Hey there lovers, this week I have such a simple offering for you that it could almost called a 'ditty', but for it's lack of resemblance to anything so light-hearted as the word 'ditty' would suggest. A self-destructive love song... I love you so let the things which would destroy aim their attacks at me instead and so I would prove my love and keep you safe. All the stark drama of a Tolstoy romance, if only I'd included more frozen Russian women.

A relatively simple arrangement, though it evolved over several different recordings of the song, starting with one based largely on percussion and a few chords sprinkled through the choruses and then finally pared-back further and further to give the melody more space until it really became very sparse. Hilarious in a way, because some of you may remember a live recording of this song floating around where that original arrangement didn't sound so different (the song had only been written 2 days prior to the recording). As with many things in life, sometimes we start out somewhere, take long-winded and complicated diversion and then come back to the place we started.

On the topic of which, “Hello Brisbane”... it's been a while but I am back in you. I forsook you two years ago but have now returned with a 12 hour drive which, though mostly rather dull, was punctuated by one mild near-death experience in which the Reaper (or one of his slightly more jovial harbingers, who through shocking prank serves to remind of death presence) rode a barrel off the side of a truck that bounced all around my car without hitting it (somewhat miraculously).

And there it is again, morbidity (a barrel riding Grim Reaper) against the picturesque (the Australian bush setting of the drive), as with the theme of this weeks song. I suppose it could be argued that this is a regular tool of writing (as with my Tolstoy example) and maybe I'm just looking at it now with the eyes of someone who has been trawling backwards and forwards through his own work for the last couple of months with obsessive regularity.

As always, buy from the link above, or I'll send it to you for FREE if you it share with 3 friends (and include my email info@fronzarp.com in the CC window so I know you've done it)

Do svidaniya!

Oh welcome, dear blog readers, to my next release. I come to you LIVE from the viscous waste that occupies my poor sleepless brain. Only my third release in for the year, barely into February, and I have proof that this project may indeed compromise my fragile sanity. Given a more hectic then usual twist to life, this writing and recording rapidly eats into the time I set aside for not being awake. BLAM... farewell sleep, hello burgeoning neuroses.

Oh so much to talk about, many ideas have come together here. These topics are thrice...

1- Quickly about the track. I wrote it all very recently. Very much based around the first verse lyrics and the guitar percussion rhythm that comes in halfway through. Here's a clip of me rehearsing the rhythm and beating on my poor tortured guitar (her name is Delilah (say "Hi Delilah"), sorry for hitting you so much)



Everything very quickly built up around this rhythm into what you hear. I think I put my microphone (Shure Beta58) in about 50 places around my room looking for a spot to make it sound (what I think of as) awesome, finally landing inside the box that my computer screen sits on.

2- Followers of my songs over the years will notice that there aren't a great deal of "I'm in love" songs in there, so this, just in time for Valentine's Day, is something of a departure for me thematically and th... oh sorry, what was that...? Is it because...? Oh yes OK it's because I have a new love (new love? old love? new love?) and am pretty damned happy about it. So here's a song dedication (also something I don't really do) to being in love, to Valentine's Day and to Emma xx.

3- The third exciting thing for this song is that you'll notice it has an accompanying artwork. I have been hoping to incorporate into the 'Tiny Crooked Orchestra' project, several crossings of the general boundaries of genres and art mediums and would love to feature works by Australian artists for as many of the song graphics as I can. Thanks to artist, photographer and cinematographer (and my fine friend) Mr Steve Munro who very kindly offered this wonderful painting for 'Fire'.

To go with this, you'll notice that I've put the price of a track up to $2. Whenever I feature an artwork, I will do this and split the profit from the the track with the visual artist. Or I'll still offer the track for free if you share it with 3 of your friends because you'll also be disseminating the art provided. So please listen to 'Fire' and then visit Steve's web pages:

stevemunro.com.au - For some of his photography work
wide-angle.tv - For some of his film work
On Redbubble - for sales and prints of Steve's photography and art

Ramblings complete. More to come soon xx

Hey all. Some of you may have seen the cover I did of Gotye's massive hit 'Somebody I used to know' (video above). Its gotten lots of interest and lots of requests for the chord charts and tab and stuff like that. I really didn't think about that when I was doing it (just kinda worked it out on my uke) and I've never really done tab before but for those that have been asking here's an approximation of what I did

Intro and verse
x--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--I
2--x--0--x--I2--x--0--x--I2--x--0--x--I2--x--x--x--I
1--x--0--x--I1--x--0--x--I1--x--0--x--I2--x--x--x--I
x--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--I
(Dm -- C - Dm - C etc)


Riff
x--xx-x--x--Ix----x---x--x--Ix--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--I
2--x2-0--x--I2----x---0--x--I2--x2-0--x--I2--x--x--x--I
1--xx-3--x--I1----x---3--x--I1--x1-0--x--Ix--x--x--x--I
0--x0-x--x--I0-1-3-0-x--x--Ix--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--I x2


Chorus
x--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--I
2--x--0--x--I2--x--0--x--I2--x--0--x--I2--x--0--x--I
1--x--0--x--I3--x--0--x--I1--x--0--x--I3--x--0--x--I
x--x--x--x--I1--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--I1--x--x--x--I
(Dm -- C Gm -- C, etc)


Kimbra Pre-chorus
I don't wanna live...
x--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--I
0--x--x--x--I0--x--x--x--I
0--x--x--x--I0--x--x--x--I
x--x--x--x--Ix--x--x--x--I x4

The basic chords are just Dm-C in verse and Dm-C-Bb in the chorus, though I play a Gm in my ukulele version (because its easier to to get to a Gm in amongst all the percussion stuff I'm going then a Bb)

Anyways, ,hope this is helpful to all you uke peeps xx

Hello from this late and rainy night, my fine lovers.
I've been travelling and I've been moving and changing and finding new roads to run on. This song, “Just Because You Want it All” (the 2nd release in this year's “Tiny Crooked Orchestra” project), goes some way to expressing that. As much as it's about relationships (aren't they all), it's also about change and the fear that in our inertia the cosmic trickster, fate, dressed in its finery and top-hat, may dance through the sideshows and distractions that whiz and bang significantly around our lives and waltz past before saving us from the horrors of sleeping alone. I feel the song represents a lot of what this project will be about. Because, in the end, its a project that will map the changes in my expression through the year as I write and record songs. Perhaps also the changes in my thought process and sanity as my brain space starts to diminish more seriously.

Even though it was the second cab off the ranks, it was the 1st song I wrote and started recording. I just didn't quite get it finished in time to be first release. But I made a lot of the production decisions that will mark (and perhaps mar) the first few in this project based on it; including the minimal instrumentation, stacked voices and thumpy percussion (mostly on the body of my poor violated Gibson Bluesking acoustic guitar, named 'Delilah', who I fear may nightly cry her abused self to sleep in her fuzzy purple hard case).

At least next time, Delilah may be caressed more sensually. I'm working on a 'Valentines Day Special' for my next release. I'm no Barry White but I'll give it a red hot go.

Anyway, I hope you like Just Because You Want it All. As with the 1st song, I'm selling the download for pay-what-you-want with a $1 minimum. Or I'll email you the song for free if you email the link to the song on bandcamp to 3 more people (and then add my email, info@fronzarp.com, to the address bar so that I know you've done it)

Til next time lovers xx

Good morning lovers. There are no cracks in the sky or mountains of water descending upon us as yet. In fact, no signs of any coming world devastation beyond the usual hum of social unrest and environmental degradation that we have all come to expect and which doesn't, in general, inspire us to further question the contents of our burgers or the origins of our shoes. Last night, however, I did see a woman urinate whilst standing-up on the footpath in a crowd watching street theatre. I must admit that I was thoroughly impressed by her casual disregard for the social conventions of 'weeing in private' and 'not splashing the people around you with your wee' or even apparently 'if you do wee in public don't walk off and pretend you haven't just weed in the street and people haven't just watched you wee in the street'.

And so to business. As promised, here is my first song release for 2012 for the FRONZ ARP IS A TINY CROOKED ORCHESTRA project, <> 'Technology (Keeping Us Apart)'. Recorded in it's entirety in my bedroom on my over-stretched computer and minimal recording set-up. Now the avid keeper-upperer of my heres, theres, toings and froings might notice that I have a demo on Soundcloud with the same title as this song, which bears very little resemblance to the track I've just released. This is the original demo.

Technology (keeping us apart) by Fronz Arp

I produced this original version a few months ago and never felt it completely worked even though I really liked the musical idea. When I devised the music for the version I have just released, I found myself singing the lyrics from the original version along with it without thinking about it and decided to adapt them so they fitted with the new music.

I hope you like the song. :)

Now, something which I've also decided to trial, that I'd love your feedback on, is a system whereby I'm selling the song download for pay-what-you-want with a $1 minimum OR I'll email you the song for free if you email the link to the song on Bandcamp to three more people (and add my email info@fronzarp.com to the address bar so that I know you've done it). I'm a believer that there should be an exchange of value when distributing music, but that doesn't necessarily mean dollars and cents value. I think these two options represent a fair trade of value of either currency or 'word-spreading', which is as important to any musician as money in most respects. Anyway, I'd love your opinions on this system!

thanks lovelies xx

In 2012, I'll be starting a new project FRONZ ARP IS A TINY CROOKED ORCHESTRA and, instead of releasing a new CD, I'll be writing, producing and releasing a song at a time throughout the year. The first song 'Technology (Keeping Us Apart)' will be up on Monday 9 January. Read on for more details (in amongst my usual ramblings).

So, apparently the world may end in 2012. Somewhere between the extrapolation of ancient cultures by alternative thinkers and the reinterpretation of those concepts by the 'ideas-men' of Hollywood, and probably also thanks to the very-regular stream of entertainment-laced doomsday messages that exploit the threats of global warming, nuclear meltdown, religious war and other generally bad ways of dying en mass, it seems to have entered the world zeitgeist that there is a distinct possibility 2012 will be truncated by a yet-to-be-defined apocalypse.

What, my dear lovers, is a simple man of music to do???

Since WHAT STRANGE MACHINES, I've been writing a lot... I mean A LOT... and rather then those songs being potentially cooked in my brain by the world's unfortunate demise, I'm going to try something different to get them out there. So is born my latest project, FRONZ ARP IS A TINY CROOKED ORCHESTRA.

Instead of writing with the aim to release a collection of songs as a CD at some point this year, I'm going to write and produce songs one by one in my 'home studio' (the fancy name for my bedroom when I'm not sleeping in it). Then I'll release them as soon as each is ready, using my website, the wonderfully flexible online store Bandcamp, my social media sites, online radio stations and various other outlets to get the songs out there. I'll also write a blog for every release describing the recording process, or the story of the song, my thoughts on life at the time, the percentage area of my body covered by excema... and so on and so forth (you get the drift).

The first song is set to be up on Monday 9 January, and considering this application of all things modern and techy, its title is somewhat ironic, 'Technology (Keeping Us Apart)'.

FRONZ ARP AND THE TINY CROOKED ORCHESTRA is going to be a big challenge and a big commitment through the year. Watch this space, for the music will appear regularly and I suspect that as the project rolls on, my sanity may fray and disintegrate in the blogs in front of your very eyes and that, at the least, will probably be a pretty entertaining thing to watch as well

Ostensibly, my general attitude towards home recording is similar to my attitude towards sex: there are a few technical details you need to know, which knob to pull and which buttons to tweak, but in general all you do is direct the business end of the pointy thing at the right hole (confusing it with the wrong hole may still work but has a mixed response) and hope the results aren't a waste of everyone's fucking time.

I will soon be sitting down to record some new material but when I woke up this morning, I was struck by how ridiculous my 'home studio' appears. Here's a photo:
Yes I am the type of geek who fucks around inside his computer all the time in an attempt to make it run better (or sometimes at all). And it goes without saying that the pile of shit under the monitor, though it may look like any old pile of shit, is, in fact, a highly technical acoustical construction, the extended theoretical explanation for which would no doubt cause your reptile brains to boil and explode inside your craniums. Thusly, so as not to become known as the 'brain boiling death guy', I shall not explain it and merely say ”If you don't like it then don't look at it”.

You may also note that my microphone is on the ground. This is the correct storage method for microphones that are defined in the audio recording business by their response characteristics as being 'cheap'. Of course I would love to have an expensive microphone which I would treat with more respect. However, I would also like to have an elephant that I could ride through Newtown, flanked by a dozen buxom, blonde beauties (all of whom I would name 'Myrtle' so I wouldn't have to remember all their exotic names) and needless to say that's not going to happen any time soon either.

At any rate, these are the technical tools of my dubious trade. And largely what I have used to record my last album and several other people's album in the last couple of years, all with very pretty results. Though I lack money (for who does not lack money for their passions), I am something of a reasonable recording engineer and consider myself a good songwriter who makes interesting choices. I have no mortgage to stress over, no children or significant other to spend my time on and my work is sporadic at best. So here be my promise to you: very soon my new recording project shall begin, and you shall hear it. I have not yet decided exactly how or when it will all take place, but I'm sure it will be exceedingly clever and I'll tell you all about my cleverness because it will mostly be interesting, amusing or, at the least, full of gratuitous cuss words x

A little article in Brisbane eMX advertising upcoming shows. Sandwhiched between the soccer and something about Triple J. And isn't that somehow a metaphor for artistic life

I've been featured in a video by Soundcloud along with 5 other Sydney musos. Made by the lovely Trixie Barretto

SoundCloud Local: Sydney from Trixie Barretto on Vimeo.

Go to the Soundcloud blog, check them out and all the musicians involved
blog.soundcloud.com/2011/06/23/soundcloud-local-sydney/

 

 check out trax radio at http://www.traxxradio.net/