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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Writing the song Cruise Control


Current mood: drained
Category: Music
Writing Cruise Control

This is one melody Im more proud of I think because it twists and
turns so much. The tune came out so effortlessly and I was in such
good form from the many hours, days, months spent writing that I
almost thought I could just keep churning them out, alas not the case.
Writing a great tune is not something that comes easily, when I say
it just pops out its because something happens in that point of time
that was not there yesterday or the day before that or infact for many
months. The idea hits me and usually I cant believe that Ive just written
something I like, so I kind of disregard that its any good.
So anyway back to the tune, even thou I was inspired by Faith No More
and Sound Garden at the time, I dont think the Cruise control melody
sounds much like either of those bands. I think its a little more surf rock
with a 90's quality about it. I could crap on about 90's chord progressions
here and why the melody I wrote sounds the way it does, yet i dont want to bore
the pants off all the non muso's so I wont. (Nonetheless if you are interested
drop us a line).

Recording Cruise Control

I have recorded this tune a number of times and have released two versions of
it, one on the Audio Fields Ep being Marooned and the other on "Saturation day"
being Cruise control. I did not intend to use the tune so many times I was really just
trying to find the right vehicle for it. I also did another version that sounds very
Daft Punk that sadly may never see the light of day. (Yet again that could be a
good thing.) We spent a lot of time on it and it still sounded kinda poor, hahahaha.
This version was really an exploration in guitar noise for me which Im starting
to be quite fond of these days. The electric guitar is still a young instrument compared
to say the violin and yet over its short life it has almost been done to death. So to keep
myself inspired Im always trying to find inventive ways to use the sound.
For all the guitar sounds I used my trusty 1956 byer preamp to run the guitar through,
alas they dont make fuzz like that any more!!!! I highly recommend driving guitars
through small speakers while recording, you can get a much more nasally buzz.
The song structure is a single melody that is repeated and evolves with extra
guitar layers after each round. The guitar solo was played with a metal slide that
was used at the time to create incidental noise, I liked it so much it became the solo
during the instrumental section. Most of the other stuff is feed back and shaking the
guitar wildly in front of the amp.
Like always the drums were originally a loop that I replaced with live drums.
Then the original drum loop sounds were used to fatten the live drums with the aid of
sound replacer. When I did the demos for Saturation Day I only replaced the sounds
that I thought were weak while the arrangements remained unchanged.
Thats why we ended up replacing the live drum sounds because they just didnt have
the power of the loop sounds while the loops on their own sounded too repetitive.

The lyrics of Cruise Control.

This melody really said summer and surf for me and thats where the lyrics started and
ended. Spending too much time in the sun can do strange things to your mind after
a while.

Cruise Control

Tsunami fever undertow,
feel my head explode.
Surging tidal pressure grows,
feeling so good soda overdose.
Morning wave unloads,
sunrise cruise control,
sunrise cruise control,
sunrise cruise control,
sunrise cruise control.

Cruise Control written by Mat Creedon copyright 2006

Studio Players

Mat: Vox, Elec. guitars,
Mimmo: Bass
Pat: Drums

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