Beating a Dead Dog

PMF is a democratic band in a lot of respects, but when it comes to the songwriting craft, it becomes more difficult to maintain that. All three of us write words and music, so we typically take turns introducing home-recorded songs to the rest of the band. Sometimes parts for other instruments are already written and sometimes there are just rough guidelines. Other times it's as open as "play what you want and we'll see what happens." There's really no formula for us, so occasionally we will run into a section of a song where we have three completely different perspectives. So who gets the final say?

Last night, Kirk heard something he wanted tweaked in "Dog Milk" that Ryan and I never really had issues with in the past. We had been playing a part of the song the same way for probably close to a year, but we weren't playing it exactly the same way. For one of us to add or subtract a single beat felt unnatural. For Kirk, it was important that Ryan and I were tight and synchronized. Sure, we outnumbered him, but we still owed the songwriter his vision (or at least his vision of PMF's vision), so we descended into an obsessive half-hour of counting madness over a two-second part of the song that never shows up again. The final tally was 3 beats followed by 5 beats and a lot of bruises.

Was it worth it? Sources say yes, but only Captain Kirk knows for sure. The funny thing is that he didn't even write the part in the first place! When the band played the song for the first time, I wasn't present, but I received recordings of the practice the next day. One of the takes featured either Wally or Ryan (I'll have to do some digging) playing a sped-up part at the end of one of the measures in the intro. It may have been an accident for all I know, but it was unique and worth learning for the next practice. We finally played it together, but I was the only one doing the part. The rest of the guys threw rocks at me until I was unconscious. When I woke up, Kirk decided the part could stay, under one condition: we must fight about it in a year's time and post it on YouTube. We shook on it.

Now please allow this close-up of my giant beard-garden to continue the story (I assure you there are finally other faces in this episode):

Not Taking it EZ

PMF will be laying off the shows for a while in order to prep for album season. We may pop up onstage here and there in the next few months, but priority numero uno is completing a recording. There have been a million changes to this (dis)organization since its inception so we want to make sure we do this right.

And rather than keep this painful/fun experience completely to ourselves, we want to share it with youse. I know I've been making big promises all year about making PMF videos and photos and crap like that all year, and then never actually doing it. Hopefully, I won't be bullshitting us all again. The camera is fully charged and ready to capture candid moments of the recording process, both pivotal and pretarded.

Until I start actually doing that, you can check this out the PMF video bar, newly updated with old videos. I don't know how I forgot to post the video clips from that Zac made of our infamous July Groove on Grove show, but now they're there, so there. The clips up are "Dog Milk" and our WJ & the Sweet Sacrifice/Faith No More/Tim & Eric/etc. mashup, "It's It." There's also an accompanying write-up in the JC Independent where you are free to leave comments, hint-hint. Don't worry, we're not getting invited back next summer.

TAP TAP TAP

I've been promising to post audio files for a while now, so here's an attempt at making good on that promise. I'll triple up on the first entry because I've been holding out for so long. This should be a good cross section of what sort of things you'll find from us here. I may try out a few different players and hosts until we figure out what works best. Let us know what you think about this audio crap. Do you just want to be able to play these tracks, or do you want to be able to download them? Do you want us to post individual tracks as they happen, or would you listen to a podcast or a radio stream if we put one together? Do you even want to listen to them at all? Well, do ya punk?

First up is some non-musical banter. Earlier this month, metal, horror, and porn master Gio interviewed Plowing Mud Forever over at Duff's Bar in Brooklyn. This is a little teaser of how things went...

Q: How did you come up with the name "Plowing Mud Forever"?
A: Kirk responds:

master gio pmf interview quest by Plowing Mud Forever

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The next piece of audio is a recording of one of our newer songs "Dog Milk." Kirk is on vocals, and Wally is absent from this rehearsal (sorry, Wally). This track showcases our Led Zeppelin influences, obviously.

Dog Milk (rehearsal space 1/17 by Plowing Mud Forever

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Finally, a little bit of found sound of guy yelling while waiting for a subway. It doesn't really have anything to Plowing Mud Forever, but I wanted to share it anyway. Who knows, we may record our next album in this style, so don't knock it, jerk face.

Subway Guy Yelling by Plowing Mud Forever

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