Since completing the car upgrade, which was an all encompassing ordeal, I have been busying myself with a few different projects.
My good friend Dan Taylor (Chunkstyle) has begun the recording of a solo album, under the name "Yes, Mayhem" which, in itself, lets you know how good it's going to be. Dan and I have worked together a lot in the past, writing songs together and playing in various bands since just after I moved to Asheville in 1998.
When I say we wrote songs together, that really only fits one or two examples. Most others that we wrote "together", we were actually apart at the time. Dan writes and records brilliant instrumentals that happen to be structured perfectly for someone like me to come along and write lyrics and a vocal melody to.
The recording of the first Yes, Mayhem album has been tasked to an all-star cast. The songs that have been completed thus far have consisted of Kevin Lawrence (Life on the Blue Dot) on drums, Dan Taylor (Chunkstyle, Metroid Metal) on bass, Grant Henry (Stemage, Metroid Metal) on guitar, and myself on vocals (though I did add a little percussion and guitar to one of the tracks as well).
I am honored to be a part of this recording, which, due to the other players, will probably get a lot more attention than anything I have done on my own.
As I was at Dan's house this weekend, borrowing a cemented surface to do some work on my car, he related a story to me, events of that morning which almost led to a "naked fight". Apparently, when he was getting in the shower, his young daughter started yelling for him to come to the living room, as there was a stranger outside. When Dan heard the door open, he was poised to spring into action protecting his family and what-not... naked. It turns out the visitor was a door to door salesman, or "Jehovah's Witness" as they prefer to be called, slipping a tract in the door.
I was tasked with working this story into lyrics that I was supposed to be writing for Dan's song "Concrete Flea" for the Yes, Mayhem album. What resulted was Naked Fight, which I am infinitely pleased with.
I realized, once I added those lyrics to the site, that is the first song writing credit I have gained so far in 2009. I need to get busy!
I am also working on a new instrumental, currently with a working title of 404, which is a simple beat-based song spanning about two minutes, as part of the James & Chad project. More to come on that as it develops.