Little Taste...

Of something I have been working on.
This song was put together in the typical way that Josie Wallace and I have been putting our material together. She brings amazing lyrics and a melody and I figure out the instrumentation behind it. On this track she is singing, I am playing guitar, and Russell Gores is playing the upright bass.
This is just a little rough demo recorded in Russell's basement with a mic hanging from the ceiling.
This weekend we are going to start seriously recording some material for an upcoming CD.
Enjoy it! Both of these guys are very talented...

Bass Madness

Today I present the first little collaboration between myself and Teela, a monster of the washtub bass. If you arent familiar with the concept, look it up, and you will see that it is a very hard instrument to play as well as she does.
She is also the only washtub player I have ever met who can play it with a bow.
Anyways, we recorded this little ditty while we were practicing some.
I am playing Bass Banjo she is playing her newly built Washtub.
Very low frequencies abound...

Duuuuge

Here comes another jam with Doug Shafer.
I am playing bass banjo and he is playing some Turkish percussion.
Dig It....

Hmmmmm

Here is my first recording with this fancy new fangled elctro-acoustic gitane I am toying with. The recording quality is funky, since I still dont really have any clue how to properly record the thing and the song is slight, since I knocked it up in about 15 minutes to put on here, but I wanted to start putting some recordings of this crazy guitar on here as soon as I could.

Enjoy!

Continuing the theme...

Of unlikely instrument combinations:
I present a duet written for Toy Piano and Typewriter.
Enjoy the clickity-clack.
It's called The Typewriter Minuet.

HAPPY FOURSQUARE DAY!!!

Today is Foursquare Day, a holiday that my brother Nathan invented.
It is literally being celebrated the world over.
So here is a guitar solo that embodies the enduring spirit of Foursquare and reminds us that, if we want it bad enough, every day can be Foursquare Day.
Or, at least, it's a pretty ripping guitar solo.

So I Think...

This is probably the first Oud and Bass Banjo jam recorded in human history.
It is very hard to say these things with any certainty.
But it very probably could be the first such recording.
Doug Shafer, a fellow member of The Underscore Orkestra, has been coming over and recording these jams with me.
It was, in fact, his idea that my bass playing would work so well with this style of music. This will be a continuing series of recordings.
We have also been trying out the bass banjo with some North African percussion.
So, more exciting things to come!

What the kids are listening to...

Some of that rock and roll music.
Or something.
This is an old track I recorded at least a few years ago.
Found it hiding out in a dark corner of my external hard drive.
If this track proves anything it is that the ebow is indeed a mighty force.
Especially when you overdub tons of them together.

Chim Chim Cheroo

On a trip up to Seattle the other day I got this song so completely stuck in my head that when I got back in town it was the only thing I could record.
As per usual, I am playing everything but record the tracks in a manner that makes it sounds more like separate musicians playing off of each other.
I think this is, so far, my favorite thing I have done with my new recording set up.

Hmmm

Recorded this little ditty a couple of days ago.
Not really sure where it is going at the moment.
It seems to be pulling in a few different directions.
It needs some lyrics.
Enjoy!

Twisty

Here is a twisty little ditty I recorded the other day.
I wrote it for guitar but then thought it would be fun to go back and add a very sympathetic bass line. Enjoy!

Another version of the previous song

Here is a different version of The Other Half that I recorded yesterday.
It has quite a different feel.
I was very happy with how the ending turned out.
In other news, new videos will be coming up soon from some Underscore Orkestra gigs.

Lowdown at least

I showed Sweet and Lowdown to one of my room mates recently.
The famous Woody Allen film about fictional jazz guitarist Emmet Ray.
Finding that I felt not just a little bit like the ending...
I wrote and recorded this.

More Piano Material

This melody comes out of another version of this song that I am working on.
I was messing around with it on the piano and thought it sounded very nice as a little solo waltz and since the other version is pretty far from completion I decided to record this and put it up.

New (old) Track

Found this track while digging through one of my music folders.
I must have recorded it at least a year or two ago.
It's a funky little thing with some interesting guitar work called Effluvious Malodour.

What the details tell us...

Here is another ukulele ditty!
Updates have been slower than I would like, reverbnation changed its design scheme and it took some time to figure out how to implement its player with my website again.
Anyway, someone once called this song "Olympian Slam Attack".

A Foreigner's Life

Is the name of this song.
It's a little gypsy jazz ditty with me playing rhythm and lead guitar.
I hope it is roundly enjoyed.
Don't be afraid to comment.
Tell me you hate it, tell me you love it, doesn't matter to me.

More Fretless Guitar

Here is another fretless acoustic guitar track.
Hope you enjoy it!

Twentyten

Here is a new electric guitar freak out for the new year.
It's titled "Emilio Sweatervestevez"

MERRY CHRISTMAS

In honor of the Yuletide season I bring you two soon-to-be traditional Christmas tunes.
Feel free to play them at maximum volume whilst opening presents, caroling, and eating cranberry jelly in the shape of a can.

In other news, my video and "Follow Lucas On" pages are currently down because some wastrels hacked my website and decided that was the worst they could do. Should be back up in a day or two.

More Bass Banjo Demos

Here are two more preparatory Bass Banjo tracks.
They are more like statements of intent than songs at this point.
Still, the instrument is heard so rarely I want to keep putting up the stuff I have, whatever it may be, so people can keep getting a feel for it.

Ukulele Power

Thomas Pynchon once went off in a novel about how the ukulele will never be considered a serious instrument because of Westerner's subconscious feeling that pure melody is superior to chords.

Discuss.

Here are two little ukulele pieces. The first is called "Uke Piece in C" and the second is "Tea Time at The Model U.N."

Enjoy!

Side note: The track "Spasticated" on the post "What has Science Wrought!" was not streaming properly and only a few seconds were playing. The whole song is up now. You should go check that out as well.

Slow

Is what this song is.

This is a new piece with bass, acoustic guitar, and some muffled drums.
It's called Desuperpollication because that is an amazing word and, in a not-too-roundabout way, could be used to describe the feeling of the song.

More gypsy jazz

Or something like that...
Here is a little song I cooked up recently based on a trip to Seattle.
On the way there a tire exploded just outside of Tacoma.
It was not as much fun as this song.

I found a piano

Woe betide you all!

Here is the first recording I have made with my new instrument.
I still don't really feel like I have any clue how to play it.
I just put things together mechanically and because I have no shame you will all get to hear me figure out how to play it through this blog.

It wont be ALL you hear but it will become a continuing feature.

What has science wrought!

Here is a fun little ditty I cooked up recently.
It's essentially just bass and guitar but there is a little percussion filling out the background.
There still isn't enough mixed meter music in the world.
I will not rest until I hear popular cell phone ring tones that are in 9/8.
A totally modest goal.

Anyway, this track is called "Spasticated"
Because it is

(12/03 UPDATE: It was brought to my attention that only the first several seconds of this song were playing. I've fixed that and the whole thing streams now.)

Documentary Shorts Part Two

Here are four more mini-songs from the documentary soundtrack.

Documentary Shorts Part One

Today I am putting up four short pieces of music I did for a film by Rachel Wood called Monster Market. This was a fun project as I just created little one to two minute long segments of different styles of music.

Quite a few pieces came out of it but I am going to put just four of my favorites up now and then four more on Sunday.

Enjoy!

More electric freak outs

Two tracks are going up today.
Both are essentially rambling electric jazzish pieces.
However, the tone of each is quite different.

When I am recording all this stuff by myself it is fun to try and record each of the three parts in both songs (guitar, bass, drums) in such a way that it sounds like they are responding to each other. Hopefully to give the illusion that three musicians are improvising it as you are listening. After all, the parts are being improvised just not concurrently.

It is a fun challenge.
So, check out both the songs "Akhenaten's Revenge" and "Bangin' up the high handle" and don't be shy of telling me what you think.

Fretless Guitar Friday

Hopefully this little song is as powerful as that above alliteration from which, I'm sure, many of you are still struggling to recover.

Were you interested enough, the "Music" Page of the site actually has a picture of the fretless guitar which this piece was played on.
Several years ago a beat up classical guitar was put in my possession and I decided to try and convert it to the true path without frets.
The resulting creation was a Frankenstein monster whose despair at it's own existence was rivaled only by my own horror.
I tried to make it feel better by branding it with a Hand of Fatima (a traditional apotropaic device used to ward off the evil eye) but it was no use.
Tragically for it, I have a deep seated love of instruments that hate to be played.

So, here is a song that i have coaxed out of it.
The title is "He is dancing. He says that he will never die."

Boredom

...is the name of this track because that's what caused it's creation.

I came up with this little riff and then recorded it in as many styles as I had time to do before eating dinner. That ended up being enough time to record six separate sections.

Rambly Bass Material

I am putting up three songs today of bass playing.

The word "song" is pretty generous. They are more like ideas and improvisations. Still, I think they sound pretty interesting.

Halloween Post

In the spirit of the holiday I am posting two tracks I put together over the summer using some sequencing software, percussion samples, and recordings of my own material. I very quickly proved to myself why I should never be allowed access to such tools.

The results were very ridiculous.
Feel free to try and dance to either of them tonight at a Halloween party.

Dear Biondetta

...is the name of this new song.

Wrote and recorded it two days ago.
Mostly a means of documenting this riff I came up with.
Just recorded the head.
Pay particular attention to the graphic throat clearing at the beginning.

Anyone who can guess what 18th century novel the title is referring to will win....
I'm not sure what you will win.
A haiku about you?
That sounds good.
If you can guess what novel the title refers to you'll get your own haiku.
Double Points if you can tell me in a haiku.

Bass Banjo Day!

Here are some Bass Banjo demos for a top secret project that I can't tell anyone about yet. That being said, I can share ideas that are going into it.

The Bass Banjo is an instrument that i am very excited about using. No one seems to know it even exists. Not that it has gotten a great deal of exposure outside of a handful of times that Les Claypool has used it. It is a very difficult instrument and exceedingly awkward. When you play it you get the sense that the instrument very desperately does not want to exist. So, it takes a lot of wrestling and a lot of beating it into submission. I had mine for about a year before I started to make sounds with it that I thought were worthwhile.

Enjoy! You wont hear this kind of stuff anywhere else.
I've uploaded two tracks to the player below, make sure to check out both.
To hear the second song just hit the "next track" button
The two little arrows next to "play"

First Entry

Since this is the very first entry I feel a bit of explanation is in order. I have set this up as a platform to air out any old bedroom recordings i am sitting on and to put up any new bedroom recordings before they have the chance to get old and dusty. The idea is to put at least one new recording up every week. I will make no apologies for their highly variable production quality since all of them have been, or will be, recorded by me in my bedroom and my conception of recording techniques has not progressed much beyond the point-mic-at-thing-that-makes-sound level.

For the first post i have chosen to put up a song i wrote about two years ago called "Strep in Chisinau". Inspired by a friend of mine who, at the time of the recording, was laid up in the capital city of Moldova with a serious case of strep throat. Unless i mention otherwise, every song i put will have been played and recorded by me alone. Feel free to comment. I would love to engage anyone on their thoughts about these.

Click below to play: