a new home

hey there friends, just a quick one to let you know i have a new music home at absofacto.com. i have a new ep done and another single afterwards all ready to go, i'm just working on artwork and things. i won't be updating this blog anymore, but please come with me over there, where i have a blog, am getting going on twitter, and all that junk.

expect plenty of new music out of both myself and mason proper soon!

this about sums it up

works on a few levels.

little update

i have been trying to get some mason proper tunes started.
got a few idea(r)s.
these won't see the light of day for a while.
i've got a good melody and some lyrics going for one.
it's been pretty stuck.
maybe toooooo catchy?

bug lung baby songs are backburnered at the moment in favor of getting some mp under my belt.

i'm thinking finishing a new mp album and a full bug lung baby album by the end of the year is a pretty solid goal. we'll see if me (and my comrades) can make it happen.

new old song: pigeon toes

i didn't think i'd get it done this early in the day.
i was all ready to be disappointingly nonsocial later.
glad i don't have to.

cat out of the bag and safari are gone.

this song was hard as hell to finish.
i started it probably 2 years ago and shelved it till now.

here is pigeon toes.

Pigeon Toes by buglungbaby

made a tourniquet from the tassel of a graduate
left high and dry at the altar as
those wedding bells sing "ding da dong"
and we sing another sad song.

we tried a more vivacious melody
but it came out wrong.

how could you come here and say that?
how could you come here at all?

oh, i'm not a fool
but my pigeon toes are blistered
from pacing every night
on the gravel outside your house.

give it a try
give me some kind of sign
give it up, you pathetic split pea soup drinker
give up the ghost as a tip to the hostess

made myself a part of it.

how could you come here and say that?
how could you come here at all?

making it real

i've been working on one song since posting the last two,
this one entitled "pigeon toes."
it has proven to be a real problem child for me.

technical issues,
compositional uncertainty,
peeing on the campfire in front of the other kids,
you name it.

i am resolving to place my nose firmly against the grindstone tomorrow,
and getting this thing online.
i am serious.
i will grind the thing right off if i have to.

cat and safari will go offline at the same time.

if you're counting on me to do anything else tomorrow,
please refrain!

the fruit

here it is, version 1 of the free mason proper collection.
please download it and let me know if it works out okay.
i kept as many links as possible to keep the file size down.
i'm counting on you to do this.
then i'll unleash it on our better-trafficked locations.
this is the least trafficked location i think.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BEM3EIDQ

i had a good idea

i know.
you probably aren't supposed to call your own ideas "good."
but this one is so clearly good they mailed me a free pass.
seriously, i didn't pay a cent for this pass.

so, i'm amassing the "free mason proper collection."
collecting all the stuff we've released for free so far over the public career of the band.
at least the stuff i don't want to pretend never happened ;-)
i'm going to organize it
zip it up
in a snowsuit,
and slap it down on the table
like, how do you like dem apples?
look for this on your table soon.

basically, i'm going to make it really easy for the latecomers
to catch up.
that's my idea.
i dunno, i thought it was good.

i have one more idea, but it's not that good.

late night headphone jams

i went to zac's
and gareth and i just stared at some blinking lights
while the others built stonehenge out of dominoes.

then i came home and pet the rabbit
(which is not double entendre
there is an actual rabbit)
and jammed out with my newish electronicish devices
and i would just like to say
that i am very very very happy
with the outcome.

i believe i actually may have whispered i love you at one point,
directed towards either ableton live or the novation remote 25sl.

either choice is socially unacceptable.

---

in actual potentially-releasable-song-related news,
i have the next one etched out and pared down
but i need to go record some instruments
owned by somebody else.

---

p.s. never ever play persona 4

i love embracing t9 predictive text errors

1. "Book, let of know he you think of anything else i should get from the store!"

2. "Ha ha, when i have internet i am putting that in my clog."

sharing is caring

so, i'm finishing old things when i can.
what fun is it to keep them to myself?
none.
i am not patient.

so, i'm going to let you hear them here for a limited time.
whenever i finish a new one, i'll take down the old one.
then someday they will all come out for real at the same time.

this time i have two.
i hope that you enjoy them.
i hope you enjoy them enough that it makes you anxious to get them for real.
see, all i ask in return is your discomfort!

like waiting to be released from prison but not being allowed to know when that day will be.

[Edit: Cat Out of the Bag and Safari have been taken off the internet until they are officially release at some later date]

more music at: secrettunnelgroup.com

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SAFARI

we are on a safari, we're wrecked, we're chronicling the sights
we are on a safari, it's always night at the zoo, i won't tell you twice
look at those two in the corner
just let me slip off my glasses so i blend into the masses
oh why'd you turn off your phone?

what are we on? what are we on?
we are on a safari...

don't try to tell me what's wrong or right
just cause you blew your daddy's cash on a philosophy Ph. D.
you ain't got nothing to do but dance with my drop-out ass
so shut the fuck up and shake it like ain't ironic
shake it like it ain't ironic.

---------------

CAT OUT OF THE BAG

the cat is out of the bag, the cat is out of the bag (say that thing again)
i get angry sometimes and i make my friend get mad (again)
(some stuff)
only if you bring that flashlight pass along
tag along, tag along
someday, someday
(some words and sounds)
...shut up

oh they came in through the basement window
but noone heard it open

shifting gears

when i was working on safari today
something snapped and i suddenly didn't "get it" anymore
but i know that's ridiculous
so instead of making the mistake of
continuing to allow myself custody of a song
i temporarily did not love
i pulled cat out of the bag
back out of the bag
and ended up getting a pretty lovely final mix of it
i think.

safari

i was having so much fun working on 'safari' today
i almost starved to death without realizing it.
i didn't eat or drink anything for about nine (hundred?) hours.

but i got the reverb on the guitar drags to make me vomit a little,
just like i wanted.

there is so much to music,
i think i will never learn it all.
you can just read one little thing that clicks,
and it will shift your entire perspective for the hundredth time.

for the record today that (not so) little thing was:
chapter 9 of william moylan's extremely dense science/art/mind control book
understand and crafting the mix: the art of recording.
the chapter on:
"evaluating the spatial elements of reproduced sound."

it is as dry as it sounds!

cat out of the bag

over the last five years i've started a lot of things i haven't finished.
i try hard to catch inspiration when it hits,
but it takes a lot of discipline to focus and follow through.
especially when you don't know quite what it's for.

is it for a band? but what if the band doesn't like it?
i shouldn't finish the recording if we might do it as a band.
is it for a solo album? but it doesn't fit with the other songs.

so i built a mountain of half-songs,
and every time i think about starting a new one,
i feel it looming over my shoulder.
how can i finish this new song
when there is so much work to do back on the mountain?
but i try to capture the inspiration
because maybe someday there will be no more.

in the end i just throw it on the pile with the rest.
so the mountain grows.
and the more special i think something is,
the scarier it is to finish it,
so the mountain grows.

today i have started chipping away at the mountain.
allison helped me sort through the rubble
and we realized there are probably about three or four albums here.
i don't know what i'm going to do with them
but i'm going to finish them.
i am going to finish them.

these albums will not make sense,
but i'm finally going to get out of song debt.

it is worth mentioning
that mason proper is in the planning stage of another recording as well.
which will surely make a lot more sense than any of this.

i made a blog

i made a blog
to chronicle the creative goings-on
and the general state of things
so anybody who likes to be in the loop
has this particular loop to be in.

i'm going to keep things brief
because i'm not a writer.
i'm going to format it like this
so it has a rhythm.

hopefully this will help keep me on the rails.