Week 5 - "No One Believes In Me But My Mother Blues" & "All I Need"

Welcome to February and week 5 of my "Single-A-Week Challenge"! To listen to & or download this week's songs just follow the link below or easier still do all that using the super handy player below that link! Just so you know, you can download any song/2-song-single for free by entering 0 when asked to name your price. I won't mind! I want people to keep listening!
http://michaelmorse.bandcamp.com/album/single-a-week-challenge-week-5



This week's offerings, "No One Believes In Me But My Mother Blues" and "All I Need", are both pretty sparse on instrumentation. I'd say they are both very stripped down but I think they would have had to have been stripped up at some point to qualify for that distinction.

amps.

"No One Believes In Me But My Mother Blues" definitely represents how I feel a lot of the time. The Blues are supposed to come from an honest, raw, emotional and individual place which I think is why a lot of modern blues players come off so phony. Some guys either sing about things they've never experienced themselves and/or ignore the real problems in their life. They look at blues as being one specific sound or thing and play it in such an uninteresting/safe/polished way.  I don't mean to say you need to have experienced everything you sing about (because that would be insane) but the emotions behind it all should be real and visceral to the person singing/playing it. I don't really understand why I get so much resistance from seemingly everyone around me when I try to create something but it can be very emotionally upsetting which makes it a great topic to fuel the blues that comes out of me.

An Al Otto Original

To get the guitar's raunchy tone, I used a custom fuzz box built for me by legendary Electro-Harmonix employee Al Otto (he said it's the same effect used on "Spirit In The Sky"). I've had it a while but this is the first time I've really used it and I was pleased with its performance. I tried getting distortion on the vocals by running the mic through a distorted amp but the results were too muddy to understand the lyrics so I ended up just turning up the mic's gain on the recording console and getting real close to it. Before recording I had thought I would add some kind of percussion but a musical consultant (my mother) and I both agreed it sounded great the way it was. Raw and gritty. I think the starkness really adds to the tension and isolation I was trying to express in the words.

On the other side is "All I Need" which is a MUCH different song. It's a silly, fun song! Hooray! While it brings up some things that could cause some anxiety, it shrugs them off. It owes a lot to Woody Guthrie's lighter songs. I think the message of the song is I'm thankful for what I have but I want more more more! Don't we all? Yes, we do. But now that I think about it, all I really need is for you to clap, slap or tap a tambourine along with me while you listen!

All I need is a capo and short finger nails.

It was pretty easy to record, just turned on the mics and played. I added a few layers of clapping, slapping and tapping percussion and it was done. That was all it needed. Hahahahaha...sorry about that.

clap, slap, tap.

In case anyone wasn't aware, it's been an especially wintery winter. When last week's blizzard hit, I saw a great cover photo op. I put on my coat, grabbed a guitar, jumped out in the snow and had my mother start snapping. The image fits the first song pretty nicely I think. Although I'm glad to have had that snow opportunity I'm finished with snow altogether now and it can please go away.

A different snowy guitar.

Before I close this, I'd like to mention this week's announcement that The White Stripes have officially disbanded. The White Stripes (both Jack and Meg) were extremely important in forming the way I approach making music (that influence may be a little too apparent in some of my songs). While Jack will continue to build and expand his little recording empire and I'm sure Meg will (at least I hope she will) find somewhere else to express herself musically, the music world is a lot less cool without them creating music together. I'll have more on my stripey white roots next week...

5 down, 47 to go!!

MJM

http://michaelmorse.bandcamp.com/album/single-a-week-challenge-week-5

Stay warm!