Jan. 5th “Financial Planning for Dogs

This song stems from hourly listens to NPR all day.

I started a different song but this insane ‘avant gangsta garde’ piece just popped out.  I guess working in the cold will pull that right out of ya.

I had just thought of ‘Financial Planning for Dogs’ after misreading a yahoo ad.   Then shortly thereafter, Adair and I started talking about giving dogs loans.   Hilarious interjection ensued as you can imagine.

That’s where the tag line “Don’t give that dog a bone, give that dog a loan” came from.

Click the play icon to listen!

Read the lyrics @ chriscates.com/jan5.html

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Jan. 4th Song “Soul Bread”

It’s getting a little tougher now. I got up this morning around 6 drove the 50 miles to Morganton and picked up recycling for around 85 places with Dad. It was 17 degrees this morning but it really didn’t seem to bad. I think I have more trouble when the temperatures are in the 40’s than the teens.

It must be those four years I spent in Boone.

Today’s song reflects nothing of what I have experienced today, it’s just what came out between 6:30 and 7:00pm, my alloted time to write tonight.  I’m still sticking with my ‘first thought best thought stategy’.

“Soul Bread” is a story song that’s a bit tragic and a bit humorous with a little secret ‘Belle and Sebastion’ jam at the end.

Thanks for listening.

lyrics

Jan 3rd “Sunday Afternoon Blues”

Day three and I’m already seeing how hard this is going to be from a time standpoint.

Because I’ve been off from recycling and haven’t had gigs this weekend I’ve had more time than usual.  So the last two days I’ve spent about 3 hours each day making the songs and giving them a little extra production.

Today I tried to limit myself to an hour but ended up taking an hour and a half.   Writing the song, then recording the guitar, keys, drums, bass, synth, lead guitar and six vocal parts takes a minute as you can imagine.

I’m trying to go with ‘first thought best thought’ in the writing process, so whatever the first subject I think about will be the theme of the song.

Today’s song “Sunday Afternoon Blues” is inspired by my dread of the 16 degree temperatures I’ll be working in tomorrow morning and my desire to have fun today.    Now that I’m done with this song and all of the studio work I did on my other projects this morning, I’m hoping to talk Adair into going bowling.  Wish me luck!

lyrics

Jan. 2nd “Snow Day”

Day two in my quest to write a song and brief commentary every day of 2010.

I’ve had a rare Saturday off on a windy cold snowy day and have gotten to work in the studio all day.

I worked on “Let Out the Zoo” from my upcoming album ‘Follow the Feeling’ and then I wrote and recorded this one.

“Snow Day” is obviously inspired by the coveted snow day school cancellation each student and teacher anticipates each year.

All the instruments are one or two takes and I got to play Jason Peeler’s drums for the 2nd day in a row!

lyrics

Jan 1st “2010″

This is my ambitious blog experiment for 2010.

In 2010, starting today, Jan. 1st, I am going to write a song each day and post it here and write about the experience in this popular “blog” format which I am still weary of with my Gen X DNA.

My criteria will be

1.  The song has to be around a minute long minimum

2. It has to be from good effort (I can’t phone it in,  however, I can record it on my iPhone)

3.With lyrics is a plus but I can contribute instrumentals  (I do love my Triton keyboard)

4. I can collaborate (making music is fun with other folks )

So here it goes.  Today I decided to write a cheesy feel good anthem about getting things kick started for 2010.   I’m very optimistic about this year and this song is a little pep talk.

WordPress is not making it easy to upgrade their services to play mp3’s,  so I will have to redirect to my main website to play the song.    In the future I hope to be displaying the mp3’s for people to upload free directly from this blog.

Read the lyrics @ chriscates.com/jan1.html