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So, let’s see, where to start?
… I like music.
I like writing it and playing it, and one day I might actually be good enough to sing it, despite my attempts. Really, I don’t have any deeply held hopes of being rich and famous. There are too many clones out there
in an overly saturated market. Me? I just sit here playin’ my guitar and doin’ a little recording here and there. Yes, I have uploaded songs to the Internet and, yes, I have compiled a few cd’s which are for sale. Hey, if I can make
money at doing something I love, it can’t be that bad. But the truth is, there isn’t a huge market for the singer/songwriter types in the mainstream industry. But who wants mainstream,
anyway? Not me. Not usually.
 I’m
musically independent, yet
somewhat shy and introverted. I don’t play in front of people that often. I create music for
me: I write songs and record guitars and harmonies that I want to listen to–that should exist, not because they’d be popular, but because they’re
right for me. (After all, “man’s ego is the fountainhead of human progress.”) If you want to hear my music and perhaps pay for it as well,
all the better! If I didn’t enjoy listening to my music, then who would?
I don’t see the point otherwise. It’s a life philosophy.
The History: you don’t care about it.
Or, at least, you shouldn’t. But if you do, I’ll be brief. I started writing songs way back in high school. This is early 90’s era we’re talking about. And they were all Songs About Girls.
Really, they were. I taught myself guitar on my dad’s old nylon string acoustic and soon I was hounding him to get me an electric. So I got one–not so much because I’m good at hounding, or even that my parents just bought me things when I ask for them; for these things weren’t true. I think I got it because of my dad’s aspirations that his son might grow up and be the next Ian Hunter, or perhaps a lesser mortal rock-god, which still ain’t bad. (Don’t worry Dad, I’m workin’ on
it!) I got an overly-priced Fender Squire Strat. I loved it.
From this point, I got really good at mimicking Van Halenisms and battering out Nirvana
tunes and, basically, being an obnoxious high school kid with an electric guitar.
And an amp. And a distortion pedal. And daydreams of
stardom. And a highly developed air-guitar technique, which translated
very poorly into actual-guitar technique. But I got better. I
did. Trust me.
It was also around this time,
Junior and Senior years of high school, that I discovered MIDI. Now, keep in mind, this is MIDI as it was in,
like I said, the early 90’s and consisted solely of little beeps, popping
noises, shallow-sounding drums, and piano patches indistinguishable from bass guitar patches. But I learned all my rudimentary arranging, sequencing, and orchestrating skills from playing around on my dad’s 286 IBM compatible PC, and a cheapo Casio MIDI keyboard (which I still have, and even use … listen for the “strings” in the PWC recording of That One
Song). I sequenced Nirvana songs. I know Smells Like Teen Spirit
inside and out. (As a side note, I'd like to point out how cool I felt when,
after years of actual music education, I pointed out that the fading
distorted F chord at the end of that song is a Picardi Third, since the
feedback comes in pitched at A, the major third in the F minor key the song
is played in. Picardi Thirds, just to be clear, are not often found
in pop music. It’s the classical composers who put major triads in
the cadence of a minor-key piece, not grunge bands with unintelligible,
screaming front men. This actually contributed to my admiration for
Kurt Cobain and his music, whether or not the Picardi thing was
intentional. Great tunes, great tunes. Anyway, where was I?)
 And I wrote songs. And I wrote bad high school
poetry. Which became songs. And I fell for this girl or that.
Infatuation. Crush. Admiration from afar. But then I realized I hadn’t a chance
(with the girls), and so the cycle begun anew and, in the nature of cycles,
continued quite cyclically. Years
passed. Galaxies collided. Stars were born. Reality
television still didn’t exist at this point, but that has nothing to do
with the story anyway, so ignore that bit, please.
I entered college with a
Music Composition major and attended for two-and-a-half years. I
learned a whole bunch of stuff about theory and progressions and Dominant
Seventh chords and Neopolitan Sixth chords and how brilliant Bach was, and
so on and so forth. I composed many things, for many different kinds
of instruments, but I always went home and jammed on my guitar, applying
what I learned to the songs I wrote. Now, I’m not saying the the
songs I write are all brilliant manifestations of a superior music education
(only you can be the judge of that), but I do try to incorporate my
knowledge of theory as much as I can. And I’m always willing to
learn more.
My lyrical abilities improved
by, if from nothing else, just writing tons of stuff, followed by more tons
of stuff, interspersed with megatons of crap. I’m told that the
turning point in my lyrical (as well as musical) ingenuity was when I wrote Just
Friends, an only slightly bitter divulgence of feelings about
the first girl I ever went on a date with. “The silence drives me
crazy 'cause all I hear are my own thoughts. Like bullets, they shoot
through my head. A memory is a million shots.” Those were
the first lines I wrote. Those became the opening lines to the
song. (I still don’t get why she agreed to a date date, which
was what it was, when she had no intentions whatsoever of anything
more than being [guys, prepare to cringe] just friends!) From
there, I wrote more and more. I grasped the concept of crafty writing,
wry turns of phrase, alliteration, perfect meter and rhyme schemes, and I
still, to this day, try my damnedest to write lyrics to the best of my
poetic abilities.
Actually, I stopped writing Songs About Girls several years ago. I’d like to think that I have matured, in fact, I’m pretty sure that that’s the case. I also have a girlfriend. Which is good. (And, interestingly enough, I’ve never written a song for or about her.
[editor’s note: Please mentally append an "ex" in front of the
aforementioned "girlfriend" … and, perhaps, revise the
never-written-a-song part with the phrase “and now please listen to
a clip from my song Soliloquy” if you
would be so kind.] ) If you look at the lyrics of some of my “classics” you’ll find such jewels as “Dearest Yvette, why didn’t I ever get the chance to
sing those words to you?” and the ever-catchy ”Sonya, hadn’t I known
ya, I wouldn’t think I’d write another rhyme. Sonya, when I’m alone, ya fill the vivid images in my
mind.” And the funny thing is, both these songs got recorded and
released on albums, long after they were written and shunned.
June 2000 saw the beginning
of an era. I signed up with mp3.com, just at the tail end of the epoch
in which they as a company actually cared about independent artists.
Soon thereafter, the “charts” featured the likes of Madonna and Blink
182 and we little guys were shunned. However, they still provided a
service which allowed me to make alb ums available. So since I
gathered a series of Tascam 4-track recordings and some Digital Orchestrator
projects, made them mp3 files, and uploaded them, I figured I could put them
in some semblance of order and have instant albums. It worked.
Nobody bought any of them,
but they were still what I would call albums.
One by one, I would endeavor
to make a better album than the last. Old songs got rehashed and
rewritten. New songs emerged, many with the sole purpose in life to
fill up the next album. But additionally, my songwriting abilities
improved as well my home-recording experiences. Slowly my habits
refined. Slowly my recordings got better. Slowly my equipment
collection expanded, as did my guitars!
 My
first guitar, as stated, was a red Fender Squire Strat. I increased my collection,
over the years, to include an old Franciscan acoustic, yet unnamed; Katherynne,
a
12-string Ovation acoustic/electric (who is featured prominently on my first
four albums); an electric 6-string, Gwendolynne, the Parker P-38 (with a piezo pickup system,
thank you very much); a hitherto-unnamed,
fiesta-red Fender Jag-Stang; a six-string acoustic/electric Takamine
cutaway I’ve endowed with the lovely moniker Alysson; and finally, my
latest, a Gibson
Les Paul Standard 2003 electric, who is very pretty, and is named Evelyn.
For more information, visit my GuitARSENAL.
 The Albums:
for specifics on each, learn more here.
I have, over the course of the years, managed to fully write, record,
produce, and publish (to some capacity) five albums of my stuff, only the most
recent being currently
available for purchase.
I’m currently working on my
sixth which should be done sometime before Fall 2004. If it’s the case that the
album is already completed, available, and/or owned by you, and that I have
failed to remove or revise this paragraph since then, well please forgive
me. I can’t be perfectly up to date on everything can I?
Mp3.com shut down in late
2003. Currently I have music hosted on download.com
and on garageband.com,
but they currently don’t provide a cd service. (Oh well, if you
really want an album, e-mail me and tell me to find a way to get you one …
well see how long it takes!) I also keep the latest songs, demos,
teasers, and other clips up and available right here on The World
Bri’ed Web, via the Downloads page
predominantly.
That would be it for
now. Enjoy the rest of your stay here, and listen to some tracks
already! Keep on rockin’ in the free world.
–Brian M. Weidemann
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©2004 Brian Michael
Weidemann