The Annekenstein Monster

This song, I call a Chimp song because it was recorded during the period in which we recorded the Chimp songs. That, and it uses electric guitar while all ‘my’ other songs are acoustic. Really, though, I think it’s safe to call it a Rob song because I wrote it myself, I made all the noises on it myself after Dave went home one night, and, most importantly, it just doesn’t sound to me (or to Dave, i’m guessing) like a Chimp song.

Anyway, onto the song.

Does anyone from Charlottetown remember about 15 to 10 years ago, there were posters all around town, on telephone poles, walls, everywhere, with a picture of a guy who was missing? The poster asked ‘Have you seen this man” or something similar. I guess he committed suicide or drowned or something, so the rumours go. At any rate, the posters were up, seemingly, for years, and over the course of time, they became pretty disshevelled, some with glasses and moustaches, etc, drawn on them.
I found that lack of respect interesting enough to write a song about them. Or, at least, a verse.

“Have you seen this man” said the posters, in a pessimistic hue.
Been up for weeks on poles, uh oh, does not look good for you.
Your frightened eyes, caught by surprise,
Marker moustache and blackened eyes
Obscure your grainy face.
No sympathy for such an ugly face.

So, I had written that, and thought it’d be good to forge a song around it. Since the guy was rumoured to have drowned, I thought it made sense to talk about the harbour in which he likely drowned. Those of you who know the Charlottetown Harbour would have to agree that it’s very pretty. Not the sort of place that we’d want to associate with suicide. Especially us being a tourist town. That was the thinking that led me to the title “So Exquisite Harbour” and to the chorus.
Now I had a verse, and a chorus. I wrote the second verse about a fictional character, a nouveau hippy chick who thinks she’s ‘literary’ and drinks herbal tea. She thinks she has it together, but ends up dead in the harbour as well. Happy song!
I am not proud about the lyrics in the bridge, or for the melody of the bridge, for that matter. They aren’t horrible or anything, just not very smart or clever. Yet, it seems the song needs them to be there.
After two verses of sad-luck people I thought it needed to become a little uplifting, so I wrote the third verse about a guy (the singer of the song) who remains optimistic (he claims he won’t end up dead in the harbour like the others) despite having lost both his arms in a farming accident, and despite the fact that he pisses on himself every time he pees.

So, it ends kinda happily. Yay for the song!

I like the fuzzy sound of the guitar, and it’s a pretty tight little tune, mixed pretty well, too for someone who didn’t really know what he was doing. I don’t even think there are points in the vocals that disgust me. Perhaps it’s because I put my vocals through the same kind of fuzz distortion as I did the guitar. Very John Lennon, if you ask me. The distort-your-voice technique, not the song.

Anyway, here it is: So Exquisite Harbour (3.9mb)

I think I was just out of university when I wrote this song. We’re talking at least 15 years ago, anyway.
I met Nick through Dave M. and for a while we all hung out together. When Dave moved away to Montreal, Nick and I became closer friends, mostly because of our similar tastes in music and our mutual desire to create music. Then Nick moved away, to Montreal, and on the day he left, I wrote this sentence “My new best friend left town this morning.” Nothing awe-inspiring, but I thought it’d make a neat lyric.
So, I used it as the beginning of this song, and in fact, the whole first verse was pretty much about his leaving.
However, being one who finds it hard to allow personal emotion or truth enter my writing, I couldn’t continue to have it be autobiographical. God forbid somebody actually see me…hear me…feel me.
So, I thought I’d try to turn it into a kind of menacing, creepy, obsessed stalker kind of relationship song. Make the singer out as somebody who’s rather delusional about this relationship he’s singing about.

I rather like the structure of the song, in the way that it’s revealed slowly, line by line, just how flaky and deranged the guy is.

Production-wise, I think the double-tracking of the voice adds a nice “voices in his head” element. I also like the way the song builds in intensity, especially at “I like the seashore…” where the harmony/higher octave singing gets accentuated. Which brings us into the little guitar solo. If I were a sensitive man, I’d have to lie and say that the ‘off-colour’ notes in the solo were on purpose, and represent the character’s descent into madness. But we know that’s not true. I just can’t play a lead on guitar to save my life, is all.

As will be readily apparent and obvious if you choose to download and listen to the song, here’s what I don’t like about it: one of the greatest tragedies of my life is my inability to sing harmony (some might say my inability to sing at all). Still, I giver a go on this song. But, alas, it turns horribly, horribly wrong. At a couple of points in the “I like the seashore” verse, I am quite literally tossing my voice from note to note, hoping that it catches on any note that will somehow form some sort of semblance of harmonic pleasantry. Of course, it doesn’t. Again, I could say that the dischordant notes in my singing are to represent the off-kilter craziness of a madman, but if that’s the case, what it really means is that the off-kilter madman can’t sing harmony.
I’m guessing I left it that way because I figured that any other attempts at singing harmony would bring about results just as bad, if not worse. So, if you listen, I apologize for that.

Download My New Best Friend (3.7mb)

Saturday my wife was helping to serve a ham & scallop dinner at her church. Sometime into the proceedings, I get a phone call from her. Her purse was stolen, could I please call the credit card people and cancel our credit cards, so that any thieving partakers of pork couldn’t use our cards to buy themselves bibles.
She had left her purse on the back of a chair, close to the door. When she came back to it, it was gone. The purse, not the chair.
So, I called Mastercard’s toll-free number and was very professionally taken care of by a guy who told me that new cards would be sent to us on Monday.
Then I called Visa’s toll-free number and was very professionally taken care of by a lady who told me that new cards would be in our possession in 5 to 10 business days. This lady was very helpful, yet I found her professionalism to be rather frantic. She spoke very quickly and was absolutely confident in what she was saying. Yet there was absolutely no emotion in her voice, no sense that I was talking to a human being. As I was speaking to her, I was thinking “This is what robots will sound like when technology moves forward enough.”

The second that I hung up the phone from the flesh and blood Visa robot, the phone rang. It was my wife. She found her purse. The custodian had seen it on the chair, unattended, and had taken it and locked it in the church office.

Not knowing what would be the bigger annoyance – trying to re-activate our present cards by calling the companies back and cancelling the cancellation (a feat I wasn’t even sure was possible), or going without credit cards for a week or so (not really that much of an annoyance) – I opted for the annoyance of least energy.

The HBO series “Deadwood” (airs Sunday nights on Canada’s The Movie Network), has got to take the prize for continually having the most expletives uttered in any 60 minutes of programming ever.
It’s another fantastic series from HBO. (I don’t know how they do, those people at Home Box Office) For those who don’t know, it’s a show that revolves around a newly emerging town that’s deep in the Wild West and whose inhabitants live day to day without any sort of system of law to get in their way. The conniving and immoral behaviour from practically all the cast of characters is simply breath-taking to behold. That anyone could maintain and live a moral life in those surroundings is also part of the story.

Great acting. Great scripts. Great storylines.
If you haven’t seen it, and have access to it, and aren’t put off by every second word being a cuss word, check it out.

I think it was in the last year of Annekenstein, maybe the year before, I’m guessing ’96 or ’97, but definitely one of the two Myron’s years, that I wrote this song, for the show. It was when the “Anne” license plates were new, and we wrote a sketch about a guy going to the DoH to get a new license plate and getting irate when he was told he’d have to take an Anne plate. He then went into a diatribe about all the things he hated about Prince Edward Island.

It was right after that sketch, I think, that we went into this song, called (This Province Called) Prince Edward Island (3.4mb).

The female voice is that of my wife. She has a fantastic, angelic voice, believe me. If I recall correctly, though, for this recording, she reluctantly agreed to sing along, even though she didn’t really know the words or the melody very well. I think she was given one take, maybe two, to lay her track down (with my pathetic attempts at harmony to deal with at the same time), before I decided it was good enough and I moved on to another song. Now, I am in no way implying her singing isn’t good here, because I think it’s great, and she could out-sing me in a snot-storm, but I do feel it necessary to acknowledge that the recording process that I was employing doesn’t do her justice.

The lyrics are below. The song was kind of timely for 1996-7, so some of the elements no longer are relevant. Still, I think it’s a fun song, with some funny lines. And the recording is almost bearable.

The Lyrics:

(This Province Called) Prince Edward Island

Oh no they
won’t let you buy carbonated pop in cans
Beer sold in tin coverings is strictly banned
The law was lobbied for by Rundell Seaman
That’s why I love this province called Prince Edward Island
You know you
won’t see Moosehead ads on channel CBC
But you can watch them on the other forty three
It’s such a sad attempt to keep us liquor free
That’s why I love this province called Prince Edward Island

Here’s to the Island cradled in the waves
And to all the people living here today
We call ourselves Islanders, yet I feel I have to say
If you were not born here, you are from away.

We get our
news from Compass every night, no ifs, ands or buts
Boomer wears short pants all year, boy he’s got guts
Our favourite segment Thursday night is Roger’s Soup To Nuts
That’s why I love this province called Prince Edward Island
We watch on
Tuesday nights on Cable Ten Bill’s Country Jamboree
Out of tune guitars and voice of Senior Citizenry.
It’s been on two decades now, ask why but don’t ask me
It’s why I love this province called Prince Edward Island
We’re either
farmers or we’re fisherman, or we work at DVA.
Most of us can’t get jobs, but we can still get paid
‘Cause filling out your pogey card is the Island way.
That’s why I love this province called Prince Edward Island

Here’s to the Island cradled in the waves
And to all the people living here today
We call ourselves Islanders, we’re sorry when we say
I’m going on the welfare boys, my pogey ends today.

For years we
voted for the Liberals or we voted for PC
The way my parents voted was good enough for me
I guess hippies are parents now ‘cause we have one NDP
That’s why I love this province called Prince Edward Island
Green Gables
gets the tourists coming here, all to see Anne
We even get them coming all the way from Japan
But if Green Gables does burn down we have no back up plan
That’s why I love this province called Prince Edward Island

Here’s to the Island cradled in the waves
And to all the people living here today
We call ourselves Islanders, it’s a reminder when we say
The first one’s who lived on her, called her Abegweit.

Here’s to the Island cradled in the waves
And to all the people living here today
We call ourselves Islanders, it’s a warning when I say
It’s free for you to drive here but to leave you have to pay

I think it was the ancient asian philosopher and war-monger, Feng Shui, who said (I paraphrase), “It’s not how you behave when you lose that shows your true self, but how you win. But in Shii Ann’s case, her behaviour is just obnoxious no matter how you look at it.”
Yes, Shii Ann is gone from Survivor All-Stars, and I, like many I’m guessing, am glad. I barely liked her in her first season, couldn’t understand why she was brought back as an All-Star, and sighed every week when she’d remain.
She was so junior high-school in last night’s episode. “Hey, you know Brittany. She thinks you’re cute!” Only substitute Survivor X for Brittany, and cute for hate.
Sad thing is Shii Ann will now be no doubt patting herself on her back for making it to the final six of the all-stars. Thing is, though, that she didn’t make it that far by any skill or tactics or manipulation of other players, or anything. Not being a threat to win is not a strategy. She made it that far simply because the others saw her as a dispensible piece of lumber. She was the log they all sat on, and when the rest of the lumber was burnt up, they decided it was time to burn the Shii Ann sitting log.

And what a stinky piece of wood she was, too.

Five left. Now it’ll get interesting.

For months now, I didn’t know how to delete uploaded files from my typepad account. This kept me from attempting to upload anything, even though I have a large enough storage capacity. Well, tonight I stumbled across the page where I can delete uploaded files.

So, now I can freely upload and delete. Consider yourselves warned.

Over at my for-some-time-dormant-but-recently-ressurected blogspot site, Annekenstein Monster Music (which used to house this very Annekenstein Monster), I’ve posted a couple of songs that I and my friend Dave Stewart recorded years ago, under the rockin’ band name of Chimp. But, since it’s kind of an ordeal to get songs uploaded over there (don’t ask), I kinda let that practice slide. Plus, it felt kinda stupid to try to keep two blogs going.

So, I’ll periodically be posting songs here. A few of them will be somewhat shoddy recordings of otherwise excellent tunes of my own creation. Most of them will be songs by ‘real’ artists, songs that are currently making me groove and move, and that I think others will enjoy as well. If you feel inclined to download these songs, as a means to familiarize yourselves with artists you may not be familiar with, please do so. If you like the songs you download, perhaps you’ll be so kind as to purchase the albums from which they come.

Each song will be available for an undetermined period of time, before it gets replaced by something else, so if you wanna grab, grab sooner rather than later.

Here, then, is my initial upload to The Monster: The Hillsborough Bridge Song. I wrote the lyrics for this song one day, years ago when there used to be a Greenbergs Department store (for about 5 minutes) on Queen Street, where Woolworths used to be, where GNK currently is. I was sitting on one of the curved wooden benches beside the concret bunker known as the Confederation Centre Box Office, and the song (most of it) came pretty quickly. The “Saturday nights” verse came a few weeks later.

As for the recording process, I’ll not get into the details (you can read some of it at AMM if you want). Instead, I’ll just once again state that, at that time, I knew very little about how to record music on a 4 track (today I know little more than I did then). I also had a limited amount of time to record a bunch of songs, so there was little time for going back and making songs better. It was very much a ‘close enough, what’s next’ sort of affair. I didn’t expect anyone would hear them really. Then this stupid internet thing took off, and well, here we are.

My singing on this song is just good enough for me not to be too embarrassed by it (that will come with future posts, if I get brave enough). Also, the guitar playing, while nothing special at all, is about as good as I think I’ll ever get. My one regret with this song (and pretty much all the songs that came from this little singer/songwriter session) was that I felt it necessary to add an awful keyboard arrangement which is particularly horrific during the choruses in this song. I think my reasoning was that neither my guitar playing, nor my singing was strong enough to sustain by themselves, so I must add an ugly keyboard toot-thingy. Ugh. As in all of these songs (not to be confused with the rockin’ Chimp songs), all sounds (unless otherwise noted) come from me, either as voice, (dis)harmony, and/or from me pathetically attempting to get sounds out of a cheap little Casio keyboard which I cannot play.

Well, I just signed up for Gmail, the Google empire’s latest attempt to rule the internet through providing good service at little or no cost. I was selected for the beta testing because of my blogger account (as, I’m sure, were thousands and thousands others).

My gmail address is sendit2me@gmail.com

Not sure yet how well I’ll like it. But I do like the idea of 1000 mb (a gig) of storage space. And I’m not concerned (yet) about the concept of directed advertising, based on the content of the emails.

I’ll update my initial impressions once I get using it for a while.

It’s pretty sad when “better than pleasant” is the best that Paula “I think your farts sound cute, but you know I love you” Abdul can summon up in terms of high praise.

*shudder* I had a nightmare last night that Gloria Estafan was the guest judge for American Idol, and the ‘kids’ had to sing her shitty songs. *shudder*

I’ll tell you right off that I missed the first 30 minutes of American Idol last night. Truth be told, I kinda wish I missed the whole thing. My god, how bland. Still, I’ll critique the first three performers, even though I didn’t see them. Except for the brief 4 second recap at the end of the show.

First up:
Jennifer Hudson…No wait. She got voted out of the competition. Before Crooner John.

First up, Fantasia…another upbeat number, forcing audience participation. I’m guessing her voice irritated those who don’t like her, and even those who were firmly in her camp are starting to lose faith. So profoundly did last week’s vote shake things up. She dedicated her performance to Jennifer Hudson, I hear. I didn’t even know she was sick.

Next, George Huff…his facial expressions are getting more and more animated. I wonder if Pixar is secretly behind the lovable cuddly that is George Huff. His singing, I gather, hasn’t recovered from his two week slide into uh oh. I predict next week George blows the socks off America. He is so due. This week wasn’t strike three. Rather a foul ball into the opposition team’s dugout.

Then, LaToya Jackson…from the 4 second recap, I couldn’t tell how she performed, so I’ll guess. LaToya was okay. If I was feeling randy, I might even say she was aaiight. Wait…just a sec…hyuughhhggh… hyuughhggh… those were dry heaves. I just re-read the part of the sentence where I wrote “feeling Randy”. Hyuughhggh… I declare, sight unseen and sound unheard, LaToya’s performace Dry Toast.

Fourth, Crooner John… Hyuuughhggh. Let me don my too-tight white t-shirt, red pants, goatee and an attitude so that I can say: Worst. Singing. Ever.
For the love of god, Humanity, vote this schlepp off the island!

Fifth, Hawaiin Girl…batting .333 is great in baseball. But when you only hit one out of every three notes. You’re off the team! Or, in America’s mind, You’re in the Top Three! To be fair, those one-in-three-correct notes she did manage, she hit them out of the park! And wasn’t that flower cute. Awwww! Jasmine, you know how much Paula loves you. She loves you enough to lie to you that you have a good, strong voice. Awwww!

Sixth, Diana LaGuardia… I remember when Diana was this >

It’s pretty sad when “better than pleasant” is the best that Paula “I think your farts sound cute, but you know I love you” Abdul can summon up in terms of high praise.

*shudder* I had a nightmare last night that Gloria Estafan was the guest judge for American Idol, and the ‘kids’ had to sing her shitty songs. *shudder*

I’ll tell you right off that I missed the first 30 minutes of American Idol last night. Truth be told, I kinda wish I missed the whole thing. My god, how bland. Still, I’ll critique the first three performers, even though I didn’t see them. Except for the brief 4 second recap at the end of the show.

First up:
Jennifer Hudson…No wait. She got voted out of the competition. Before Crooner John.

First up, Fantasia…another upbeat number, forcing audience participation. I’m guessing her voice irritated those who don’t like her, and even those who were firmly in her camp are starting to lose faith. So profoundly did last week’s vote shake things up. She dedicated her performance to Jennifer Hudson, I hear. I didn’t even know she was sick.

Next, George Huff…his facial expressions are getting more and more animated. I wonder if Pixar is secretly behind the lovable cuddly that is George Huff. His singing, I gather, hasn’t recovered from his two week slide into uh oh. I predict next week George blows the socks off America. He is so due. This week wasn’t strike three. Rather a foul ball into the opposition team’s dugout.

Then, LaToya Jackson…from the 4 second recap, I couldn’t tell how she performed, so I’ll guess. LaToya was okay. If I was feeling randy, I might even say she was aaiight. Wait…just a sec…hyuughhhggh… hyuughhggh… those were dry heaves. I just re-read the part of the sentence where I wrote “feeling Randy”. Hyuughhggh… I declare, sight unseen and sound unheard, LaToya’s performace Dry Toast.

Fourth, Crooner John… Hyuuughhggh. Let me don my too-tight white t-shirt, red pants, goatee and an attitude so that I can say: Worst. Singing. Ever.
For the love of god, Humanity, vote this schlepp off the island!

Fifth, Hawaiin Girl…batting .333 is great in baseball. But when you only hit one out of every three notes. You’re off the team! Or, in America’s mind, You’re in the Top Three! To be fair, those one-in-three-correct notes she did manage, she hit them out of the park! And wasn’t that flower cute. Awwww! Jasmine, you know how much Paula loves you. She loves you enough to lie to you that you have a good, strong voice. Awwww!

Sixth, Diana LaGuardia… I remember when Diana was this >