs. Check out their Myspace for more about Summer Dregs.

Players:
Carl Cadwell: Beats, keys
Josh Green: Drums
Charles Allison: Kaoss pad, bass (on outro), voice

Players:
Bob Stagner: Drums, Vibraphone
John Lazenby: Banjo, Bass
Callie Harmon: Acoustic guitar, Electric guitar
Charles Allison: Tubular bells, Celeste, Voice

Players:
Bob Stagner: Drums, percussion, loops
John Lazenby: Bass
Callie Harmon: Guitar
Charles Allison: Mellotron, Piano

Players:
Aaron Robbs: Keys, acoustic guitar, verse voice
Charles Allison: Beats, keys, bass, chorus voice

Players:
Bob Stagner: Drums and samples
John Lazenby: Bass
Callie Harmon: Guitar
Charles Allison: Spooky synth, Voice

Players:
John Lazenby: Banjo, Bass
Callie Harmon: Lapsteel
Jamie Jollie: Drums
Charles Allison: Voice

Players:
Bob Stagner: Drums, Percussion, samples
John Lazenby: Bass
Callie Harmon: Guitar
Jenny Orr: Voice samples
Charles Allison: Voice

Players:
Callie Harmon: Guitar, Omnichord
Justin Cox: Voice
Charles Allison: Drums, programming, bass, acoustic, keys, Voice

This week was a little different situation than normal and i consider that a welcome change, particularly in light of whats going on in Haiti. Local Dulcimer player Butch Ross called last weekend and asked if i’d be interested in collaborating on a track of his in the name of a benefit for Haiti. I said hell yeah. I’d never worked with Butch, but I thought two people coming together to make something to try and help was as good a paradigm for what we need to do to help as anything i could think of. I said lets do it and we got to work immediately. I didn’t really know how it would pan out or how much we could raise, but i didn’t care. All you can do is make an effort to change things.

Butch set up his website to feature this week’s downloadable track and a Paypal account specifically to enable “pay what you want” donations for ADRA and Doctor’s without Borders at Butchross.com. I’m going to be working on facilitating some other things to help get more aid headed that way, that i will post on here as it develops.

Stuff we used:
Dulcimer
Piano
Glockenspiel
Bass
Banjo
Vibraphone
Reason
Acoustic guitar
shaker egg
Drums

Players:
Callie Harmon: Guitar
Charles Allison: Bass, guitar, keys, tambourine, Voice

Players:
Bob Stagner: Drums, percussion, looping
John Lazenby: Bass
Callie Harmon: Guitar
Charles Allison: Vibraphone, keys

Players:
Bob Stagner: Drums
Callie Harmon: Guitar
Charles Allison: Samples, synth, piano, organ

Players:
Bob Stagner: Drums, shaker, piano
John Lazenby: Bass, Juno
Callie Harmon: Electric guitar
Charles Allison: Synth, Organ, Voice

The Island instruments:
Callie Harmon: Guitar
Charles Allison: Samples, Acoustic, bass, keys, voice