However I am not.

So for the last few weeks, I’ve been really getting into making my songs sound as best as I possibly can. This has been quite a timely process, as I’ve been real anal and am aiming to make all my songs stand alone.

I’ve had a go at EQing all my songs. This is something that engineers take 20 years to learn. So when I dived into the deep end I’ll be honest I didn’t really know what I was doing. I hit a few forums and got some advice.

Basically, EQing is making sure that there aren’t too many instruments in your mix clashing. E.g. you want to make sure the bass drum and the bass guitar sit really well together, like in a pocket. You also want to make sure that the frequencies that the lead guitar are using aren’t clashing with the vocal track.

Doesn’t really make sense does it? Well put it this way… You have made heaps of cupcakes, but you want them to sit together nicely. So you don’t just throw them all willy nilly into the box. Otherwise when people see the box they’ll be like “OMG, there are like cupcakes on top of one another and icing is like going everywhere”.

However, if you were to place the cupcakes nice and tidily into the box, you can open the box and people can see all the cupcakes in all their glory, and know exactly what each cupcake represents and how good it will taste.

If my music was a tray of cupcakes, I’d like it to taste pretty damn good. Get it?

Its true that its a good idea to leave things and come back to them, hell even leaving a blog post and coming back to it the next day makes you see heaps of errors in your writing. Most of all my songs that I’ve left and come back to have made me face palm when I listen to them again. Except this song. So today I built on it, went crazy, and it was terrific (I bet you tomorrow I wake up, listen to it and think – oh god, why did I blog about this? this is song is horrid).

And you know what? I’m actually going to put it on the album. Yep. There’s been songs that I’ve worked on for about 8 times the amount as this one, but hey, I guess that’s just how the cookie crumbles.

Oh, and to be a jerk, I’m not going to attach the whole song, in fact just attach an excerpt. The song title will be named “Flint’s Adventures In A Rather Dangerous Land”. This is dedicated to my soft toy giraffe friend Flint, who has unfortunately been adopted by me, and has been the only witness to all my rather frustrating, enjoyable and downright crazy bedroom studio sessions. Sometimes I feel that Flint would miss his friends back at the soft toy store. So Flint, this song if for you!

Flint’s Adventures In A Rather Dangerous World

So lately I’ve been trying to organise my songs and work out which order I want them to be on the album. This has become quite a frustrating process. I’ve already got my first track sorted out, which is cool. But finding a track to put on the end of the album is starting to annoy me.

You want the last track on the album to leave the listener on a good note, make them feel like the album is complete. The thing is, I’ve had a shortlist of songs I could put on the end of my album, but when I work on them for too long I decide that the song deserves to be higher up on the list – obviously being the last track the percentage of listeners actually listening to the song would be quite low in comparison to say my first 3-5 songs. Headache!

Anyway, to clear my head I went in search of albums I like that have a great closing track. Here’s my top ten:

10. Freedom – Rage Against The Machine
Ok lets start off with Rage, a phat 6 minute song at the end of their self titled album. It really starts at around 1:47 when it goes on an almighty breakdown, with a series of tight riffs which just gels together really well. I love it how at the end its just an absolute mess, giving you the feeling that Rage has just trashed all their shit and left the studio.

9. Champagne Supernova – Oasis
Unforunately now when I hear this song it reminds me of a particular episode of the OC, and no not the first series (where it was actually kinda good…) more of the woeful second series. But anyway the version on the OC was a cover, so it didn’t destroy this song completely.

8. Eclipse – Pink Floyd
It’s not my favourite song on the album, but with a such a powerful list of songs, it would have been pretty hard to finish it off. Pink Floyd did just that, I think Eclipse brings all the elements of the album together, and the quote ‘There is no dark side of the moon really, as a matter of fact it’s all dark’ is just awesome, as is the heartbeat that fades away (which is also used at the start for Speak To Me).

7. Vegan in Furs – Of Montreal
Satanic Panic in the Attic is my favourite Of Montreal album, as my flatmates would know (was probably spun on repeat for a month!). It doesn’t really seem to have the elements of ‘epic last songs’ but for me personally its just a really good song, and it’s just as strong as any other song on that album. But anyway the last 30 seconds is awesome, gotta love the bass riff followed by the gong.

6. Her Majesty – The Beatles
Ok, so it’s 20 seconds long, so does it count? Yes of course it does, because it’s awesome. It feels like the Beatles just came back out for one more song and really just toned it down. Ok better stop writing more crap about a 20 second song, but the guitar part rules. Oh and THAT bass note at the end…

5. The Past and Pending – The Shins
Ok getting into the business end now. Mercer really has such an amazing tone with his voice in this song. Its so minimal too (mostly guitar and vocals) which really just makes it so nice and the way it just brilliantly build up is just so soothing. A great end to a fantastic album.

4. Rider on the Storm – The Doors
This song just screams epic. With its 7 minute length, sound effects of rain and that slightly distorted electric keyboard, nothing else on the album comes close in my opinion (except possibly Love Her Madly).

3. Aneurysm – Nirvana
Definitely the best song on the album (Insecticide) and would arguably be regarded as one of their top songs. The build up at the start is terrific, followed by such a change in pace. “Beat It, Beat It” is just so catchy and the outro of the song “She keeps it pumping straight to my heart” is just awesome. Would have been one of those songs in their live shows where the crowd would have gone mental.

2. A Day In The Life – The Beatles
I think we’re all secretly glad that The Beatles didn’t end Sergeant Pepper’s with the reprise song… A Day In The Life is just over the top mental. Combining both styles of Lennon and McCartney separated by a ridiculous orchestral breakdown.

Producer George Martin explains writing the orchestra part:
“What I did there was to write … the lowest possible note for each of the instruments in the orchestra. At the end of the twenty-four bars, I wrote the highest note…near a chord of E major. Then I put a squiggly line right through the twenty-four bars, with reference points to tell them roughly what note they should have reached during each bar … Of course, they all looked at me as though I were completely mad.”

1. Street Spirit (Fade Out) – Radiohead
I change my mind everyday when I think about whether ‘The Bends’ or ‘OK Computer’ is my favourite album. But in terms of last songs on both albums, Street Spirit definitely takes the cake. Not saying that ‘The Tourist’ (last song on OK computer) is bad, its just that Street Spirit is just so well written. The guitar riff puts you in such a state, hooking you in everytime. I love the guitar work that comes in around the 2 minute mark, building up to the string and heavy drums at the end which just completes the song, and the album, perfectly.

Also an honorable mention goes to Sir Psycho Sexy by the Chili Peppers, since technically it isn’t the last song on the album as ‘They’re red hot’ completes the cd and is just a stupid crappy 1:21 popcorn tune, Psycho sexy just has terrific chord progressions and has a nice, calm, consistent groove, which is a great change of pace as we all know some of the stuff in Sex Magik can be quite spastic.

I’ve added the song ‘Villains’ to the website. Its a few months old now, but the writing process and the lyrics for it took little time in comparison to some of my other songs. The main riff uses guitar and bass, and if you notice the riff continues throughout the whole song, with other elements just getting layered over the top.

The chorus ‘They are growing into villains again’ was inspiration from this kid who was playing music through his mobile way too loud on the train (it was awful music as well). Everyone on the train really wanted to punch him and in the end it was a nice old lady who told him to turn it down. The kid looked so pissed off that he had to turn his music down, was quite funny actually.

This album has really grown on me during the past few weeks, it’s got to the stage where I almost prefer every song on it over “Like a Rolling Stone” (Madness!).

Still, the thing about this album that really draws me to it is the fact that it just sounds so raw – but in a good way. These days so much music is made to the best standards, using the best gear, and the best sound engineers (not me!). But this album sounds makes you feel like you were standing in the studio listening to them record in one take. In fact that reminds me – I heard during an interview with the Rolling Stones that they could only afford limited hours in the studio – so therefore they just smashed the song over in about an hour and just left it at that and went on with it.

Now days with people recording in their homes, like myself, we have this timeless period where mistakes such as a small lapse in time or an 90 percent guitar riff, starts to haunt you until it gets to the stage where you end up punching a wall cause you realised that the first recording of the guitar riff was better than your 50th.

Well, that’s just a thought or too, Highway 61 Revisited rocks – go listen to it, your father will appreciate you more.