the Notes and Scratches

Notes & Scratches Record Release Show

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:00:00 -0800

thursday, april 30th, 2009 at 09:00 pm

at: the Whistler

We happily celebrate the release of our new EP on Rock Proper, and our new 7” single on Whistler Records.
The show is free!

New website!

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:09:33 -0600

Hey sleepy,

We have a new website over here:

Notes & Scratches

Come visit.

Homeroom Songwriter Showcase

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:00:00 -0500

friday, november 21st, 2008 at 09:00 pm

Venue: Elastic

Notes & Scratches is playing an acoustic set and we’ll be talking alittle about songwriting. The evening will also feature a performance by Rock Falls, and an open mic.

the Rosewood Thieves

Fri, 16 May 2008 22:00:00 -0500

friday, may 16th, 2008 at 10:00 pm

Venue: the Hideout

w/ Cairo Gang, the Notes & Scratches

LoveLikeFire

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:00:00 -0500

tuesday, june 03rd, 2008 at 09:00 pm

Venue: Schubas

w/ Notes & Scratches, Mass Solo Revolt

Ravens & Chimes

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:00:00 -0500

wednesday, november 14th, 2007 at 09:00 pm

Venue: the Empty Bottle

w/ the Notes & Scratches and Darling.

Press Photo 1

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:35:00 -0600

image by: Cortney Groves

For a high resolution version, just give us a holler.

little snip

Wed, 03 Aug 2005 12:16:00 -0600

we’re done mixing! tonight we drink the blood of kings! or whatever! (soy king blood?)

here’s a little tiny bit of a song that’s on the new record. Still needs to be mastered but i’m feeling pretty good about how it sounds…

Songs from Uh-Oh

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 13:11:00 -0600

image by: Mike Piontek

Alright friends, here’s a taste, hope you enjoy:

the Hours: Stream or Download
the Clockmaker’s Daughter: Stream or Download
in the City of Eggtimers: Stream or Download
the Lines Reveal: Download

Press Photo 2

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:48:00 -0600

image by: Cortney Groves

For a high resolution version, just give us a holler.

Press Photo 3

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:28:00 -0600

image by: Cortney Groves

For a high resolution version, just give us a holler.

Whom?

Mon, 28 Mar 2005 14:19:00 -0600

the Notes and Scratches are:

Anika Balaconis (horn, keys, singing)
Joshua Dumas (singing, guitar)
Jason Eckerson (bass, singing)
Robbie Hamilton (drums, singing)
Whitney Johnson (viola, accordion, singing)

and have included:
Steve Quantock (pedal steel, violin)
VJ Hyde (drums, guitar)
Mark Benson (percussion)

Visit our myspace page.

Drop us a line.

Download our One Sheet.

older Press Photo 2

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 19:43:00 -0600

image by: Emily Freeh

For super duper hi-res versions of this photograph please visit the Tense Forms’ Press Downloads.

older Press Photo 1

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 19:38:00 -0600

image by: Emily Freeh

For super duper hi-res versions of this photograph please visit the Tense Forms’ Press Downloads.

writing Memphis Eyes

Sun, 29 May 2005 10:37:00 -0600

tags: xramb, xlyrics, inspiration, recording

We started writing a new song in the studio. It’s all so blurry I’m not even sure what day it was, but we were on a break and VJ starts playing this ‘Lust for Life’-esque drum part and i start playing this descending progression that i kinda yanked from the Great Lakes Swimmers (who are so amazingly lovely) and suddenly i think i can hear J singing. This was a problem for three reasons: one, I’ve yet to hear J sing; two, i already felt like I’d been huffing gas for a week and hearing ghost voices wasn’t helping anything; and three, she drove home this weekend to visit her folks, she was miles away. Anyway, that moment was the song’s spark, imagining that somehow i might be hearing her all the from Memphis… which doesn’t seem totally impossible right?

Well, upon her return i received this message from her:
I am sleepy and jolly and also half voiceless, cause the only way I could keep awake driving yesterday was to sing…

what i did on friday

Tue, 05 Jul 2005 14:48:00 -0600

image by: VJ, collaged by josh

It was really hot on friday and i got this idea that if i cut up an old sock and made an eye-patch that would make everything better. I was right, as these photos clearly attest.

Washing up

Thu, 14 Jul 2005 14:10:00 -0600

Sitting on the curb outside the laundry mat, my arm around her like a Raymond Carver story. It was perfect. She was wearing a black skirt with cream lace at the bottom and her dark hair stumbling out of a small pony tail and her impossible eyes and the moon like a melon slice. One hand on my knee cupping a cigarette, the other gentle on the small of her back.

Anyone walking past turning to look would have surely concluded that this is a sad good life, a life where young people strange in the night entangle on curbs in front of laundry mats’ florescent lights flickering and clothes tumbling and lunatics wandering, a life where some might have the chance to share small tasks warmly, a life where some promises are undoubtedly kept.

This moment will surely end up in song at some point…

Mixing Clockmaker’s Daughter

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 15:44:00 -0600

Wow. I’m some kind of fried. Tonight will be our last night in the studio. I just did the math— after tonight it’ll be something like 50 hours over 5 days, with our dayjobs crammed in between. We finished ‘the Clockmaker’s Daughter’ last night which i was really concerned about. VJ threw down an amazing harmonium track (with Jason working the bellows), we cut the bells, redid the acoustic and Jenny came by and did some super lovely stairway ghost vocals. It came out pretty great i think, but it’s definitely lack of planning/vision on my part that we were doing such extensive overdubs during a mix session! Oh well, it’s finished and we’ve only 2.5 songs to tackle tonight and mixing will be done.

I leave for NYC to visit my sister tomorrow night. I can’t wait. We’re going to ABC No Rio, the Cake Shop, the Lever House and we’re gonna check out Janet Cardiff’s piece in Central Park. It’s going to be a full and amazing trip. Best of all, i get to roll with my sister for 5 days!

While i’m away we’re gonna be double checking the mixes and thinking about sequencing. Upon return we’ll work that all out and master the pup and then it’s done done done. I’ll post a some sneak peaks here soon…

Redder Records has a bunch of covers by Kind of Like Spitting posted in lovely free mp3 format. Click the media link at the top of their site (damn frames!). Be sure to check out the version of Death Cab for Cutie’s ‘Title Track’. It has this nice sorta screamy part at the end which, in my humble opinion makes KoLS’ version better than the original. My friend Craig always says, too much cutie and not enough death and i’m inclined to agree. That said, i must admit i have a certain inexplainable (inexcusable?) soft spot for that Postal Service song ‘The District Sleeps Alone Tonight’. Anyway, bunch of good mp3s at Redder’s site. Update: also grab the KoLS version of Tom Courtney (totally has the Dinosaur Jr. doing the Cure trick on the first chorus!).

new york city

Mon, 08 Aug 2005 10:13:00 -0600

image by: joshua dumas

NYC was the bee’s knees! Bands practice in cellars on Stanton Street. The Cardiff piece was phenomenal. PS1 had some very cool stuff. Open studios at the SVA had some really promising work. Sister is awesome, her boyfriend is awesome, the Antique Garage is awesome. Great trip; more soon…

Red

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 12:12:00 -0600

I watched Red again last night. It’s been 11 (long) years since Renee and i first saw it at the Detroit Institute of Arts. I’ve been slowing digging through Khaela Maricich’s good good writing. She plays in a band called The Blow who make lovely awkward-funny crazy smart language music stuff. I spent 4 nights staying up late with my sister. She’s made a really nice life for herself, working living wandering New York City.

I dunno exactly what i’m trying to untangle here but it goes something like this:
There is a kind of impossible richness of human sorrow.

My roommate couldn’t understand why i find Red so overwhelmingly sad. It is, of course, a redemption story. Maricich weds wonder and dislocation in her writing about France. My sister misses her family. This might be dumb, but i have this sense that human joy is kind of singular; that we all feel happy in mostly the same ways. But human sadness has this breadth, an arching multiplicity, a richness.

Since i’m clearly not going to be able to articulate this well, i’ll direct your attention to the trumpet that comes in on the right at 2:12 into Damien Jurado‘s White Center. It knows what i’m talking about.

Oh, in actual band news: i think i’ve figured out the sequence for the record. We’ll be cutting one of the songs we recorded, but a 13 song, 42 minute full-length seems just about right…

Okkervil River, the second person and personification

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 13:29:00 -0600

First things first, if you’ve not spent time with Okkervil River’s new record Black Sheep Boy, please, i implore you— Do so. Like right now. It is impossibly beautiful and sad and cruel and good. The production and arrangements are amazing and the songwriting is just so so great.

I’m currently obsessed with two things: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Two and the Okkervil River song A Stone. The song opens with the lines:

Hot breath, rough skin, warm laughs and smiling; the loveliest words, whispered and meant; you like all these things.

I’m all over these lyrics for a couple reasons. Mostly, the perfectly placed ‘you’ in the third line. When Will Sheff sings/insists that i like all these things, i say “I do. I do like all those things”. And frankly, he’s got me right there; if there wasn’t another good line in the song that’d be fine, i’m already convinced (this is perhaps overstating this but imagine if the lyrics were “you like hot breathe, you like rough skin, etc…. it totally wouldn’t work right). Another thing, there’s some kind of consonance or something that lets ‘skin’ rhyme with ‘smiling’ and rhyme with ‘meant’, which is beautiful.

The song unfolds with a enormous extended metaphor about stone. We get this amazing horn section in the middle and then this fairy tale of stone personified. It’s all just so perfectly constructed. The stone makes a tower, the tower holds a queen, a queen has a daughter who is Lovely and stubborn and brave (that word ‘stubborn’ is what makes this my favorite line in the song), the daughter has suitors, and then there’s wonderful moment that probably won’t translate over computer screens but the narrator steps in for a second and there’s too many words in the line and the pacing is awkward and that is why it is perfect:

And i think that i know, the bitter dismay, of a lover who brought fresh bouquets every day. And she turned him away to remember some knave who once gave just one rose, one day, years ago.

And then we get the horns again bless them and we weep our way to the end.

I’m all heady about this stuff ‘cos i was working on a new song this weekend and went back and forth on how to handle a simile about a jacket. The song opens with: “This worn out winter coat, pocket full of ashes, unbuttoned like a question.” And i couldn’t figure out whether a buttoned coat or unbuttoned coat is more like a question. See, buttoned up, it is concealing something, which seems kinda like a question. But the more i thought about it, i realized that the question is the wearer’s… if her eyes are tired and blue and she hasn’t opened the door and if her jacket is long and brown and unbuttoned, she may consider taking it off, and staying.

the Joy that is Non-Sequitur Sound Effects in Songs

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 10:33:00 -0600

tags: othersmusic, inspiration

As y’all may have gathered, I take music pretty seriously. Well, very very seriously actually. But i also completely love when songs or bands exhibit a sense of humor; where a dedication to craft and to silliness are both on display.

And that, friends, is why i love inappropriate sound effects in songs. See, if there’s some weird janky wiggle in an Akron/Family or a Grandaddy or a Mount Eerie song, that’s not particularly surprising. These bands use sound (in awesome good beautiful ways) as a basic element of their palette. I’m talking about songs/bands who pluck down a lone oddity into an otherwise straight forward song.

The crudest, most hamfisted and perhaps funniest example i came up with is from the Halo Bender‘s first record God Don’t Make No Junk. The chorus of Don’t Touch My Bikini has this awesome cartoon spring sound, brilliant in that it pans right to left first and then back. Comedy gold.

I have personal connection to the next two. As a teenager driving aimlessly around Detroit and the burbs, Mark, Rob, Mike, Renee and i would belt these sound effects out in unison and then giggle uncontrollably afterward. Like the Halo Benders, The Flaming Lips’ Turn It On radio swoop is not so much a non-sequitur but still cracks me up. When we were driving Mark’s broke ass no heat car from Boston to Detroit in late December one year, hollering woo-woo-woo along with Pavement‘s 5 - 4 = Unity is pretty much the only way we staved off frostbite.

The strangest example of this that i could think of is from The Breeder‘s Off You. This is certainly the most poignant hopeful/miserable song Kim Deal has ever written. It is gorgeous and depressing and features a completely inappropriate Moog swoop! Curious and awesome.

And lastly, Neva Dinova‘s Yellow Datsun does this perfectly goofy sound effect and vocal production move that is the oft-mentioned cherry atop a super yummy indie-folk cake.

I dunno what’s wrong with me, but I can not get enough of this stuff. I’ve been completely cracking up the entire time trying to write this entry. Anybody have any suggestion of other awkward perfect sound effects in indie rock? (or in classic rock, ‘cos that’d probably be more funny!)

Covering your contemporaries

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:33:00 -0600

I love covers. I love playing covers; i love figuring out how to flip someone else’s song to make it your own. I love listening to covers. In preparation for this post i went through my collection and made up a playlist— according to iTunes i have 82 covers, 5.1 hours of folks playing other folks’ music! So i had to do some trimming. First i cut that list down to only songs i absolutely love. Well, there were still 36 songs on that list. So i pruned that down by only keeping songs where the original and the cover were recorded by musicians working basically contemporary of one another. These are often the best covers i think. But there were still 14 tracks on my list, so i kinda arbitrarily weeded that down to five. I’ll post the others sometime in the future.

The first i just heard today via Copy, Right? which is a great covers-only mp3 blog that i think is out of Chicago, it’s Jon Auer (Posies, Big Star) doing the Guided By Voices song Gold Star For Robot Boy ~~[2.5MB] [MP3]~~. This is what i love about contemporaries covering each other— it’s so easy to imagine Bob Pollard doing his dishes to a Big Star record or Jon Auer throwing Bee Thousand into the tape deck on the Posies tour bus. Aside from all the obvious reasons this cover is great, i love the single unchanging organ note that enters about a minute in and patiently waits for its charming little solo.

I’ve never heard the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, i, uh, tend to avoid things i’m pretty sure i’m not going to like. Sometimes i miss out on stuff surely, but there is so so so much that i do like and am curious about and there is so so so little time! Anyway, don’t know nothing bout the 3Yeahs but this Arcade Fire version of their song Maps ~~[3MB] [MP3]~~ is really great. By the way, the Arcade Fire recently overhauled their website and while i have no love for Flash, it is a thing of beauty.

I also know almost nothing about Kim Salmon. I heard a couple Scientists songs years ago, but that’s about it. This version of his song Obvious is Obvious ~~[4.5MB] [MP3]~~ by one of my longtime favorites the Dirty Three is utterly, profoundly gorgeous. The Dirty Three played a show in London last week that i fleeting considered buying airfare to… they performed Ocean Songs in its entirety! Remind me to tell you sometime about the 9 months i spent laying on the floor of our apartment with R’s cat on my stomach listening exclusively to the first side of Ocean Songs over and over, getting up only to place the needle back at the record’s start.

I adore the singing saw choir in the original version of Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, having that replaced by a really rich sounding cello and actual singing in Matt Pond PA‘s new version ~~[4MB] [MP3]~~ is a nice touch.

A few years ago, Silkworm put out a covers record called You Are Dignified, that was all songs by working bands they admired. I never knew Michael well, but we played together a couple times and i ran into him at Electrical once or twice. Fuller knew him pretty well and that’s how i was fortunate to spend a bit of time with him. I dunno if i’ve been thinking about him or his spirit or what, but i’ve been listening to You Are Dignified a lot lately. Let’s Kill Saturday Night ~~[3MB] [MP3]~~, which is a Robbie Fulks song, is my fave off that record… sloppy and mournful and i dunno… perfect.

And lastly, one from the under the bed. Atlas and i recorded this four or five years ago. If i remember correctly, she had a terrible cold at the time, but still sounds gorgeous and sad. I have no idea why i thought i need those little guitar solos between every verse, but the guitar tone is pretty hott. So, the Notes and Scratches & Atlas playing Turn it On [5MB] [MP3], by the Flaming Lips.

UPDATE: hey, except for our own, time’s up on these mp3s.

Highlife

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 12:08:00 -0600

Anybody know anybody that would give me a grant to study West African Highlife music? I know very little about the genre and trying to do research on the Net has proved to be fairly fruitless. I’m not even sure whether it’s Highlife, High-Life, HiLife, or High Life. That said, in my web-stumbling i uncovered Matt Yanchyshyn’s great blog Benn Luxo Du Taccu, which focuses on African music in general and has me on a mission to track down some of Celestine Ukwu‘s stuff, and to track down a record I’d lost years ago, by Dr. Sir Warrior. I’ll also point you to the Afropop Worldwide store who offer mp3s of hard to find international music and are committed to an Equal Exchange/Fair Trade model in which independent artists get at least 50% of all retail sales, which is so awesome.

While i often have no problem prattling on about things i don’t know anything about instead i think i’ll let the music speak for itself. We got like a foot of snow in Chicago last night so today i’m loving and spreading the highlife!

When my friend J. was traveling in Ghana she mailed me a tape, i’ve sadly since lost, on that tape was Uwamwesi Special ~~[4MB] [mp3]~~ by Dr. Sir Warrior and the Oriental Brothers International. Check third post on this page for a bit more background.

The one thing i do know about the genre is that it begin as an attempt to translate rhythms traditionally played on hand drums to other instruments. The highlife i love is mostly from the ‘70s and the instrument that takes on those rhythms is a jangly electric guitar. Christiana ~~[7.5MB] [mp3]~~ by Price Nico Mbarga is a brilliant and joyful example.

UPDATE: time’s up on these mp3s

2005 Top Ten

Thu, 29 Dec 2005 15:58:00 -0600

You know, i had planned to dig through this past year’s musics and try to cobble together a list of my 2005 faves but i’m terrible at sorting and choosing and ranking. So, instead, my year end list is simply going to be the

Top Ten Reasons I Love the Devin Davis song Iron Woman [2.1MB] [mp3] (from his new CD Lonely People of the World, Unite! available here) (this list is in chronological order):

1. The first verse. The song begins with lyrics that are funny but almost crappy — “when you’re a caveman on the pavement in the USA” — so silly and seemingly trite until the verse’s end which is so well earned by the lines preceding it — “three whole weeks spent throwing matchsticks at the sun.” Which is a great great line but a line that needs the kinda goofy rhymes before it to set-up the moment. Is sisyphean a word?

2. The second part of the first chorus. The backup vocal harmony in the left-center channel that swings up to a higher note the second time “iron woman” is sung.

3. The vocal crack in the first chorus. When Davis sings “seven days at the bow of a wobbly boat” his voice perfectly breaks apart through-out the line.

4. The woo! Forty-six seconds into the song, there is a “Woo!” kinda in the background. I have listened to this song probably like 40-50 times and i still grin and often tear-up with laughter everytime i hear that woo.

5. The woo-who-who. At fifty-six seconds there is a woo-who-who in the background. It’s nice.

6. The end of second verse. Again with the silly and somehow also sad thing. “But once we conquered the mainland / she made some / high society friends. / I never heard one word / from my Viking girl again.”

7. The second part of the second chorus. Again the backup vocal harmony reaches a higher note, but this time it is both in the left-center and the right-center. Total smart-town.

8. The handclaps and sax solo during the bridge. Handclaps are always great, but a sax solo that doesn’t suck is a rare thing indeed!

9. The lilting ahhs at the very end. Is that a slide guitar? A kazoo? A voice? A slide whistle?

10. The last lyric. “I can still draw your picture in the dark,” a great image which again is both sad and sharp. Hmm, Raymond Carver’s Cathedral?

11. The ending noise. Davis says ‘hey?’ and then it sounds like stuff falling down the stairs. Charming to the last!

Alternate — if i knew what this was called it would have made the list — at two minutes in, with only twenty seconds left a piano comes in via that trick where you run the whole keyboard real quicklike, like Jerry Lee Lewis (or J. Geils).