Updated: Request on page two

It's been about 6 months since we split this thing up, and although we still play together from time to time we're obviously not coming back to the old material. Neither of these songs was finished, I suppose. I had two takes on Mulled...one with a decent vocal track but terrible playing and one the other way 'round, so I swapped vocals. We were very close to done, but hadn't decided how to approach the breakdown after each verse yet. It shows. The music came out of a jam, and lyrically this is the only track not written by me. Our drummer wrote the lines.

D OVR was another jam that grew into something more, but it was earlier in the process and so the recording isn't quite as great. Some of the lyrics weren't finished, so about 1/3 of the lines are just off the top of my head as we play.

They sound pretty good to my ears, though. The saddest thing is that they sounded better live than any of the other songs, so if we'd finished up and gotten better recordings it would have been a hell of a thing.

Unearthing and cleaning them up made me melancholy. I miss my band.

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1. Bombs Fall
2. Unspent Ammunition
3. Mulled Over Pipe Dream
4. A City of Screens
5. D OVR
6. Dead Car, Desert Sand
7. We'll Survive
8. Fate is the Hunter

Bump for We'll Survive getting put up. The other four will probably take a week or two, because they're all missing components.

I've got a few moments, so here's some of the lyrics. There was a purposeful theme going on, some of which probably requires exposure to more than one song to comprehend. These two sort of bookend the whole thing (Fate is an instrumental), and they do a good job of connecting everything.

Bombs Fall
(for the record, I didn't have any lyrics written for the bridge when we did this take, so I just sang what came to me for it. For that reason, the bridge is not included here)
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I'd rather stay here with these aces,
my name on a thousand faces,
even if there's some place else to be.

But any fool can want to die,
a locked jaw, a twinkling eye.
Any fool who wants to die just might.

Sirens scream with a steady pace,
a thousand names all sharing the same face.
I hear that siren all the time.

The horses start tearing at the reins.
Bombs fall like needles in my veins.
Any fool who wants to die just might.


We'll Survive
(I actually wrote this song for my son when he was born, with just the first verse repeated over and over. Added the rest and cut a demo, to win the band over to it. I like how it juxtaposes with Bombs Fall.)
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Each suffering failure,
it's just another chance to try.
There's no rush now to surrender.
Don't you cry. Don't you cry.

We can live it on the rough, now.
Let our errors be our guides.
We can lift ourselves up, now.
Approach it all from a different side.

In the darkest of hours,
needles scurry in the night.
We can refuse them if we want to.
Bombs may fall.
We'll survive.
Each suffering failure,
it's just another chance to try.
There's no rush now to surrender.
Don't you cry. Don't you cry.

So the world needs saving,
and the baby needs a change.
It's no chore that you're craving.
Defenses fall. The core remains.

Let your hopefullness corrupt you.
Let it burn you like a fire.
Let mythology caress you.
Fantasy can still inspire.

In the darkest of hours,
needles scurry in the night.
We can refuse them if we want to.
Bombs may fall.
We'll survive.
Each suffering failure,
it's just another chance to try.
There's no rush now to surrender.
Don't you cry. Don't you cry.

Plenty of visitors, no verbosity whatsoever. Disappointment. I know that four songs is a bit much to toss at people, and probably there's not a lot of traffic round these parts as everybody waits for the contest, but I was hoping for some thoughts on Dead Car, Desert Sand and We'll Survive, at least.

I've listened to the 4 available here. I think they are all better than the 52 street rebellion song you posted a bit ago. that was the one with the kiss cover band right? anyways vocals sound really good in survive and the first one sounded alright and second one was better though could use some bass or something. that and we'll survive were the best, wiht we;ll survive comign out on top i think

Thanks, cork.

been out for a week, i'll give this a listen one of these days.

Thanks, cono. I was wondering where you were at.

Life interrupted...specifically our drummer's life....so we won't be able to recut the needed segments for a few weeks. I guess that leaves just the four for a while. In the meantime, I've used the downtime to get Ashes of a Beautiful Day finished, and I now have two songs from the new solo disc completely mixed and mastered and ready for the song tournament.

good work man... only listened to a couple songs so far, but I'll listen to more. I'll hopefully give you a full breakdown review in the next couple days

Looking forward to that as well.

Really liking 'We'll Survive'. The chords are very simple, yet effective, and i love the built up outro, before the quiet fade. You are an extremely talented and clever lyricist - I love your imagery and the stories you tell. Downloading them all for my iPod now. What's your name?? (so I can use it for the artist). Will get back to you on the other tracks. Check out my band http://www.myspace.com/band3way

The EP is self-titled; the band's name is 52nd Street Rebellion.

Do you have any clearer recordings from your band? The playing is great.

Sadly no as the audio is ripped off the digital camera it was recorded with. thanks for the complimen. any stand out parts?? Loving Desert sand too - that's my favourite so far

The guitar work is just amazing. But the tone of it all is killing me...what equipment are you using? It just sounds fantastic...like a razor. Any chance you'll be getting some recording time in before the contest?

Dead Car was my favorite session of the whole thing. The basement we were recording in was all crumbling concrete, but it was made of three adjoining rooms. So generally we would put drums in one, electric guitar and bass in another, and any quiet instruments in the third. But we've got no headphones, so I can't always hear the soft stuff while we're playing...in this case the cello in particular....and the guy played the wrong thing on the end section. So I had him overdub the part I'd wanted him to play, an octave up to avoid swamping it, and it gave it a great feel, almost like a low male choir. So we redid the organ to match and added some voices higher up, and that's where that instrumentation that sneaks up in the end came from. But cutting the takes was great...nobody was drunk, for a change (that always slows it down), and the mood was just incredible. I think I remember I'd had a cold, and I like that it gave my voice a bit of fragility.

Gonna take our convo to PM - don't want to disrupt your song page.

i DL'd these and will give a listen to tomorrow.

I got some devastating news today. The drummer in the band, who is the musician I'm closest to and is probably my closest friend in Omaha, got a job in North Carolina. He leaves in a week.

So we'll never get to finish up D OVR or Fate is the Hunter.

Mulled we cut the rest of the tracks for, so I'll get that up eventually. A City of Screens I cut by myself for the solo disc. The others I'll probably put up the demos for.

I probably don't care much for playing with the other guys minus Dan. Losing a friend sucks. Losing a friend and the band sucks more.

definatly sucks. my old band I wrote half the songs and the singer wrote half. he also sang my songs better than I ever could. anyways he left to go to ottawa and the band fell apart. I tryed playing with the drummer for a bit later on but its good to have someone to almost "confide" in musically.

Yeah. I'll have to see if I can round anybody up. It's hard because Omaha, like any place really in the Midwest, is mostly full of young metal bands and old cover acts. Unless you want to go college emo band, which is worth uh, what'sit, nothing.

I think I'm going to get over this loss by making some weird goddamn music. I've already started toying around with my recording methods and dissolving some of my songwriting tendencies. And now I just spent $200 on these:

I definitely like We'll Survive. I listened to it without noticing that I was listening to someone who isn't a bigger named musician, and that is a compliment.