ben wakeman : : Journal

The Truth Can't Set You Free

July 28, 2005

So I've been busier than a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest (a nod to the rich anecdotal heritage of the south) which is my only excuse for not writing at all this month. I have been doing a tremendous amount of freelance work in addition to my usual day gig. I am in the planning stages for a complete redesign of Eddie's Attic. It's hard to believe it's been 9 years since I did the original site. Catherine and I are also in the process of saving and planning for our trip to Tuscany in September.

In other news, I have begun a co-writing experiement with my friend Kristian Bush now of Sugarland fame. I've never attempted a long distance co-write before, but I look forward to the challenge. I finally got a moment to do some more recording on Tuesday night and layed down something that is kind of bizarre, but fun I think --- at least in the way that I did it. I had a couple of verse lyrics scribbled on a piece of paper. The idea was kind of dark in nature, so I played around with a dropped D tuning and came up with kindof a sinister groove. Next I sampled a couple of household items (kid's wood blocks, a water glass, etc.) to create a percussion loop. Finally I layed all the music down and just started experimenting with vocals.

The B part of the song, which I guess you could call a chorus did not have any words at first. I just began to sing wide open over the changes, experimenting with various sounds and phrases, paying more attention to the feel than the meaning. The result is I think pretty cool -- and in it's own subliminal kind of way works in the context of the verse lyrics. Lately I've surrendered to the temptation to write pieces of music that don't formally work as "songs" meaning there is no definitive chorus that summarizes the song and hits you over the head with a tagline -- in this case, the actual story of the story song is unfinished. In a way it seemed more interesting to leave the ending up in the air, because this is more the way life actually works.

Anyway, enough about the song. Listen to the rough demo for yourself:

The Truth Can't Set You Free

Tomorrow night I head up to the mountains again and I'm really looking forward to the break. Catherine will be up in Maine with her Mom so the boys and I will have a couple of days to spend hiking, fishing and playing. Ian is taking Guitar lessons now and I'm so proud of his progress already. Hopefully I will have a chance to do some playing together. I also hope to get back to taking pictures again so I'll have some new images for the site.