We finished The Great Unknown mix and paid to have the track mastered this afternoon. At the start of next week we’ll enter it into the local weekly’s song competition. When it gets up on their site I’ll post the link here. We also decided on a silly, provisional, band name – a necessity for entering.

The obligatory bio: God’s Machine Gun has all the elements of a great rock band – or at least a great rock band name: provocation, controversy, cultural significance, ultimate power. GMG is composed of drummer Beau “AK48″ Eastlund, singer-songwriter Timothy “Patient” Shaw and hair band veteran, multi-instrumentalist Bobby “Kid” Stevens.

The track, mixed and mastered:

 

 The Great Unknown: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

back tomorrow. in the meantime, here’s the nearly done studio version of The Great Unknown. pretty well mixed but still not mastered, so if you do listen, headphones or decent speakers will yield the best results. we’re meeting on Wednesday evening to do the final mix, then hopefully get it mastered on Thursday afternoon and submit it on Friday to the local weekly’s song contest (which is stupidly named and conceived, but provides a chance of playing a show in a really great theater). whatever the result of that, i’m very glad to be able to work with Beau and Bobby in Beau’s studio.

 

 The Great Unknown: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

of my song The Great Unknown. the second verse is gibberish. on the basis of this sketch Beau, Bobby and i recorded a new foundation on Thursday night. i’ll post the final version of that when it’s finished. for now, the sketch:

 

 The Great Unknown: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

this song began as a chord progression on piano, but i played it on guitar while writing the lyrics. last night i sang to the piano for the first time.

 

 Sinners Like You: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

i’m starting work recording some songs in my friend Beau’s studio. this is a more fleshed out sketch of Sinners Like You i put together to communicate the syncopation to him (he drums).

 

 Sinners Like You: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

working on some harmonies for the chorus…

 

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

sketch for a new song, titled “sinners like you” and written from the perspective of Irritable Jesus (as distinct from Sweet Jesus who dies for your sins and Rambo Jesus who comes back and tells the world to suck it).

 

 Sinners Like You: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

wrote this song over the last couple days while at Breitenbush.

 

 Good Queen Jane: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The young actress who played Reggie in Dead Like Me (younger sister of the main character, George) sings in a duo with her real-life older sister, called One More Girl. Over the course of the two seasons of DLM, Reggie became my favorite character, the only one with a consistent and for me resonant emotional core. This consistency had partly to do, i think, with the fact Reggie was peripheral and so not overdeveloped. Her experience of being in between worlds, having lost her sister and yet convinced that she wasn’t fully gone, persisted throughout. George, by contrast, having seen through the veil to the other side, lost her emotional power as the limitations of the world were established and she settled in to her new role.

Anyway, i was very impressed by Britt Mckillip, the young actress who played Reggie with such unaffected gravity. Turns out she’s a great singer, too.

One of my favorite Randy Newman songs: