Tag: music

Scala & Kolacny brothers

I’ve sung this song countless times in choirs. I kinda grew to hate the song because it was such a standard part of choral repertoire when I was a teen. But we never made it as beautifully melancholic and full of yearning as this fantastic choir have, and they’ve completely reinvigorated the song in choral version in my estimation:

They’re a really sensational choir – it’s so rare that you see an all female choir comfortable singing down out of the rafters and really going for a beautiful texture. The two brothers who run the choir (conductor and pianist) create these absolutely gorgeous arrangements of songs as diverse as Air’s “Sexy Boy” and Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”.

They’re a choir doing versions of songs from popular music in absolutely wonderful arrangements, but not in a glee-style show choir manner. I first heard their cover of “Sexy Boy” and completely loved it. Since then I’ve come across a fair bit of their music via youtube, and sourced two of their albums. Their covers don’t always work for me, but when they do, they’re absolutely thrilling:

Smells Like Teen Spirit (live)

Years ago I actually did a choral arrangement of Kylie’s “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head”, so I was intrigued to hear how they’d interpret it, but unfortunately I’m not a huge fan of their arrangement. But interestingly, there are some of the same harmony lines in their arrangement as I have in some bars of mine.

However, my arrangement was for a musical inspired by “Sister Act”, so the song was re-appropriated to be sung to Jesus instead, and included a “Allelujah” too for good measure.

However, some other songs are far more successful. This is one of my favourites, and is featured as the soundtrack for the trailer for “The Social Network“:

DJing at R.I.P. (Rock Indie Pop)

I’ll be spinning some tunes for a while at the R.I.P. (Rock Indie Pop) night in The Button Factory, Dublin next Friday 27th. DJ Laura Lovejoy of the band Pulpit will also be playing, alongside R.I.P. regular DJ Sean John.

If you’re around Dublin, come check it out. (click the poster for the facebook event page)

After the last two nights of fun this Summer, we couldn’t let August pass without another RIP.

The Button Factory will open it’s doors again for a third installment on Friday 27th August, and to help get us in the mood for Electric Picnic / back to collage / the leaves falling from the trees, DJ Seán John will be back to rock our world with more of his signature beats, and joining him this time will be DJ ebby.

Spinning his own blend of rock, alternative, quirky pop and electro, ebby has been DJing gay alternative nights in Galway since 2006, namely AlternativEden, IQ (IndieQueer) and Smells Like Queen Spirit, while Dublin dwellers may have caught him this year playing at Paddy Monster.

DJ Laura Lovejoy will be on the decks in the Button Factory side bar. Obsessed with 60s pop, as well as girl groups, soul, motown and surf, Laura’s record collection is a treasure trove of the finest pop hits and obscure gems. She’s currently the weekend resident DJ at the Garage Bar in Temple Bar, and before that she played at Antics, Retro Revival at Le Cirk, Shebeen Chic and Dice Bar. She ranks Phil Spector and Joe Meek among her favorite producers, and the multi-talented Laura also plays guitar and sings with the band The Pulpit, who rocked RIP back in June. She’ll be accompanied on the decks by band mate Evan O’Leary.

Maria (demo)

The lyrics for this song were written years ago, I think circa 2002 or so, but didn’t become a song until some time in 2006. I wrote the music for this and another song Caoineadh initially as piano instrumentals first. The lyrics for Caoineadh started to come as I was playing through the music for that one, but it was only as I was going through old ideas and words that I’d sketched out that I noticed that the other instrumental I’d been doodling on at the piano fit rather well with the words of Maria. I have two other melodic lines written (possibly two violins, but I’m toying with the idea of going with woodwinds for this song, as I think it’d suit it better, but that’s for another day I guess) but they’re not recorded in this demo at all.

It’s a song that I always mess up the verse order in when I play it live, but at the same time, it’s a song that I tend to pull out a lot when I’m playing live, as it’s just lovely to play to be honest. I might record an instrumental version of this when I work out the rest of the instrumentation. I think that would be lovely.

Maria (demo) by misterebby

Friday Night Friends (demo)

This song kinda came together in dribs and drabs over a wee period of time. The main chunk of the lyrics were written all at once, in a longer form that I edited down a good time later. But it didn’t really start to come together until I added what became the middle section and the whole idea of what the song was about started to take shape.

Initially I was going for a piano version of a surf-pop kinda song, to counteract the bite in the lyrics, I’m still not sure about what way the arrangement will go: whether to make it poppier and lighter, or to go for a more piano rock sound. I’m still toying with this song in that regards, but I do like playing it solo with just piano.

I’m rather terrible at programming beats, but I just needed something to play off and to start to give myself an idea of how the whole song would sound. So, it’s definitely a demo, and definitely quite rough still, but it’s helped me to see the shape of the song, and what I want to change or alter, and to give me ideas on how I want to flesh out the arrangement more.

Friday Night Friends (demo) by misterebby

Download: Galway Rain – demo.

London

I’ve had the house to myself again today, so after spending a while in town being sociable I came home and spent the evening playing with the cat, cooking dinner, and demoing a song.

This song is one that popped up in the video clips from a gig I did in January, so I’ve been wanting to start recording it in some way. I never really get to hear the songs until I hear a recording of them, as when you’re playing them it’s hard to be an outside listener too.

Regardless, this demo is scrappy: bum notes on the piano; bum notes in the vocals; rough sketch of the middle bit with the layers. Just generally a bit scrappy all round, but it gives a good idea of the whole song.

I’m not 100% sure of about this song yet – it feels too long, and I’m pondering whether I should cut a section, or merge some parts or something. As it stands, the lyrics were mostly written when I lived in the UK in 2005 or so, and the music was written when I was living in Galway a year ago at this stage. It’s a song that has kinda hung around for a while without really becoming anything until it just popped out while I was playing around with a piano idea one day.

Anyways, here’s the demo I put together this evening.

[audio:http://www.misterebby.com/previewtracks/galwayraindemo.mp3]
Galway Rain (demo) (right-click and save to download)

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