The Story of DAVE 2

This one took a while.

Excuses for this are plentiful, at least in my head–the regular ‘creative burnout’ and ‘anxiety’ and ‘stress’ bullshit–but who even cares? I didn’t have as many ideas for this one, hence the eight tracks (real DAVE ones, anyway) instead of nine, and I think it’s because I’ve been making DAVE stuff as my primary project for four years at this point, and because daVe was probably my best album and it’s hard to follow up. However, I tried my best, and I have a lot to say about each song. Probably–I haven’t written those parts yet.

2006 Honda Civic

Probably my favorite electronic track I’ve ever made, right next to (and made around a similar time) as Heartbeat of the Trees. The title is taken from the SpongeBob AI series, the one where Patrick says “2006 Honda Civic.” A lot of effort goes into naming these songs, I’ll have you know. 

It was my attempt at making a jungle type DnB track, but since I don’t have the technical know-how to do something like that, I just ended up making an electronic song with the Cold Sweat beat. Sounds cool though, not exactly the Pizza Hotline vibe I was trying to rip off, but still neat.

Fuck Hope

Title stolen from Rich Evans in some Best of the Worst video, the full quote being “The public sucks, fuck hope.” I was worried my grandma would see the title, so I was debating changing it, but it just fits so well. 

This was originally gonna be the closing track, but I figured it would fit better at the start. Also, you can hear the Scalped rhythm at the beginning. 

Jungle Jim’s

Named after the most magical place on Earth, and probably the most structurally complex song on the album. I don’t have much to say, other than throughout all of the song, I’m playing downstrokes except when I’m picking faster, and there’s three bass tracks.

Willamette Valley Dream Survey

I don’t know how the fuck I came up with any of the parts for this song. The double kick part was originally gonna be played over a straight four beat on the hi-hat, but then I decided to make it more complicated, and I wish you could hear it better on the album. Probably one of my favorites. 

Wintermute

This started as a demo for daVe, but I already had the mandatory slap bass song on that one, so I moved it to this one. It was one of the first songs done for the album if I’m not mistaken, and one of my favorite bass parts to play. The title is stolen from Neuromancer by William Gibson, and has absolutely nothing to do with it. 

The intro is the two basses playing up a C-scale and then chromatically on either the beat or on the and of the beat, and for some reason I really like it. 

Chiron

Named for one of Saturn's moons, I believe, I don’t feel like looking it up right now, though technically I got it from Gemini Home Entertainment. Has one of the hardest and weirdest bass and drum parts I’ve ever written, but is also extremely fun to play on both. Originally started with the intro for “Surfing Cow” by the Dead Milkmen. On the part where the basses stop in the beginning, the beat I’m playing is supposed to be like “Head Like a Hole” by Nine Inch Nails. I love ripping off other musicians!

This song makes my hands cramp just listening to it.

Glass Railroad

Song name by Jilli :)

Either the first or second song made for the album, then I did another bass take where I did a harmony. To this day I still don’t know if it’s even in the same key, I cannot tell. 

Another extremely fun bass song to play, same as on drums, and took me a while to get down. The bridge before the fast part is me tuning my string down because I had it as an F to do the harmony part. You can’t hear it all that well, but the bass for the last part is really weirdly phrased, and was not originally meant for the song, but it fit so I put it in. 

The beginning and end were originally very different, and you can hear that on the demo recording.

Requiem for a Dave

I don’t know how I know the title “Requiem for a Dream,” as I didn’t know it was a movie until I looked it up. Made very late at night and recorded in like three takes. Chords on bass hurt my hand.

Malkier 

I will give you one zillion dollars if you know what the title has to do with the song. 

Named that way because between the production of daVe and DAVE 2, I read four Wheel of Time books, and I absolutely love all of them. 

Nice polyrhythms that I think I counted correctly? Thanks to Tool for ruining my taste in time signatures.

Cut from the album and used as a bonus track because it kinda sucks.