New short video from World Racketeering Squad, "The World Revolves Around Me"

Reed's Halloween party was this weekend, and we played our longest set to date--13 songs, over an hour, with guitar and keyboard, a drummer and a backing singer.

More about that later.Here's a quick short video we made of a new little song fragment called "The World Revolves Around Me":

Link

New World Racketeering Squad soul groove--Hoarse Angel

Every time we write a new song, I'm excited, but this time doubly so. 

Up to now most of the guitar parts for our songs have been fairly simple, strummed or chugged chords, power chords, that sort of thing.  I've never really had the confidence and dexterity to do much more. 

Yesterday I spent all day playing guitar--mostly James Brown-style funk riffs, but at one point I got into a Hendrixy kind of soul groove, and it worked itself into the chords for a new song.

I recorded a short instrumental demo at about 4am, and I did what I usually do when making instrumentals or new songs--I named it something random.  In this case, it was "Hoarse angel".  I didn't even think about it, just wrote down the first thing that came to mind.

Today I worked on the chords more, just practicing and getting comfortable with them.  Reed was picking me up for a movie at 6:00, and about an hour before that a melody and some words came to me.

She's a hoarse angel. 
She's got nothing left to say.
She tried her best to help you. 
But you just sighed and walked away.

In a flash, there it was, the meaning of the phrase and the whole approach to the song.  The melody was tricky for my voice, but I knew we could either transpose it to a key I could sing, or find a good key for Reed's voice.

Reed showed up and I played it to him, and when he started singing it was clear that's how it was meant to be.  He just had a beautiful, soulful approach to it. We haven't done anything like soul so he's never had the opportunity to sing like this on any of our songs.

We talked about it and Reed busted out with a new verse that blew me away:

She's a hoarse angel,
She's got the silence in her eyes.
Though you're the one that's bleedin'
She's the only one that cries.

Great stuff.  After the movie, Reed wrote some more verses and it was clear he really "got" the song, the soulful blues in the idea really communicates with both of us.

We recorded a quick acoustic demo, and here it is for your listening pleasure.  You can hear it in one of two ways:

Download the mp3:

Hoarse angel (demo) (3:47, 3.45 MB)

Or visit our Virb site:

www.virb.com/worldracketeeringsquad/

"Hoarse angel (demo)" is currently the first song on our Virb music player, and the first track on the "Demonstrations" album.

Enjoy!

Jeff

Link

World Racketeering Squad videos--Green Muse Cafe Oct 11, 2007

On Thursday, October 11, the World Racketeering Squad played another open mic gig at the Green Muse Cafe here in Austin. We've been doing that regularly for a few weeks now, and it's a great time. Jules and John who run it are super cool, and they play great music when they get up on stage. It's a friendly atmosphere of cool people.

There were two major differences in our show this week. We used keyboard instead of guitar, and we videotaped the performance in iMovie on Reed's laptop!

I've been playing keyboard for a long time but we haven't done many recordings with it. We've decided to add the keyboard to our performance at Reed's Halloween party on October 27, so we wanted to take it out and give it a test run in front of an audience.

Overall, it went great! I'm a little rusty playing on some of these tunes, but felt excellent and the audience seemed to really enjoy it.

During our soundcheck I was doodling around with Carole King's "Natural Woman":

"Natural Woman" soundcheck

Note John waving his arms and singing along! Then our first song was "Esoteric", our ode to They Might Be Giants:

Esoteric

The crowd seemed to dig the false ending. We noticed at the end they waited a beat before clapping--"We're not getting fooled again!" The next song is our extended science fiction opus, "5017". This time we introduced its new opening section, inspired by old-time radio shows and their sponsors.

5017 (David's theme)

That one's a little weirder, especially without drums! Next up was "Professor Popinjay", our cute bouncy 1960s/Donovan-style song about an imaginary friend. Reed's been working on the tin flute for this song, and he played it here for the first time on stage!

Professor Popinjay

And we rounded out the show with "Perfectly Disposable", a sort of dance ballad. Not so dancy here, without drums, but still very fun.

Perfectly Disposable

It was an awesome show and great practice for the Halloween party. Hope you enjoy the videos!

Jeff

Two new songs in one day!

Reed came in with a new tune called "Professor Popinjay", and I brought one of my older ones to the table.

Jeff

Link

New song: "Needful things", New-Wave-meets-Stone-Roses

In addition to playing live tonight, we wrote a new song!

I came up with the music for this tune after listening to International Tweexcore Underground, I just had to whip up a New Wave-y little tune.

Reed took it and wrote up some words that should belong to a lost Stone Roses song, and, voila, "Needful things"!

Jeff

"Potential", live bossa-nova rock song in video

Jeff

"Heartbreaker" live video!

Special thanks for the video to Mocha Latte

Jeff

New song: "Screwed you"

We wrote and recorded a new song last night! It's called "Screwed you", and it's a funky disco/soul song.

Reed showed up with the chorus in his head, and we built it up into a bizarre little tune. You can check it out here at our Virb page:

http://www.virb.com/worldracketeeringsquad

Jeff

Days of Being Dumb

Here's my second album, "Days of Being Dumb", from 2001.

Jeff

Theme from The Stranger

I've been playing around with some new samples and doing a bit more composition for strings and horns. Here's a little piece I whipped up yesterday for a string quartet:



Theme from The Stranger (4.37 MB, 4:46)

Jeff

Heartbreaker

Here's "Heartbreaker", the first new song from World Racketeering Squad.

Jeff

World Racketeering Squad

Last summer my friend Reed and I wrote a couple of songs and unofficially formed a band. This year we've been writing and recording a lot more and decided to start playing. Right now it's just me on guitar and Reed singing, and Reed was throwing a party on Saturday so we decided that was the perfect time to debut the World Racketeering Squad.

The party got off to a slow start around 9 but by 10:30 it was really jumping, with a great mix of people and a good energy. Around 11:30 or so we decided we were going to play, and announced it to everyone.

It's been a long time since I've performed anywhere, and I was pretty nervous leading up to it. I realized that 'stage fright' is just a variation on the 'fight or flight' response all animals get, which basically means "pay CLOSE attention, this is important!" Not life threatening in this case, but important nonetheless.

That gave me a great perspective and we went on to play a really fun set. It was very simple, just three acoustic songs, "Sylvia", "Heartbreaker", and "Potential", all of which I've posted here on the Hear Here forum. The audience was all friends and well-disposed towards us but I was surprised by just how effusive they were, clapping and laughing and cheering at all kinds of great places. They really seemed to connect with the songs and it went great. Reed has excellent stage personality and had a good rapport with the group.

After a while a new batch of people had arrived, and a bunch of the folks who'd heard us play already insisted we do an encore for those who had missed it! So we played another set, this time a bit looser and more intoxicated. It was a lot of fun too. During "Potential", a bossa-nova jazz tune, a girl in the audience started tapping out a groovy drumbeat on a tabletop. Turns out she's a drummer and has been wanting to play some jazz, so I got her number! Also talked to some potential backup singers too!

Anyway, it was a great time. Reed posted about it on our MySpace page.

We're planning to find an open mic to go to sometime in September, and Reed throws a Halloween party every year where we're bound to play again. The crowd definitely could've handled a longer set, and we've been working on new songs. The main thing I learned was that I REALLY have to work on my rhythm, and just practice more. Rhythm and Timing has always been an issue for me, and I don't want to sound sloppy in front of people. But I can't wait to play out again!

Jeff

Holy Virgin on Fire vs Drunken Evil Dead

Here's "A Spot of Kung Fu", track 3: "Holy Virgin on Fire vs Drunken Evil Dead"



Jeff

A Spot of Kung Fu: Fall in love again

Here's the second track from my 1999 album, "A Spot of Kung Fu". This one's called "Fall in love again", and it's a simple little romantic ditty with the vocals pitched way down to make them sound more soulful.

Even now this is one of my favorite tracks from this period, I like the sincerity of the lyrics and I dig the guitar solo, in spite of the wacky feedback.

Enjoy!

Surreally Divine

Testing out a little widget for publishing songs. This is the first track off "A Spot of Kung Fu", my first album, recorded and mixed in my bedroom in NYC in 1999.

Jeff