Fracture

“I did the bits that sound "noodly" or "solo-y".
@finnkisch did everything that sounds like "an awesome motherfucking song".”

In January, Finn sent me an mp3 of this great song -- a bit minimalistic for my taste, but undeniably strong lyrically, just a great song no matter how you slice it. And he wanted me to lay a guitar solo down on it.

I was going to go see Ninja Academy that night, but the song grabbed me and I ended up playing guitar on it. A lot of guitar. I not only recorded a raw solo, but also noodly clean bits that trampled all over the vocals and repeated a theme in the first section of the mosh part. Think, maybe, of asking Jackson Pollack to paint an empty corner of your floor, and finding the entire house covered with an inch of paint.

Just the way I am, you know? I'll solo over anything.

I really liked what I did, and so did Finn, but we agreed that a lot of the busy-ness was detrimental to the vocals, which should really be the focus here.

We talked about the song a bit, then tried throwing other half-finished songs at each other to see what stuck. Nothing came of that, and no one was surprised. Months passed.

Then, in July, Finn started his song-a-month project under his old solo project moniker All the Meat Wants, and it was good. I recognized a lot of the songs off of Yesterday Again Today from the Dark Secret Love days; it's good finally seeing 'em in a finished and presentable form.

Labor Day weekend, Finn emailed me about making Fracture September's song of the month.

All in all it was fun, though there were times when I was frustrated at my own limitations on guitar. I idealize the first-take solo, the imbued channeling of godhood through the mortal instrument in one perfect transcendent performance. Yet, take after take after imperfect take later, I resigned myself to my own mediocrity. And turned to my skills at editing shit together ;-)

I think the clean guitar bits are comprised of 3-5 different takes, edited together; the solo is definitely 5-6 takes hacked into, as Finn called it, a Frankensolo. Phrasing my solos into distinct sections is not only advantageous for letting the solo "breathe", but also for covering ugly fuckups the fuck up.

My innate ability to hear flourishes and counterpoint melodies that aren't there, yet, added a lot. But Finn's devotion to the purity of the song (read: keeping me from going hog wild and trampling over everything), plus, y'know, the awesome song he wrote and recorded, were even more important. And it just meshed and gelled and whatever other verbs that connotate symbiosis or collaboration.

I think it's the best work I've done to date.

It's definitely my favorite song of Finn's, hands down. As he said, it's something special. I'm really glad he let me be a part of it.

Take a listen.

And share it with somebody.