Dave Short

Fifth Christmas Album

10/16/2010

I've started 'pre-production' on my fifth Christmas album, which is as of yet untitled. Every year since 2006, I've recorded a Christmas album as a gift for my mom. She's really into Christmas, and I suppose I am, too. My parents' house is ridiculously decorated the weekend after Thanksgiving, and it looks wonderful every year. Carrie gets a little sad because she says I disappear for the last few months of the year to work on the album. Actually, I've been getting better at getting these records recorded — two years ago I finished it on Christmas Eve, and last year I was done in time to FedEx it to my parents before Christmas. These albums are fun to make but slightly detrimental to my discography because they're almost entirely covers, and usually more than half are encumbered by copyrights that prevent me from sharing them without worrying about paying royalties.

Right now I've got two tracks arranged, a cover of "Chiron Beta Prime" by Jonathan Coulton and a cover of "Merry Christmas, Here's to Many More" by Relient K. I've chosen most of the songs that will be on this record. I'm in no dangers of running out of tracks. Even after four albums, I've got a pool of about 100 songs that should last me for at least the next seven albums (at fourteen tracks a pop). And I never said I wouldn't record new versions of songs.

Christmas always starts way early for me because of these albums. I even start listening to Christmas music (for inspiration) before Christmas merchandise appears on store shelves, if you can believe it. I'll probably post one or two tracks as Christmas approaches. Obviously I'll select them from the carols or other public-domain works I cover. There's also one original song on each album, so I'm sure I'll post that one, too.

In the meantime, enjoy the lull in Christmas ads, which would have started appearing on TV, if not for the fact that it's an election year. On second thought, I guess the political ads might not be an improvement.

The Suckers - Sour Grapes

10/13/2010

The newest album from The Suckers is finally available to download for free in the music section. There, you can listen to or download individual tracks or the full album zipped up. There are 17 songs on this record, and I'd go as far to wager that some are even a little catchy. The music is pop-punk, in the vein of The Ramones, Screeching Weasel, Teenage Bottlerocket, and other bands of their ilk. Each song has slightly more than three chords and an attitude.

The cover art, which depicts the literal fable "The Fox and the Grapes", is a photo montage made from free images courtesy of the Morgue File, and these authors deserve due credit: aquaio, jak, badeendjuh, and missyredboots.

Coming Soon: New Album From The Suckers

07/28/2010

I've been working on this album for a long time (since my last year of school, if you can believe it). It started out with direct-input guitars but I decided I didn't like the sound and re-recorded with real, live guitar running through an amp into a microphone — something I hadn't done since Misanthropomorphic. I also went back and re-sequenced the drums because I didn't like their sound. I had started on vocals in early summer of 2008 (before Carrie came back from Europe when I had the house all to myself), but stopped for a long time with only about a third of the songs complete. I finally got started with the vocal re-recording around late January (starting from scratch), right before we decided to move. So I got over half the vocals laid down in Montana, and have started work on the remainder. I also considered re-doing the bass lines with my new bass (as my old one had started developing tuning problems), but decided to keep those in the interest of ever finishing the record.

The Suckers are a pop-punk band. When I say pop-punk, I mean in the traditional sense: three chords and simple melodies. Influences include The Ramones, Screeching Weasel, The Queers, Teenage Bottlerocket, Teen Idols, and other bands like that. Since I've been mixing as I go, I can post a few preview tracks:

• Bumper Sticker Warrior — A fast, snotty song about people who outwardly appear to care about an issue, but don't do anything about it.


• 4 a.m. — A short little song about being unable to sleep.


• Not Buying In — A song about trying not to be defined by what you don't have.

I'm actually going to announce a release date ahead of time, in the effort of giving myself some sort of pressure to finish the album and not endlessly tinker with it. Look for it on August 24, 2010.

NooBrews Episode 1 - Now Available for Viewing

01/14/2010

The first episode of NooBrews is available for viewing now. Andy and Nico show you how the first steps toward making some delicious (well, I'm only guessing here, but it looked like they enjoyed their sample) hard apple cider.

As I've mentioned before, I made the intro music for the show. I'm going to start working on some other cues — incidental music mostly — and of course an ending theme. Should be lots of fun!

New Track - NooBrews Theme

12/04/2009

I've gotten my feet wet in the scoring field, and I have to say I like it.

Last night I finished the final version of the introductory theme for a FenixTV web show, NooBrews. I put up a page with all sorts of information. You can also download it there.

And of course, it's available under a Creative Commons license. Because that's how much I rock.

Music Section is Live

10/23/2009

After months of having a tantalizing-looking 'Music' link in this site's main navigation but no payoff after the click, I'm happy to tell the world that the music section is live. There isn't too much up now, aside from some free MP3s and an archive of music news, but there will be more content when I have more time. I would like to include some info about the lovely Why?-Fi Studio and how I record a song, but those will require a lot of work. I also plan to have an 'upcoming albums' section, but that might be unrealistic, as I would feel obligated to give all the projects I'm working on actual deadlines, then would feel the need to meet those deadlines. You see my dilemma.

Someday I'll have an online store. The plan includes physical copies of CDs as well as digital downloads, initially in mp3 but probably in FLAC eventually. What's going to be neat is that the digital downloads will feature a 'Pay What You Like' option (yeah, yeah, "Simpsons Radiohead did it"), which will go all the way down to free if that's what people want to pay. I'm having a little trouble with the logistics of the whole project because I would like to include cover songs (I've recorded a lot of cover songs, my Christmas albums are almost all covers, and even The Suckers recorded a full-album cover of the Ramones' first record), but I have to deal with the nasty reality of licensing, which looks to be as much negative fun as making the songs in the first place was. So the covers are going to have a minimum price so I don't wind up losing money on the venture.

Code Monkey (Jonathan Coulton cover)

05/21/2008

This is a bare-bones acoustic cover of Jonathan Coulton's song, "Code Monkey." The cover's nothing special, just something I did in between packing stuff. I recorded it live with my Mac's mic, with very little processing: a little noise reduction here, a little bass reduction there. The hardest part was keeping quiet, since it is technically quiet hours in my dorm. Enjoy!

Download MP3 here.

Back From the Bo-Zone / inside

01/17/2007

Just got back from Bozeman a few hours ago. Jesse, AJo, Andy, Cullen and I went there to check out how their ResNet program compares to our DirectConnect program. It was informative, despite the fact that we spent twice as long traveling (eight hours) as we did doing what we came there to do (four hours). They've got complete control of their network (we don't), so they can do stuff like VLAN switching and bandwidth control much easier than we can. Their web-based tools aren't as pretty as ours, however. This is a result of my design-first, code-second philosophy.

We stayed at the Western Heritage Inn, which sounds like a front for a white power group ("Free racist mint on every pillow!"). We all played Mario Kart 64 until the wee hours of the morn; this includes my boss Jesse, which pretty much makes him the coolest boss ever.

On an altogether unrelated note, last weekend I finished vocals for inside, the new record that I've been working on for two years. Tracks:

1. I Miss You - slow, moody homesickness song.


2. This Could Be Any Day - uptempo piano pop with strings.


3. Fret - a worried dirge.


4. Temperamental - frenetic song about changing moods at the drop of a hat.


5. Mary's Plea - A synth-folk number about abortion.


6. Jenny Lewis Will Never Go Out With You - The name says it all. Power pop.


7. Here There Be Monsters - A riff-heavy song with horns and strings.


8. Let's Get Away - Lolling folk about hitting the road, Jack.


9. Written Off - An angry folk song about cowardly homophobes.


10. Soap - A peppy song about a shower (more philosophical than prurient)


11. Torn - A synthy yet rocky song with beats.


12. Polarize - Quasi-raggae horn-infused polemic.


13. Glut of Food - Synthy


14. The Highway - Folk-rock about Interstate 90.

It sounds pretty good. I'll probably have CDPrintExpress run up copies again, considering the fantastic job they did on Pick Your Poison. I also have plans in the works for an EP by Page Fault, my hardcore pet project. It's an EP called Two Minute Hate.

But first, I plan to record some B-side vocals over the weekend while I'm visiting my parents. A country song about finding god ("Lifted Up") is first on my list. I haven't really found him (perhaps he's hiding under the covers), but I find songs like it beautiful. I would also like to re-record the vocals for "Synth Pop" (not its final title), a former album cut for inside but now relegated to B-side status. I might also do a 'stripped' version of "Written Off", with just vocals and acoustic guitar.