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If you follow blert on bandcamp, you've probably already heard this new song (will hit streaming services like Spotify on the 11th). We're still putting the finishing touches on a few songs that blert recorded back around 2002-2005 which we'll bundle-up in an album we'll call New Day Undone.

This song started out as "Bingo Bars" which had some of the dumbest lyrics ever written. Getting decent lyrics into my music has always been a challenge and the early version of this song is a great example of my verbal under- achievement. Yet we stuck with that song and even played it in front of audiences. Why? We really loved the music - it's very blert: a tricky rhythm, a weird harmony, a chance for something epic...

I remember when this song arrived, Neal and I were in our space at Downtown Rehearsal Studios and one of us found some book for drummers (icymi: drummers read!) about odd time signatures. The book contained exercises in which they lay down a beat in 4/4 and then add or drop a beat in a phrase.

Neal loved to experiment with beats and rhythms that don't fit into a mold and these exercises kept us on our toes. I liked playing simple guitar lines along with one particular pattern and then BOOM- something clicked. Bingo Bars arrived quickly.

Flash-forward to the now and between Neal and Tasha we have new lyrics which are so much more vital and current - we added some other arrangement twists that help this song really blast off. Hope you are ready to escape...

Feeling all the rage
Feeding it for days
The beauty has lost its luster
All I hear is hate
Seeing all the ways
We've seemingly gone insane
Think of all your lost ones
Peeling off the pain


Really must escape
Make for better space
The joys have drowned in our sorrows
Breath is hard to take
Giving up the game
Been feeling it for days
The moment has lost momentum
And belief is fake
Escape
Escape
Escape


Another one dead today
And rage is what I pray
Breaking all composure
Hey that's all O.K.
Time to leave this placev Some will choose to stay
There's no room for the dead ones
Everything falls away
Escape
Escape
Escape


In this age of madness
Filled with rage and a false sense of hope
We come so close now
Has it all been a fucking joke
Who writes the narrative
Where one thing is more than the rest
Destroy the premise
And escape this
Whatever you call It
And these things we are tripping about
The beasts in the room
Where the space between me and you
Is in doubt
How can we ever be free
Ever be free


How can we ever be free

Go listen:

Following on my last video/sound noise post, I came across this one. The artist basically subtracted the MP3 data from a "full resolution" version of Tom's Diner. What's left is the stuff-- the signal-- the MUSIC that is lost in the process of creating a MP3.

What he ends up with is what I hear in my head most of the time. A video artist applied a similar process to the video portion...

More here: https://vimeo.com/107845118

moDernisT_v1 from Ryan Maguire

Ok, here's the original:

I neglected to include this here when we put out these songs in October of 2012. Dug this up recently as we're putting together some material for a radio show this Thursday night (5/9) Radio Valencia 87.9FM.

Take a listen and let me know what you think!

We recorded these one afternoon during a whirlwind weekend of shows south of San Francisco. These songs reflect the direction the band has taken after the Indecision & Single Payer releases: EVEN MORE-tightly fuzed frenetic noise and pop forms... spin, listen...

We're 25 days into 2010 Song-A-Day and hoo-boy, folks are feeling the immensity of the experience. It's no small feat creating, recording a song a day for a month as you can see from Jonathan Aronson's transformation:

Compared with previous years, the 2010 run has the most songs, the most variety, possibly the most talent and verve too. We've also been able to get the songs onto iTunes which has helped drive up the downloads: we'll have 24k downloads within 25 days and will likely finish the month with more than 30k downloads.

We're in the home-stretch. Keep on keepin' on!

We did it. Congrats to everyone who put their songs onto the site. Thanks for all your hard work; I had a great time listening to all of your songs.

I got about 28 songs up there, a few are even keepers. Of my stuff, I feel good about these:

• 2/03: Istanbul
• 2/06: Put Down That Bag Of Rocks
• 2/17: Up In The Attic
• 2/19: Special Sauce
• 2/25: Put A Burrito In Your Mouth

This URL will take you to all my songs.

This player has everything that was uploaded. Steal the embed code if you want this on your site.

Here are some of the most listened-to songs from the month: 247 0203_bruce_2nd_time.mp3
196 0204_bruce_3rdwave.mp3
192 0201_derek_a_song_a_day.mp3
190 0205_bruce_shouldabeenalespaul_.mp3
176 0201_greacen_oh_hell_oh.mp3
173 0203_greacen_istanbul.mp3
163 0202_derek_jury_duty.mp3
163 0202_bruce_timesup.mp3
160 0204_greacen_trouble_sleeping.mp3
159 0215_bruce_base.mp3
158 0203_derek_where_is_walt.mp3
158 0201_peter_all_that_i_can_feel.mp3
157 0206_bruce_thank_you.mp3
152 0204_bruce_whatthe.mp3
149 0202_greacen_2wo.mp3
147 0204_derek_disneyland.mp3
146 0203_ryan_in_to_the_night.mp3
146 0201_seth_the_best_place_in_the_world.mp3
145 0131_seth_the_day_before_song.mp3
143 0209_greacen_master_of_the_mall.mp3
142 0203_peter_twothreeohnine.mp3
140 0213_derek_hawaii.mp3
140 0205_greacen_bring_it_back.mp3
139 0216_greacen_watching_all_the_good_ones_go.mp3
139 0202_peter_all_of_them.mp3
136 0212_bruce_alone.mp3
132 0208_greacen_wafflepalooza.mp3
129 0212_derek_taxonomy.mp3


Pretty evenly distributed. I remember Bruce's stuff got a lot of attention last year too, but it seems like the earlier songs are still getting plenty of play.

We're almost to 13000 song streams at this point and if the traffic followed last year's pattern, people will still be listening for a few more days.

Starting to think about Song-A-Week for the rest of the year. Email me if you want in on this.