This is a jam we like to play to open our shows. Based on a simple riff written by Dustin at practice, it usually follows this rough flow but is played differently each time. This version was recorded live at one of our practices.

At the opposite end of the spectrum from the last Minor Stars Vault post (a bombastic 14-minute improvised jam from practice), “Paper Heart” is a short acoustic song by Eric. We promised it all here in the Vault…and I’m doing my best to deliver!

-Eric

Who doesn’t like fourteen-minute one-chord improvised jams? Okay…probably everyone but the band. Three dudes, in this case. Minor Stars recently started recording our practices with these rough motives in mind:

1. Cool stuff can sometimes happen when we let our guard down and remove the pressure to create something defined (which is usually quickly forgotten if not recorded).

2. Maybe the practice jams can be mined for little gems that might turn into songs.

3. Improvising as a band can be fun and its own reward.

4. It provides some possibly interesting material for the Minor Stars Vault. One reason we started The Vault is to give friends and fans an inside look at the band’s creative process, which can be quite different than a live show, and to get that material out there faster than by the usual means of making and releasing records.

Not always pretty or tight, this jam has its cool moments. It sounds better loud, of course (partly because everything does, and partly due to a rough recording of really loud music all in one tiny room, with minimal mixing effort and no mastering), so turn it up! Maybe put it on in the background and take it in for what it is: a snapshot of fourteen minutes in practice before we actually “got down to business” and played the same songs we’ve practiced countless times before. Jams like this can help ignite a band’s creative spark and hack through the mask of a labored-over studio recording or a well-rehearsed live set.

Here’s a little riff I came up with last week.  Yes, I’m referring to it as “Steady Rollin’ Riff in E” — you should hear some of the stupid working titles I’ve got kicking around.

Having recently replaced all the drum heads on the kit in my home studio (the famous Kuki Kooks’ old drum set), I used this new song idea to test them out.  The room is really small, and I don’t have a ton of experience recording drums, so it was an experiment in trying to get decent drum sounds (and performances) from a subpar room and a subpar drummer (me).  The result: well, the drum sounds aren’t so great, but in the end, I just compressed the hell out of them and went with it.  It’s just a little song idea demo anyway.  I like the riff and the bass part, though, so I’m happy with the overall result.  Enjoy!

– Eric

At that point I was doing all of my own recordings at home on a Fostex R8 reel-to-reel 8-track, but the sheer number of tracks we needed to realize this song called for some creative manipulation.  Bouncing tracks several times to other tracks on one reel can lead to a lot of sonic degradation, so we recorded the eight basic tracks (kick, snare, two overheads, bass (mic & di), and two rhythm guitars) onto one reel of tape, mixed that down to DAT, and then dumped the stereo mix back to a fresh reel of tape, leaving six open tracks on which to finish the song.  Not the craziest thing ever done in an analog studio by any stretch, but it was the first time I had used that technique.  Of course we were then committed to those rhythm tracks once we began overdubbing the two tracks of vocals, additional guitars, Rhodes, mellotron strings, backwards percussion…

Overjoyed at having completed another long psych epic, we proudly submitted it to WXYC for consideration.  A few weeks passed before I was contacted by someone from the station.  The verdict was that it was just too long to be included on the compilation, but that they really liked it and were sorry.  Oh well…My Dear Ella was used to being underdogs who always tried to go over the top, so we weren’t surprised at that outcome.  Maybe expecting such a long song to appear on a 50-minute compilation was just greedy.  So it joined dozens of songs that eventually ended up collecting dust and not being released at all when My Dear Ella called it quits in 2006.

I want to especially thank MDE’s drummer Jeff DeWitte for this track – we worked really hard together on it.  Jeff also co-wrote the lyrics (the ones we didn’t rip off from some book we found in our practice space) and made many of the mixing decisions on it (check out the unusual and extravagant — and awesome!) use of reverb on the kick drum.  And mixing the 8-track tape down to DAT through a Mackie 16-channel board in real time is a unique performance in and of itself.  No digital automation, no recall, and tons of music packed onto eight tracks.  I remember Jeff and I crouched over the board, all hands on the faders and knobs, eyes on our extensive mixing notes, making many frustrating passes of that tape before getting it right. So it has to be nostalgia that makes me think mixing like that was fun…right?

So here it is, Xerox Missive.

Now and then I think of leaving
Now and then it feels relieving
To have some kind of hope that things will change

Another drop in the bucket
Another chance to say fuck it
I’ll learn to waste my time some other way

Where all these dreams can slowly fall away
I know soon it will be my time to pay

Chin up, chin up, my darling
I’d rather be an average starling
Than some kind of lonely holy fake

Who tells me that the sky is falling
Who tells me to follow my calling
There’s only so much a man can take

I’ll fix myself a nice big dinner
Tell myself that I’m a winner
And take something to help dull the ache

And all these dreams can slowly fall away
My number’s up, now it’s my turn to pay

Thanks, Vault!

– Eric, 12/7/09

Our goal is to add a new Vault post every week. In addition to offering up cool content, the Vault is meant to keep us focused and dedicated to writing and recording music regularly, and to loosen up the stranglehold that I’ve (Eric) always had on material I haven’t considered to be in its “final” form. I’m dropping all that. It’s never gonna be in its final form, or it already is and I don’t know it yet. But it really doesn’t matter, and now it’ll be in the Vault for all to hear.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FIRST VAULT POSTING: INTRO MUSIC!!
Rhodes + Big Muff = fun!

– Eric
P.S. Yeah, we know Jack White also recently launched a subscription service called the vault.  I promise we didn’t rip him off.  Bob’s been talking about doing something like this for years, and we even decided to call it “the vault” well before Jack White’s was announced.  So I figure we can both use the idea.  Come on, it’s only rock and roll!