Description : I wanted to create a political music video about the surveillance of US citizens by the gov't. The words are FDR's from his First Inaugural Address. All the loops are from this site, gathered over years, forgotten, refound, manipulated in a thousand ways, and voila. You can see the video on youtube under Citizen Mofo.
Description : This is about the complexity of the feelings of attraction - how there's a sense of doom and dread mixed in with the wild joy of surrender. Now don't cringe at the idea of the 'spoken word' - I think this piece rocks. The structure is a basic call and response, or question/answer, with most of the piece being an answer to the question posed in the first part. All the loops came from this site. I almost just posted a music video for this piece under Citizen Mofo on youtube; I'd be honored if you'd check it out and let me know what you think.
Description : I did a first draft of this piece a couple years ago and thought it was da bomb. Then I started hating it. Then I went in and started tweaking it and fell in love with it again as it took on some new sounds and shed a bunch of clutter. More and more I find that doing another draft of two, just as with writing, makes the tracks much better, brings them to a higher maturity and clarity of sound. At least in my ears, but then again I'm partly hard of hearing. Also I find that it's almost always better to subtract than to add. Anyway I hope you dig this piece, and I made a music video of it on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0F76bNLGFw
Description : A tasty hard-driver with a melody of grunts and shouts and guitar rips for punctuation. Genre stumps me every time - let's just call it "dance" and I'll bet that you can't keep your head from bopping and maybe even banging a little. I know I can't. Try it and see.
Description : When a machine denies that it's a machine, perhaps that's a form of enlightenment. Or the beginning of a transformation, Pinocchio-like. This track explores this thought with a series of cinematically interlocking grooves. Or something like that. I really, really appreciate people's comments, so please do; if you have criticisms, please share - that's how we learn and improve.
Description : This is a straight-up pop/rock song built on a dude's pella I downloaded a couple years ago (can't find the creator now, to thank him) and another member's guitar/choral loop that's very beautiful and whose creator I also can't find. If anything rings a bell here and you recognize these loops/members, please let me know so I can thank them. (As always, I can do nothing without the work of others to build on and with.) Tweaked the pella a bit to make it say what I wanted; other than that just tried to let the music help tell the story and provide the structure. Very much would appreciate comments and input from my fellow loopers on this one. Thanks.
Description : Piece I made a few days ago after the Zimmerman verdict, not to take a stand one way or another on the verdict, but to offer some historical perspective. The piece features about 2 minutes of an MLK speech that brings me to tears every time, and then a devastating coda by Bobby Kennedy in 1968. I made this piece to be the foundation of a video (featuring, of course, MLK and Bobby Kennedy) which is posted on YouTube under Citizen Mofo. I lived through all this stuff and I still can't believe the power that MLK had to move an audience, and the absolutely8 tragic loss of his voice in this country through violence. Sometimes it seems we take a step forward only to take 10 back. All I wanted to do here was provide a musical setting for the power of the vocals. I hope you get as much out of the words expressed herein as I do.
Description : Jazzy groove with a dark turn. (I put it in the "dance" category because it makes me dance.)
Description : Crank it up, bang yo haid.
I wish I could remember whose loops I used to build this - 'twas a bunch - but I seemed to have misplaced the durn file. It'll turn up (I hope) and I'll be ashamed that I didn't recognize the great loopmakers who give us so much inspiration and great bricks of gold to build our magic castles with. Thank you.
Description : OK, so "H E Y" was a misfire. I see that now after making this one. This is my redemption. If you're like me, it'll pull you right out of your chair. If you're not like me, well then you'll stay sitting down and you won't hurt your neck head-banging on this like I do. Built on killer, precision loops from StrideFire, TrapKid, BeyodPeace, DustHill and DaFatmanDubstep. I laid down two basic, very simple tracks and then layered them with different equalizations to create different effects, variety and momentum. Please let me know what you think. (Yes, I'm in Amsterdam right now, inspired by all the art everywhere and in particular the graffiti. I plan to use this piece to make a graffiti video once I get out there and get some stuff recorded...)
Description : Groovy headbopper, or at any rate, bops my head. That's why I make these things - dancing in my bedroom. I'm actually that kind of whacko. This one has some great, weird vocals that I got from looperman probably a couple years ago, don't remember whose. They fit me quite well - I watch people, too - and that's why I used them. This is the 2nd or 3rd draft of this piece across a couple years and laptops. I think it's got a sweet swing to it, tho there are still one or two parts that make my fingers itch a bit...
Description : Obsession musicalized. I know I'm a lousy singer and probably shouldn't be singing but I sang this one anyway and recorded it in my noisy house - still I like it so here goes. Built on cool loops from this site, but I don't remember what they are. It's been a while and I'm really glad to be back. Also made a video for this song and would be delighted if you'd watch and comment what you think: https://youtu.be/jCluI4eoXlw
Description : I really loved VirginaSlimm's acapella "I Don't Feel At All", but wanted it slower so changed bpm from 120 to 94 and then built the music around the vocals with the usual plethora of incredible looperman loops provided so generously by members, and then tweaked the mix fifteen thousand times, and so now here it is. Would love to hear what anyone thinks.s (As far as what "genre" to pick, I am always at a loss on that one.)
Description : I've made a ton of music the past couple years but haven't posted or done much of anything with it. Now it's time. I'm working with Sunny War, a great singer and blues guitarist who I met while she was busking on Venice Beach, on a protest album called APOCALYPSE. I write the songs and orchestrate with loops, then Sunny does her thing in the studio. Sometimes we'll leave some or all of the loops, sometimes they all go. For this one I used only two drum loops. Sunny did the rest - vocals and bass, rhythm and lead guitars. (She's pretty amazing.) I had to select a genre so I selected "Rock" but I think of this style as psychedelic blues funk rock. I'd very much appreciate your feedback.
Description : Kindofa '60s work song. Another song from my collab with Sunny War. This is the first song on our album HELP which we should get done this month. This song started with looperman-l-0498019-0072501-tumbleweed-90-g-slow-train-rhythm, a great rhythm guitar riff; the song just emerged out of it without effort. Props to Tumbleweed and his great guitar loops which I have often used. Then there were three other loops, drum, piano and lead guitar. Sunny replaced the guitar loops with her acoustic picking, using Tumbleweed's loop as the inspiration. The drum and piano loops remain: looperman-l-1703213-0101854-deathsquadktown-1994-inspired-hip-hop-drum-beat 90, looperman-l-0592478-0101770-designedimpression-piano-loop-will-power-94 g. Thank you, loopers! Feedback please!
Description : Third song on my protest album, APOCALYPSE. Sunny War on vocals and guitar.
Description : Recorded this yesterday with Sunny War. Wanted to do something funkier, and shorter than the epic pieces we'd been doing. This was built off a funk guitar loop - looperman-l-1592215-0088915-mrroads442-funk-vibe-guitar a 74, changed to 77bpm - which Sunny used as the basis for her rhythm guitar. We've got 3 guitar lines playing off each other throughout.
Description : Recorded first draft of this in December with Sunny War, the vocals with a full loop orchestration, before we started using her guitar (yeah, I'm dumb). But the music was too pretty and saccharine. Then when I woke up to the magic of her guitar, we went back and started guitarifying everything we'd done. In this case, we replaced the entire loop orchestration with Sunny's guitar work, and now the song sounds like it was meant to. The lyrics are inspired by Sunny's life, which I was just getting to know about a little at the time. She used to ride trains around the country with her guitar, a la Woody Guthrie, when she was a teenager, and so that set my mind to imagining...
Description : Psychedelic funk rock blues. Sunny War on vocals and guitar - wicked wicked guitar. Wanted to do a song that wasn't a story or a protest or an intricate argument and jumped out of the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge box to just seethe and wail. Also wanted a massive break and musical bridge, mixing Sunny with a loop orchestration; you be the judge if it's massive enough. This will be on our HELP album. For this weirdo who has toiled alone for years with headphones on to try to get somewhere, any feedback, good or bad, is most welcome.
Description : Rock? Pop? I dunno. It's called "Maybe I'm Crazy" but you can't use apostrophes in the title line. This is a song on my protest album APOCALYPSE, which we're mastering next week. Vocals and guitar by Sunny War, additional vocals by Lisagaye Tomlinson. First recorded this song a couple years ago with full loop orchestration and me on vocals (big mistake, not to be repeated!). Now with Sunny singing and playing, it sounds like it was meant to. Not a heavy duty protest song, but lord I am fucking tired of getting lied to by the criminals who run our country. Just sayin'. And I guess that makes me crazy in our age where deceit rules and an astonishing few give a shit.
Description : Psychedelic blues rock? This is on the APOCALYPSE album, vocals and guitar by Sunny War. I built the song on a great Tumbleweed rhythm guitar loop - looperman-l-0498019-0068256-tumbleweed-120-aminor-gtr-rhythm - that I originally had running throughout. We stripped the first part way down, and then Sunny brings in that Tumbleweed loop melody in the second part, with variations. We doubletracked the vocals, with Sunny singing it through twice slightly differently; I've done it before and really like the effect on certain songs. Sunny delivered another extremely tasty guitar solo. There's more that could be done with this song orchestration-wise - and in fact the original orchestration had much more to it - but I think somewhat stripped down is the way to go on this one.
Description : This song was inspired by a music box loop -looperman-l-0159051-0101602-minor2go-old-music-box-behind-the-6th-gate - and I just went from there. Sunny War on vocals and guitar, sounding especially lovely. It's the second song on the album APOCALYPSE, another metaphor song to open the album, #2 after THE BEAST. Any comments are welcome.
Description : I wrote this song this weekend and recorded it last night with Sunny War on vocals and guitar. (We've got a backload of 10 or so songs but I'm a shiny-object kind of guy.) We kept almost the entire loop orchestration and there are some great loops here. The whole thing is built on looperman-l-0208341-0068163-drmistersir-lonesome-freaky 80 which runs throughout. Mixed with that for the first half is the crazy choral looperman-l-0911223-0101152-silencekills-key-5-pad-81-fs-min across 3 octaves. The musical bridge before the outro is built on the great loop looperman-l-1264531-0079769-arixxonsc-sequence-old-school-escape. My instruction to Sunny was "Play the guitar like it's wrestling with that loop." Sunny plays bass but we also kept looperman-l-1059144-0070847-ebaby8119-the-move-808-bass to go with it. Then there are a couple great bell loops and a choral chant loop at the end, and then of course all the drums. One of the rare times we've kept most of the loops and just wove Sunny's guitar into the orchestration. We even kept one of the guitar loops, looperman-l-1059144-0068323-ebaby8119-the-question, because it's perfect for that moment. I think this song launched a 4th album to be called PATH. Any comments or reactions are greatly appreciated. You're the first folks to hear any of this stuff and this community is instrumental (literally) in making it happen.
Description : Weird little protest song featuring Lisagaye Tomlinson rapping and Sunny War singing and playing guitar and a little snippet of MLK (I've used him a lot in songs in the past - very rhythmical and musical speaker). Had more loops but then replaced with Sunny's guitar. It's just one of those songs that did its own thing and I went with it. I like it but I'm weird, really wondering what other people think. Thanks.
Description : This is another protest song - literally - happens during a protest. Teargas, police violence, mayhem. In this time of national insanity, how should one respond? I've been pondering that and this song is part of the answer for me. We live in a divided house and everybody's packing. If we focus on hating each other, we're doomed and damned. If we focus on helping each other, maybe we can climb back into the land of the sane. At least that's what I'm trying to believe. Features Sunny War on vocals and guitar, together with a lot of loops, including a backwards guitar in the chorus. Also did an evolving melody chorus to chorus. The bridge - I guess that sort of sums up my present philosophy. Little too much guitar noise (including my dumbass voice) at the very end which I'll have to clean up. Comments welcome!
