Somebody that I used to know

I made this cover song for my housemate, the esteemed Kyle Mabson, who came out of his room a couple of weeks ago and announced that he was going to use Facebook to solicit covers and remixes of Gotye’s #1 super-hit single “Somebody That I Used to Know,” which sounds like Sting singing over Manu Chao.

My version is kind of country but also kind of “not country.” There are some airhorns and distorted guitars too. I also used the Latin beats MIDI preset on my computer, to make sure that it would be Geiswave. Dalton Blanco sang the Kimbra part and he really kicked its ass.

In total, 26 artists submitted tracks to Kyle’s mix! You can, and should, get the whole thing on Bandcamp! There are so many cool jams on here.

Filed under: geoff geis, mp3, geoff geis, gotye, kyle mabson

This Friday, May 11 at Home Room

Wow, I’m really excited about this one. Home Room is one of my favorite spots in town, and I’m playing with groups I really admire!

Body Parts is headlining the show and will be debuting the video for their song “Doing Things.” In celebration, they’ll playing an acoustic set rather than an electric one. Everything Body Parts does seems so meticulously crafted (their debut album is even called “On Purpose”), so I’m interested to see how they translate their tunes without electricity. I’m confident that it’ll be excellent.

Joining us on the bill is Norse Horse, a relentlessly-catchy guitar driven project that last year released the excellent Grids EP on Family Time Records.

Opening the show is iloilo, a project from ex-members of Pek Pek. This is their first show, and I couldn’t figure out how to embed their tracks, but they sound good! Lots of hazy, hypnotic acoustic guitars and reverb-drenched mystery.

Home Room is located at 3121 Beverly Blvd, in that area of town that could alternately be called “South Silverlake” or “North Koreatown.” The show starts at 9PM, and I go on second. It’s all ages and $5.

Filed under: Events, geoff geis, mp3, body parts, geoff geis, home room, iloilo, norse horse

Cover song: “Rockin’ Around with You” (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)

Download “Rockin’ Around with You” (Tom Petty cover, featuring Sarah Cisco)

Boy, do I ever love Tom Petty. During the summer between fifth and sixth grade, it was a chance encounter with the “Into the Great Wide Open” that first inspired me to start paying attention to pop music. That led to a blossoming over the summer of ’94 and my discovery of groups like Nirvana, R.E.M., Beck, and Green Day. But while I loved “alternative music,” Tom Petty was my favorite. I had three of his albums before I had any albums by anyone else.

One of my earliest vinyl LPs was the band’s self-titled debut from 1976 — the one that’s got a picture of Tom smirking and wearing a bullet belt over his shoulder. That album, along with a story I read in the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock N Roll about how the band withheld the masters of the Hard Promises LP in a game of high-stakes brinksmanship with MCA over sticker price, was the proof that I used when my friends who liked Green Day and the Offspring called me a “poser” for liking Tom Petty so much. Bullets and a smirk are pretty punk, and so are the rockabilly grooves and odes to teenaged abandon on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. “Into the Great Wide Open” may have introduced me to Tom Petty, but it was this album that made the long-term impact on my taste.

So, here’s a cover of “Rockin’ Around with You,” the first song from that album. I recorded it a couple of weeks ago with the indescribably fabulous Sarah Cisco, my love and a damned fine musician who will hopefully continue to share her talents with the world. Sarah sang with me, and I did the drum machines, guitars, bass, and synth parts. It’s a pretty straightforward, shuffling jam that doesn’t stray too far from the original.

Filed under: geoff geis, mp3, sarah cisco, tom petty and the heartbreakers

New Exquisite Corpse-style EP from the members of So Many Wizards

Okay, so last week I regaled you with the illustrated story of So Many Wizards’ trip to the UK in March. Now, I bring the jams.

Much of the time on tour was spent in our van, which was ably piloted by Dave Buck of Bare Necessities Tours. While riding, we came up with an “Exquisite Corpse“-style game to pass the time. It went like this: one of us would make a beat and a simple melody using the iPad, and then that person would pass it to another person who’d layer a part over it, then pass it to another person, and another person, and so forth until we’d completed the circle. We ended up making five of these jams, which I present here.

In addition to the four members of So Many Wizards (Erik Felix, Nima Kazerouni, Frank Maston, and myself), these tracks include contributions from our good friend and videographer Sergio Munoz, Jr.:

Making these tracks was a special bonding experience. Just look at how excited Nima is as he builds his first loop!

We call this EP “Play ‘Fly a Kite!’” because people keep yelling that at us when we play shows back in the States.

We decided to call the project Geordie Shore because… well, DUH…

Filed under: geoff geis, mp3, so many wizards, Video, exquisite corpse, free music, geordie shore, so many wizards, united kingdom

Pizza!: We Come from the Swamp

My former band, Pizza!, just released an album called We Come from the Swamp via Bandcamp. You can pay for it if you’d like, or you can download the whole thing for free. I think that it’s got quite a few really great jams on it. Here it is:

Filed under: geoff geis, mp3, pizza, bandcamp, free download, pizza!, we come from the swamp

Human Growth Hormone

This weekend, I made music using my old Tascam cassette four-track from years ago. I hadn’t used it in a while, so I thought it would be fun to experiment.

I created this track semi-randomly. I played the music live using Garageband running on my Ipad synced in a “Jam Session” with Garageband running on my iPod touch. I sent the iPad’s signal through an MXR Carbon Copy pedal followed by a Boss Harmonizer, and I sent the Ipod through a Boss Loop Station RC-2. On top of that, I layered an infomercial for Human Growth Hormone that happened to be playing on 870 AM. The radio signal was also sent through the Carbon Copy and Harmonizer pedals.

I call the result “Human Grown Hormone.”

Filed under: geoff geis, ipod touch, mp3, vanity projects, boss harmonizer, carbon copy, human growth hormone, ipad

New free EP: “Diva” available now

Click here to download my new covers EP, Diva.

For me, 2011 was transformational. Since about 2004, I had been a guitarist and songwriter in bands — but both Pizza! and Big Whup dissolved this year. Until that happened, I had two songwriting modes: I could put songs together on an acoustic guitar, or I could contribute parts to collaborative pieces with other musicians. Both Pizza! and Big Whup were group efforts, and I’d prioritized writing with those groups over making anything on my own. This year, I decided to move in a new direction.

I got some technology, I collected instruments, and I started writing and producing songs on my own. I de-emphasized guitar and concentrated my attention towards the elements that I’d previously left to others, including beats, bass, and synth melodies. To practice production, I made some fun new albums with friends: Into the Forest with Magii was released in March, and Nima and Geoff (featuring So Many Wizards’ Nima Kazerouni) made an EP to release next year. Through these efforts, my process was upended. It was a very prolific time.

Princess, my solo debut, chronicles the earliest fruits of my labors. It’s kind of a hodgepodge of ideas and moods — some of them fresh, some of them rebuilt from the past, some of them improvised, and some of them orchestrated. I made and released Princess, above all, to prove to myself that I could do it. I gained a lot of experience while doing it, and I’m already hard at work on a follow-up that capitalizes on everything that I’ve learned.

This EP, however, is not that follow-up.

Instead, Diva rounds out 2011 with a some fun while paying homage to a handful of artists that have greatly influenced me. Throughout the year, I’ve been recording cover songs as well as originals. Covering this music has taught me a good deal about song craft and has given me many opportunities to experiment with technique and delivery. Diva is a collection of my four favorite covers from this year, including versions of tracks originally by Mariah Carey, Dusty Springfield, La Roux, and R.E.M.

Click here to download the EP in its entirety.

The lead track is my take on Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” When I made it this May, I was aiming to win the award for “creepiest song of the holiday season” with de-tuned pianos, off-kilter harmonies, and vocal effects meant to evoke a bad psychedelic trip. Unfortunately, Mariah decided to win that award herself by re-recording the very same song with Justin Bieber. Hopefully this is a strong contender for second place.

“I Only Wanna Be with You” is a duet with Michael Nhat. Michael Nhat is one of the most iconoclastic performers in Los Angeles, and also one of the best. He came over one day this summer and we covered this Dusty Springfield classic. We also started work on a Boys II Men and Brandy cover, but that’s fallen by the wayside (that’s my fault — sorry Michael).

La Roux‘s debut album is one of the almost I’ve most loved over the past couple of years. “Bulletproof” isn’t necessarily my favorite song on the album, but of course it’s the one that attracted me in the first place. I used an Omnichord as the basis of this downbeat, calypso-inspired version. Dalton Blanco (Sexting, Skull Tape, Robin Williams on Fire) provides some extra hard beats, and Big Whup’s Jenna Eyrich wrote the bassline. I think  this has already been covered by a lot of other bands. Oops.

The best recording on the EP, in my opinion, is my interpretation of R.E.M.’s “Tongue.” This was a cool experiment because it was the first time that I used a sample in a song. I built it using a loop I made from Mike Mills’ original piano line. When I was a teenager, R.E.M. was the most important band to me. They impacted both my taste and my worldview, and their demise inspired a lot of nostalgia and rumination. I finished this recording in September, immediately after they made the announcement that they had disbanded.

Filed under: geoff geis, mp3, vanity projects, Wonderful Christmas Music, all i want for christmas is you, dalton blanco, diva, dusty springfield, free music, geoff geis, justin bieber, la roux, mariah carey, michael nhat, r.e.m., vanity projects

Update!

The picture above is from my show at Pehrspace on August 1st, which was the release party for my album Princess. It was an exciting show, and I’m really grateful for all the amazing people who came to see it. Sean Carnage has more photos on his website.

I’ve been doing a lot to promote the album, but probably the most fun thing has been this interview I gave to Mark Givens (of D.I.Y. heroes Wckr Spgt) for his massive electronic literary zine, MungBeing. Mark let me talk – a lot – about my musical history, my ideas about digital distribution, and Marcel Duchamp (of course). If you like that kind of stuff, you should read it! If not, you might want to check the nice little mp3 sampler that comes along with the interview – it includes some rare and unreleased jamz from my solo act, Big Whup, the New Motherfuckers, and Pizza!

Speaking of Pizza!, we just released this new video for our old song “Be a Man.” It was directed, beautifully, by our friend Blaine Ludy. When will we finally release new music? Sooner than you’d expect…

Oh yes, and there are also a couple of live shows to promote. One is this party at 5 Star Bar to celebrate the anniversary of the Summer Fun Time Society, an event production crew headed by my pal Vivian. You can RSVP on Facebook. Here’s a flyer for that one:

Finally, I’m organizing an event with FMLY on Saturday, Aug 27 at Tierra de la Culebra in Highland Park. It’s a “stripped-down” affair, and it will feature semi-acoustic performances by the likes of the Monolators, So Many Wizards, Dnonkong, Seasons, and Magick Orchids. You can also bring an instrument if you’d like to jam as well. Here’s the Facebook invitation. A flyer is forthcoming.

Filed under: Events, geoff geis, get excited, mp3, pizza, princess, Reviews, vanity projects, Video, be a man, blaine ludy, fmly, geoff geis, magick orchids, mungbeing, pizza!, so many wizards, summer fun time society, thank you come again, the monolators

“Here Comes the Sun” – Beatles cover

I’ve been recording a lot of cover music over the past couple of weeks.

This is the first thing I did, a couple of weeks ago, as a present to my mom on Mother’s Day. It’s pretty genuine and tender, which I suppose is a change from what I normally do…

Abbey Road was the first Beatles record I owned — maybe the first vinyl record I owned, period. Consequentially, this song and I go back a long way.

Download “Here Comes the Sun.”

Filed under: Human Interest, mp3, geoff geis, george harrison, here comes the sun, mp3, the beatles

May Mix

I made this short mix of songs I’ve been enjoying recently. Download it here. It’s only available for a week.

Filed under: mp3