The new Midnight Brown album is available for download, by the way.
February 10th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Sentence case in a title? God, I’m slipping.
Anyway, I mentioned it everywhere else, so I assume that most of the people interested in hearing about it have heard about it, but just in case (and because this is the only place I feel that talking about it doesn’t feel like me using something else I do to shamelessly self-promote), the fourth Midnight Brown album, “Deadly Electric,” is now available over at midnightbrown.com.
I wasn’t at all sure how it would be received. It’s definitely one of those cases where you work on something for a really long time and totally lose perspective on it. Was it funny? Too serious? Total garbage? People seem to be enjoying it more than I initially expected.
Also, I can still listen to it and enjoy it. I know a lot of bands are in that mindset where once they’ve finished something, they can’t listen to it anymore. But we wrote stuff that I enjoyed, stuff that we thought was funny at the time. So the entirety of the Midnight Brown catalog sort of sounds like one big, weird, coded diary to me. But the actions of the time when those songs were recorded get hazy over time. The specifics get replaced with general feelings. Makes the whole thing seem a bit more distant. Makes me realize that I’m a pretty different person than I was when we started writing this stuff back in 2004.
That might be the most whiny, self-important thing I’ve ever typed. Christ.
Anyway, here are some quick, short factoids about Midnight Brown songs.
- “So why did you do it? Dope? Revenge?” is something that a cop said to my current roommate after he got arrested. It was the funniest shit ever.
- “where were you on the night that your conscience caught up to you?” is a tribute to LL Cool J. If you’ve heard a fair amount of LL Cool J, that should actually be pretty obvious. Also, I had been drinking quite a bit when we recorded, which is why the rapped breakdown is so bad off-kilter. Also, that verse was poorly written and wasn’t practiced a lot beforehand. If I had wanted to do it “right,” I would have removed a few syllables here and there to make it flow better. But I actually like that it sounds like some kind of awful rap that some shitty poet would deliver when he was called in to “perform” in the middle of some bullshit New Age song about… hemp rights or something. Except it’s mostly comprised of LL Cool J lyrics/references.
- Chris bought that cat belt buckle off of eBay. It broke relatively quickly.
- “The Freezersuits” was originally meant to sound like a lost level from Rez. That’s why it’s so long and broken down into subsections.
- “Baristacratic” and “go! go! vietnam” are inspired by the same person.
- I was extremely pissed off/distraught about something I really had no right to be pissed off/distraught about when we wrote “FFF.” By the time we were done, I had come to terms with that. If you’re paying attention, “Summer of Angst” tells you what “FFF” stands for.
- “President of the Mall” contains a largely accurate description of the location of the shops in the Santa Rosa mall. Actually, I don’t know if the Great Steak is there anymore.
- The cover of Tommy february6’s “Kiss One More Time” is probably the longest I’ve ever spent on one song. It had to be right. It was also a fucking bitch to sing. Eventually I took part of it down an octave to make it easier on my voice. Also, I still don’t know what any of the words mean, but a Japanese friend told me that my pronunciation was pretty good, which was nice to hear. If you make a slight speed correction to the original video for the song, you can line our cover up directly with the video… which is fucking creepy as fuck. I tried uploading it to youtube, but it got automatically pegged with a copyright violation.
- “Intro (Dope)” has so few lyrics because I felt like anything I had to say over it would just take away from what I liked about it.
- The same is true for “RadiOIactive,” but in retrospect, we should have written actual lyrics for that.
- I don’t know why so many songs directly reference Ric Flair. I am not an especially big Ric Flair fan.
- I do know why so many songs directly reference Les Onaka. We think Les Onaka is awesome.
- I’m envious of rap guys that can tell a story in a song. “army of tom f. wilsons” is an attempt to do that. I’m not especially happy with it.
- “A Filthy Classic” is about Pat O’Brien. Well, the chorus is, anyway.
Anyway, I guess that’s enough for now. Thanks to those of you that are actually interested in this level of detail about those songs. I don’t think we ever thought there would be any sort of audience for the stuff we were making when we started making it. We’ve talked a bit about what to do next, and I think I want more live instruments. Maybe I’ll tune my guitar… aaaaand learn how to play it.
February 10th, 2010 at 5:25 am
It took Axl Rose 15 years to finish “Chinese Democracy” – you are all good.
Thanks for some details on the songs.
I feel like stealing – make a Paypal/Radiohead donate button on your Midnight-Brown site, Duder. There’s no shame in getting paid.
February 10th, 2010 at 7:26 am
I listened to the songs a while ago when you first put ‘em out but this detail is very cool. For me most of the songs (all of them?) feel totally random to me and it’s nice to get a little more sense put into them.
Deadly Electric is my favorite MB album for sure, better beats, better lyrics and it feels that more time went into more technical aspects like getting the levels right, but perhaps you’ve just had more practice.
Anyway, love the facts and I love the album. Keep it up Jeff.
February 10th, 2010 at 9:17 am
I thoroghly enjoy at least half the songs on each album. I enjoy almost all of the songs on “17 brown lies”. I don’t hate the rest, I just tend to skip them about two-thirds of the time.
The song Deadly Electric is kinda bittersweet, because crazy robot voice man keeps talking about science in between the sweet distorted rhymes and kickass beats.
Gotta say, though, while I haven’t really though of my favouite songs ever, I will say that I can never get tired of “i’m a god”. Maybe it’s because I’ve listened to so much speedcore…
February 10th, 2010 at 9:54 am
Really enjoyed reading this and listening in on that Ustream you did in early January. Nice to get a behind the scenes glimpse at what went into all these songs I’ve been listening to for years. Had a Midnight Brown playlist I’d just throw on repeat while playing Counter-Strike back in the day, but I can still go back. Loadest Kids is my favorite for some reason, though enjoy the new album a great deal as well. Especially Submarine Club, Knives & Hot Dust and 24OPEN.
Just want to say, probably going to transfer some of these factoids into the Midnight Brown section of the Jeff Gerstmann page over on that website you got, if that’s alright.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:33 am
That “Kiss One More Time” is a cover of a song by a Japanese girl pretty much blows my mind. I thought that Jeff was just making up nonsensical Japanesey-sounding syllables to go along with the throughly J-pop nature of the melody. Yes, I am aware that that makes me a complete tool.
You probably don’t want this to turn into an “ask Jeff a question about the lyrics of Midnight Brown songs!” thread, but I’ve always wondered whether the lyrics in Call em’ Like You See em’ were written down beforehand or made up on the spot. It kind of sounds like you and Chris are just riffing off of one another, Ad Lib style. I have a zillion other questions as well, but I’ll save them to keep the mystery-factor intact.
February 10th, 2010 at 10:41 am
“I’m envious of rap guys that can tell a story in a song. “army of tom f. wilsons” is an attempt to do that. I’m not especially happy with it.”
I actually think this is one of the best songs you guys have done.
It would be cool to know a bit more about the song. “Hey Piper” which is really great. I often use that song to test new sound equipment, because of the treble and bass levels in that song. also cause i like it alot.
February 10th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Cool tidbits to know about the songs.
Personally, army of tom f. wilsons is my favorite Midnight Brown song.
February 11th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Hey love the new album, it’s personally my favorite. I can’t stop listening to Look Your Eyes Up. I really like these Midnight Brown factoids, got any more?
February 13th, 2010 at 2:04 am
Can’t wait to see these on Rock Band Network! Any chance of that happening?
February 13th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
I don’t know how serious you guys take yourself as a band, but the level of consistency your albums achieve is fucking legit and I mean that. Deadly Electric is a damn great record. You guys are one of the best bands I listen to, period. Keep ‘em coming.
February 14th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Awesome! Sharp as a polygonal razor blade.
February 17th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Cheers Jeff, enjoyed the album a lot, it was defo worth the wait.
Hope it isn’t the last offering from Midnight Brown i’ve been digging your stuff for tiiiiiiiime.
February 18th, 2010 at 1:19 am
It’s always nice to hear that music is intended to mean something, instead of just pleasant noises.
you guys should make a midnight brown behind the music.
you could do a DVD or just throw it up on midnight brown’s web-page.
February 18th, 2010 at 1:20 am
OFF-TOPIC where the hell is the 100 000 points, points report! back me up people, power in numbers.
February 21st, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Jeff I love it when a band (group?) makes distinct and measurable improvements to their music as they release each album. That is why I really like Midnight Brown, and that is why I really like Deadly Electric. Keep it up.
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Hey Jeff, I just wanted to chime in and say that “Army of Tom. F Wilsons” is my favorite Midnight Brown song and also, who the hell WAS Tom F. Wilson? real man or fictional character!
BTW: Get up and get gone is like, the best lyrics of a sci-fi song ever lol.