Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Ha. I kinda like that. Write the best five songs I can, put 'em on an album called "Five Things That Happened To Me."

  • Samuel L. Jackson Almost Got Me Killed And Then Saved My Life

  • The Best Balloon Artist On The Eastern Seaboard

  • Trademark Say What

  • Smokin' With NPH

  • Banned From The Ballooniverse By A Bitch Named Twinkles

  • George Takei Briefly Wanted My Nuts

  • I Didn't Win An Emmy, But I Kinda Won An Emmy

  • Shia Labeouf Bought Me Tacos (And All I Got Was Tacos)

  • Snuck A Cute Girl Into A Stranger's Mansion For Lovin'

  • Worked On The Same Damn Web Film For Ten Years (And I'm Not Even Trey)

  • Lived To See Someone Do A Rail Off Of Naked Boobies

  • Doing Magic On Television Pt. 1 (Sleight of Hand)

  • Doing Magic On Television Pt. 2 (The Collapse of Stonehenge)

I can see the platinum from here.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Now you're talking.

If you only need five songs then you could just stick to the celebrity tales and call the album Brushes With Greatness or summat.

Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

I'd wanna include Twinkles on such a thing. She'd love that.*


*would not

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Well, that one is by far the best title, too...

Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

This is probably not gonna help, but the instant you talked about a concept album, I was sold.

This is purely me, though. My musical tastes dwell in the progressive world, and as I've already explained with the "Your 5 favorite albums" thread, concept albums are what I love the most. They're like a movie. They tell you a story, using music to convey emotions.

(and I realize I feel the same way about video games; no wonder I like the Half-Life and Portal series so much)

Anyway. My very subjective two cents.

Sébastien Fraud
Instagram |Facebook

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Teague wrote:
  • Samuel L. Jackson Almost Got Me Killed And Then Saved My Life

  • The Best Balloon Artist On The Eastern Seaboard

  • Trademark Say What

  • Smokin' With NPH

  • Banned From The Ballooniverse By A Bitch Named Twinkles

  • George Takei Briefly Wanted My Nuts

  • I Didn't Win An Emmy, But I Kinda Won An Emmy

  • Shia Labeouf Bought Me Tacos (And All I Got Was Tacos)

  • Snuck A Cute Girl Into A Stranger's Mansion For Lovin'

  • Worked On The Same Damn Web Film For Ten Years (And I'm Not Even Trey)

  • Lived To See Someone Do A Rail Off Of Naked Boobies

  • Doing Magic On Television Pt. 1 (Sleight of Hand)

  • Doing Magic On Television Pt. 2 (The Collapse of Stonehenge)

If that's not gonna be the actual album I'm gonna be super pissed.

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Teague wrote:

In the absence of a musical number or a "quick funny song" prompt, you're just a guy with the ability to say something to the world. What do you say? How do you say it? What are you going to sing about, and by the way, pick a style.

Styles exist because certain combinations of sounds worked in concert with certain ideals in the heads of the styles' originators at the time of said style's conception. Therefore thinking specifically about styles is the best way to either have a very clear idea of the song from the beginning, or to write yourself into a wall. Unfortunately it's usually the latter.

Also:

What you're saying and how you say it are inseparable. Obvious example: the general idea of "I love this girl and she doesn't love me back" has been stated countless times in countless songs, but the way one says it is what keeps it fresh. Not that you don't know this, but it's worth repeating.

Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Don't fall into the hole of genre-definitions. Look at Thirty Seconds To Mars' latest album. I don't even know what genre this is anymore. It's appealing, and culmination of various themes and genres, sometimes even instrumental. Don't feel like your album should have a defined genre either. Look at Fall out boy. Their latest album is a mixture of emo, rock, pop, hip hop, funk and.... I don't even know.

Just because one song is directed towards electronica, doesn't mean the next one should be. If you want to do one black metal song, and then some dubstep, who's stopping you?

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Ben Folds writes a TON of songs about other people (Annie Waits, Fred Jones, Alice Childress, Claire's Ninth, etc. etc.) because he thinks that writing in the first person often comes across as emotionally lewd.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

I believe I have cracked the case.

I don't think this is how you're supposed to be a serious songwriter, but fuck that, I'm just writing songs that are fun and enjoyable. Not like I'm trying to write "Hallelujah" over here, shit. Anyway, my trick is just come up with a whole list of cool sounding name-ish prompts and write songs with those for titles. Already I've gotten four new songs down, all four of which I'd be okay with on an album. This is good news.

To give you an idea, here's one of my favorites from the list of about fifty phrases I came up with:

"The Overwhelming Tragedy of Floyd's Knobs"

Do I have a song that could use that as the title? Fuck no. Can I write a song to fit that title? Bitch please.

This has proven most helpful.




Also, it's possible my album will make no goddamned sense.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Teague should write a Chinese rock opera...
don't ask me why. I just figured that bend many genres and break many ears wink

God loves you!

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

This album should include a cover of "He Tried to Kill Me with a Forklift" from the Fugitive Alien episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

That is all.

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Please, please actually call this album "An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This." Or at least one of the two halves.

All 3 possibilities have the most of the ring.

Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Alex wrote:

Please, please actually call this album "An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This." Or at least one of the two halves.

All 3 possibilities have the most of the ring.

I thought that was the name...

No, it must be the name of the album! It must be so!

God loves you!

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

I am not fully opposed to naming the album some permutation of this thread title.

Anyway.

Since said breakthrough, I've gotten down about ten Worthwhile Song Snippets, wherein I've figured out a tonic space (chord progression, melody area, harmony area) and a "voice" for a particular song idea, and fleshed it out to at least a verse and a chorus to remind myself later what such a song would be like. This is my new strategy: from my list of fifty song titles, I want to get twenty song snippets down by one week before I leave for Boston. (Which is now happening on the 8th, so I wanna be done with twenty snippets by Monday the 1st.) At this point, I'll either whittle down what I have to my ten favorite ideas, or just send all twenty as-is to Andy and Alex, and see which ones they think have the most potential.

In any case, over-deliver a week in advance, and spend the last week tightening up the "selects." By the end of that period, I hope to have seven Fully Written Songs to take with me to Boston, from which we'll pick the best five or so for the album. (And presumably they'll end up going through a couple more rewrites through the rehearsal / tracking process.) As I said, I've got ten so far; ten proto-songs. If you've hung out in the live chat, you know the song "Mister Perfect?" Like that. Enough of a song that you know what the song is, but only about fifty seconds long.

It's worth noting that I consider getting to Worthwhile Song Snippet phase the hard part - after you have that stuff, it's just a matter of writing more words and a bridge. Much easier than coming up with the functional bits of the basic song construction. For me, anyway. (Faking this, remember?)

Since I'm in the spirit of sharing, I'll give ya ten song titles. Who knows if you'll ever hear any of these, or if they'll have the same name when you do.

I'm Not Crazy About Radiohead
Writing A Letter (To Your Mom and Dad)
This Pen Sucks
When Will You Be The Past
I Like Your Stupid Face Just In General
It's Not You, It's Her
Some Kind Of Calamity
Recently Outlawed Hairdos
Little Kid With A Gun
The Insidious Communist Propaganda of Steve*

*thanks to Dorkman, for inspiring this song title in the Nightmare Before Christmas commentary

Of these, gun to my head, my top three are Writing A Letter, Recently Outlawed Hairdos, and Some Kind Of Calamity. (Honorable mention to This Pen Sucks.) But it's impossible to say. This represents at most half of what the spread will be when I start whittling it down, which means the next five songs I write could be my new five favorites, and then that again, and these wouldn't make it into the top ten.

Or the rest will suck. Who knows. Anyway, happy with the progress. God help me.




Also, planning on taking a nice video camera with me to document the Boston parts of this in video, so if anyone wants to donate a nice camera to the cause, I'll ship it back to ya when I'm done.

I'm serious. Mail me a camera. She won't get a scratch.

http://i.imm.io/19Fu6.jpeg

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http://starwarsvisualizer.ff0000.com/media//images/600px/ep6/EP6_ILM_222.jpg

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Teague wrote:

At this point, I'll either whittle down what I have to my ten favorite ideas, or just send all twenty as-is to Andy and Alex, and see which ones they think have the most potential.

Go with the former.

Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

What about writing songs about your friends, but not making it too obvious who they're about.

For instance, instead of writing the objective song "The song about how Mike hammered the gym, and looks great now", you could write something from his perspective.

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Update: I think I just wrote my new favorite song.

Not, like, favorite song of what I've written. My new favorite song.

It's called "I Feel More Like A Leonard."



















































http://i.imgur.com/7B10jZi.gif

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Coming up on it, now.

Less than two weeks out, and I want to spend the last week fleshing out my top seven songs. Additionally, I should really have that process done much sooner, so Alex can get to thinkin' about the instrumentation on the songs we're going to do.

As of right now, I have fourteen new-song snippets, and probably five old songs I could drudge up and do properly for the album. Today I'm going to write at least one more song, and start thinking in terms of narrowing it down. One more song.

Last night, my friend Meghan came over and we came up with more song names, which is really a fun activity in a group setting. I now have probably 250 song names all in, and I've loved the process I've come up with for writing songs to fit weird titles as opposed to writing titles to explain weird songs. It feels right. It also opens up the ideas tremendously and gets me out of my own way. And, because at the end of the day you're just writing songs that you think are good, you end up putting just as much of yourself and your worldview into them as you would any other way.

Here's some of my favorite names from last night's song titling session.

I Have Some Things to Say About Your Sister
Gabriel Is A Negative Zone Of Game
Alone With Our Genitals
Limp Dick Christmas Lights
Poorly Laid Plans And Hospital Visits
Six Things I Learned At Logan's Birthday
A Week Long Celebration Of Your Ass In Those Jeans
Bottomless Mimosas At San Quentin
This Rock Star Life Ain't Gonna Live Itself
Asexual Fetish
Costume Party For One
An Eventually Fatal Misunderstanding Involving Bill Nye and Bill Nighy

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Alone With Our Genitals. That's gold.

Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Honestly I think "Costume Party For One" sounds about the saddest thing you could ever listen to.

Please make it either:
A) a rowsing drinking song
B) A super hyper cheery kids song

But yeah, those are ALL amazing. So freaking looking forward to this thing!

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Yep.
I'm pretty excited to hear them.

God loves you!

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Another great song snippet today.

I am still anxious, but no longer worried. Got more than five songs I love. We're in the clear for phase one, people. This weekend begins the Reckoning.

And, in a stunning turn of events...





...why not, have a video. This is what a "song snippet" looks like, and it's for the song I wrote today. Been doing one of these a day for a month.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Teague, after all the copyright crap you went through earlier this year, and then the 4chan horror last month, and now reading about your hands on Twitter--I really just want to give you a big hug. It'll be okay, man. We believe in you.

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Re: An Album Called Leroy: Adventures in Faking This [RELEASED]

Thanks man.

http://smileys.smilchat.net/emoticon/expressions/bonjour-coucou/3d-calin.gif

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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