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Friday Song Lab – "What We Ghosts Left"

For the duration of the summer, I’ll be posting new music every Friday. Some songs will be used in “Zeus”; others will not. The goal here is to focus on one song idea for an entire week, fine-tune it and have it recorded and posted by Friday. The good stuff will end up on the official soundtrack, which will be available for free download upon completion.
With the fellas busy editing this monstrosity of a feature film, I was fortunate enough to see some rough cuts this week, including the scene in which this piece will be used. It will play during a montage of shots within an empty Hinsdale Central School – dark hallways, creepy cafeteria, deserted library. That sort of thing.

I treated myself to a birthday present this week, picking up a Presonus BlueTube pre-amp that drastically improves the sound quality of mic’ed instruments. It arrived last night, so “What We Ghosts Left” was its first test out of the box. Held up nicely, I think.
Annnnnnnd, it’s looking like that time. My goal was to write a bunch of “Zeus” stuff for the summer, and now summer’s over. Mission accomplished. This summer’s Song Lab proved to be a unique exercise in fighting off writer’s block, apathy and that incessant pull from the likes of television and other time killers. What I didn’t expect was that this little blog, with a small group of listeners, would be an accountability measure in meeting my weekly deadline. So, thank you, reader. You are partially responsible for the music in “Zeus”.
Some songs were truly exciting breakthroughs (“BMX Bike”, “Weight of a Feather”), while others involved a lot of frustration and my eventual surrender (“DirtyDozenDimes” “Mask”). But with 15 tracks (and counting) to play with in “Zeus”, including three or four songs that I play out regularly, I’ve far exceeded my initial goal of eight to 10 songs/instrumentals. For that, this was a huge success.
Along the way, I’ve found that a week may be enough time to bang out a full-fledged song. But, some ideas just need a little bit more time in the development stages, receiving necessary rewrites or restructuring. So, I’m gonna take a break from the Friday Song Lab to do just that – write songs, play them out somewhere, see what works, then record them. I’ll still continue to post new music as it’s completed, both for “Zeus” and the following EP/LP. But, for now, the Friday Song Lab is going on a little hiatus. Maybe, one or two Fridays a month from here on out. Who knows.
Thank you so very much for reading and listening.

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The evolving “Zeus” Collective

1. Respite
2. Street Cred (Volcano Casualty)
3. The Weight of a Feather
4. BMX Bike
5. Gentlemen Wear Suits
6. Dirty Dozen Dimes
7. Like I Should
8. All Noise
9. Cemetery, Stop Sign
10. Footrace
11. Duck, Duck, Noose
12. Mask
13. The Buffalo Morose
14. Chuck Taylors

Copyright 2010 Louiston Music BMI