My criteria for this one is that I wanted to do it entirely with my MIDI keyboard. With the exception of the drum sample and my vocal, that’s exactly what I did. This song’s a bit of an odd duck, but odd ducks are the coolest. It was recorded Monday and Tuesday in Room 201 of the Super 8 in Romulus, Michigan. Enjoy.

Click on the Soundcloud widget below to give it listen or a download.

Paris Street – Ah Ah Ah

Not to brag, but I really like this one. Most of the lyrics were taken from an unfinished song that I wrote last year after hanging out at a park in Richmond, Virginia. I’ll post that demo here someday. In the meantime, enjoy this much-better version.

Half of this was recorded in Room 513 of the Hawthorn Suites in Southfield, Michigan. The other half was recorded in Room 307 of the Super 8 in Roseville, Michigan. All of it was mixed together in Roseville. It was recorded with an acoustic-electric guitar, a MIDI keyboard, the iBone app played through a Kindle Fire, a pair of brushes tapped against my knee, and a cymbal sampled from yet-another unreleased song of mine.

Click on the Soundcloud widget below to give it listen or a download.

Paris Street – More Like A Dream

After a trio of songs that hovered around the 5 minute mark, I wanted my next song to be short and poppy. This is what I came up with:

Paris Street – Petulence

It was recorded in Room 513 of the Hawthorn Suites in Southfield, Michigan. I played the acoustic-electric guitar, the tambourine, the melodica, and a MIDI keyboard. Then I warbled over it with hastily-scribbled lyrics. It’s only two-and-a-half minutes of your life – give it a shot.

Enjoy.

Recorded over the past two days in Room 812 of the Hawthorn Suites in Dayton, Ohio. I used my trusty acoustic-electric on this, as well as my MIDI keyboard. I also used the following Android apps, as played through my Amazon Kindle:

SPC Music Sketchpad
Plasma Sound

Both apps are highly recommended.

Listen to the song and/or download it below. The last third is loud and awesome, so stick around for it. Enjoy.

Paris Street – Julie

No one ever likes my electronic instrumentals, so here’s an electronic instrumental.  It’s inspired by an art exhibit I saw last weekend in Louisville featuring the works of Anthony Goicolea (see above).  The title comes from a description of one of his pieces, which I actually jotted down incorrectly (it was part of a sentence that ended with “destructive or absurd predicaments”).

Most of the percussion is sampled from the song “Darius Rucker Is Dead” by a group called Mean Wind. The rest was done by banging a mini baseball bat together with the cut knob from an unfinished, full-sized baseball bat – both were acquired at the Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville. There’s also some voice stuff going on and deeply-buried handclaps.

All of that was recorded in Louisville last weekend. The electronic stuff was recorded with my MIDI keyboard this Wednesday in Room 110 of a Days Inn in Dayton, Ohio.

Click on the Soundcloud widget below to give it listen or a download. Enjoy.

Paris Street – Destruction Of Absurd Predicaments by Paris Street

Paris Street – Destruction Of Absurd Predicaments

I’m back on the road for a very long time. As with last year, I’m gonna try to record as much new material as possible while traveling. Here’s the first song from this year’s travels. It’s not really called “Flattered” – sometimes, you gotta hold some things back.

Recorded with my trusty acoustic-electric and the tiny MIDI keyboard I carry around with me on the road. I also used the following apps, which I played through my Kindle Fire:

iBone
Musical Lite
Solo

I did the music yesterday and the words today. It was recorded in Room 219 of the Days Inn on Blairwood Road in Louisville, Kentucky.

Enjoy.

Anyway, I never got around to working out an arrangement for the song.  I actually completely forgot about this song until yesterday, when I was backing up some files.  Earlier in the day, I had spent six frustrating hours mixing a song.  Not wanting to go through that process again any time soon, I decided to come up with the simplest arrangement possible for the song and record it in one take.

This is what I came up with, which I ended up liking much more than I expected.  Download it below or give it a listen through Soundcloud.

Enjoy.

Paris Street – Dawnsong

Paris Street – Dawnsong by Paris Street

Or give it a boob-and-pube free listen via Soundcloud:

On Tuesday, my friend Katherine played the song for me via a YouTube clip and suggested I cover it. The next day, I got started. After immediately realizing that my voice would not cut it for this song (mainly due to a key change at the last chorus that led to voice cracks a-plenty), my friend Christy came over Friday night to record the vocals. On Saturday, I finished the mix. Here it is, on Sunday. Now I rest.

By the way, this is not a Christmas song. If it were, I wouldn’t have bothered.

The particulars:
Me – electric and nylon string guitar, keys, melodica, tambourine, egg, & a barely-audible ‘ooooh’ during the choruses
Christy Anderson – vocals
Christy’s vocals can also be heard in the song “YUL” from my Canada 1 EP. Listen to it here.

Enjoy.

Paris Street – Hard Candy Christmas (Dolly Parton Cover)

Paris Street – Hard Candy Christmas (Dolly Parton Cover) by Paris Street