Ian C Stewart Archive of Sound

Thanks for today's instant lyrics to Darrin's Scrambled Lyric Eggs program. UNTITLED ONE Maybe it's all just a phase safe in comforted knowledge april snow meatwood flack When there will be The gentle demise the elements conspire The soft embrace of destruction You said there was no way Saw you stumble Wisdom awaits The velvet decline THE VELVET DECLINE Feel nothing Without faith Celebrates Another time IRR3 lyric stabs ROAD Orchids of fear Filling the void Working by hand Cauldron of emptiness Kneel before me 4. Hope Screaming alone Identical twins It all comes down without fire Someone else's land Who is your lord Open up into Apart Taste the shallow abyss In half an hour Morningshadow Loss of hope Suffering inside Accept what is given To embrace the absence UNTITLED TOO for what could've been don't worry agony you just broke my spine you're not sorry...asshole dismay metronomic shadow you know it's on its way atomsphere the siren screams i'm only ...

Hazy "Sunset" MP3 "Water" MP3 Almost unbearably dismal songs, recorded almost unbearably dismally. What can I tell you, I'm the king of dismalia.. Fall , the second Hazy album, was recorded in one afternoon, February 20, 2005. I used one mic and recorded into Cool Edit 96 on the laptop. The mic picked up all of the laptop's squealing and processor noise. All the songs are acoustic guitar and singing, no overdubs or anything. There's a funny bit of synchronicity toward the end of the album when one of the other computers in the room finished burning a DVD and played its little mexican jumping bean "I'm finished burning now" song just as the song ended. The lyrics for "Water" are about the day I visited N!ck Dr@ke's grave. SUNSET down in the sky light turns to ice slowly burning away WATER walk all morning east of nowhere in the mist breeze now we rise

Ian C Stewart "Downhill" and "Unnoticed" Youtube Wow, I just did a search on my own name on Youtube & it's pretty dire. I guess the middle initial makes all the difference in the world still.... I accidentally encoded these two songs together on Youtube just now. No wonder it's six minutes long! I did a lot of extremely informal recording in those days usually with a handheld tape recorder & an acoustic guitar. After I got my first camcorder, I recorded a few songs that way as well but I'm not sure that it had the same effect. You can actually see the conditions I wrote and recorded in, in addition to hearing them. That alone is enough to scare me away from trying anything like this now. "Downhill" seems relatively uptempo but still has those sad big boy chord inversions. The tempo changes were due to my feeling that the songs should be able to go in any direction at any time. "Downhill" is the rare occasion when I was singing...

Ian C Stewart "Garden Scene" MP3 It seems like all I do here is bellyache and berate myself for all the missed opportunities and lapses in quality control I've slackered myself into.. I guess there are very few things I've ever recorded that I consider unqualified successes. "Garden Scene" is one of them. This piece was recorded in 1995, one of the last things I did before firing up the AUTOreverse mechanism. I was in the zone just before I packed up the studio stuff for good. It wasn't for good, obviously, but that's sort of the effect it had on me at the time. The song is a total, unashamed ripoff of all things Cocteau Twins and 1980s. Everything is reverbed to helen back. The drum machine is dialed in on that 4AD setting. The keyboard was probably my big Casio which was my workhorse for this song and most of the of the stuff on the Samarkand 'smooth jazz' (not really) album Pitch Wheel . I don't need to make excuses for any aspect of ...

Hazy "Dream" MP3 + "Road" MP3 From the band that never was, the albums that never were, the songs that almost were. The lyrics, titles and cover art that definitely did happen. These are the last two songs on the first Hazy album, Atmos . Just like Rick Rubin said, ask someone to write ten songs for an album and inevitably the most recent two are the best ones. I'm pretty sure no one has heard this stuff in its entirety, at least I hope not. On "Dream", I used an old funky drum break for the drums, then some clean bass & guitars, all reverbed beyond reason. The vocals are the weak link, naturally. Hopefully they're low enough in the mix that they don't ruin the whole thing. If that's even possible. "Road" has a drum loop from who knows where. Actually I do know where, it was an old remix kit sent by a friend for a very early bunch of Acid remixes. We're talkin' like 1998 or 99 here. So he played the drums, which is why...

Ian C Stewart "First Day of School" Youtube Recorded in 1999 or 2000 at the same desk as before. This song might've appeared on an off-the-cuff acoustic tape I made around this time called Bvllsh!t! .

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...

Ian C Stewart "Souvenirs" Youtube Many lifetimes and receding hairlines ago, somebody somewhere had the idea to make a fresh compilation CD of new mopey acoustic guitar based songs. The CD was called Because it's Cheaper than Therapy and that's all I'll say on this potentially volatile subject. "Souvenirs" was my submission. down the hill

Ian C Stewart "B0khara" MP3 This song is so new I don't really have any perspective on it. The drum loop came first when I recorded this thing, um, a couple of days ago. Actually the middle guitar break came first out of the whole song. Playing across the middle strings of the guitar, I came across a mopey kind of descending thing, which, when I voiced the notes correctly turned out to just be B major, B bleah something, A major, G major, which isn't very mopey at all. It's kind of anti mopey actually. The bass line came next and I found a nice rub with that Eric Avery/Jane's Addiction kind of rollicking line. And the drums were just a bunch of percussive things to keep the whole thing moving. Or not. So who knows. I like the chords very much but who knows if this will ever amount to anything & grow some vocals.

Ian C Stewart "Song Ideas 1987 01" MP3 + "Song Ideas 1987 02" MP3 Lucky you, two tracks today from the next tape in the seemingly endless supply of tapes recorded by me. The only information given this time is "Song Ideas by Ian '87" written on the cover. Okay. That tells us almost nothing. But that's still more information than many of my tapes have on them. I've always been bad about writing stuff like that down. Both sides of this 60 minute cassette were filled with all manner of silliness involving a Mattel Synsonics toy drum machine, a wee jobby of a toy Casio PT-80 keyboard and distorted guitar. I'm pretty sure that to this day I've never listened to this tape. It was probably cranked out in an afternoon or two. I should listen to it sometime, shouldn't I. I might've cured cancer or something. I've never been ashamed of my ability to rock a funky beat with the Synsonics. Oh, no. And I could even break out a thrash/pol...

Oracle "Jam 2" MP3 Here's the ultimate of our Dokken/Celtic Frost crossovers. I believe Dave is on guitar and I'm on drums for this jam. It's such a strange combination of elements, I almost wish we'd been able to take it somewhere. What does happen when you mix glam and sludgy doom? Probably nothing. I'm sure there's a reason we never got together again after this! The riff was definitely Dave's. I always enjoyed playing it and could probably still bust it out if I wanted to. I'm not positive that I'm playing the drums but it does sound like me. This would've been like my third or fourth time ever behind a kit. My usual 'drum set' in those days consisted of the air and a pair of drum sticks, sunglasses and leather gloves optional. No, really. I'd sit on the corner of my waterbed & blast Venom's 20 minute epic "At War With Satan" and air drum along as best I could. The funny thing about playing in Dave'...

Oracle "Jam" MP3 Skipping ahead to March 1987, probably my next experience jamming with other guys. This time with several chaps who I didn't normally hang out with. We all seemed to like aspects of the same music but our playing styles were pretty far off from each other. Let's see, we played in this guy Dave M.'s basement. Even though we weren't bestest buds or anything, Dave M. was the guy I knew the best out of this session. I don't remember if we even had any classes together, we just both loved talking about playing the guitar. Which was certainly not uncommon at the time. He seemed to be a George Lynch acolyte whereas I still had yet to declare a style of my own. So, to confuse things further, there was a third guy, named Matt, I don't remember his last name. But he was there with his drums. He played drums fairly well though none of us were virtuosos. Matt also played guitar decently. Dave, who primarily played guitar, could hold his own on the...

Ichor "Jam" MP3 This tape is labelled "Ichor Again" which refers to another tape dated a few weeks earlier. That tape consists of at least 60 minutes of us waiting for the drummer who never arrives. But this time, September 14, 1986 apparently, the drummer was in the house. Well, in the garage, whatever. Same drummer as 'Argus', but it appears that without Matt or anyone else to keep us together, we both space out in different directions. Meaning that by this point we probably didn't know any of the same songs anymore. I wasn't really writing songs yet, I mean nothing that I felt comfortable showing to other people! That being said, the chords I'm playing on this jam do correspond with maybe the one & only song that Keith and I ever tried to write together. Or maybe it was just an inside joke at one point that I tried to solidify into a song. I finished the lyrics and recorded the song for one of my first cassette releases. The song was calle...

Y'know, I don't even remember recording this session in Darrin's basement, but here's the proof that I did. I forgot that it was on this tape, which I used for the Samarkand gig at Andyman's Treehouse a few weeks back. Which means that the video of the 2004 iteration of "Bloomer" is lost to posterity. No matter, we still have three sweet tracks. I'm playing guitar and trying to sing. Michael Bill played bass and Darrin played drums. MCB and I must've traded axes on the day because it looks like I'm playing his ESP strat thingy through his half stack & he's playing that Squier MB-4 I had briefly. I miss that bass! The idea behind this session was to make fresh recordings for a 3" CD single to be included in the Samarkand box set, which I (thought I) was finishing work on at the time. I think this was during a lull on the Devilcake end of things. And we're playing the songs as though, well, it's the first time we ever played ...

matt & ian 1986? GLASS SNORTING METAL CLICHES Argus "Louie Louie" MP3 This cassette is dated April 14, 1986 and I believe it's the first time I ever jammed with classmates. I'm playing guitar, the drummer I believe was named Jason, the singer might've been Matt and I forget who could've been playing bass. I think Matt played bass all the time & all the rest of the day but maybe his brother or neighbor suddenly appeared in the garage once we started making all that noise? We used the lyric sheet from my Motorhead "No Remorse" album for the words. Check out my pre CC Deville over the top guitar solo. Holy cow. I don't think I jammed with Matt again. He later joined the Penguins. I think I tried to jam with Jason again at his house, but his parents went ballistic after like half a song or something. I don't know if he even played drums after that. I was actually kind of surprised that he played in the first place. The band name Argus was...

Ian C Stewart "Two Minutes with a Borrowed Casio" MP3 Whose keyboard was this? Certainly not mine. Here's two minutes of what can only be described as half an hour of Casio exploration.

COLLABORATION The Ian's Basement All-Stars "Suxx 2 B Me" MP3 This is an odd track - aren't they all - from 1991. It was recorded in my basement on my 4-track probably using my stuff, but beyond that I have no recollection of who did what. I know Chris Daly sang and I can definitely make out Michael Million and David B singing backups. And that's definitely my drum machine programming, which would've been a big deal since I'd only had the thing for a few days at this point, I think. I'm not sure what we were going for as far as the sound of the song. It's like.... I don't know, Ministry covering the Charlatans? The drum machine is heavy on the kick, a la Ministry. But the bass and guitar are kinda vibey and baggy. So.... who knows. I think this was Chris's first time singing. He did a great job. His singing voice sounds like mine! Perhaps due to the whole session being filtered through my stuff? He's like Ahmet Zappa when he was in the b...

Ian C Stewart "Whiffy Riffs" MP3 Another fake riff jam from 4 Track Fallout , my last collection of 4-track recordings from like 10 years ago. It's a guitar/bass/drums workout that runs through all of the riffs I had on hand at the time. Or so it seems. None of the riffs ever amounted to anything so this is kind of like a museum piece.

Ian C Stewart "Beam Me Up Squatty" MP3 This one is too sloppy to live but too funky to die. Wow. The song is named after the squatty-ass guitar tone that is just purely raunchy. It's nothing to do with Star Trek, don't worry. This is from the 4 Track Fallout mixdown tape from 1997, one of the last things to be recorded in the basement at my mom's house. The drums sound pretty sweet, actually everything sounds pretty sweet for a change. I think I had Ray's little Radio Shack mixer and a few extra mics. Let's see, it sounds like the drums were recorded at half speed on the four track, a trick which Dweezil pointed out you can't do in the digital realm. I made a percussion loop on the drum machine, which was blasting out of my little Peavey practice amp. The ambient mics picked up the drum machine which mingled with the live drumming. And the riffs still sound like the Beastie Boys or Rage Against the Machine to me. Like, anthemic. But they don't tra...

In related Youtube-ry, I made a playlist of all seven songs Michael and I did at Madlab just in case anyone wants to watch the whole thing in one go. Samarkand live at Madlab And here are two, possibly one badly rendered, horribly transferred clips from my solo acoustic appearance at Andyman's Treehouse. Watch 'em quick before I delete 'em. 01.28.92 Eye

SAMARKAND Saturday August 18, 2007 Andyman's Treehouse Just when I thought the Samarkand Summer Tour 2007 couldn't get any more last-minute or intimate, a gig came up so quickly that I was the only one who could/would do it! For the Madlab gig back in July we had a couple of weeks to prepare. For the Cafe Bourbon Street gig in late July we had one week. For Andyman's Treehouse, I had about twelve hours. So I decided to attempt my first ever solo acoustic one-guy-with-a-guitar performance. After spending a few hours with an acoustic guitar, racking my brain to come up with enough songs that were easy to play and sing at the same time, I was as prepared as I could be. I had a few alternate songs on the setlist too, because you never know. If the gig was smokin', I didn't want to make everyone wait while I tried to think of other songs to play. But it didn't matter in the end. We got to Andyman's around 9:30pm or so. The main band was setting up their stuff. V...

Ian C Stewart "Napalm Friday" MP3 It's the continuing story of a string of songs I don't remember. "Napalm Friday" has more words & a one-note vocal line that I couldn't exactly call the greatest. Nice use of the Casio Tonebank keyboard, which of course has gotten a lot of mileage from other groups in recent years like the Moonbabies & Midlake.

Ian C Stewart "Thursday Killer" MP3 Relatively uptempo but still quite depressive. Ingredients identical to the rest of Workweak . Plus some slappy bass for no obvious reason. Nice breakdown in the middle so everyone can clap their prescription bottles together over their heads. ? but it's not and it isn't it's snot and it tisn't maybe tomorrow will be the day and I'll say yesterday was the day I said tomorrow will be the day but it's not

Ian C Stewart "Wednesday of my Soul" MP3 Hm, a sad humpday reggae song about the immortal reggae humpday of the soul. Y'know. Acoustic guitar on the upchucks, it sounds like fretless bass and a dubbed out organ GR707 guitar synth patch. Hey, more Windows system sounds in the mix, that's always nice. This is one reason why it does not pay to multitask at mixdown time. This song sounds like something from my Devilcake solo album, aka An Alphabetical Food Odyssey by Icy Stew. It's obscure and meandering and wears out its welcome almost instantly. Just like me! just getting past you'd be so sure not in the past not the future somewhere in the world it's Thursday but not in here it's the Wednesday of my soul not in the past you'd be so sure just getting past not the future and what of

Ian C Stewart "Casual Tuesday" MP3 Continuing the Workweak theme ... "Casual Tuesday" features more groovy moping. Another simple kick/snare drum loop. Acoustic guitar up front. Regular bass guitar at 10 o clock, Chapman Stick at 2 o clock in the mix. Guitar synth gets the tremolo effect. The vocals sound like I just woke up. Or fell asleep. The lyrics are clearly rooted in reality. I'm not even getting dressed I don't care Wear my best flood khakis Check out my white socks Did you see that freak show

Ian C Stewart "Monday Love" MP3 Ah, 2003. It doesn't seem that long ago, but apparently it was. The date on the CD is February 15, 2003, which might indicate that this was the second of a started-off-strong-but-died-quickly series of new albums. I think my goal was to release an album a month. Which was no problem for me, even four years ago. Listen for the Window system barking sound. I started with the concept of a song cycle about the working week. And, you know me, no pun goes left unpunned. So, "workweak" it was. The song titles came next. It was easy once I had "Casual Tuesday" on the list. "Napalm Friday"? What? I can't find the lyrics & the vocals are buried in the mix, so maybe you can listen closely & transcribe 'em for me, mm-kay? It must be, Oh no it can't be! Musically, wow does that beginning sound like Idaho . One of my favoritest bands of all time that is also one of the obscurest bands of all time, apparen...

Samarkand "Mortality" Youtube also from theee other night.

Yeesh, this video makes it look like Brian & I are being held captive in a basement. SAMARKAND "Cathedral" Youtube live at Cafe Bourbon Street, August 7, 2007

SAMARKAND (OHIO) AUGUST 7, 2007 CAFE BOURBON STREET This gig fell into our laps last week, as these things occasionally do. And especially when Samarkand goes 15ish years between times onstage, I tend to say yes to everything. Michael Million was previously detained on vacation in Florida & unable to reprise his role as guitarist/bassist/right hand man/left hand man/whatever, man. So Brian Dort made his guitar debut with Samarkand.... Brian did an awesome job absorbing & recreating the big boy chords of "Cathedral" etc, so hats off to him. This was everyone's only time being at Cafe Bourbon Street, a typical campus bar if e'er there was one. Fortunately the soundman was accessible and open to all our wacky, drummerless ideas. He was totally accomodating, which really makes a huge difference. It was also my maiden voyage as the bassist in the band Samarkand. Obviously I've played the bass on all (most) of the recordings over the years & played bass in D...

a cop-out post since I'm running late today. EVIL BREAD "Broth" EVIL BREAD "Donuts, Oh Ooooooooooh"

Samarkand "01.28.92" MP3 This song was written in early 1992 and just kind of appeared, fully formed as a wimpy pop song and a new direction for my songwriting. Self consciously wimpy at times, the lyrics were a 180 degree turn from my other notable songs of the time, like Devilcake's ode to @ss, "Pie, Hair Pie" and Devilcake's ode to sugary @ss, "Soft Batch Mama." We 'll be playing this one in the middle of the set at Cafe Bourbon Street tomorrow night. See ya there. You can hold the camcorder. I care so much and I worry about you with a heart this fragile what else can I do I could wrap both arms around and hold you forever Hold on to you with all my heart kiss you goodbye when you go carry the memory in my hand when I see you again I know that I could wrap both arms around and love you forever

Samarkand "Cathedral 95" MP3 Here's a late entry into the Samarkand catalog. In summer 1995 I rerererererererecorded several old Samarkand hits for the sheer hell of it. Feeling at the time, much as I do now, that these songs have never been presented correctly. So, a few pokey jabs of keyboards, a few experimental twists with drum programming, and a fresh coat of paint all around, then. And that was the end of it, I don't think anyone has ever heard any of these re re re re re re re re recordings. I didn't touch the lyrics, though. This song was originally called "Cathedral Decay," I'm not sure why the title changed. Maybe for the white tape we wanted all the songs to have single-word titles? I forget now. The lyrics are rooted in the exhaustive William Carlos Williams biography I was reading at the time. William Carlos Williams became my favorite poet in high school. When I heard about ' the red wheelbarrow ' and the one about the peaches ...

Samarkand "Maracanda" MP3 This was in many ways the song that started the whole Samarkand business. I wrote it in one of the practice rooms in the dorms at Berklee in fall 1992. I had just gotten the Zoom 9002 effects, which were incredible at the time. It was the first piece of gear I owned that not only sounded amazing but was small enough to be carried around easily like a Walkman & sounded literally incredible on headphones. So I found a nice...placid....guitar sound. And the guitar part kind of wrote itself once I turned out the light! Ridiculous, I know. Can you imagine locking yourself in a dark closet with a guitar & some headphones? I'm sure. The music sounded like Cocteau Twins or This Mortal Coil to me. The lyrics were a pretentious recollection of a deceased relationship. This song was originally called "Samarkand." Later I added the "lately I've been thinking" part and retitled it "Maracanda," which was an earlier nam...

Samarkand "Involution" MP3 Here's another lost Samarkand track from the final - Painful Realization - batch in 1995. Mopey chords, piissyyy lyrics, slow tempo. That was the template. Was? Is? Will be? Dr Rhythm for drums, probably the Warlock definitely through the Zoom 9002, definitely El Macho Mannequin for the bass gweetar. I was so proud of the three verse chords. I remember showing them off to Jeff and Marc in the waning days of Samarkand Thee Westerville Version. Jeff said "yeah, but the first and third ones are the just A minor in different positions." Never let a little knowledge get in the way.. Your voice is ugly and I don't like what you say Your ugly words hang in the air like clay It doesn't matter how hard you try Because of you I defy I defy you to make your case and then be still I defy you to make your case and then be gone I lost her to the possibility to the hope for something more I lost her to the chance that I wasn't her only ...

(It looks like we'll be doing another Samarkand gig on August 8, so.... back to Samarkand Mania!) Samarkand "Living with the Pain" MP3 This song was a late contender for the aborted 1996 Samarkand album with the working title Painful Realization . The realization in question of course being the crisis of confidence I had in my musical pursuits. This is one of the last songs I wrote and recorded in that style, in that era. That's around the same time I started AUTOreverse & basically stopped trying to be a music maker. Some of the Pitch Wheel pieces were done around this time as well, hence the prominent swirly keyboard action here. The music is uncharacteristically uptempo & bright. The lyrics are more negative than usual. Nice dichotomy or just a bad combination? The guitar is tuned to DADGAD. I wasn't happy with the bass line originally because I wanted it to do its own thing & not just follow the guitar. Oh well. The drum machine is cranked up to ...

it looks like surveillance footage due to pointing a webcam at the camcorder screen. The Samarkand master video looks fine, don't worry. Samarkand "Beautiful Kiss" 2007-07-14 - Madlab, Columbus, Ohio

Irreligion "Improv" MP3 This is kind of like Irreligion 2.0. You can hear that we're using the same gear as when we were playing with Elliott. Same drums & cymbals, same amps. But in this case, Ray is on guitar, Michael is on bass & I'm on drums. This was when my drumming finally got halfway decent. This version of Irreligion was going to be an all-improv band, playing whatever kind of music you'd call this. I mean, it's probably standard fare for any jam bands these days, but in 1990, there was no precedent. Of course, many years later I'm aware that we were never alone in our musical explorations in the basement. Anyway the hope was to find a vocalist who could be a poet & frontman so we could just concentrate on heads-down musical noodling & the would-be Perry Farrell could do his thing & be the focal point. We might've jammed with a couple of different singer/vocal guys at various points, it's kind of hazy now & I didn...

Irreligion "Mystery Song" MP3 I'd love to tell you everything about this gothic funk jam but um I have no idea. Maybe it's a cover? Whatever it is, it perfectly encapsulates I think where we wanted to go with the whole funk-goth thing we were about at the time. Ray's singing, I'm on guitar, Michael is slapping the Macho aka playing bass, Elliott on drums. I think if we had been about 20% more serious, we could've taken Irreligion out of the basement, onto a stage somewhere. But in the end it just wound up being a brief stop along the way, between XYCHQ and Evil Bread. A strange but necessary part of the transition. This was recorded on Christine The Death Box in my basement, sometime in mid/late 1990. Beyond that.... I have no clue. I mean, it still has its unique mutated charm to me. It's still an exciting sound that we were messing around with. I don't know what the lyrics are.... maybe something from Ray's notebook. Or possibly mine? Or mayb...

(in Parentheses) "Hope Fear Lie" MP3 Here's another song from early 1989, recorded on Christine Theee Boomboxxxe Of Deathe. Christine was kept down the hall, behind a door, due to the ridiculously high volume we were playing at. For no apparent reason. And the neighbors called the cops on us for maybe the first time ever, shutting down the whole party. So loud we were. Ah, "Hope Fear Lie," I forgot about this one. It's the Cure meets Metallica, what can I say. Both influences were paramount at the time. It's a pity that the guitars aren't completely in tune, but oh well, you still get the idea. (in Parentheses) was a vicious, brutal, caveman beast trying to better itself, an ape trying to walk upright for the first time. Some type of pissed-off cave creature walking out into the light. There's a strange naive finesse to the playing & songwriting. It's so stupid but so complex? A doomed little experimental microorganism with a tiny half-li...