Charlie Don't Dance

[3:12] MP3 [2.93MB] Play/Save

Date: Sat, 04 Sep 1999 15:37:53 -0700
From: Caliban Tiresias Darklock <caliban@darklock.com>

The genesis of this track was pretty odd. I started with three basic MIDI sequences audio-dumped through an Alesis D4; in the process of doing this, I accidentally overlaid one of the MIDI sequences with the recorded WAV instead of replacing it, so one of the drum loops is actually a melodic pitch-shifted 32nd note sequence of the loop. I tacked a few loops in from a couple of sample CDs, just to give it some variety, and then lowered all their volumes enough that I could stack three or four of them together without clipping.

While I was looking around for something to stick over top of the initial drum mods, I went browsing through my sample drive and ended up in the "manson" subdirectory, where I came across the "buckets of shit" sample. And I went, hey, that's like solos and standard tuning. I talk to other guitarists, people who consider themselves "modern" rock guitarists, and it always seems like they consider guitar solos an absolutely hideous concept and standard tuning something that just plain isn't done anymore. (One such guitarist outright stated that if you want to make new music, you can't do it using 60s tuning and 60s chords.) So if you assume that solos and standard tuning are buckets of shit... well, um, you know what I mean. ;)

So I started listening to more of the samples in that directory (about sixty megs worth, all told), and I just drew too many corollaries. I found it really interesting how Charles' long diatribe on "Huh?" seems to exactly match my feelings on... well, TI44K. When he goes off on how persecuted he is, that's pretty much my position on sampling. And the remorse issue? There's the whole "techno is better than rock" thing; the entire idea that if techno bands can subject *me* to TI44K and bass overload, then certainly *I* can subject *them* to guitar solos and "chugga chugga". It was clear, at this point, that the song would focus on Manson's words and opinions where they matched my views on music. When I thought about it some more, I remembered the old "Charlie Don't Surf" slogan, modified it slightly, and had a title. Suddenly everything fell into place.

It's really sort of sick how the way I feel about music matches up so closely with the way Charlie feels about murder. Fortunately, this has planted the seed of yet another concept: "Music Is Murder". My bandmate is coming over tonight at around seven, so I'll run this by him and see what we can do about this idea. If it ends up on a CD, R. Cliff and Zap will certainly deserve a place in the dedications.

Inspiration comes from the weirdest things.

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| Caliban Tiresias Darklock            caliban@darklock.com
| Darklock Communications          http://www.darklock.com/
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