I’m happy to announce that the 2010 Tour merchandise is now available online. Please note, this merch will also be available at our upcoming shows too! Check out the Plastik Wrap Items! This was a new collaboration to bring you guys some very unique items that you don’t see on every merch table and you may have seen me wearing the gloves on stage during the last tour! Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to get professional pictures of ALL the items as of yet (ties, bicep armbands, and hot pants) but I didn’t want that to delay me offering these items to you so I apologize that the photos for these items aren’t the best but new pictures will come soon!
Ok, so I failed miserably at posting regular blogs for the rest of this tour, but hopefully, you guys were following along on my Ayria (FB/Twitter/MySpace status updates – yeah, they are all connected so I only have to post once! Thank God for that! ) Because I was posting short updates as much as I could. Also, Peter from Project Pitchfork was posting almost daily video reports that got funnier and funnier as the tour went on and we were all becoming one crazy tour family. If you didn’t see them on his channel the Fork Force, it’s Tour Report # 1 through 25 and is a pretty honest showing of how being on the road is. Not much glamour, long drives, but exciting nights and great shows.
Ok so, after Washington, we had a few van (aka “Donkey”) adventures and mishaps but we made it to all the shows. A bit late (sorry Richmond for loading in at 10:00 PM, but thanks to all the helpers that got us set up in no time at all! That was when the battery and alternator went and we were stuck at the mechanics for a few hours) but anyways, we made it through and instead of trying to remember every city, I’m going to go over the highlights of the second half of the tour:
TOUR HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE SECOND HALF (CITY BY CITY):
• Richmond – had a swing in the backstage! Yep. Lots of fun came of that
• Nashville – small show, smallest on the whole tour actually, but met some amazing fans, had a swank backstage and enjoyed the intimate show. Thanks to Tammy for baking the world’s BEST brownies! We all enjoyed them for the next few days (ok, mostly Kevin and I.. but we were the biggest sugar freaks!)
• Tulsa – Amazing crowd! This is my third time playing in Tulsa and it keeps getting better and better. Which is what’s supposed to happen I guess Thanks to David 950 and crew, Suzi (Slick V 4 life) and everyone involved in that night. This was Peter’s birthday (tour report #15) and we came out onstage to bring him cake and sing Happy Birthday. He said no one had done that for him before!
• Dallas – Ah, Dallas! Possibly one of our biggest shows on the tour. The Church is such a cool venue, the backstage is bright pink, Kami & Krystal of K2 productions treated us so great, what can I say. This is the city I got the MOST pictures taken with fans. There was a Jenn line-up! (I’m blushing thinking about it). The awesome thing about Texas shows is, 1) Fans are absolutely insane and energetic, never reserved and 2) Fans follow you from city to city to go to all the shows. Seems to be a very supportive scene in Texas. Just my observations, but this is why we play 3-4 shows in this one state. That, and the fact that this state is HUGE! I <3 Texas!
• Texas continued: Austin & San Antonio were amazing shows too. Thanks to Alan & Diana & Klifford, and others (?) for following to all 3 shows! I got to eat at Koriente, my favourite little Asian Fusion restaurant a block away from the Elysium venue.
• Texas part 3 – Ate soooo much amazing Mexican food! Guacamole bowls the size of my head and loved it so much! One thing Canada does not have, and it’s great Mexican food (we have mostly everything else, I’m not knocking the T.Dot) but I love indulging in Mexican when I’m in Texas!
• Phoenix – Club Mardi Gras was a great little venue decorated all with Christmas lights! (My favourite. you should see my apartment!) Too bad the AC was being difficult. I always tell people that Phoenix is the hottest place on this planet that I’ve ever experienced. Every time I’m there, it continues to live up to this reputation! Still, had a blast, met amazing people after the show. Also, I want to apologize to our sound technician, the amazing Axxl, for bringing him to that BBQ styled restaurant, “Coopers BBQ – It’s what’s for dinner” also known as the house of murder. Axxl was the only vegetarian on tour and this little place we decided to eat at not only had nothing but MEAT, but it also had all the taxidermied heads of the animals on the wall as well as all the killing tools used as instruments of death. It was so creepy once we actually looked around… but delicious… sorry to the veggies out there! (as seen in video report number 18)
• L.A. – Always a highlight on a tour! Played an outdoor show at Bar Sinister and had fun. Thanks to John & Trish and all involved in this show. By the way, Bar Sinister has the most amazing deep fried mac and cheese & nachos! I know, sounds horrible, but it’s really, really good… especially at 2:00 AM when you are starving!! Also, the Break Up (a Seattle band) joined us from L.A. onwards for the last 4 shows. Check them out! They are fabulous!
• San Fran – Ahhhh, I feel like this is somehow my city. I have claimed it and made it my own, ok? Thanks to: David King (fishing buddies 4 life!), Peter (noisescape TV), Melanie Blau, Eric G., Devon, umm… plus so many more who I’m forgetting but it’s always amazing to see you guys and you always show me a great time. Thanks to all the fans that were there & who were able to tune into the live web cast (anyone? Let me know how it looked. Remember, it’s never a great representation of how a show actually sounds or looked since the mix comes right from the board (usually) and sounds weird.
• San Francisco continued: Had my ONLY sushi dinner of the tour here at Sushi Groove. Mmmmmm (sushi of course being my favourite food)
• Seattle – Mikey’s hometown!! Another place that feels like home to me, as it’s where the first ever Ayria show took place and where Ayria kind of started… Stayed with my friend Michael & roomies, got to see Shaun F. (my Debris partner in crime), my friend Amy, and so many faces I hadn’t seen for far too long!
• Portland- Yeah, I know, back down south to Portland, but that’s just how the routing works sometimes! This was our FINAL show of the month long tour and we couldn’t have chosen a better spot to end it off. The energy of the crowd was crazy fun; my “Portland Crew” brought me an Ayria cake!!! (Picture below) yeah, that’s right, a CAKE!!!! It was so delicious. I think the word had spread about how people had brought me treats and that I love cake/cupcakes/baked goodness. And so they wanted to blow us all away with the ULTIMATE BAKED GOODS!! Much love to you guys for making us feel so special that night! Thanks to Derek, I love how getting coffee has become our tradition!
• Post Tour – We dropped everyone off at the Portland airport but I went back with Mike and Sarah to chill in Seattle for one extra day before my flight home. On the Tuesday, Sarah and I went shopping on Broadway on the Tuesday, as well as tried out a delicious place called cupcake Royale! The “Holly Hobby’s Dance Party” cup cake was the best! Then we went back because I needed time to sort out merch, repack my suitcase(s) and chill for an early morning flight home. Since being back, I always spend the first 2 days resting and getting over the sheer exhaustion of travelling and doing shows constantly. Your body reaches this level of constant adrenaline while you’re on tour that gets you through it, then when it’s done, you have no control but to crash… hard. But I’m back to normal now! Looking ahead to new music & plans.
FUN TOUR FACTS:
• Longest drive from one show to the next: San Antonio to Phoenix – took us 19 hours.
• Most popular American restaurants we ate at for Breakfast on this tour: IHOP, Denny’s and the classic American diners that we could find
• Most popular American restaurants we ate at for Dinner on this tour: APPLEBEES!! I had never been to one before; their sizzling shrimp stir-fry thing was yummy! This place was guaranteed to be playing the World Cup Football games so for the German’s sake; it was imperative we ate here
• Number of times people brought me cupcakes, cakes, brownies, etc: 5
• Pounds gained on this tour: 5! Not bad for eating everything listed above!
• Drink of the tour: Vodka Cranberry! Apparently Cranberry juice is not that common or popular in Germany so they wanted to have it when they could! I wasn’t complaining!
• Number of times Mike got “naked” on tour: 3 Dallas (on a weird dare by Peter), Austin (what is it with Texas & naked), San Francisco (but he was wearing a flesh coloured thong.. uh-huh Video evidence on Report #17
• Number of packs of gum Kevin went through… I’d say at least 25. That boy is addicted to chewing gum!
• First tour EVER that I did NOT get sick or catch a virus of any kind! YAY! Maybe it was all the nutrients I was getting from IHOP, Denny’s, Applebee’s, cranberry juice, and the cupcakes!? I’ll never know.
• Hotel chain we always stayed at: Best Westerns
• Number of times I saw Peter sleeping in the van: ZERO! That man is a machine! He was always working on his tour report videos during the drive
• Number of times I slept in the van: every chance I got! I had the entire back bench to myself, complete with pillows, blankets and we dubbed it “The Girlie Parlour”
• Number of times Donkey had trouble and we ended up at a garage: at least 4. But that was part of the whole adventure!
• My Tour Nickname: “The Queen”, Kevin’s: “Wolfgang hans helmut”, the van’s: “Donkey”
• My Second tour in a row where I’ve celebrated both Canada Day, and The 4th of July (aka “America Day”) in the US! <3
• Funniest Tour video that I’m not in video #22 Titled “The Jenn Files” look for the riveting conclusion in video #23, yeah, our videos started having real plot develop!! Hahaha!
Here are some pictures from the second half of the tour, mainly from our last show due to me being horrible at remembering to take pictures until it’s the end! So here were the ones I had, although many of you have been posting awesome ones on the Ayria FB page (thanks!!)
:
Thanks to Mike and Kevin for being live members of Ayria on this tour. You guys were awesome & I had so much fun with you both! Thanks to Project Pitchfork (Peter, Jurgen, Achim & Axxl) for inviting us to be part of this tour! We love them, miss them and had a wonderful time with them. We will actually get to reunite as we are both booked to play INFEST this August on the same night as them in the UK! Complete coincidence!
Thank YOU guys! Thanks to everyone that bought tickets, came to the shows, bought merch, said hi to us, took pics, danced your butts off, brought gifts (very unexpected), promoted the shows, told your friends to go, and overall, supported events in your city therefore, supporting our ability to continue touring like this! I love you all and appreciate everything I’ve been able to do. It’s always a musician’s dream to be able to get out there and connect with the people who enjoy your music. I love meeting you all and hearing your stories about how a song has affected you, empowered you, got you through your tough times because it reminds me of why I do this, why I sacrifice almost everything else in my normal life to keep doing this. God knows it is NOT for the money so please, stay with me. Xox
If you were at any of the shows, please post here! I’d love to know, and to hear your memories & stories!
Sincerely,
Jennifer
Here’s the very last video report from Portland, OR, everyone saying goodbye at the airport:
Ok, so I’m in a blur right now. We are at show 4 of doing 6 shows in a row this week. It’s exhausting, but we carry on, just as excited for each show as the next! I haven’t blogged in a bit but it’s been pretty busy when we get into our hotel at 3:00 am and have to get up by 11:00 am to drive to the next city. The best time I have to write, is in the van while everyone is either zoned out, sleeping, listening to music, etc. We didn’t have our AC working in the van until Washington, D.C. and we were in heat wave temperatures, so needless to say, trying to write was not my top priority the past few days. But now, we are back to normal, the van is an icebox and we are all happy campers once again and enjoying our East coast leg of this tour!
We’ve played some amazing shows in this East leg so far! Instead of trying to write about each individual show, and before things really blur together, I’ve come up with a kind of “best of” list below where I highlight some of the cool things that have happened in each city so far. Honestly, every city has been incredible, and I’m probably forgetting stuff already (sorry if I do), but here’s what’s been going on so far:
City that…
Had the most merch sold to: Minneapolis (thank you Minneapolis! Selling merch is truly our bread and butter while touring so we thank you guys for buying stuff)
Best After party: Milwaukee (club anything! Thanks Gary & crew.. yeah, for my hangover!)
Best sound: Milwaukee (a personal high for me at least)
City that brought along pink guns as props for The Gun Song: Chicago & Philadelphia. It’s becoming a thing!
City where I got the best presents from (not expected of course, just cute) 3 way tie:
- Pittsburgh (cupcakes from my girl Borris), homemade armband with a “J” on it (thanks Jennifer)
- Rochester (cupcakes from Shawn & a necklace from Sarah)
- Chicago (a black and white striped corset from TheArtifixer.com that I later wore in Washington, D.C., plus a signed copy of the Deftone’s White Pony CD, thanks David!)
Best home cooked catering backstage: Rochester (Thanks Steve’s wife Kimberly for the amazing veggie lasagna!)
Yummiest “spread”: Philadelphia (cherries, strawberries, hummus, and chocolate cake. Thanks to Patrick’s ladies!!
Craziest, most intense audience: Chicago & Philadelphia.. so far, but all shows have been amazing in their own way! I love looking out in the crowd and seeing so many familiar faces singing along with me & dancing and new people enjoying the show.
Best Mosh Pit during our set: Washington, D.C. (ok, the ONLY mosh pit, but still…deserved a shout out
Best duet: Pittsburgh where I had Jim Semonik come on stage and sing “Blue Alice” with me!
Warmest Stage: Chicago (my face melted off halfway through the set, but it’s all rock and roll baby!
Most embarrassing thing that’s happened to us on stage: nothing…YET! Stay tuned! Bwahaha
Next city: New York tonight at the Southpaw in Brooklyn! I wonder what title NY will take and will some of these change as we do more shows?
Much love you guys!
Jennifer
Remember to subcribe to “TheForkForce” You Tube Chanel to get pretty much DAILY video tour updates from the road:
More pictures:
How many band members does it take to stare at an engine trying to figure out if they can fix the air conditioning
Kevin aka “Wolfgang Hans Helmut” setting up the merch
Mike and Kevin at breakfest. Mike’s face pretty much sums it all up
Ayria and Project Pitchfork on the Road:
June 15th – 20th Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago
Jenn in Minneapolis, June 15th 2010
That’s me with the Minneapolis sky line behind me. I flew into Minneapolis on Tuesday, June 15th and met up with my new keyboardist for this tour Kevin, a nice Irish boy from Atlanta who is aparently second cousins with Collin Farell.. but we’ve decide to call him Wolfgang Hans-Hemut as Peter from Project Pitchfork thought he needed a German name for this tour to fit in more (Oh how I love breaking in the new guy!). We made our way to the hotel and waited for everyone to arrive from various parts of the world. Mike drove up to the hotel a few hours later with our van and trailer, he’d made the trip all the way from Seattle. A few hours after that, the guys from Project Pitchfork (headliner band, members: Peter, Achim, Jurgen, Axxle) all arrived from Germany (Hamburg and Berlin). Our kickoff show was in Minneapolis, MN the following night and that show did not disappoint! The crowd brought all of their energy that night and danced until the last song had been played. I got to meet a lot of new people as well as greet familiar faces who I’d seen at so many of our shows before. Apparently, my gay fanbase tells me that “Lady Gaga is out, and Ayria is in!” which made me laugh pretty hard. They also thank me for adding Kevin the keyboardist as some eye candy to the show It was a great show to start this month long tour and to get me back in the mindset of being on the road. Besides a spontaneous 3 show stint with VNV Nation back in March (which was amazingly fun but brief), I haven’t actually toured since I got home in January after the month and a half long tour with the Cruxshadows. Switching gears back into touring mode.
The next day, we had off due to a last minute cancellation in Champaign, IL which was disappointing, since last time we were there, I recall was quite fun! We ended up in a city called Mauston, WI and had our first official tour family dinner in a typical American diner where everything came smothered in cheese. The second show was Milwaukee. We played at the Miramar Theatre and this show, has so far been my absolute favourite of the tour. Some nights, a band is lucky enough to have everything click and that night, for me it did. The sound was totally flawless, the energy of the crowd was insane, and I just felt the show went off so perfectly for me personally. Then the after party at club anything, where I fear I’m starting to get a bit of a party girl reputation there (haha) but we had a lot of fun and want to thank everyone that came out and supported both bands in Milwaukee.
Chicago! What can I say about Chicago. It’s always amazing to play there. We played at a venue called the Abbey and I have a bit of a story about that place since it reminds me of the first time I’d ever been to Chicago. Back on my very first tour ever with Razed In Black and Glis, we were booked to play a show there but they had already booked a local act to play that show, and therefore Ayria wasnt’ given a slot since we were ‘unknown’ then, so I just hung out that night and didn’t get to play. I think of our crowd reaction there last night reminds me how far I’ve come since then! I really hope someone got footage of “The Gun Song” and posts it. A girl in the front row brought a pink toy gun and busted it out for that song and handed it to me! I was actually going to bring my blinged up gun from the “Hearts For Bullets” cover on this tour, but didn’t want to risk travelling with it through homeland security as I’ve had problems even with bringing a “bullet belt” in the past. Thank you Chicago, despite a few sound issues and the venue being a million degrees (my face was melting off through the set), we had such a fun night! We recommend the fish and chips dinner at the Abbey Pub! I would have loved to have gone to the after party at Neo, but we were pretty tired that night, so we chose to get some rest at the hotel.
I’ve written this post while in the van, driving to Pittsburgh. We’ve been fortunate to stop for full breakfasts at amazing little dinners almost every day so far.. Project Pitchfork guys are amazingly cool, I can’t understand a word they are saying when they go into “German Mode”, this tour is being dominated by the latest scores of the World Cup games, but it’s all good and we are already all bonding and becoming the dysfunctional tour family that always happens on the road when you’re forced to share confined spaces, all meals, and long drives.
I’ll see some of you soon I hope!? Lots more shows to go!
Much love from the road (currently Sandusky, Ohio)
Jennifer
Thanks to: Plastik Wrap for the stage clothing & merch collaboration. We spent several weeks planning out the new line for this tour and I know they worked well into the nights the week before I left, I also want to thank Neko Hair Designs for my new dreads! (they actually blend perfectly with my own colours and hair length), and Cinched Tight Corsets for the cute pink skull corset.. more pics will be featured of all these awesome collaborators and supporters. I’ve been given more gifts along the road from other awesome and talented designers that I’ll be wearing and promoting too and I can’t thank you guys enough!
Here’s a video filmed in Chicago yesterday morning before we left:
Ayria and Project Pitchfork on the Road: June 15th -- 20th Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago. This video has been posted to go along with the tour blog write up posted on www.ayria.com check back for updates. Some times videos and other entries will have photos!! ;)
1. This is the song that got me an “explicit” warning for the Hearts For Bullets CD since it has swearing in it. I thought this was a GOOD use of the “F” bomb.
2. This song was a collaboration and is the only song on Hearts For Bullets that I didn’t do the majority of programming and writing for.
3. I occasionally get tagged as “rap” on some sites. I think it’s because of this song, and The Gun Song. Despite the fact that I hate when people try and categorize my genre of music, I DID think it was very entertaining to be called a rapper!
4. The tempo of this song is 101 BPM. Which is such an awesome speed that’s rarely done these days. This tempo used to be more common in Industrial (think Nitzer Ebb’s Belief album and NIN songs) but with club music that’s taken over, DJ’s and/or artists seem to think that if a song goes under 130 BPM, they might explode… or something.
5. The original working title for this song was “I look better from the floor”.
6. The lyrics for this song were inspired by a movie I saw and it was NOT Alice In Wonderland
7. This was the very last of all songs to be finished in production for Hearts For Bullets around mid June 2008. After which, I had a glass of red wine to celebrate!
The Dissection:
This song is a collaboration between me and my amazing friend Jeremy Pfohl who happens to run Storming The Base in Toronto. I actually love collaborating with other people. Some amazing vocal ideas have come out of collaborations since I’m free to concentrate just on the vocals which has always been my number one passion. Jeremy had started writing this loop that eventually became the first verse of “Blue Alice”. He played it for me, and I thought the synths were just amazing, and it had such a cool groove and such a rawness to it, that I asked him to pass the loop on to me so I could play around with ideas since he tends to just start loops just for fun. I then recorded vocals over top of it, that ended up staying in the sonng as the first verse. I had started chanting about fairy tales through a distortion effect, and he loved it so we decided to develop it further and complete it as a full song.
The Chorus
Writing the chorus came next but we found it really difficult to transition into something big and powerful. Both the music and the vocals in our first draft, neither of us liked completely. The first draft of the song, I had kept chanting in the chorus but it really needed some vocal melody to change the chorus completely. Then one day, the “Hey You Black and Blue” came to me and it was a line that instantly stuck in my head and forced Jeremy to program percussion around that new idea. It’s like everything clicked once a powerful chorus was created.
The Bridge
Jeremy ended up working on a bridge “synth solo” that comes in after the lyrics: “Little Pig Little Pig Put Her Down!” that he was having so much fun with, it would have gone on for another 5 minutes if it were up to him. But me, usually forgetting to take a pause in a song to STOP singing for a bit, found the synths leading a nice refreshing break and change. And that synth solo part is so ridiculously sick! Seb enhanced it in production by adding breaks, and adding really amazing percussion in that part and in the chorus. Here is the bridge synth solo in all it’s glory:
This week I’m changing things up again, instead of isolating the raw vocals, I wanted to isolate the raw synths before production so you can admire their sick beauty and what they added to this song:
The song is whimsical with dark fairy tale concepts running throughout in a sick and twisted, somewhat modernized way. Here are the lyrics:
I hope I’m dreaming because this can’t be awake
I hope I’m dead just for my sake
Who knew all this would come from a dirty gun
Son of a Bitch who thought he was a cowboy
The mad hatter Bashes your face again
Look into his eyes to see where evil lives
Bullet through window and down the rabbit hole
This is one f*cked up fairy tale
Hey You! Black and blue
Watch out, you’ll end up like Alice
Hey You! Black and blue
Watch out, don’t end up like Alice
You’ll get what’s coming, you and your children
The wicked witch has OD’ed on pills again
And the Dragon, lights up a cigarette
He’s blowing smoke right into your face again
It’s off with her head
Her snakes are seething
The big bad wolf is rabid and teething
Bullets through windows and down the rabbit hole
This is one f*cked up fairy tale
Little Pig little pig put her down
Slapped around choked and drown
I was inspired to start writing the lyrics to this song after watching a movie called “Running Scared” directed by Wayne Kramer. It’s not uncommon that a book, an article, a show, the news, or a movie sparks my mind to start writing lyrics. It doesn’t mean the whole song is completely about this movie, it just started my imagination down this dark fairy tale lyrical path. This movie is a bloody, violent, cowboy, mob, fairy tale with a pretty gruesome UV lit hockey torture scene like no one has done before! It had all of these characters throughout the story that were modernized version of classic Grimm Fairy Tale characters. I debated explaining here which parts specifically from this movie I used in my lyrics, but if you’re that interested, you can just watch the film yourself and try and figure it all out. I’m not saying it’s the best movie ever, it’s quite over the top, a strange plot and violent, but you might enjoy that
Don’t End Up Like Alice: The rest of the lyrics, I took from other favourite childhood stories, like Alice In Wonderland of course, which became the premise of the chorus and tied the whole song together, matching the tone of the verses by portraying a bit of a battered Alice who ends up black and blue and slapped around. I was already writting these dark lyrics, so there was no turning back and I created this image of an abused Alice that you have to be careful not to end up like. A bit unnerving, but striking.
I recently purchased this Alice in Wonderland book and was thrilled with the illustrations in this version done by Camille Rose Garcia. They are so wonderfully creepy!
The Little Pig reference was obviously a nod to the childhood nursery rhymes only mutilated to be about the pigs being nasty masochists, beating and choking Alice. The “Off with her head, Snakes are seething” is a reference to Greek Mythology’s Medusa, but also tying it in with the Queen Of Hearts from Alice In Wonderland, linking the fabled beheading of Medusa with the Red Queen’s constant cry of ‘off with their heads!”. Medusa is one of my favourite “villains” in stories.. although, arguably, not a villain at all, but that’s another discussion..
I also really liked the anachronistic images of the characters. Like the wicked witch overdosing on pills. Taking a fantasy character and giving her more modern qualities. Same with the image of the dragon, except in his case, he’s also a creature not a person, so having those modern qualities is even stranger. Instead of breathing fire, he takes a drag of a cigarette and blows the smoke into your face. Almost more insulting since you know he can breath fire, but is instead taunting you. And that being both anachronistic and anthropomorphic (yes, I looked that word up, I learned something from this blog too!) was interesting to me.
To end the disscetion, I like sharing interesting youtube videos I stumble accross! This one is a slide show created by fearandloathinggirl, it uses a lot of Alice Pictures that I’ve never seen before!
Have a great week! I’m not going to post a new dissection this Friday and we’ll see how crazy things get, but this might be the last one before the upcoming tour. I will instead be tour blogging from the road! The Song Dissections will resume when I’m back of course! In the meantime, tell me what your favourite fairy tale, fairytale related movie, or childhood fable is?
If you’ve enjoyed reading this and wish to own this song and want to support me directly, please either check out my shop (I personally ship & sign anything you want), or you can purchase the mp3 of Blue Alice from iTunes for a mere dollar:
This recent Ayria interview was featured on Dark Planet (http://www.darkplanet.tv) a show that explores Dark Alternative Culture from Around the World. Come inside my kitchen and watch as we make a mess and bake some delicious goodies!
I will be leaving on tour soon (in 3 weeks!). I currently have a few left of each style and size of the Hearts For Bullets ”Gun Crest” shirt designs but after this tour, I DO NOT plan on re-printing these! If you don’t want to miss out on EVER owning one of these T-shirts, Girlie-T’s, Tank Tops or Hoodies (I won’t be getting any more hoodies for a while since they are bulky and expensive for me to stock) you’ll need to order from my shop in the next week (before May 31st, 2010) before any remaining shirts get shipped off for the tour! For further incentive for you guys to grab up these shirts from me, any shirt orders during this week only will be entered in a draw to win your choice of either a signed Ayria Tie or the first ever Ayria “Bicep Band” made by Plastik Wrap and signed of course!! The draw will happen on June 1st, 2010, winner notified. So order shirts before they are all gone or everything is shipped off!
From the CD: Hearts For Bullets
Music, lyrics & vocals: Jennifer Parkin
Production, mixing, mastering: Sebastian Komor
Lyrics:
I’m withered inside. I’ve never wanted something so blindly.
How does one comprehend dissatisfaction with the unknown.
I’ve been bound too long to this confining shell, like a tiny hell that can’t calm this wrestless mind.
My blood pulses, fuels desire.
I’ve left all behind. These winds have changed and there is no way back.
Why can’t you see this all will fall, this microcosm is not eternal.
My thirst will not subside. I’d rather face the storm and get ripped open wide.
Then my insect eyes will see this wretched world for all it hides.
Insect Calm.
My limbs are numb.
Resistance gone, I’m shedding skin.
To feed and breathe in.
Insect Calm
The fear is gone.
Itching and feeling with my new skin
Inhale this world in.
The Dissection
So the surprise for this week’s song dissection is that I made a little video to change it up a bit! The video doesn’t get as detailed as the write ups can though, so it’s a bit more brief than other dissections but, it includes the visual element of me in my appartment, and some impromtu live singing by me just for you! I’m sorry for the quality of the built in MacBook camera, but it’s the best I can do for now so please be kind with your comments, and enjoy!
One additional thing that I didn’t have time to touch on in the video was this amazing and very old and very rough clip I found that was the original idea for the song Insect Calm. This audio clip is from back in the days when I was working on the Flicker CD. I sometimes start loops with a vocal idea but have no idea where to take them, so they sit on the “idea shelf”. You can tell this one is a rough idea since the vocals aren’t really cohesive between the layers and I was in the brainstorming phase. This idea loop sat there for several years until I revisited it while writing Hearts For Bullets. This demo clip comes accross sounding pretty gothy with the reverbed synths and vocals, and from here, it was obviously re-worked into a full demo, that was more bass and percussion driven, glitchier and sparser, before being passed to Seb for his never less than amazing production.
I’ll try and come up with more surprises for next week. There are 2 songs that I know people are specifically waiting for and I’m getting excited to dissect them! This week was a bit crazy for me, having just returned from Montreal but I was glad I could pull this video together in time for today for you guys! ♥ I know the video is brief and doesn’t get into too much detail, so if you want me to answer further questions on the lyrics or concept behind this song, post it here and I’ll reply!
xoxo
Jenn
If you’re a new reader, make sure you check out previous week’s Song Dissections:
From the CD: Hearts For Bullets
Music, lyrics & vocals: Jennifer Parkin
Production, mixing, mastering: Sebastian Komor
Lyrics:
When I see you there facing your rival
To everyone it’s clear you’re in denial
And now it’s come to this
I thought it never would
Now I see you here facing your rival
You’re stuck
Elimination time pending survival
When it comes to pricks you take the title
You’ll have to suck it up! Suck it up!
Don’t you look at me I’m not your rival
Just stop!
Faking. You’re faking it.
You find yourself in the same situation
When will you learn to avoid mutilation
You’ve missed again
And there’s no telling when you will
Recover from this one
It’s a big deal
You’re dead inside is a minor understatement
More like guts scraped on the edge of the pavement
Tiny words, tiny thoughts, things that make you fear
You play dead but we know that you’re faking it.
This song, both the lyric and music content, has always been very visual to me like I simultaneously directed the video in my head while writing the song. I have a picture in my head of a showdown with 2 people standing face to in a blistering hot dessert with the bluest sky imaginable, the two people are all sweaty, and dirty like they’ve been taken right from the set of a Mad Max film. The music compliments this vision when I hear the gritty, scraping synths.
Lyrically: it’s not about one specific individual as people always tend to think about my songs, but again, I take my deepest and sometimes scattered emotions and use them to get out some frustrations at various people and situations. I do have a few people in mind of course, but generally, this song is for those I’ve encountered in my life who act like the world is out to get them and end up treating everyone like a rival or competitor when they’re not. I want to tell them to suck it up, get over it, move on and stop blaming me or others for their own short comings and failures in life. These people always seem to be stuck and left in the same situations over and over, their only way out is to “play dead”, which is the ultimate attention seeking move, to act like everything is over, but we know that they are faking it and they’ll be back, which is the last line of the bridge. That pretty much sums up the general meaning of this song. My favourite line of this whole song is: “when it comes to pricks, you take the title”. It just came out so naturally in a brainstorming session, it made me laugh and I knew I had to keep it in the song. So, yes, this is another angry song inspired by, and directed at more than one specific individual who I’ll never name names of, but again, I use anger in song so that I can remain the happy cheerful person I am.
Musical Inspiration: I was listening a lot “Sick Like Me” a song by Traumschmiere and specifically the version that was remixed by Motor. That song had this amazingly aggressive energy and these dirty synths (yes, you’ll get used to how I use the term “dirty” as a technical term!) that keeps rising up in the song and I liked how they added a sense of anticipation that I wanted to try having a song with a similar element in it. Overall, I was going for a more edgy, electro-rock vibe with big percussion for this song which was achieved. I would say another band that subconsciously influenced me in the creation of this song, was Filter whom I really liked in the later part of the 90’s. I later said to myself “Hey, Suck It Up reminds me of that Filter song “Nice Shot” how I sing the verses!” even though I hadn’t listened to that song since the 90’s!
Structure: The one part of this song that I had such a hard time with was writing a chorus! I never really wrote one for this song! Not like the kind I usually have in my songs. We used the “faking it” lyric as the chorus and structured around that, which ended up working well. I spent most of my efforts on the bridge part where I had played with layering percussion elements and having this rhythmic chanting part going on and on while the music and percussion built up. It was more fun for me to keep progressing the main bass line and feeling of the song than to spend time on a chorus apparently!
I’m doing the dissection of this song a little differently this week because I had something special for this song to share with you guys, and also because I’m in Montreal for the week, currently in the hotel with the WORST internet connection ever, and haven’t had as much time as I usually do for a write up but in a way, this is much better! I’m giving you a glimpse into the recording process. This video was made by my good friend SGoetz (aka Blepharisma) she had recorded behind the scenes footage during the studio session while I recorded the final vocals for “Suck It Up”. Now knowing this would eventually see the light of day, I’m wishing I dressed up that day for the shooting instead of wearing my comfy recording clothes! Also, I can’t believe how short my hair was back then! This is not recorded in my own home studio (I wish I had that kind of set up!), but we were able to use this space for a day, and you’ll see my good friend, keyboardist & producer of the “Flicker” CD: Joe Byer (v01d) manning the controls. I hope you enjoy seeing something rare that you don’t usually get to see everyday. Have a great weekend! I’ll be enjoying my stay in Montreal for another 3 days!
xo
Jennifer
If you don’t own this song, you can spend that dollar on it on iTunes! Or visit my web shop where I personally sign and send you stuff:
) Because I was posting short updates as much as I could. Also, Peter from Project Pitchfork was posting almost daily video reports that got funnier and funnier as the tour went on and we were all becoming one crazy tour family. If you didn’t see them on his channel t
