What We Did

As we head down the spiralling staircase leading down to Kevin’s basement, Soul Plane’s most recent practice spot, Gideon says to me, “Oh yeah, Yui, I forgot to tell you: I came up with this really blues-y riff… remember when Kevin said we should try something like that out?” He sounds very confident that I will love the shit out of it. The last time I heard him speak in such a tone was when he was trying to introduce me to the last Soul Plane song he wrote, “Impossible,” and that became one of our set-anchoring songs once it was done. As Gideon tunes his guitar, he’s describing to me how he thinks it should sound: “We need to jam the shit out of this one, man. It can’t be like our other songs… fuck structure.” The anomaly in his logic throws me off a little bit, but I am quickly reassured the minute he starts playing his riff: this track was going to blow the room like an escort at a bachelor party.

Real simple, real catchy, real popping: this is the Hollywood of music. Empty vessels certainly do make the most sound: less substance and content, more banging and bumping. It’s how you get mainstream. Every band and/or artist needs one (or several) of these songs for the radio, for the clubs, and for the shows. The hooks are the selling point of this kind of track; it must be the one part of the song that “gets stuck” in the listeners’ heads. The lyrics can’t be too complicated – remember, we’re trying to reach out to MTV culture here – no one is going to bother breaking down heavy metaphors and other rhetorical devices in search of some hidden meaning in your words, because upon closer inspection of MTV and everything it stands for, all everyone on it wants is unprotected sex, copious amounts of alcohol and drugs, and weird hair-dos. Honestly though, it’s not that I mind having to “dumb it down;” we would play at Guantanamo Bay if it meant that it would expand our fanbase.

As I sit there, I’m watching Aaron set his newly-purchased metronome to 102 bpm. He sounds off: “Yo, Gids, I think this is the speed we have to do it at.” Gideon looks up at Aaron, and waits to be tapped in by Aaron so that he can try playing the riff at proper tempo. As Aaron starts tapping, Patrick is just finishing tuning up his bass guitar and Kevin is just catching onto the chord progression of the riff Gideon composed. The wheels are in motion…

After eight bars of Gideon playing to Aaron’s metronome-timed playing, we realize collectively that this is the speed at which we want the song to unfold. Patrick jumps in on Aaron’s drum-fill cue after eight, and so does Kevin. The result is multiple auditory orgasms – I loudly instruct everyone to keep playing so that I can write the lyrics to the song. This is the part where I have to consider the fact that what I say doesn’t matter half as much as how I say it…

This is always the shitty part for me: having to think about what to write about. Bearing the aforementioned MTV-influenced guidelines to writing a hit single in mind, I start jotting down little words, short phrases, multi-syllable rhymes all over my paper. I also draw a picture of a hot girl with super huge boobs in a bikini lying in a very compromisingly inviting position. Right beside this hot girl I draw a cartoon horse with a boner standing on its hind legs. Kevin notices the obscenities I’ve created on my sheet of paper and wonders why he’s even in this band. I wonder why he’s not inspired by my drawing like I am. It takes me about 30 seconds to decide on writing a tribute to our beautiful city. In less than 20 minutes, I come up with the first verse:

Welcome to Toronto, get out ya ponchos
...Make it rain, the game's head honchos
...On the radio we played like consoles
...And we stay 'til we get on tour, pronto!
...In the citayy, we dare you to enter
As we, lock down the Air Canada Centre
And, every day it's a brand new adventure
Ridin' wit us you don't worry 'bout expenditures
...As we venture... another hour
Top of the world in the CN Tower
The power of the torque, the Porsche gon' gun
Cruisin' wit the sun on the 401
Exit at Yonge, where we tear the strip
Next it's Harbourfront where we board the ship
Sailin' to a land with lots of buried treasure
Return for detox... T-Dot forever//

After that, the rest pretty much takes care of itself: somewhere, in the midst of all that instrumental brouhaha, I hear faint echoes of Tupac and Dre’s hit collaboration track “California Love,” sped up with a funky-blues twist on it. I immediately think to jack the “In the citayyyyyyyyy… the city of Compton…we keep it rockin’” part for our song… it’s not theft, it’s called sampling. And even if it was theft, I’d still do it – if the glove fits, take it, or however that expression goes, right? I decide Blythe will be singing those lyrics for six bars while Gideon bangs out a solo over 12 bars, the first six of which overlap Blythe’s. Besides, this whole jacking lyrics thing saves me from having to be creative for anybody else but myself, which is exactly what I want.

It takes me another 15-20 minutes to lay out a third verse:

Roll wit big boys, roll with big dawgs
Rushin' to roulettes and slots for six shots
All star Dream Team we don't give odds
Not when Chris Bosh is near at tip-off
This year is lift off to the no-fly zone
That's home to our Blue Jays at the Skydome
Shout out to the hoods, Jane and Finch, Scarborough
TnR Hills, stay real, kick a hard flow
Front St. to Steeles still got heart though
Woodbridge at the ports bringin' in cargo
...For all it's worth in the TO chain
...Just remember it's home to Soul Plane//

Some of you are probably wondering, “LOl BuT YUI~! U sEd u haf 2 Hhave a CATCHY HOOIK!!!11111!!”

I know, but for now, that’s my secret weapon of mass destruction. And unlike George W. Bush’s secret weapons of mass destruction, mine actually exists, and hopefully it proves to be effective. The real reason I’m not putting up the lyrics to the hook is one-fold: merely reading them would be like watching Michael Jordan take foul shots all day. Yeah, he’s good, and he’s gonna hit ‘em, but who wants to bother with it? Why not watch him in the real game where he’s really kicking the living daylights out of everyone on the court? And that’s why, when you hear the song on the radio in the very-near future, you’re going to soil whatever it is that’s directly underneath your ass.

Invest in toilet paper.

How We Do

I’ve often been asked how our music comes together, and my answer usually varies depending on how seriously I take the person asking the question. Stephen and I used to fail classes together in high school, and now that we’re in university, we fail classes separately. Even though nobody takes either of us seriously, I gave it to him straight and in living colour. This MSN conversation outlines our writing process, for the most part:

Stephen says:

are you still playing guitar too?

Stephen says:

shit dude i havent seen you in good long time

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

Yeah man, you need to get your ass out here and let's blaze

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

I don't play much guitar anymore... remember I have a band who can make me all the music I need to hear..

Stephen says:

true....how does that work, do you guys just keep laying down riffs and chose whatever?

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

Well, for now, Kevin (our rhythm guitarist) is really the force behind the core of the creativity. Most of our tracks were written in his living room, between myself and him. Over the summer, I'd be at his place, sitting on his couch after blazing way too much, with a pad of paper and pen in my hand, and he'd be behind me at the piano, holding his Strat, with the metronome of the electric piano on

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

And he'd just start going off and playing chords here and there, little notes, little scales, and I listen until I hear something I think has potential and I yell "STOP"

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

And we build off whatever I tell to play again

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

*him

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

And I'd write my lyrics to his rhythm and the metronome that was going on the piano.

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

And when we had something of substance, we'd bring it to practice and be like... guys, check this.

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

But recently we've started including everybody in the writing process. Out of our thirteen songs, Gideon's (lead guitar) responsible for 2. Kevin has the other 11.

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

Our process is really simple if you think about it

Stephen says:

gebus

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

Haha, yeah, we got used to it real fast I guess.

Stephen says:

yea im guessing you guys know each other's writing styles so it come quick

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

I'd say that, but it's not always quick

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

We get stuck on shit a lot, but that's got to do with the fact that Kevin and Gideon are both perfectionists. They won't let it go if they can make it better.

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

For me it's like, hey, if it sounds good, and it's in 4/4 or 3/4 time at a decent tempo, I'll spit.

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

Good thing some of us actually have work ethic in this band

Stephen says:

ye i can see that

Stephen says:

lmao is 4/4 and 3/4 like a standard beat time?

- www.soulplanemusic.com says:

Well if I'm rapping, I'm not going to rap over 7/16

- www.soulplanemusic.com [UPDATED] says:

Anyway man, I gotta bounce, but it was great talking to you again. I'll hit you up sooner than later, we should get drunk sometime.

- www.soulplanemusic.com [UPDATED] says:

Get to Toronto and give me a call

- www.soulplanemusic.com [UPDATED] says:

*** *** ****

- www.soulplanemusic.com [UPDATED] says:

Peace man

Stephen says:

yea man...cheers

However, chances are, you don’t give a shit.

Up next: How we wrote a radio single in less than an hour and a half…

Qualified Men

Now that the recording part of the demo is finished, Soul Plane will looking be to focus on other promotional aspects for the band to get our game up to par before the tour starts. Obviously, we’ll be concentrating on the musical aspect, but aside from lyrics, I don’t have worry about any of that. That’s why I have time to write blogs all day. Soul Plane’s instrumental section has their work cut out for them, however, but I can’t complain about the level of productivity I’ve been getting from these guys lately: at said time, we’re aiming to have 13-14 songs in rotation by our first tour date, and right now we’ve wrapped up about ten. It’s only January… we’ll start giving a damn about the summertime (which is likely when the tour is going to happen) when spring gets here and we can go outside our domiciles without our bowels freezing over.

Dave, head engineer and owner of Machinehead Studio (where the tap water tastes like ice cream), told us before we departed from our final session with him to give him a call at the end of January for the final product of our work. I have nothing but absolute faith in this guy… he knows exactly what he’s doing, and I have no doubt that he’ll put his all into these five tracks. I know this because he enjoys and believes in our music – so much so that he didn’t care to charge us for the extra time we took to finish the project. We ended up paying only for the mixing and mastering, and considering how good Dave is at what he does, it’s definitely not money wasted. Money wasted is university tuition. Money wasted is getting Soul Plane boxers and panties made to put on the merchandise stand on tour. Money wasted is the time I lost $400 in 45 minutes at Casino Niagara. Money wasted is the time I’m taking off work to write this stupid article.

Kozy, tour organizer and promoter, has been keeping me posted personally on the behind-the-scenes work. So far, nothing has changed in terms of where we’ll be playing; the venues are still written in stone for Chatam, Toronto, and Owen Sound only. Part of Kozy’s promotional strategy, aside from advertising the shows on the local music radio stations of each city we’re playing at, is for us to take two of our most radio-friendly songs off of Black Box and give them to him so that he can send them out to the hot spots in each city’s nightlife scene. The idea here is to get the city warmed up to our sound before we show up. If you happen to live in any of our touring cities, put muscle on everyone you know to get them to come out. Especially Toronto – it would be a shame to have a shitty crowd when we have home-court advantage. Whatever, it’s nothing we’re not accustomed to anyway.

The perks of this tour are what kick everybody in the balls: we’ll be going wherever we go in coach buses. None of this, “rent your own U-Haul, hire your own roadies, and provide your own accommodations, we’ll meet you there and take money out of your pockets for giving you a stage to play on” bullshit. Kozy has personally informed me that we can pack that bus with as many friends (and groupies) as there are seats. I will remove friends (and maybe some band members) from the bus to make room for groupies. They’ll understand. And by “they,” I really mean just me. On top of all this, our accommodations (should we have to stay in any remote part of the province overnight) are all paid for. Kozy is my best friend.

Now that the demo is done, we’ll be getting to work on the real website. A good friend of mine’s father, Terry McGuire is a freelance graphic artist/designer by trade. If anyone has doubts as to how good this website will look, just remember that Future Shop is one of his clients and he fed three children doing exactly this. Fuckin’ A.

Speaking of highly-qualified people doing their jobs well, Dominic (Soul Plane’s resident graphic designer for album art) made several prints of clothing with our logo on them in an effort to help us fill up our merchandise stand on tour. If Conor’s negotiations go well with the people providing the merchandise, our stand will consist of: Soul Plane t-shirts, hoodies, baseball caps, patches, pins, tuques, and, if we have money to waste for shits and giggles, Soul Plane panties and boxers. At this point, I hate to rain on this parade of a fashion show, but let’s not forget that we’re also here to make music. There will be three CDs available for sale at the stand: one will be Black Box, our demo, another will be Your Money’s Worth, my own demo, and the last (if it’s ever finished) will be Deuce’s Jay-Z/Michael Jackson remix entitled American Thriller (see “Deuce Springsteen On MySpace” under Associates & Affiliations section for details).

On a side note, Stephanie (charity head) and I are still waiting for the government to answer my letter regarding starting a charity in Soul Plane’s name. Ideally, I’d like for this to kick off in the next couple months so that we can have that going by the time it gets real busy in the summer. It’s nice to have things to promote, especially if it’s a cause like this one. See? Narcissism and philanthropy can go together sometimes. Actually, they do all the time: music artists, professional athletes, and Donald Trump.

Finally, Conor is excited as shit for this upcoming summer, tour or no tour. Once the demo drops, he’ll be knocking at doors like the Jehovah’s Witnesses. He has been to several of the recording sessions for Black Box and he was very impressed, and said that he could definitely have us hooked up not too long after we put it in his hands. He’ll be in contact with show promoters and labels in an effort to get us a little more direction in getting somewhere in this music business. I don’t mean we’ll get signed the minute we show people our dicks. I mean we’ll be opening up opportunities that can turn into something better (for us) than a signing if we play our cards right. And we will. And then we'll show people our dicks.

2008 is our year. Let’s make this happen, boys and girl.

Black Box Pt. IV And Then Some...

When I was told that Blythe had laid down the final harmonies for the song “Liquor on the Curb,” I almost lost control of my bladder. The emotions of elation and excitement coursing through my veins must have been akin to those felt by a Vietcong soldier buried deep in the jungle thickets upon hearing that the war was over: at first I vehemently denied it and held my position saying that there was no way it could be done, that I still hear the planes flying over the forest at night. This shit was certainly a struggle, but I had more than enough juice left in my IV unit to get me to the other end of the hospital hallway.

According to Dave, it actually went far better than he had hoped. As he revealed this to me, he also advised me not to take it personally. Bands never get things right the first time. The same could be said for the third and fourth times. It’s okay, though, we got it done, and that’s all that matters, no matter how many attempts it took (only 4).

We take the old adage “all in a day’s work” very seriously: the total time we took to record this demo was 24 hours. We paid for a total of four hours. Our asskicking in the Supernova battles from back in the day certainly paid for most of the time, and what wasn’t already taken care of in that department was followed up by Dave’s thorough and much-appreciated understanding of our rookie status as a band (meaning we have no money, give us some). We also got him real high… he swears the time just flew by, and that he likes our music, but what does he know? He punches bowls like a woman.

Dave is now working with associates who all want me to advertise on our site how good the tap water tastes at Machinehead Studio. The tap water is good… we drank lots. Harrison, how the hell exactly was this supposed to be the selling point of Machinehead Studio? Does Dave know about this?

Speaking of associates, Dave almost fired Harrison for persistently trying to come up with his own harmonies to the chorus of “No Worries” right into Dave’s ear, which threw Dave off completely as he was trying to listen to Blythe sing her own harmonies so that he could give her accurate feedback. Harrison either did not want Blythe to get accurate feedback from Dave, or he just really loved the song. He later confirmed it was, in fact, the latter (thankfully). It was hilarious when he almost lost his job, though.

Conor, playing Mr. Manager all dressed up in a collared shirt, a crisp pair of jeans and a pair of shiny black oxfords, barged in waving papers and contracts we had to sign for the upcoming tour we’re going on. There was an aura of “officialness” about him… too bad this aura was way too firmly embedded in the crust of buffooneries that is Soul Plane for anyone to really tell. Here are the details as I know them: it’s likely going to be happening late June, early July, and for now, only three stopping points have been confirmed: Owen Sound, Chatham, and Downtown Toronto. Certainly, there will be more to come… I’ll keep you posted, never worry; I plan on putting up a list of dates and venues on the site once I get the final draw-up of our itinerary.

In other news, we got the mixer for Blythe (so that we can record and email to her the rough mixes of new songs for her to write/practice over) and a metronome for Aaron (so that we’re not the worst thing that’s ever been on a bus going nowhere). Right now, ten songs are in rotation for the tour and any recording of the actual album we ever plan on doing, with another three on the way. The EPK is very much in the works, as are the actual website (the guy doing it did Future Shop’s website), the charity (see Charity Case blog for details), and of course, this stupid demo that has taken us the last decade to finish up. So far, it seems that Soul Plane’s short-term goals are all on pace to be getting achieved with a little bit more… wow, we really are coming into ’08 with a crash landing. Now we sit back and wait for the rest of the stars to align…

But it’s always that ‘little bit more’ that pushes people over the edge. How close are we, exactly? I think I speak for everyone in the band when I say it’s too damned late. Our trains have already run off the tracks. The funny thing is, most of you reading this are already on the bandwagons in tow, so you’re just as fucked and clueless as to what’s up next. Where are we going from here? I only wish I knew. I just hope we’re not getting all dressed up with nowhere to go, kinda like the way Conor was at Machinehead Studio. Whatever, even if it goes nowhere, we can look back and say, “God dammit, that was fun.” But we march on, direction and whether it even exists or not notwithstanding, because we’re Soul Plane. And unlike all these other pussy-ass commercial airlines, we don’t stay grounded when the weather’s shitty. Just look at us. See if you even recognize us in five years. I predict that Kevin becomes a construction worker, Gideon becomes a test subject at a medical lab, Aaron becomes a character on Sesame Street and Patrick becomes a cardiologist with a meth addiction. I’m likely going to have AIDS. All this means nothing, and matters even less, because we’re still going to be here making music. For now, though, Blythe (I’m not even going to guess for this one), sing the chorus… we’re done here. Good night.