Midiblog 2.0

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Midiboy Is Returning

Wow. It’s been a long time since I have actually sat down to write a new song. My girls have kept me so busy, but it’s all good! I love it. Being “Daddy” is the best job in the world.

The last song I recorded, “Nameless” about 7 months ago was not actually a new song, but one that I originally wrote 3 YEARS ago. Joe Flint wrote the lyrics to that one maybe 2 years prior to that while in Iraq. I had it all recorded and when going through “cleaning” up my files on my hard drive, I found that gem sitting there. It was HORRIBLE. Production quality was nowhere near my standards. It was generally a big hunk of cheese disguised as a song. I almost archived it once and for all but something inside me told me to give it another shot. So I did.

It’s found a home on the upcoming “one:nine” project “North Flew South For The Winter.”

Anyway, last weekend I was getting ready for the day on Saturday, taking my shower and all at once, the new melody hit me. Now, when I come up with melodies, I usually insert random lyrics just to work out the melody smoothly. Usually those random lyrics are some sort of nonsense or the lyrics to Amazing Grace. (Since those lyrics work with just about any tune imaginable). The lyrics probably started out as nonsense, but they were fun. I had this “heavier guitar” riff in my head and started singing about making a choice on what kind of song to write…a rock song or a pop song. Then I realized that as much I thought Midiboy was “done” that I missed doing that project.

I started asking myself….”Why is Midiboy done?”

Originally, I thought Midiboy was done for the following reasons…

1) Traditionally, Midiboy was 2 people. Myself and Joe. Joe got really busy with his duties in the Army, and now with his duties at the hospital.
2) Midiboy implies just one person. It’s not Midiboys.
3) Midiboy is an electronica project. People don’t seem to care much about electronic music any longer. I didn’t want to be locked into doing just electronica. I figured with “one:nine”, I could still experiment with programming and electronica treatments, since quite a bit of modern rock music incorporates that now.
4) I don’t really use MIDI much, if at all, any longer. Haven’t really since Synthpops, and even then only very little.
5) I felt that if I wanted to bring in guest musicians I couldn’t because that doesn’t fit the “spirit” of the style of Midiboy.

Then I asked myself one more question…

So what?

While Joe is still busy, there is no reason Midiboy can’t continue to exist. I just talked to Joe a few days ago, and while he hasn’t had time to write, it doesn’t mean he won’t. He is also still hoping to be able to do artwork and such as well.

So what if Midiboy implies one person. When has Midiboy ever been one person? My wife even sang backup on one song and she’s not even a boy. And that’s ok. Alan Parson’s various projects always featured many musicians. In fact, he’s had whole songs that he didn’t even write, sing or in anyway perform on other than producing it for the album. So, Midiboy at this point, is a brand name that people recognize. In fact, I’d bet that just about any electronica band in the Christian music genre that is over 5 years old probably knows who I am. Granted, there aren’t a lot, but Midiboy has been on quite a few compilation CDs and remix CDs / contests to where as a brand name, it’s recognizable by a small number of genre specific people. Of course, my association with Ted Dekker is probably more widely known, but that’s fine because everyone that knows of my association there is also aware of my musical background as well.

As far as the electronica aspect, I know it’s not the most widely appreciated music by the general listening audience, but you know what? I don’t like a lot of the music that is appreciated by the general listening audience. I can only take so much Top 40 music before I start to feel my IQ dropping. While electronica isn’t widely appreciated, those that enjoy it tend to enjoy intelligent music. I want to keep providing that.

As for the MIDI aspect, oh well. I get asked almost daily what MIDI stands for. Ok, maybe not daily, but quite often. I recently upgraded from Sony’s ACID Pro 5 to version 7. It has some very good Soft Synth features which I will likely start using, That’s MIDI folks. Heh.

As far as guest musicians, again…so what. Many “solo” artists bring in guests. Why is that a problem? It’s not.

So there you have it.

If you stuck with me this long, first let me say “Thank you” for reading. I think I’m just rambling at this point. Keep your eyes here and I will put up a link to a downloadable version of “Rockstar” in a day or two.

Also, I thought it would be fun to do an updated version of a couple of past songs. Anyone have any votes on what songs they would like to hear redone? Preferably from Midi-Life Crisis, STO or Synthpops. Maybe some of you long time fans know of a song never released that you’d like to hear updated and released.

Let me know. Sound off. Be heard. And stuff.