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Apples OTE on Indie MP3! I join thepunkguy.com!

After a new low of reviewing my own music, I have become the first other contributor to one of my favorite blogs, New York City's Thepunkguy.com

I posted one review so far: of NYC's punks, Gloryhole. Check it out.

Also, my band Apples of the Earth was reviewed on one of my other favorite blogs, Indie-Mp3.co.uk

Also the other day I found an Eames chair on the sidewalk with a free sign. I have been wanting one of these chairs for a while and now I have one!

The Music of Michael Morrissey.

The Music of Michael Morrissey

Currently, I am involved with a project called Apples of the Earth. This began out of my friend Brads’ band Rocket Punch. Rocket Punch was a one person band, but Jessica was recruited through a Craigslist ad. Jessica had previously played in a garage rock band called The Flank. Rocket Punch played one show and wrote one song as a band and then reverted to a one man band. Apples of the Earth was formed directly thereafter and played one show and began recording. Here are two songs we’ve done.

“Pearl Jam is not a very good band.” This song is a response song to local radio station KNRK playing Pearl Jam so often, claiming they are an alternative station but still playing singles from nearly fifteen years ago. It is a joke in the sense that music can never really be qualified as “good” despite people constantly doing so. This song also displays my affinity for songs without choruses. I play guitar, sing, and play Hammond organ. Jessica plays drums. It was recorded in June 2007 on an Apple notebook computer using GarageBand and the internal microphone.

Link: Apples of the Earth - "Pearl Jam is not a very good band."

“One Fine Day” is Jessica’s favorite song to play. This song has choruses, albeit non-repeating ones. In an interview with the group Jawbreaker, I heard them describe parts of their songs as “grace notes.” This referred to the section near the end of the song that gave the listener and the band time to reflect upon the song, while not actually repeating it. It would normally be the part for the guitar solo, except the whole band plays equally. I tried to do that in the end of this song.

Link: Apples of the Earth - "One Fine Day"

“Smile, Come with me and” was originally a Castawaves song. The Castawaves were a band comprised of me on drums and my friend Jason on guitar. I borrowed a drum set and brought it to college during my sophomore year. No one else who wanted to start a band had a drum kit, so even though I didn't know how to play I decided it would be best to just start. This song is the first song on our EP, which was both entitled and released during the "Summer of 2003." TheCastawaves version of this song is slower and sounds like the Red House Painters, despite Jason, having never heard Red House Painters. For Apples of the Earth, we sped up the song a bit and played the guitar with a little more attack and bite. The result is an aggressive love song with passive lyrics. Jason wrote most of this song, but I wrote the drum parts and contributed the line “I’m with friends and I’ll ditch them for you.”

To hear the Apples of the Earth version click: http://www.myspace.com/applesoftheearth

To hear the Castawaves version click: Castawaves - "Smile, come with me and"

Like my childhood introduction to music, Phil Collins, I saw no problem with singing and playing drums at the same time. In Castawaves, I did just that. One of my favorite songs was the one that I took for the name of this weblog. “The Day We Never Went Home” is a semi-imaginary tale of running away from an undefined school. I have always loved runaway songs and consider them to often be more fulfilling to listen to than love songs. In the end of this song, I quoted lines from other artists I listened to a lot at the time, Elliott Smith and Pretty Girls Make Graves. All music is quotes from some other music, so why not just state it?

This recording comes from a live performance on April 26, 2003 that was captured quite well on minidisk. I think my drumming was at its peak then.

Castawaves - "The Day We Never Went Home"

The Tennies. In the summer of 2003 my friend Colleen and I had the great idea to secretly write and record an album that was entirely biographical. We chose our mutual friend and my roommate Joe M as the source of the stories for these. Songs are always so great when they are specific and local, and this really captured that feeling. After the album was complete we cornered Joe and sat him down to listen to it. Confrontation in art is always great and Joe was shocked at first, then flattered, and is now nostalgic that the songs captured his life in college for all time.

Two of the Tennies songs are available on my friend’s website at http://www.glassanimalindex.com/ in the “media” section.

“Kickback” was the story of Joe befriending a middle aged, NASCAR-loving, redneck co-worker named Dennis while working on the maintenance/moving crew at college. This song is another example of my affinity for songs without choruses. This song throws statements about Joe (“he knew how to operate a screwdriver and wanted to make ten dollars an hour”) and Dennis (“he has aspirations to buy a plasma big screen TV”) that tell the story and basically sets a high-water mark for fun. The name of the song comes from Joe’s on-the-job nickname due to his willingness to relax and take breaks.

The Tennies - "Kickback"

“A Secret Secret” is another song from the album, which we called “Oh! Poor Joe.” This one is meant to taunt Joe a bit, but then appeases him with a spoken word bit about how to gain infinite lives on Super Mario Brothers II. I don’t even like video games, but Joe said once that he’d pay me ten dollars to record me playing guitar and singing video game cheats because he thought it was so funny. We figured by track three Joe might hate us for making sport of him and his life, so we did this to cheer him up.

The Tennies - "A Secret Secret"

Michael Mahoney, owner of GlassAnimalIndex.com, remixed the songs, and you can listen to those on the site too. These songs were originally recorded on a Sony notebook computer with a standard computer microphone plugged in. I used a program called MultiTrack Recorder and sang and played guitar. Colleen played Casio keyboard and also sang.

When I first learned guitar and multi-track recording, I recorded four songs for a CD called “Fun Deficit,” but those songs are too old and embarrassing to show here.

Thank you for listening.

Apples OTE mentioned on Indie MP3

Apples of the Earth received an approving nod on indie-mp3.co.uk

http://www.indie-mp3.co.uk/2007/07/my-space-has-talent.html

(Photo: rain on the sunroof of my VW.)

Apples of the Earth - "Pearl Jam is not a very good band."

I'm not going to give you an mp3 of this yet. It's not finished. But some recording is better than no recording. This is my band's song "Pearl Jam is not a very good band." You can hear it on our Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/applesoftheearth

This song is a response song to the local 94.7FM KNRK radio station playing Pearl Jam all the time. I should also mention that we are available to play shows in the greater Portland, Oregon area. So book us a show at your house or at your favorite club! Here are the lyrics. Enjoy.

Pearl Jam is all you ever wanted in a band. You bought all their record company issued live bootlegs from their old tour. Did you buy them for the Who covers, or because you wanted to hear "Daughter" as performed in Milan, Italy in the summer of 1998? Would you like me
any better if I were Eddie Vedder. Yeah you would, and truthfully I would too. What's the song about the lonely woman behind the counter in the small town? I've not heard that one in years or if I did, neither I nor Jessica could remember it. What's the guitarists name anyway? Was it Mike? Did you like Yield, Versus, the new album with the avocado on the cover? Did you buy it the first week it was out? I tried to get you in to Pavement and Built to Spill. I made you a
CD-R of "There's nothing wrong with love," but I don't think you listened to it. So hey I give up, yeah I quit.

BOUNCIN'

I've been listening to a lot of music from about ten years ago. Kind of unpredictably, I've gotten back into jam rock supergroup PHISH. I have been downloading many shows from www.momadance.com and enjoying them very much. My tattooed punk girlfriend refuses to hear about how DIY and great Phish are, how they are so DIY that they only play guitars made by their neighbor from Vermont, how they give all their profits from Phish Food ice cream to charity, how they have a great sense of humor, and how they became huge without any mainstream radio or pop culture support. Actually, I don't think any of my friends want to hear about how great Phish is. So, here is a performance of Phish's biggest "hit" - hated by all mid nineties Phishheads as the ultimate "newbie" song, only suitable for bathroom breaks mid set:

Bouncin Round The Room, performed in 1990

Maybe it's how I don't want to talk about politics any more and have a boring job that Phish's music calms me for. Maybe it was seeing the Phish tribute band Phix play last year. Maybe it's that I'm getting old and I actually saw Phish shows over the summer every summer from 1997 to 2000. I don't know.

My favorite Phish song of right now is "Punch You In The Eye". Look it up.

For the punkers out there I've been downloading all these tracks and loving them too:
One guy's history of Emo from the 1990s to 2000s:
http://www.canyouseethesunset.com/2007/04/spoonful-of-emo-revisited.html

My favorite song from this collection right now is Jejune's song from the split with Jimmy Eat World. I'm totally ripping off stuff like that and Unrest for our band Apples of the Earth.

Apples of the Earth

Apples of the Earth played our first show on Friday at "Plastic Matt's House" in SE Portland.

Here are the songs we played:

Bluelights
Smile, Come With Me And (Castawaves cover)
Wait (Secret Stars cover)
Pearl Jam is not a very good band
Giraffe (instrumental)

Thanks to Hurah Hurah and The Clearing for playing a show with us! I should really write about those bands because they are both fantastic.

Rocket Punch broke up.

Sorry, fans. Rocket Punch broke up! Instead, Apples of the Earth, our new band, will be playing a house show this friday - March 16, 2006 - in SE PDX with Hurah Hurah and The Clearing.

Come to the show to hear the new hit "Pearl Jam is not a very good band" before it hits MTV Europe.