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Jams In Progress
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Edited
by Dean Budnick
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Electron The following song is from the band Electron, a project created by Marc Brownstein, bass player for the Disco Biscuits. The group will perform on Friday August 18 at the Trocadero and Saturday August 19 at Wetlands (Brownstein will be a man in motion that day as a few hours earlier he will take the stage with the Biscuits at the Bayou Music Festival in Croton Point Park). For more information on Electron visit the group's web site, www.thisiselectron.com The deal with this song is, I was looking to see how far I could take two chords, D to G. About as simple as it gets. First to fourth [on the musical scale].. I wanted to see how many different things I can get out of them, so I wrote a song called Home. At first it was just a straight beat song, then it went sort of dub reggae. Then I took the chords and wrote another song, which I originally called Home reprise but eventually the name Home Again took. So it has many parts reminiscent of the original home, but the lyrics are more bouncy, and in the spirit of the drill, there is only a chorus, no verse. We sing over the two chords and we jam over the two chords. Incarnation #1 - With The Maui Project, I felt the best thing I could do was to play the song at about 95 beats per minute and give the jam a hard dub feel. We accomplished what I was looking for, all the while drilling home the D and the G. It was an exercise in masking the chord changes but knowing that they are always there. Then when we feel good about where the jam was, we pop out, sing the chorus, and get the hell out of there. Incarnation #2 - I then took the song to a friend of mine, named Dj Wicket, known for his wonderful Drum and Bass creations, and said, "I want to leave the two chords where they are, but double the tempo on the drums." 190 beats per minute is an extremely fast for Drum and Bass, but he laid down some ridiculous beats. We made a demo, while in the meantime, we are waiting to record a drum and bass version of the song. Incarnation #3 - I took the demo to Joe Russo [Fat Mama/Electron drummer] and said, "Can you play Drum and Bass at this tempo?" He then flipped his snare drum and put a timbale on top of it, and then dropped his drum sticks and treated his drums like congas, playing them with his bare hands. And right there a new sound was created, and a new technique was invented for playing break beats and the like... And so here it is, the first rehearsal of this song with DJ Stitch, Joe Russo, Tom Hamilton, and myself..
7/30/00 |
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