The Freshman Experiment

recording studio + lisa howard + carmel dean = unfuckingbelievable.

Hey guys, I’ve been working on finishing off Pretty Girl Blues.

This first files is me bitching about the key change problems I got myself into, and the second file is me having it figured out. The truth is, however, that I’ve basically got 90 percent of it figured out and probably need to be in a room w/ kait to figure out the rest. ‘Cause we may not want a big musical build and key change into the 3rd chorus, we may want a spoken line, a little joke, something else… anyway, enjoy. I project that there will be a finished song and sheet music for this in the next week or so…

I am taking time out of my VERY busy Wednesday night (read: top chef and boston market) to issue lots and lots of props to a certain Erin Nelson of Viterbo University. She is (i believe), the first to perform, record and upload a FreshX song other than kait and i. And guess what? she sounds amazing.

Honestly, I just had a really lovely moment noticing what’s happened over this year. CC wrote a beautiful post called my heart is split, kait wrote a lyric, i set it, k+i bickered back and forth about how to finish it, and then suddenly it was done. And usually that’s all the happens, and in a few years maybe the song would have a life. But I made a pdf of the sheet music on my little mac, posted it here first, and we made a scrappy little recording. And Erin Nelson downloaded it, learned it, presumably found a piano and a pianist, and uploaded it here. I think that’s fucking rad.

So please!  Other wonderful singers out there, let’s share the love, record some videos.  Be like Erin Nelson, be a part of the weird creative cycle that is the freshman experiment.  i swear, we’re all gonna win f’in pulitzers for this shit someday.

word, b

PS:  Brian loves greasy food.

Fancy Restaurant + Excessive Sandwich From South of the Mason-Dixon Line = The Happiest Brian of Them All

Hey, so one of these FRESH-X songs is really starting to have a life! How To Return Home was just performed at Monday Night New Voices and went over REALLY well. Here’s the video clip…

At long last Brian found the lost “Pretty Girl Blues” footage. I am probably more excited about this than you are because I heard the song and it has been stuck in my head ever since. I love this song. I think it’s so much fun. You should most definitely try humming it to yourself when you’re walking around campus or New York City or wherever it is that you walk. I think I’m exaggerating when I say you will feel prettier.

In the video, Natalie Weiss (recent Penn State grad whom you might recognize from her sillygood YouTube videos where she sings her face off) and I sing the first half of the song. Brian was having some difficulty with the bridge at the time, so we couldn’t sing the whole thing. Keep in mind, that she arrived at Brian’s house, learned 2 other songs, recorded a song, and then learned this one. We made up some harmonies on the spot and sang it immediately.

There is no sheet music. The girl just happens to be a musician too.

Enjoy!

I look so fine that no one likes to walk with me.
My hair’s so poker straight I go to clubs for free.
But when I get inside there’s not a girl as pretty.
No one understands my plight in this whole damn city.

I got a new haircut, new dress, a pair new shoes.
I got an attitude that might be rude but that’s how I cruise.
I got a palpitating heart in my itty bitty chest
So I’m the best dressed whose got the pretty girl blues.

I’m not complaining ’bout the fringe benefits
I’m stuck with this dilemma cuz the Prada shoe fits.
I know I know I know I got a good thing going.
But up here on my pedestal it’s not so easy knowing.

I got a new haircut, new dress, a pair new shoes.
I got an attitude that might be rude but that’s how I cruise.
I got a palpitating heart in my itty bitty chest
So I’m the one who’s getting lonely feeling she’s the only one
whose got the pretty girl blues.