Halloween EP (2013)

Gonna keep that sweet spooky content coming all year long. This collection of songs was written and recorded in a 2 week period before Halloween 2013. I'm not particularly proud of it, but it's fun to revisit. I had released Heart of Mold a couple weeks earlier and I guess I was trying to keep busy. 2013 was a weird year. I graduated in December 2012 and moved back home while I tried to figure out a game plan for this whole 'music career' thing.  Of course, there was no plan. Just me throwing everything at the wall and seeing what stuck.

1. Trick or Treason

Something short to set the mood. It becomes apparent pretty quickly that this whole project is an excuse for me to try out different voices and play around with vocal effects / techniques.  I'm still using a student version of ProTools with a 10 or 12 track limitation at this point so most of the percussion is just a kick drum. Not much else to say about this track other than I repurposed it a year later for this Festival Supreme Theme Song competition (that I lost).

2. THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU

This one is probably my favorite of the bunch. I wrote the chaotic riff from 0:04 - 0:09 that repeats throughout by placing a bunch of random, dissonant notes in MIDI and then learning them on guitar. I've obviously been hung up on malevolent forces "coming to get me" for some time.

3. The Ghoul

My old friend Bryant Frank stars as "The Ghoul" here. Bryant is a big fan of classic country music and this is from a period of time where I would trick him into thinking we were recording sincere country ballads and then I would produce them to be as deranged and obnoxious as possible. Here's an example. A couple years later I would compile an album of experimental nonsense tracks I made while working on 'Etc.' called Browness. Those deranged country songs are titled BB part II & I. Anyways, I had Bryant write some lyrics and record vocals for "The Ghoul." Bryant is not a musician, to put it lightly, and I remember having to spend a lot of time manipulating his performance to establish any sense of rhythm. 

During the Trump administration, I repurposed "The Ghoul" as walkout music any time Trump would give a press conference.

4. Ballad of the Lone Green Pumpkin

I'm not a huge fan of the execution/production, but I really like the song. I've thought about starting over from scratch and trying to sell it to Netflix Jr or something. 

5. Halloween Night

In a sense, this is the first song I ever wrote. When I was 3 or 4 years old, I would sing "a-ooo went the ghost, the mummy's in the boat, and then, then, THEN came the Halloween night!" My parents got a kick out of it and would sing it every Halloween. That's as far as the lyrics went back then so this is technically a collaboration between 22 year old me and 3 or 4 year old me. Would be cool to receive notes from child-me and see if I did it justice.