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 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.

Fun Deficit - "This Is The Dream of Evan and Chan"

I have a lot of posts on this blog that you don't see. I write them up and decide not to post them. I had the idea to post this song back in October, but didn't, and I haven't posted any exclusive music since then. So here's a song that I recorded. It's the song "This is the dream of Evan and Chan" by Dntel/Ben Gibbard aka The Postal Service. I recorded it back in 2002 in Geneseo, before I also realized I was in love with Cat Power. It's kind of whiny, so be warned. For the record, I recorded two discs of 'official' material as Fun Deficit. The first was the self titled ep: four songs released in 2002. I made copies of this and gave most of them to my friends and one to Bob Nanna. Then I recorded "When I Forgot What I Had Been Wishing For" which was so good that I never made any copies for anyone. It still might be too good. Anyway, enjoy this cover. If I were to bust into the same song right now, my roommate Greg would probably cover his end of the heat vent with a pillow.

Fun Deficit - "This Is The Dream of Evan and Chan"

In case you don't know: Evan, Chan
This song's entry on Wikipedia: LINK

It was familiar to me,
the smoke too thick to breathe.
The tile floors glistened;
I slowly stirred my drink.
And when you started to sing, you spoke with broken speech
That I could not understand,
and then you grabbed me tightly.

I won't let go, I won't let go.
Even if you say so, oh no.
I've tried and tried with no results.
I won't let go, I won't let go.

He then played every song from nineteen ninety three.
The crowd applauded as he curtsied bashfully.
Your eyelashes tickled my neck with every nervous blink,
And it was perfect until the telephone started
Ringing ringing ringing ringing ringing off...

Vitreous Humor - "Why Are You So Mean To Me?"

This band is named after the liquid in eyeballs, and actually live up to such a name. They are a midwestern emo band who did a split record with one of my favorite bands ever, Boys Life, and this song was on it.

It's also on their record "Posthumous," which was the first record I bought after moving here. I found it for $2.50 at CD Exchange on Hawthorne. The whole record is really good, but this song and the first song "My Midget" are incredible. This song was recorded in 1994 and sounds better than anything else I have that was recorded that year. Apparently this band was courted by the major labels, but never signed. Thus, "Why Are You So Mean To Me?" is a secret superhit.

You might know this song because a "popular" band, Nada Surf, picked it up and covered it a few years ago. That's where I first heard it. Their cover is really good, but this original version is screamin' great. The guitars sound like the ocean on rocks and the drums are anxious and may not even be on time but still sound spot on. I hope you like this song.

CLICK THIS LINK, SISSY! then click "FREE" (bottom right)!

Vitreous Humor at Crank! Records : link
Vitrous Humor at MySpace : link

The Promise Ring - "Electric Pink"

Continuing on with the "Music My Sister Wants to Hear" series, we have the song "Electric Pink" by one of my favorite bands ever, The Promise Ring. I think of The Promise Ring as a very summery band, except for their early stuff like on The Horse Latitudes, which I consider to be a little bit autumnal and nocturnal.

This is one of the songs my sister would hear in the car with me driving. It's off of their EP of the same name, which came out after "Very Emergency" but before "Wood/Water" (both of which I associate with the summertime). Please listen to this in honor of an Indian Summer.

CLICK ON THIS, SISSY!

This disc was really great because it's artwork is almost all just a solid pink block on the cover, but with the song titles in small type at the top. One of the members of The Promise Ring is a graphic designer, so all their albums had fantastic artwork that made you excited to be buying their albums. This EP also included a re-recorded version of the song "American Girl" which was off of their "Boys & Girls" EP, which is an interesting statement in itself. It's kind of self-indulgent, but kind of neat and relaxed. It really lets the band get out their material in a great way. I wish more bands took having fun as seriously as The Promise Ring did.

I live on a small street, with very small shoes but in a big house, with a big wardrobe. I've got the whole world in my hands; it's a small world after all. And there's not much to say on five bucks a day, and there's no other way, so we're just hanging around. For the weekend to come we're all hungry and dumb for Friday. Please don't press that we dress, high heels and loud shoes are a mess step out with quiet feet. I'm pleased to meet; meeting is so hard to do when you're dead. Between a wink and an earthquake there are conversations and complications go on, on, and on I pretend that I understand my hands and the rest are only a test. To be paid to be pressed when we end we will be softly kissed.

Yeah, I feel electric
Pink in the cheeks
We look like animals
Seven days a week
I'm too polite
You're too brief

{There's more of The Promise Ring, including buying their stuff, at www.jadetree.com
I love The Promise Ring so much, I'll probably post more of their stuff soon.}

Dressy Bessy - "I Saw Cinnamon"

My sister lost all the songs on her iPod. She wants me to send her some songs that she likes that I introduced to her. I told her to just download a bunch of new music that she'll probably like, such as Lily Allen. She never had this song, "I Saw Cinnamon" by Dressy Bessy on her iPod, but she's had it in her head for years. I saw Dressy Bessy play in 2002 at CBGB's and it was great. They are named after an old Playskool doll. This song is a superhit, by all means. So, here it is.

CLICK ON THIS, SISSY!!!

Buy Dressy Bessy's stuff at www.dressybessy.com