Skip to main content

GLOWING LETTERS






Ian C Stewart "Glowing Letters" MP3

side one, track one, of 'motion', the other half of my 1992 'box set'. "Glowing Letters." This song lasted through a couple of lineups of Samarkand. It was kind of impossible to argue with at the time since the entire song was programmed into my drum machine. And I thought it was a convergence (needless, pointless, as it happens) of all the genres I loved at the time, rap, death metal, techno, wimpy/alternative. When the first Samarkand lineup played it in Boston, Stephanie even added a hint of r&b to the equation. The title was obviously inspired by (stolen from) Ned's Atomic Dustbin's "Capital Letters." Well, it's obvious now!

The tape cover was an odd shape, I remember the look of confusion followed by disgust when I took it to Kinko's to be copied. I didn't understand that the copier had margins, so some information is lost on the copies of the 'motion' covers. I tended to start with obscure photographs & then just making copies of copies until it was an unrecognizable mess. That was my approach to most things, in fact. I used my typewriter on the super bold font for all the text.

'motion' again featured some lyrics by Marian, but at least half of them were written by me. The idea behind using an 'outisde lyricist', if I can overstate the situation completely for a moment, was to collaborate and find a new way of working. The music for the songs with Marian's lyrics tended to be a little different from my usual stuff, for whatever reason. But that was usually at the cost of the vocal performance. Since the lyrics weren't mine, they weren't chips off of my soul, so singing them didn't necessitate any particular emotions. Whereas, I guess, I felt like my own lyrics could only really be performed 'from the heart' as it were.










here's the original photo used on 'insomnia'.

Labels:

Comments

Darrin said…
ah... there's 'motion'. I'm pretty certain I have this one as well since I remember all the tuens from this album... and I remember the 'T' insert. How I have this and not the other part, I have no idea. One of those things I guess.

Either that, or I'm imaging that I have this one since I remember 'glowing letters', '01.28.92' and 'equal force in opposing directions' from the green samarkand album.

no, i'm certain I have this one in one shape or another (original or copied from toddeus)
January 9, 2008 at 1:42 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THESE CHORDS ARE LIKE FAMILY TO ME

Ian C Stewart "These Chords are like Family to Me" MP3 From the 2003 made-to-be-made-not-made-to-be-heard album I Don't Know Why You Think I Won't Kill You .... this is the last song. This was the beginning of my dabbling with intentional randomness in songwriting. The lyrics for the whole album were compiled from albums by other artists that I enjoyed a lot, such as Adrian Belew's Twang Bar King , The Cure's Pornography , Voivod Nothingface , Mercyful Fate Melissa etc. I wrote out entire lines of their phrases and chopped them together. I think at the time I described it as 'sad psychedelic love songs about satan' overall, which is really being too generous. The music was also randomly chosen from tablature found on t'interwebs for favorite songs of mine. In general I played the chords in reverse order to the original songs but I can still kind of tell in a couple of places what the songs were. The titles were my own, obviously. Although I did cho...
3 comments
Read more

CANCER COFFINS

XYCHQ "Cancer Coffins" MP3 February 1989. Michael and I were in two bands together simultaneously. XYCHQ and (in Parentheses). Both of which played at this particular party. XYCHQ was normally Ray singing, Jeff playing bass, Michael on guitar, me on drums. But there were one or two songs that I played guitar and sang on. "Things I Hate" was one, "Cancer Coffins" was another. Both were "searing" (cough) indictments of the shallow world around my 17-year-old self. Y'know, the social injustice of um people using tanning beds. So yeah, this song "Cancer Coffins" was sort of a funky metal thing at the beginning. Then a thrashy riff for the chorus. And then the breakdown, which will be familiar to anyone who ever heard Devilcake's song "Fribble." or the (in Parentheses) track "Enthalpy." Hey, never let a good riff go to waste. Michael slays the drums on this one. Jeff still on bass. I'm not sure why I was yelli...
3 comments
Read more