Santa Muerte Complete

I'm going to try something a little different here, since I have been churning out music videos at a furious pace. The idea had crossed my mind a long time ago, back around 2013, but I didn't have the time or energy to complete the project started back then, petering out after two videos. The concept is this; take one of my better albums and make a video album, using every song displayed in order. Nothing revolutionary, at least as old as MTV.

Having dome many albums, which, after the last reshuffling, is now thirty in total, it might be wise to pick one of the more successful ones. I have in fact already done two, but keep in mind that this is my choice of what a winner sounds like. Your mileage might vary. although when you take at least eleven songs and string them together, it becomes clear which sequences I would hesitate to tackle because of individual lame songs. All of my albums have some really good pieces on them, but only a handful or so really flow from start to finish, each song melding together, the whole better than the parts.

First up would have to 'Santa Muerte' from 2014, a year where I did sixty songs and pumped out five albums. In retrospect, it is easy to see that I recognized that the end was near in my job; no matter how successfully I accomplished ridiculous projects in impossible time schedules, my reward was to be marginalized. I do what I've always did in those circumstances, revolting in various subversive ways. A particularly effective manner for burning off my frustration was to create music, and I created a mountain from July to early November.

Sequencing an album is a tricky skill set because there are any number of variables involved. I'm not good enough to do exactly eleven songs and guarantee that they will all be listenable. Better to hedge bets, create at a furious rate, stockpile material, then sort through at the end, trying to find what words best together. For 'Santa Muerte', I had a vague concept of doing a Latin/World album from the beginning of the project. One song, 'Rastas In Space', had been started the year before but set aside because it didn't come together, sounding too half baked.

There were at least twenty candidates for this album, with only eleven picked. They were not necessarily the best eleven songs out of that batch, either. They were the eleven that blended together as one statement, reflecting off each other while not repeating the same ideas too much. Three of the songs, 'Indian Summer', 'Bossa Nesta' and 'Pepe le Pew', had been done before in 2009, retreaded here as my focus started to narrow. Another, 'Amazing Grace', had gotten a fuzz/feedback treatment so far removed from the version here that I don't consider it a retread.

The only way that I can sequence an album is to put the songs together on a CD and burn it, listening to it both in the car, in the man cave, and at my computer obsessively, three different situations with different speaker setups. Besides trying to find the best songs to string together, the music needs to be balanced at the same level and have a similar sonic quality. I burned well over 50 test CDs that year for the five albums that came out. There might be a better way to do it, but I haven't found it. The car test is particularly important since there is background noise. It's very easy to tell if the mix isn't punchy enough; you can't hear the music properly.

The first song and last song are usually very easy to pick, usually right after they have been recorded. The middle song is also important, since the flow usually has a hinge in the middle; something epic often fits best. That can lead to problems, such as when you have two great lead tracks. One inevitably winds up on the outtakes album. I was also helped in 2014 by going into my unused folder and finding many forgotten drum loops; 'Spit Fire', 'Big World' and 'Funky Pedro' do not feature my drumming.

'Spit Fire' was first up, short sweet and to the point, a shot across the bow and a statement of intent, all done in around two minutes flat. It actually has a jazz structure although it sounds like heavy Latino; a head, where the melody (as it is) gets a run through, then a vamp in the middle, then a repeat of the head. I manage both a guitar and a bass solo in a very compact time frame. It's a good song, not ground breaking but a perfect opener for what follows.

The video was made from trash footage, finding a massive growth of mushrooms in a neighbor's yard after al the heavy rain we had this year. I only shot a brief snippet and set it aside. When deciding what to do with this video, it seemed like a good time to dust it off and mess it up. Having just updated my software, I experimented with various filters to get a more-than-usual psychedelic feel. No, I don't gobble shrooms, and these were probably poisonous anyway.

'Coco Puffs' was written in the middle of the project, when I had a good idea of what to aim for. Watching television, I noticed that they put the most clichéd Latino music behind a scene, a typical lazy production shortcut. I took that bass line and decided to fool around with it, moving from section to section, modulating the hell out of it. With the right arrangement, it came out sounding pretty good and definitely Latino.

The video is reprocessed footage from an outside source, this time European. Having just visited Venice, I was digging up all the movies that I remembered featuring the location. A little of my own footage was added, blending in seamlessly, an easy thing to do in Venice, where it feels like you have traveled back in time four centuries. The Latin lover theme also seemed appropriate, a rare example of creating a literal story line to accompany a song.

A personal favorite of mine is 'Rastas In Space', a piece that took a couple of years and dozens of version to come together. Started the year before as a heavy Dub experiment, I could not get my head around either the bass line or the song as a whole. Keeping, strangely enough, only the drums, I built an entirely new song around it to much better effect. The vocals, a last minute addition, really seal the deal. I was spending enough time in the Caribbean by this time to have been exposed to enough Reggae to make it work.

The video is particularly good, a blending of reduction edits of two strange Italian Science Fiction movies, one from about 1965 and the other a decade later. Highlighting just the strange bits and superimposing them on each other makes a counter narrative that the viewer has to create, adding details because some explanation seems necessary. I do this often, but it rarely works as well as it does here. A lot of effort on both the music and visuals, but it paid off here.

Originally done in 2009 as a Traffic-inspired piano-driven instrumental, the first version of 'Pepe le Pew' wasn't bad, just a little sloppy. There is tricky timing and a challenging piano part, so I did a retread, getting a better performance in the main sections and a real groove in the drums. However, in all honesty, I don't think I improved the improvs at the end, being perhaps too polite, which was good for the flow of the album. I eventually went back and completely refashioned the 2009 solos into a separate song called 'Pewt Her'.

The video is nothing, really, just a re-edit of a Bavarian comedy, a genre of movie that never penetrated this continent for a good reason. There is an extraordinary amount of psychedelic clutter floating around on this one, including some lens flairs. That's usually a sign that the actual visuals need a little assistance to keep your attention. Not bad, though, mainly because there is a story of sorts, complete with punch line.

"Big World' was built upon a drum loop hanging around from at least 2008, maybe earlier. Hard to believe that I had a hard time finding anything to play over it, since it an effective percussion bed, but back then I was completely stumped. In 2014, I was all over this like a fly on sherbet. I've always liked this song a great deal, especially how it devolves over time yet still keeps it together.

The video was started with some footage I shot years ago in Ocracoke Village, layered and treated until it was barely recognizable. Pleasant enough, but then I added some gifs that I found, picking a theme of melting faces and playing with the repetition. Pure eye candy, it can be paused on any frame to make a great screen saver. It's an odd video, but it works well with the music.

I ran out of steam during the 2009 project, coming up with excellent concepts and melodies but failing them in execution. Consequently, there have been an exceptional amount fo retreads from that year, including 'Bossa Nesta'. This has both a great chord structure and an effective melody on top, ruined in the original version by too many overdubs, which didn't always hit the beat right. For this version, I stripped the arrangement down to mostly a guitar trio. It worked like a charm this time.

The video uses material from the Prelinger archive, where I have pilfered many an moving image. This time, I used an industrial film that had, for some obscure reason, quite a lot of dancing and dressing up, with an industrial cartoon around the edges. In retrospect, I could have eliminated the animated section and focused more on the film, but I don't go back and redo these videos. The element of chance sometimes works in your favor, sometimes against.

The title 'Funky Pedro' is not as racist as it may seem at the surface. My reference, incredibly obscure as it may be, is a single by the Greek Progressive band Aphrodite's Child. It's a b side, included on a greatest hits double CD compilation called 'Funky Mary'. I love the song; it's all percussion and lives up to its title. Another old drum loop as the foundation on this one, this time I'm even more playful, doing a couple of versions before coming up with this duel between piano, bass, and guitar.

The arrangement uses a lot of negative space between instruments to create interest and tension, Strangely, the bass was first, the piano months later after scratching a decent but too familiar guitar version, and the final guitar months after that, making this one of the most disjointed pieces of music that I have created. Even stranger, the thing sounds like it was intenionally sophisticated interplay. The video is yet another cartoon from the Prelinger archive, reduced down to an incompressible jumble of funny images.

The Doors remain a huge influence on my music, a band I liked in 1967 and still enjoy half a century later. It's not only the Lizard King, but the three other musicians, particularly John Densmore, an outstanding drummer. I did 'Indian Summer' as a solo acoustic guitar piece first back in 2009, perfectly fine within the context of the album. With sitar sounds at my disposal, I thought it might be fun to revisit, right down to the lengthy quote from Ravel's 'Bolero'. This song really takes the album into World Music territory.

The music video really tuned out well, particularly because I was re-editing spectacular footage
from a documentary. I'm neither shy of ashamed to burrow deep for great images. Anyway, I really did a lot to the original, both adding numerous filters and blending layers together. It's not hard to create something new out of old material, as any good editor will tell you. The epic music gets an equally epic video.

'Mucho Muchacha' was recorded near the end of the sessions, by which time I had tried and discarded many songs that found a home on other albums. I had avoided sounding like Santana,  the two thousand pound elephant in the room when it comes to Latin influences rock. Don't get me wrong; I love Santana. What I didn't want was the entire album to sound like I was copying his style. By this time, I could afford to actually write something in that vein, going perhaps a little more modern, especially in the use of percussion.

The video uses some obscure low budget roman footage just for the hell of it. Keep in mind that, while today we think of all things Latin emerging from Spain and then spreading into Mexico and similar regions, the original word described Italian tribes who created on of the greatest empires in the history of man. That my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it. Really, this is just random visuals plastered together to make some eye candy. Nothing wrong with that.

I have relayed the story behind 'Santa Muerte' before, but I'll repeat it one more time; this was deeply influenced by visiting Los Angeles while my daughter was in graduate school at UCLA. I really didn't expect to like the place but found it fascinating, particularly the Latino culture. The excess use of skulls and other death imagery, as well as the story behind this unofficial Catholic saint, gelled in my mind. I wanted to do a song that had a Latin voodoo vibe, if you will excuse the mixed metaphors.

I certain got my wish on this one. Building up a powerful bass and drum foundation, the percussion actually the Tabla setting on my electronic kit, I went to lay down some piano. I expected to add lead guitar over everything, like I usually do, but instead played the entire song from start to finish as one long solo way above my skill level. It was spooky and mystical at the same time, and it may be the only time I have ever been scared by the music that I was creating. The video uses a bunch of skeletal and skull animations probably intended for medical infomercials, putting them to much better artistic use. I love this piece.

But it did sincerely frighten me enough that I thought that an answer song may be needed as a tonic. Both the pervious song and the following, 'Amazing Grace' were done late in the session, back to back. I had done a Hendrix-meets-Pink-Floyd version around 2007, more an oddity than an actual song. I decided to do it gently here, asking for forgiveness. Playing straight Reggae like this, especially on bass and drums, took a great deal of discipline.

The slide guitar almost gives it a Hawaiian feel, but it was me just trying to find a way to make this all seem a little different. The video is nothing more than some video plant studies, treating each to various paint style filters, then blending that with video of window surfaces on a rainy day. This may be the closest that I've ever come to the type of installation video beloved by modern museums of galleries. I was just running out of ideas.

Put all together as a single piece, this album flows very well, sequenced particularly effectively. There's enough variety in both the music and the visual imagery to make it work, a difficult balance to pull off. I enjoyed the process of putting these videos together and have already finished another album. In a constantly changing media landscape, finding new ways to distribute content should always be explored. I hope you like this one.