The 5 Day Album Challenge
The Five Day Album Challenge
by Heater Case
Several years ago, I turned my entire website into a simple blog and chronicled my real-time experiences after being recruited by an immense clandestine space program.I told nobody except a handful of people that it was fake. It lasted nine months and got the most hits than anything I ever put online. Not surprisingly, a lot of these hits were from Washington D.C.
I considered it to be a combination of writing and performance art. A hybrid, a protista, if you will.
Years earlier, I once made up a book for a high school book report. An entire plot and characters in synopsis. My teacher asked if she could borrow the book. I don't think it was to call my bluff. I think she was genuinely interested in reading the book.
We were supposed to read and write a report on a book about Russia. I created a novel called The Workers. Without being explicit, I wrote a review about a steamy and scandalous tale of early Communism and the forbidden triangle between a young woman, her mother and her mother's new husband.
You've seen these 'challenges' go around on Facebook. Basically, somebody passing on the annoyance of getting roped into a sleepover game.
Before anybody could drop the Five Day Album Challenge (that influenced your life) on me I launched a preemptive strike and made up five artists and designed what would have been their record covers.
Like my secret space diary, I wasn't sure whether to put these albums in the writing section or the art section.
Whichever section you're reading this is where they ended up.
*****
Day 1 of the Influential Album Challenge:
Dark poetry immersed in sometimes sultry, sometimes jagged arrangements. It's regrettable but understandable that she became one of the Greta Garbos of music.
Dark poetry immersed in sometimes sultry, sometimes jagged arrangements. It's regrettable but understandable that she became one of the Greta Garbos of music.
Day 2 of the Influential Album Challenge:
There’s an inside rumor that No Doubt management tried to sue for name infringement until they were told, “Sweeties, they were here and gone before you were in kindergarten.”
Playful jazz stylings with masterful math and geometry of music theory in the foundation. As in the title track, lyrics were more puzzle pieces of sound than any literal intent. Trav MacMillan once said, “It’s like dropping a bowlful of words on the floor. Some of it might actually look like a sentence.”
There’s an inside rumor that No Doubt management tried to sue for name infringement until they were told, “Sweeties, they were here and gone before you were in kindergarten.”
Playful jazz stylings with masterful math and geometry of music theory in the foundation. As in the title track, lyrics were more puzzle pieces of sound than any literal intent. Trav MacMillan once said, “It’s like dropping a bowlful of words on the floor. Some of it might actually look like a sentence.”
Day 3 of the Influential Album Challenge:
Before there was Punk Rock, there was Junk Rock- my term and I mean it in a good way. Bicks and company were my introduction to a casual and infectious ‘tribal’ sound later made familiar by the Stones’ ‘Sing This All Together’, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ ‘Home’ and pretty much everything done by Alabama 3.
They always had the feeling like they were still in a garage, but a garage with really good recording equipment.
Before there was Punk Rock, there was Junk Rock- my term and I mean it in a good way. Bicks and company were my introduction to a casual and infectious ‘tribal’ sound later made familiar by the Stones’ ‘Sing This All Together’, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros’ ‘Home’ and pretty much everything done by Alabama 3.
They always had the feeling like they were still in a garage, but a garage with really good recording equipment.
Day 4 of the Influential Album Challenge:
The transition from the ‘60s to the ’70s brought in its wake the transition from Al Cooper’s Blood Sweat and Tears to the David Clayton Thomas version. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass created an alter ego with The Baja Marimba Band. Chicago stayed steady on course.
The Theme to Casino Royale made a monster impact on my arraigning instrumentals.
My co-conspirator John Borus had the chops to help me flesh out some of my more ambitious opuses. Midnight At Dusty’s Tavern comes to mind.
But I will always remember the night I saw Brass Central. I was in High School and I had the chance to roadie for the band in exchange for admission. I don’t remember the venue but it was somewhere down in Greenwich Village.
I didn’t even know who Brass Central was. My main job was pushing a piano into a rear corner of the stage and that is where I made camp. Curled up under the piano, drinking warm beer and passing around a joint, I watched in awe as a small army of guys took horn sections somewhere I’ve never seen or heard before. It was like Emerson Lake and Palmer merged with a marching band during a transporter accident. This was their only album.
The transition from the ‘60s to the ’70s brought in its wake the transition from Al Cooper’s Blood Sweat and Tears to the David Clayton Thomas version. Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass created an alter ego with The Baja Marimba Band. Chicago stayed steady on course.
The Theme to Casino Royale made a monster impact on my arraigning instrumentals.
My co-conspirator John Borus had the chops to help me flesh out some of my more ambitious opuses. Midnight At Dusty’s Tavern comes to mind.
But I will always remember the night I saw Brass Central. I was in High School and I had the chance to roadie for the band in exchange for admission. I don’t remember the venue but it was somewhere down in Greenwich Village.
I didn’t even know who Brass Central was. My main job was pushing a piano into a rear corner of the stage and that is where I made camp. Curled up under the piano, drinking warm beer and passing around a joint, I watched in awe as a small army of guys took horn sections somewhere I’ve never seen or heard before. It was like Emerson Lake and Palmer merged with a marching band during a transporter accident. This was their only album.
Day 5 of the Influential Album Challenge:
Country Rock was always an important part of my songwriting. Clemmons and Beaumont were like the Mothers of Invention of CR. If not in breakneck execution, definitely in line with Zappa’s unabashed lyrics. Was it all a sly wink, like The Tubes’ ‘Hey, Sports Fan’? Nobody believed them when they said They All Look The Same Upside Down was about icebergs.
They were the underappreciated heroes of hard-drinkin', hard playin’, old pickup trucks and country girls in cutoffs sitting on a bale of hay.
They were the underappreciated heroes of hard-drinkin', hard playin’, old pickup trucks and country girls in cutoffs sitting on a bale of hay.
*****
MQTA
There is a GREAT podcast called More Questions Than Answers. I immediately became a big fan. I try to earn my keep as a loyal listener by doing artwork for them.
(The squirrels are kind of a running joke. Ya gotta be a fan to get it 😼. You REALLY have to be a fan to get some of the other references.
😼😼😼😼)
(The squirrels are kind of a running joke. Ya gotta be a fan to get it 😼. You REALLY have to be a fan to get some of the other references.
😼😼😼😼)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)