Steps...Footsteps

Question: What do you call a guy that hangs out with four musicians? Answer: “the drummer.” In my life I have never claimed to be musically inclined. Even now I cannot carry a tune if it was in a bucket. When I first picked up a drum stick and started to make noise, I was not any good. With lots of practice and encouragement from those around me, I improved. When I first started playing with Only Anything, I was not able to play any of the covers that they played. Most of that reasoning might do with the fact that I could not ‘mimic’ the drumming in those songs; I simply was not good enough. So I played the songs that “the Jons” and Mat wrote. The first being some ska song (I can’t even remember the name, but the tune and some of the lyrics still ring though my mind). Kelby Thwaits and a couple others would pass the drum sticks around and play all of the other songs. I practiced as many times as I could. I remember one day coming home from school and the others were playing a new song. It sounded cool. I remember Mat was playing the drums when I walked in. I listened for a couple minutes and then they told me to sit down and play the same thing Mat was. I tried the beat, and was quite sloppy at first but picked up on it fairly quick. The song is “footsteps to a castle.” This is the first song that I really felt like “I got it.” Footsteps was a big [foot]step for me, a sort of turning point of being able to enjoy a rock with the others. The song has not evolved or changed too much over time, it still has the same drum beat and song that it was back then. It is not a tough song to play, but I really enjoyed playing it, because the song rocks!!

--Joe

Revision (Vader revisited)

Only Anything was interested in improving itself. We recognized that we could be better and we wanted to be better. In fact, one of the most satisfying things of playing music is this steady creeping forward in skill and competence.

When we released Space Capers, I was excited about Vader--I thought it was the best song that I had had a hand in writing so far. But I was disappointed when one listener told me that they liked the song, but couldn't understand any of the lyrics. That concerned me--especially since I liked the sound of the vocal track so much.

The recording on Spacecapers was very studio-y: in addition to the funky vocal track, it had several overdubs that we couldn't reproduce live. (One of them I especially love: Jon added an acoustic guitar to the verse that you can hear well in the first minute or so of the song.) After playing the song several times live, we made up for these losses with other dynamic changes. We added a pause after the main guitar riff; we brought the tempo up slightly, and in playing it often--post recording--the song started to evolve and get more "tight." And people really responded to it. I remember playing it at a Battle of the Bands at Rincon High where we brought out a large cut out of Vader during the song. The crowd went wild and we won the battle.

So, when we were working on putting together a collection of songs to appear on our cd, we wanted to include Vader, but I was remiss to release the same song again with a vocal track (as much as I loved it) that others couldn't understand. So we rerecorded the song and brought to the recording the togetherness and polish of our live performance. I have am pleased with the results which met the need of making the song more accessible. I also really love listening to the band's improved musicianship from one recording to the next.

That said, my preference is for the original recording. I love those overdubs, the Vader sound bites, and the crazy vocal effects. While the second recording is a great from a technical perspective, I think that the original displays more creativity.

What do you think?

Vader II

--Stone

Vader lyrics

Vader
I've got my helmet.
The Death Star is stacked.
The Rebellion is growing so I must be going
on a counter attack!

With our dark Emperor,
and ten thousand men,
there really is no match for me,
the dark side prospers
can't you see?

And never will I be a man again
and the sun only clouds my eyes
when once before--but once, never again!
I simply fall back more into disguise.

I need some love son
cut off my arm!
I am bad, you are good do what you should
go save the galaxy tonight.
Electric Lightning spews from wrinkled hands
But the Helmet stops it all
The Helmet takes one last stand

And never will I be that man again
Let me see you with my own eyes
the helmet is removed slowly and then...
the brave, heroic man Darth Vader dies.

Song writing, collaboration, and Vader

Song writing in Only Anything was usually a personal endeavor. Jon or I would come up with a song--usually nearly complete--bring it to practice and teach it to each other and the other band members. Jon was exceptionally meticulous about this process and would often draw up music including tablature and chords for the different parts in the song. He would spend a lot of time teaching me these guitar parts and was always patient, as I was typically slow to pick them up. Usually he'd leave some section of the song open where I could rock a solo free-style. I always liked those parts.

My songwriting/sharing process was similar. Though, usually I would usually leave it up to Jon to come up with his own parts for my songs. They were always good and usually made the song all that much better.

We didn't often write songs together. But we probably should have. Our one true collaboration came on a song written and recorded for the Space Capers album called Vader.

Vader started out as two quite different sections, each with their own words, that we stuck together. My section was the first driving riff that runs through the first half of the song, and Jon's comes in near the end as a kind of reflective response to the first section.

Though, as I mention, each section originally had its own lyrics, my lyrics were explicitly about Darth Vader--written in the first person as if Vader were actually singing them. I don't think Jon's words were about Darth Vader, and were eventually dropped.

I remember recording the vocal track for the song. I used several guitar effects pedals to alter the sound of my voice--while I didn't want to sound like James Earl Jones's Vader, but I did want the vocal to sound machine-y. I used a a flange pedal to give it that other-worldliness, and then a delay pedal to give it a funky echo. I love how it turned out.

Check it: Vader (oh, and don't you love the sound clip from Empire? I love how the feedback starts right when ol' Darth says "But you're not a Jedi yet." Classic.)

--Stone