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1. |
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"I want you to change his voice to someone else's in an actual language"
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PRE-HISTORY (maybe 7th grade?)
It all began with Taco's Adventure. This was a concept album about a man named Taco who becomes a musical sensation and also ends up having a cooking show with David Duchovny... or something? I thought this album was gone forever as I switched computers soon after this, so I proceeded to incorporate music from it into my 8th grade concept album.
Years later, Dad Remmers says he was getting rid of old computers and found a bunch of old audio files on one and gave me them all, about 50 in total, on a pair of CDs. At the time I was using Windows Sound Recorder on Windows XP and an off-white-turning-beige desktop microphone. It wouldn't let you record on top of another recording, but it would let you combine two different takes. As such, the discs Dad gave me have the same material over and over, sometimes with just one track, sometimes two, or three, or four, and the individual tracks all by themselves as well. And they're all completely out of order (I remember there was an order; I recorded the whole album in order in one sitting). Sifting through the tracks, I was looking for the "finished" versions of anything, but the material is too truly unlistenable (both in content and in quality) to be funny, cute, insightful, or worth any of my time to put the puzzle together and your time in listening to it.
But it felt right to include something so here is one of many interstitial dialogue scenes intended to bridge the story gaps between songs. This one was the shortest and most lucid. It also shows my unabated desire to come off as British started quite early.
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2. |
Leonardo
03:47
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"Leo, you're back you're better than ever/Why won't you win an award or two?"
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8TH GRADE
THE JOSHAA EP was my first CD. I still have a copy, the paper insert full of typos, explaining that the whole album was recorded in a single January night. 5 tracks plus a secret song (concept albums, funny/obnoxious voices, secret songs, backwards messages, general attempts at Britishness... there's gonna be a lot of these things). This is salute to Leonardo DiCaprio who, despite my taunting, had not ever lost the Oscar® for Best Actor (the famous losing streak and memes were years away). Full disclosure, I have still not seen The Beach. I'm sorry, The Beach, I've heard you're actually pretty good.
At this point, I had switched to Audacity which allowed easy multi-tracking. I still used the same desktop microphone which served to pick up all guitars (acoustic or amplified) and vocals. It even picks up the sound of a large plank of wood I used to act as stabilization between my carpeted bedroom floor and my Wah-wah pedal. I couldn't tune a guitar but at least I had a Wah-wah pedal. As you can see, the new recording system allowed me an opportunity to overdub as many inane voices as I wanted. The guitar parts were usually done first, in one take, sometimes singing at the same time (which never helped). Vocals were done after and completely improvised. Rarely, if ever, was anything written out. These are purely improvisational nightmares.
As for the scream "Joshaa" at the end. We'll get there when we get there.
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3. |
Doggie
03:07
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"The stars are very, very, very, very, very, very....(I drank too much coffee today/Too much coffee for me)"
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8TH GRADE
THE JOSHAA EP also contained this stand-out track which I think holds up as uniquely entertaining. I was clearly obsessed with this straight chord loop (I had no idea what the names of the chords were), but the looping nature of this song lent itself to the many improvised vocal overdubs which served to satirize cloying "randomness" that plagues many pubescents (I'm not really that interested in poop jokes, honestly). Yes, some of the voices were pitch-shifted (I was enjoying the new software!) but this song displays my not-yet-changed voice at its absolute, unaltered highest.
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4. |
Joshaa (Overture)
06:38
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"He's wanted for treason against the United States of Notfreedomica"
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8TH GRADE
THE JOSHAA EP began with "Joshaa" which was later reused as "Joshaa Overture" as the opening track of THE JOSHAA LP Disc 2. In the spirit of that shift, I have given it yet a third title permutation.
This really should have been first after Taco's Adventure. It was the first song recorded out of anything here. I borrowed Sister Remmers' acoustic guitar and planned this mini-saga about a guy named "Joshaa." I was obsessed with this name for some reason, seeing as I shout it several times in "Leonardo" for no apparent reason. It was probably an inside joke I don't remember.
The song was my first experiment in Audacity, and a facile one at that. The guitar and vocal are recorded in one continue take. I learned right away that this was a bad idea as it was impossible for my little 13-year-old voice to overpower the jumbo acoustic twanging out-of-tune in my arms. Still, it served to open the gates of long, TOO long, narratives in my songs.
"Extree, Extree" and "Eyegendeeka Doigay" were Taco's Adventure tunes, the bizarre language that Taco sang in becoming the Alien's language in Joshaa's universe (see "The Kidnapping").
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5. |
Birth of Joshaa
02:28
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"His name was Joshaa and his destiny/Would affect the lives of you and me"
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8TH GRADE
THE JOSHAA LP is a mixed bag. After the EP several months earlier, I put out this two-disc set, both discs maxing out at 80 minutes on the nose. Disc One presented the non-Joshaa-universe songs from the EP ("Leonardo" and "Doggie" and a couple of others; I had the humility at the time to NOT include every track because I remember, after a couple months, already being embarrassed by one of them. Really, Bill? Just one?) as well as two long extended jam tracks (8 minutes and 20 minutes, respectively; I hadn't heard them in the many years since and, in reviewing them for this release, I learned that those many years were too few). The jams served to show off that I had since picked up a cheap bass and a mandolin and added those to the arsenal. Finally, the first disc included 40 minutes of badly performed covers from The White Album, more on that later.
Disc 2 is really the raison d'être, a full-disc rock opera about Joshaa, a kid who saves the universe or something. Track one of this disc was the rebranded Overture you just heard. The Overture tells a pretty complete little story, totally different from the story in the album to follow, though including some musical material that will end up getting reused. So the album really starts here, with the first track operating as the folk hero myth and this song presenting a literal origin story and journey for the character.
Good news, everyone. This was the first song for which I ever wrote the lyrics out in advance. I included one-sentence liner notes in the LP's packaging (the covers, front and backs of both discs, were really cute, I especially like the dates appear in the corner of every image used). For this song, I wrote at the time: "Finally, a GOOD song." True then and true now. This song shows the best possible version of the usual MO: lead vocals down the center, and random backup nonsense panned to the sides. It paid to prepare. I could have started this album here and saved us all a lot of time, but we ain't got anywhere to go.
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6. |
The Kidnapping
03:54
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"Oh no, he has been taken away! Unshow [sic] yourself!"
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8TH GRADE
THE JOSHAA LP Disc 2 continues right on with this track that starts with 7 seconds of silence for some reason. Very poor quality control.
After the planning from before, we are back to the improvised method, recording a guitar part with a vague structure in mind and then coming up with lyrics on the spot after (this leads to sentences I sing and just give up on and nonsense rhymes like "I am..../Oh look at him, running with his whim." But at least we have more movements to this piece. I like the sound of the alien's laser gun. You'll see here my obsession with Eddie Vedder voices (forever one of my stock choices) despite the fact that I think Eddie is an alright guy.
To this day, I have never figured out why the aliens kidnap Joshaa, why they kill his father, and what their master plan for him is. I don't think I ever knew or ever cared. Maybe that's why I only sold four copies. That said, I regret that we don't get more of Joshaa's time with the aliens. After a brief instrumental track, Joshaa has grown up in a flash à la Hakuna Matata and is his full adult self by the next main track...
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7. |
Where Shall I Go?
03:47
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"Oh yeah, nothing can stop the end of the road"
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8TH GRADE
THE JOSHAA LP continued with the grown-up protagonist not knowing where to go. I think I wrote the lyrics for this one in advance. I say "think" because surely lyrics this stupid couldn't have been written in advance. I think this would be Joshaa's "I want" song but it's really more his "I, what?" song. "The End of the Road" was the climactic instrumental of the album so the line "Oh yeah nothing can stop the end of the road" was supposed to be prescient, plot-wise, or something.
Outsider music is on full display here: random bars of 3/8 in a 4/4 structure, all of the chords in the chorus seem to be minor chords, despite them clearly outlining a G major scale. I mean, even a year later, I wouldn't be caught dead writing i-ii-iii-iv into a song (especially while clearly singing G major over the lot), and neither would most sane people. There's something hideously fascinating about the careless obliviousness that leads to this kind of song where every verse/chorus has stark differences that come from clumsiness and not fussiness. But, then again, with the non-production fade-out, I was definitely in on some part of the joke, just a tiny part.
Anyway, I've always been fond of this song, so much so that I tried an experiment and re-recorded it today. You can find that version at the end of this disc.
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8. |
I Love You
04:33
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"Will you marry me it's the thing I want/Cause I am Joshaa and you're my girl/I'm your guy"
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8TH GRADE
THE JOSHAA LP continued right on with this track which is, sadly, the only time here where I have featured one of my prized possessions (that the acetic Dad Remmers was happy enough to bequeath), the Casio KX-101 hybrid Boombox-Radio-Keyboard-Sequencer. This thing is truly wild, google it. Unfortunately, none of its drum loops appear here, but we get a gander at both its keyboard sound and the huge-sounding organ chords produced by the chord buttons. I think I learned more theory from that box than anything else. I was dim but I sure knew how to use the "dim" chord button. Whatever. This song is nuts. I've always hated rock love songs.
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9. |
Fish Monster
02:34
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"*incomprehensible noise for two-and-a-half minutes*"
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8TH GRADE
THE JOSHAA LP continues with... this. Honestly, I wasn't going to include this, but I considered it the "best" representative from the hours and hours of irritating audio I decided not to include here. I'm grateful that I eventually abandoned this type of song.
There's really not a lot of plot in this concept album. Defeating the Fish Monster is pretty much the only heroic thing he does. At this point, there are quite a few tracks I will not be showing you, including a scene where the characters (there are multiple characters???) go to a movie theatre and eat pizza. There is a track called "Before the Pizza" which features me and my best friend, Ryan, improvising on bass and guitar for 20 minutes. Truly horrendous stuff.
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10. |
Come Over Here
04:12
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"Come over here/The picnic tables are over here, Jimmy"
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8TH GRADE
Finally back on track with JOSHAA. This is a highlight. My best friend Ryan played guitar and I bass in one track. Then we quickly dubbed in the improvised vocals. Our other friend, Tom, who also appeared on the album (nothing heard here, sadly), was sitting on my bed during this session and deserves a medal.
The two main riffs and the "Come over here" lyric were Ryan's invention and I am forever grateful that he donated it to this mess.
This is all based on a true story where we went to the movies for Ryan's birthday and there was a man across from the theatre when we exited standing by picnic tables with two women, telling us "Come over here!" In fact, the whole middle-third of THE JOSHAA LP Disc 2 was a recreation of that birthday party.
Who are these other characters? Is Jimmy one of the screaming civilians from "Fish Monster"? I am disappointed in myself that Joshaa's love interest (not Wendy from "Birth of Joshaa," also unseen) is never heard or even named. I never attempted any female impersonation though so perhaps I knew I had some limits. What is Joshaa? A superhero? I don't care anymore.
I was never a competent "Yes, and"-er.
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11. |
The Plea
05:52
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"Aliens come down blast away your face/Can't you see you're destroying the race"
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8TH GRADE
Skipping ahead, Joshaa's brother returns, mad at him for some reason that he was kidnapped and their dad was murdered by aliens. Brother Daryl says in the track before this one, "either you jump off that cliff/or I'll kill your friends." So this is Joshaa's response.
I figured out the riff and got so excited, I called Ryan's house and played it to him over the phone. I don't remember what gave me the idea to reverse the guitar part, but it's just as pleasant a riff forwards as backwards.
Anyway, the aliens finally come back and deus ex machina Daryl into oblivion. I'm obsessed with the improvised lyric-jumble: "See you knew whenyourevercan view/No one knows if you're gonna be you"
This song was a direct segue into a five-minute instrumental, "Joshaa Underture" (can you tell I was a Tommy fan?). Which is why this track ends with me tuning my guitar before the Overture theme kicks back in. Despite how much weird thought I put into all this junk, I had no standards for quality.
After that track was "The Finale," which was basically the same thing as Abbey Road's "The End," except with pick scrapes in the place of a drum solo and the rotating guitar solos (here over bVI -> bVII -> I... very original) played by Ryan, myself, and aforementioned friend Tom. You're not missing anything.
Here ends the tale of Joshaa.
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12. |
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"*string breaks*"
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8TH GRADE
So back to THE JOSHAA LP Disc 1 for a diversion. I mentioned I had forty minutes of The White Album covers on this disc, all of which directly segued and all of which were played and sung very, very badly.
But I love this track because one of the two guitars breaks a string part-way through and I keep going with a now de-tuned guitar in the right channel (not that tuning was my only problem as a guitarist).
In the original album liner notes, I pointed out this fact as a mark of pride. Despite the fact that I was a very bad musician, I got a kick out of showing off just how bad I can be. Nothing has changed.
Surely this counts as fair use under "parody," right?
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13. |
Freaky Dan Pt. 1
06:28
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"I knew this guy/He was pretty freaky/I'll tell you about him/Here I go..."
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8TH GRADE
This track is, I think, my "greatest hit." Eventually when I began to share my music, not by selling CDs in school, but by putting songs up on MySpace, this was the track that got the most attention. In another world, this track would have started this compilation, but, next best thing: I'll make it the featured track.
It's never been clear where Freaky Dan, the character, begins and where "this guy" who "was pretty freaky" ends. I welcome your interpretation. The dragging sound at the beginning? Me bringing the computer microphone closer to me across the desk, circular plastic-on-wood.
It first appeared on the EP of Doom which I remember not selling successfully or maybe I didn't even bother to sell it. It's the only album that I found multiple copies of in a box: all sharpied up with no covers or cases. This EP ran forty minutes and I include all but one of the tracks here (I understandably eliminated "Habeas Corpus," a 20-minute solo improv jam with 20 minutes of backwards speech played on top of it).
In my college song-writing class, there was one week where I was highly depressed and had nothing to present, so I just performed this song as if it was new. No one bought the gambit.
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14. |
Freaky Dan Pt. 2
00:32
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"It wasn't really a hamburger"
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8TH GRADE
Ryan and I came out of our final class in our 8th grade schedule, Earth Science, and I said this little monologue in this little funny voice to him. I'm not sure why. It was a moment of adolescent absence of a verbal filter. I repeated the story verbatim for this recording which serves, I think, as a literal telling of the story from Part 1.
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15. |
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"Dr. Evazan & Ponda Baba/They're too good to be pals"
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8TH GRADE
The EP of Doom began with this track, a musical collage exploring everything Audacity had to offer. In another time and place, this might have been praised as modern art, but I think that ship had sailed decades before. Still, I love this track.
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16. |
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"Dr. Evazan & Ponda Baba/They're too good to be pals"
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8TH GRADE
The best part of this experiment: Pt. 2 is Pt.1 played backwards. Listened to consecutively, there's a fun mix of stuff that you can recognize from hearing it the other direction, but the experience is so disorienting that the two tracks come off as two unique little noiseboxes.
These two tracks might be the only thing on this set that I wouldn't change, if given the chance.
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17. |
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"Dr. Evazan & Ponda Baba/They're too good to be pals"
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8TH GRADE
Subverting expectations, this song is actually a song about the title characters who appeared in the original Star Wars film.
I include it here for completeness and for a truly unique moment: there's a bit where you can hear me fart and, second later, hear my reaction when I smell it.
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18. |
Captain Insane-o
01:47
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8TH GRADE
From what I can find, this is the final track from the Audacity days. Ryan had got an eMac around this time so, of course, I had to join the Apple-side, and soon after this it was all Garageband and no looking back.
But Garageband lacks a certain beautiful component of Audacity, the ability to speed up tracks. Luckily, that was the whole gimmick of Captain Insane-o.
This song only ever appeared on a compilation disc "The Best of Bill, Vol 1: The Early Year" (which included most of the stuff up until this point; classics stay classics, I guess). Not sure if I ever sold em.
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19. |
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9TH GRADE
Entering High School, I was given the opportunity to perform in our literary magazine's open mic nights, five each year. This is a live recording from my second-ever of those nights. Eventually, I would always perform with a full band, but at the time, we didn't have an act together so I would do these insane solo performances of whatever odd stuff.
This gives you a good insight as to particular features of these performances: hecklers, responding to hecklers, making mistakes, calling out mistakes that had just been made. The school cafeteria was an unforgiving venue, especially when your audience were some 40-53 upperclassmen standing as far away from you as possible. Or there was the hardcore band (yes, this was Long Island) that chased me all throughout this year. For some reason I was a threat to their dominance.
You'll also see that I don't even remember how to play my own song, I was making it up as I went along in the first place anyway, and it's not like I was going to listen to it over and over just to learn it.
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20. |
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9TH GRADE
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These tracks, as recorded from the soundboard, were given to me like this, with a fadeout between them. I think I confused the op, a senior student, when I told him I would be playing one long medley of tracks, so he thought I was done several times over.
The moment when the audience started clapping and Ryan (not my best friend, but a drummer two years older than us who I eventually jammed with from time to time) started playing backup percussion ad lib was perhaps the kindest thing this audience did for a freshman. Maybe they were all nicer than I remember.
Mike's Obligatory Jam was a song written for a guy named Mike who was in our Biology class. It was a 15-minute long jam followed by a 7-minute long keyboard solo. It was never properly released. I'm not sure why I thought playing 20 seconds of the main riff for an audience at the tail end of an already-long medley of slightly less obscure material in my High School caf was a good move. Kudos to the emcee for quite rightly clapping me off.
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21. |
My Canadian Christmas
03:39
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This is the point at which you'd be changing discs if this were a double LP (CD obviously). So get up and do a spin or something, I dunno. Roll your shoulders back, get yourself a treat.
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9TH GRADE
I had acquired a cheap and refurbished eMac. This education model was what we were able to edit our video projects in 7th grade computer class. There were only two machines in the whole room. How grand this magic interface seemed at the end of the room filled with plebby Compaqs. The dozens of "Think Different" posters around the room helped. I don't know if that marketing campaign worked for grown-ups, but it certainly sold me.
So did Garageband. Built in amps? Loops? Keyboard sounds? Musical typing? Quantizing? I was in love. The first main fruit of this labor was a seasonal Christmas album called, The Christmas Album, released that first fall of High School. 6 standards and 1 original song. I recorded the album over several late night sessions, my computer sitting on the floor, me down there to meet it. Keeping my voice and playing down for my family, it produced an odd flavor. I sold copies for $1. I think I managed to sell 30-40 of them in school and at the same open mic night from the previous two tracks. My most prolific (ergo environmentally unsound) release, I've heard from people who have found it in a basement or gutter or suitcase many years later. Usually the identities of those people have surprised me.
This track, an original, was inspired by my love of the twangy and very 90s theme song to The Kids in the Hall by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. I don't think it has anything to with Christmas but my child-of-the-90s vibe is going to persist from here on out.
I got to play this song live once at open mic, one Christmas later, with three members of a band of upperclassmen who took a shine to me and this tune. We also performed two songs from Tommy poorly. No surprises at all there.
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22. |
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9TH GRADE
Also from The Christmas Album, comes the most tolerable cover of a standard tune (otherwise, Jingle Bells, Greensleeves, Rudolph, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas; I was very edgy at the time and refused the beauty of sacred music).
I guess the ubiquitous-in-my-home version by The Pointer Sisters shooed me away from performing anything but the first verse over and over. Note the hushed vocals so mom & dad don't wake (boy does this kid want to finish puberty, too) and the goofing around with different keyboard sounds (all performed with the keyboard typing feature in the home row) and drum loops. 9th grade was hard, but this seemed to be a happy time.
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23. |
The Jasmine
01:46
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9TH GRADE
This tune was never released anywhere but on MySpace! Oh, MySpace! How I miss your music page. A limit of four songs but all the photos you could dream of! I don't even remember what I called my music page? Was it just my name (Bill, at the time)? I remember putting this song up there as MySpace exclusive.
This reminds me: I went to the MySpace Music Tour (at Hammerstein Ballroom) to see Polysics as the opening act for a bunch of sort-of famous bands and left after my folks played
Maybe I was really trying to be a in a surf rock band or something, I dunno.
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24. |
Techie's Delight
03:07
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9TH GRADE
This song got pole position on my MySpace page. Why should it? It's all (royalty-free!) loops! I can't find most of these loops in the current Apple OS; they're real bangers, aren't they? This song only ever appeared on my final juvenile album: "The Best of Bill, Vol 2: Collective Jargon," called such as nothing on it, besides the Christmas stuff, had ever been released anywhere but MySpace. I recorded a few original songs just for that album and they are truly terrible. One of them has the vocals out-of-sync for the entire song. The Garageband files are long-since dead so I have no way of knowing how I meant for it to sound.
You'll also notice a general lack of vocals in this stretch, caused by a combination of marginally increased talent in my various instruments and also the awkward time that is puberty. My voice took years to recover. I've always been quite tone deaf but, if you can believe it, puberty made it worse and I lost all control of knowing where my voice was. Besides, I had a fun new toy in the form of a computer. With loops!
I think I thought this song was "techno" but now, as a theatre person, I can see the tech team getting into this tune. Maybe.
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25. |
Joe
09:48
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"Feed the children and all that stuff/Cure the diseases and all that stuff"
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9TH GRADE
It's really hard to believe that this was only a year after "Freaky Dan." The eMac really changed a lot.
Is this my late-career masterpiece? I have a short edit that I used for MySpace (that had a time limit), but this is the full suite. Dedicated to my dear friend, Joe, who I met in 1st period English this year and who was the first person to ever want to listen to these songs. I think he answered a MySpace bulletin post or something and got this song as a tribute. Of course, Freaky Dan had to come back. It's Judy's turn to cry, etc. With my first taste of local fame, came my first effort to self-canonize. Luckily, I had abandoned Joshaa permanently. Fortunately, Freaky Dan has always been a part of me. And so has Joe. Miss ya, Joe.
Joe later shared my MySpace tracks on an online Pictionary chat game with strangers and this fortuitous choice brought me in contact with the talented and wonderful JeniSage who clicked the link. One of my favorite people in the world, she was my first internet pal, later real pal, later later professional opera job reference (got the gig and I got to live in her hometown for a summer! wild!), and still great friend. There was another song that did around this time that was also a dedication for folks through MySpace and to which JeniSage was the 1st responder and prime recipient. Sadly, that song doesn't equal the quality of the friend for which it is based! PS her songs from her childhood are MUCH better than mine.
I really do hate Bono.
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26. |
Tri Attack
03:54
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9TH GRADE
Then I got a drum set. My piano teacher became my drum teacher on-and-off, and I recorded a number of thrashy, clumsy bits through the little mic in the body of my computer. This riffy jam, named after a Pokémon move for some reason (I guess it's supposed to sound like the way that move feels), has a really awesome middle bit that is only as cool as it is entirely by accident. Another MySpace track, it formally debuted on the aforementioned Best of Vol 2.
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27. |
The Oceans of Pain
02:39
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10TH GRADE
During this year, I stepped into Music Theory II, which was really Music Tech. We spent the year scoring little short videos and mostly messing around in Digital Performer and Garageband. Each student had a Mac now(!!) and a Korg X5D synth to go with it. I loved this stupid synth so much that I got one and it acts as my MIDI controller and performance keyboard to this day. I have no standards.
The fruits of this year's labors was the album, Bill Remmers in Simeoneland, 8 tracks all recorded during class time. Thanks, Mr. Simeone! For some reason, the songs all took on similar name formats. Missing here: The Blues of Doom, Final Project of Death, and Wannabe of Kill (this Spice Girls song done very badly). Around this time, my focus in film began to eclipse that of my interest in music and that cinematic interest starts to take hold with overblown instrumentals like this, all of which are half tongue-in-cheek, half completely unabashed.
I have no idea why this song starts with so much silence. Maybe it's a sequel to The Kidnapping.
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28. |
Youth in Asia
05:17
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10TH GRADE
The Final Project from the class just mentioned was a three-minute version of this tune that I took home, luckily had the same software and keyboard now, and fleshed out into the full version I wanted it to be. The main riff was originally written on guitar (try it, it's really pleasant) but converted to the over-velocity-sensitive synth for this overblown ballad.
I think I tried to write words once, but the tune was already there and I stood no chance of making anything scan. Perhaps the title is in bad taste, but it's definitely better than "Final Project of Death." Honestly, I genuinely thought that's what Dr. Kevorkian was all about when I overheard the news growing up and I know I'm not alone there.
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29. |
Doin' Cocaine
03:19
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"Got some powder on my shoes/Although I increase my chances of heart attack or stroke"
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10TH GRADE
This might have actually been 11th grade but I can't be sure. It was written for Health class. If you've ever been in a public school Health class, you'll know that they are an absolute joke. I think the answers were printed on the back of every test. At any opportunity, I opted to shoot a video or record/perform a song instead of presenting some poster I had made about the dangers of meth or whatever.
So, I wrote this horrible parody in maybe 30 seconds, changing barely any of the words, and meeting the project requirements by fitting in the necessary and prosaic dry facts about cocaine. I wish I still had the Garageband file for this because there are some weird little vocal bits I wish I could hear solo. I'd probably regret doing that though, if it was possible.
For the performance, I brought in a CD with the song, passed out lyric sheets, and played rhythm guitar along while the CD did the rest. Easy A.
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30. |
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10TH GRADE
Then for English, we had to film soap operas! A video project! Well, seeing as I saw my life heading this direction (Ryan, too, I think) we really put our all into our projects, made for two different teachers (one of the sad years when we weren't in the same English class). Ryan's film, Big Kills in Little Italy featured me, and mine, The Survivors, featured him. They were both sprawling gangster epics around 13 minutes long with little kids playing with cap guns and plots so unfollowable as to be downright evasive.
I wrote five music cues for the project, three of which are included here. Main Theme is a parody of movie music, played as a downtrodden criminal tells his life story in voice over. The film was not praised for its subtlety.
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31. |
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Later in the film, there is a big chase and shootout sequence. This is the music for that. In the film, it's more dynamic, cutting back to the intro and coming back in full force for a surprise ending. Like every good OST, I've frustrated any one who has seen the film by presenting the music the way it was given to the filmmaker before the filmmaker had their way with it. Everyone would prefer it the filmmaker's way.
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32. |
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The chords from before are back but at their most hackneyed Coldplay/Truman Showy. This is the music car commercials use to tell you that their corporation is good for society and our advancement and they reuse Koyaanisqatsi imagery to mean the exact opposite of what Reggio wanted.
In my movie, my Dad pulled up in a fan and a bunch of gangsters in winter coats got out, stood on my sidewalk, and shot Ryan to death with a hail of cap gun rounds. Kids, man.
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33. |
Sweet Child O' Mine
01:04
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"Cause I'm Axl Rose, Sweet Child O' Mine"
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10TH GRADE
I went on a cruise and came back with a great idea (I remember this connection because another kid I met on the cruise did the art for the MySpace page): a new cover/parody solo act: Bill's Mandolin Death Party aka BMDP.
I released 4 covers, all on MySpace only, of which this is the best. I chose the song because it was on some mandolin tab page I found. Also: Black Dog, You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, and She's an Angel.
Someone once told me that every Zeppelin song is Robert Plant singing "Robert Plant" over and over. I'm not sure who that was and, even though it doesn't make any sense or carry any truth, it infected my Axl.
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34. |
Every Night / The End
04:55
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10TH GRADE
In the summer before 11th, really. This was one of several recordings made for someone's birthday present. I made an EP of British rock covers that have never otherwise seen the light of day. I'm not sure the disc was ever listened to. It was eventually returned to me.
After ripping off the structure of The End in 8th grade on JOSHAA, I made amends by being as faithful I could do those legendary solos. Every Night is an underknown McCartney track from his debut album, recorded as a big messy jubilant solo effort. I've always connected with that album, for obvious reasons.
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35. |
Three Letters
02:13
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Also unreleased until now. I deleted this song out of embarrassment and when the original CD finally came my way, I came to really appreciate what it represented: my weird attempt at a love song. It's cute and different enough from everything else that I would regret not finally releasing it.
Hear the cracks in the voice and the nasality? Puberty is just starting to release its vocal hold and, in its place, my deviated septum (later to be surgically corrected) caused havoc all around the ENT area.
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36. |
Mr. Me
02:09
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11TH GRADE
My TMBG fanhood took off here and this cover tune displays the subsequent awe. This band opened up my mind to completely different types of songwriting and demeanor. I have never been in love with "comedy music," and have loved the way they tread that line carefully (like the Bonzos did, too, I'd be glad to learn much later).
This recording was the most fun I have ever had recording something and was the first and only time that I used the lo-fi limitations of the eMac microphone to my advantage.
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37. |
Live Like Pigs
02:18
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11TH GRADE
This is text from an officially unreleased fake interview used as advertising for TMBG. A call-to-action was given asking for covers for unreleased TMBG tunes and this snippet of bizarre spoken word was included as an option. So I set the words to music, doing the best version of a loungy 60s vibe I could manage. I recorded this while my room was in disarray (I don't remember why), the drum kit reduced to just snare and hi-hat. I spaffed it out just in time for Dad to chastise me for making so much noise and also to come down for dinner.
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38. |
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"I'm the guy who likes to rap"
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12TH GRADE
I made my Robert Altman-but-with-kids movie, Driving Songs, in the final winter of high school. The 45-minute film featured a number of stolen songs that I loved but also required one song that the lead character found distasteful. I felt bad insulting a real artist (even for an audience limited to those that could fit into the school's auditorium), so I made this song as something to be playing in the radio for the character to ridicule. I guess it's supposed to be Crunk or something. I actually sort of like it.
I used the town/frown rhyme in a number of songs I found during this search. It's my beauty/duty, I guess.
I think this song and its context accurately represents this point in my life when I was dead-set on going to film school and music was just for fun.
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39. |
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"I feel the friendly Circle reminds me/Of the dirty trains I left at home"
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12TH GRADE
Then the influence of Gilbert & Sullivan (and, with it, opera and musical theatre) took hold. I worked at the library part-time and spent hours reading tour books for various parts of the UK, checking them out and imagining that first overseas trip.
From this came a rock opera, only ever called "England," about a dystopian future, an American tourist who comes to save the country through a noble self-sacrifice (Jesus Christ, Bill...), and a fascistic super-power who abuses all that makes England great. The big opening number introducing the lead characters was this song about The Tube written entirely in the stalls of the library while looking at an outdated TfL map.
In spite of the retrospective cringe, I must admit that the lyrics of this song have popped into my head a couple of times in London and helped me remember a necessary interchange.
There are a number of other songs and songlets for this show written over the years (even into my 2nd year of college). I'll bring it back someday now that I am nothing but cynical about big, stupid stageshows. I'd love to lean into the trashness and the earnestness.
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40. |
Westminster Abbey
06:57
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"In the Abbey of Norman/No one dares support the poor man/Or the columns or the arches in the Undercroft"
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12TH GRADE
Before writing "The Underground," I wrote this song, the Act I finale of "England," under similar auspices, reading a book about Westminster Abbey while slacking at the library.
I submitted the date-littered lyrics to the literary magazine who, during anonymous review session, said that it could only be published with footnotes. Luckily, I was the Editor-in-Chief and saw that it was unadorned, but mono struck me down in the spring during editing week and I was demoted to Co-Editor-in-Chief along with the Junior who did all the work. At the time, I was peeved by this act of God, but in the days of quarantine years and years later... fair dues, mate. Both of the tracks were eventually released on a compilation CD of student tracks included with the magazine (a first, and possibly only, for the periodical). There was also a DVD of our short films included. Probably the best circulation I ever got.
Also, by this point, I had got an accordion. Never got very good at it, but it makes a nice show here and would serve as my string surrogate on adult material. I have a strong fondness for these two songs as they were my first attempts at writing an actual song and are antecedents of adult, "William," material that I'm not embarrassed by. As I learned with "Birth of Joshaa," it pays to prepare.
When I finally visited London years later, this was the first sight I saw on my first full day. I cried. Is that odd?
After getting my tonsils taken out, I lost my ability to do screams like that. RIP, screams.
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41. |
Here's a How-De-Do!
01:16
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12TH GRADE+
G&S have officially arrived. Recorded just weeks before leaving for college, this punk rock cover was recorded before I ever had any idea that I would appear in half-a-dozen productions of The Mikado and countless concerts. I was really gaga for this Victorian operetta stuff, and I didn't have any other way to show it besides rock n roll. Only ever released on YouTube, it feels important to include it here as part of the final transition into adulthood.
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42. |
Golden Slippers
03:40
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13TH GRADE
Finally, I got a laptop, brought it downstairs and, for the first time, recorded my acoustic piano banging away. I had this bluegrass standard chart included with a mandolin instructional video. I recorded a multi-cam video performance of all the instruments (you can hear I also finally got a mixer for the drums; and I worked myself up a drummer for them, as well).
I never edited the video. The raw footage of all these parts sits on and old hard drive, but I don't think anyone wants to see 18-year-old being twee.
Still. it might make fun publicity....?
Much love to Mom and Dad and, of course, Uncle Warren.
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43. |
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Thanks for joining me on this airing of dirty ghosts. I love you.
---
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William Remmers New York, New York
William Remmers has been doing music since he was a prattling babe.
Proud member of THE LUNCH BOYS lunchboys.bandcamp.com
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