Musical Scurvy

I was feeling creatively plugged up yesterday. You know the kind of feeling...when the projects you're working on just aren't moving, no ideas are forthcoming, and you're somewhat grumpy as a result. I just wasn't sure what my damage was.

Today, I was working on some design projects, and listening to some scratch tracks of my songwriting projects from 2008, primarily 80s-ish rock. To my surprise, I was suddenly getting ideas and inspiration left and right to finalize some of those songs....which I did tonight.

Which leads me to the title of this post. I've long known that I love writing in a wide variety of musical styles, so I would think that I'd remember that it's vital that I not focus too closely on one particular project in one particular style. To do so always causes stagnation and burnout, and ultimately makes me less creative as a whole. I liken it to food groups: yeah, you can survive for a while eating just beef jerky, but you'll end up getting scurvy. Likewise, I love the video projects I've been working on, but I have to remember to touch on the other genres I enjoy: musicals, 80s rock, noise, celtic...they all go into the mix to form what I write. To ignore a genre is to ignore a basic part of my creativity, and when that happens...yeah, musical scurvy. Blech.

So anyway, here's the track I was working on tonight. Very 80s-rock, but hey, it's like leafy greens to me. Rock on.

 
She's Running Away (2012 Mix)

Bear With Me

(This doesn't have much to do with music...but it stems from the research I've done in movies for music, and it amused me on a Monday morning. Thus, we go with it.)

Over the past month or two, I've been watching a lot of horror movies, particularly for the music. But it hasn't been an entirely technical adventure...I've really enjoyed the movies I've been watching. Except for maybe Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Part of the problem I had with it was it had essentially no plot. I summarized it this way:

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: One by one, five teenagers wander into a cave and are eaten by bears.

I was discussing it with a friend (Mark the Movieman!), and mentioned how the last 15 minutes or so were just uncomfortable. He compared it to I Spit On Your Grave, another movie that can be uncomfortable to watch. So, I watched it. I liked it more than TCM, in that it had more of a conflict-driven plot. I summarized that as so:

I Spit On Your Grave: A woman survives a horrific bear attack, and decides to hunt them down and kill them. To do so, she pretends that she really, really likes bears.

I then realized that damn near any horror movie can be summarized as if it's about bears. (OK, yeah, I was getting silly here):

Halloween: A bear escapes the zoo, and terrorizes a suburb. It is shot six times, but still escapes.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: Kids are eaten by bears in their dreams.

Child's Play: People are mauled by a teddy bear.

Fright Night: No one believes a teenager when he says that a bear is in the woods next to his house. He enlists Marlon Perkins to help him get rid of the bear.

Friday the 13^th: Mother bear goes on a rampage after teenagers inadvertently kill her cub.

Hellreaiser: A man plays with an ancient hunting call and inadvertently summons bears. 

Jaws: People go into the woods, and are eaten by bears.

Chopping Mall: Horny teenagers are locked in the zoo overnight, and are eaten by bears.

The Ring: Teenagers are eaten by bears seven days after watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.

From my good friend Mark the Movieman:

"Alien: People on a camping trip end up chasing a bear cub into a cave and end up waking up a Hibernating bear who attacks them one by one."

I can't decide if the bear summary works once you get outside of horror:

Star Wars: Bears overrun the galaxy. A young man learns biology and blows up their cave.

Harry Potter: A young child inexplicably survives a bear attack that kills his parents. He goes to school to become a zookeeper, but his fights with bears are not over...

Titanic: A luxury ship is attacked by polar bears.

Those may be stretching it a bit, but I gotta say....I would watch the hell out of that version of Titanic.

What do you say? What else can be summarized with bears?

Just a bit of goofing around

Absolutely nothing deeper involved with this one....just a bit of goofing around. Honestly, is there anything better than a Saturday morning, a cup of coffee, and Logic? Largely built around sampled instruments, but the harmonica and jaw harp at the end are real. Far easier to just haul out a microphone than to try and get a sampler to sound anywhere near real, in spite of occasional wrong notes.

 

(My player is Flash, so it doesn't work on iOS. Here's a link to the mp3.)

Anyway, I'm relatively sure that the melody is from Somewhere Else. Anybody have any ideas?