Music to commit suicide by

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j_e_f_f_g
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Music to commit suicide by

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

You may have used my crummy software. You've probably downloaded my cheesy sampled instruments designed to put real musicians out of work. Now you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear my abrasive music. Here's a song I wrote called "The Rich Doctor". First some background for the song:

It tells a story set in the future, when new medical advancements have made it possible to replace today's cosmetic surgery with a procedure known as a "face transplant". No longer do cosmetic surgeons bother manipulating your existing features, to a limited degree. Your natural face is instead "chopped off", and replaced with a seamless artificial face designed to make you look like a runway model. Yes, now anyone can be a "beautiful person". Of course after centuries of capitalism's wanton consumerism and consumption, coporate interests have trained the buying public to never be satisfied with "this year's model", and instead always crave next year's new fad. So even beautiful faces go in and out of style, just like clothing and hairstyles. Therefore, every so many years a typical consumer will want a "hot" new face.

The subject of my song is a gentleman who has had his current face long enough that it's well out of style. So he decides to visit his local face surgeon for a new, more modern look. He goes to see "the rich doctor". (For one thing, it's a play on the phrase "witch doctor" which is a euphemism for an incompetent doctor. The doctor in my story is an example). But there's another thing capitalism's glorification of greed excels at doing, and that thing is enabling people with wealth and power to more easily get wealthier and more powerful than "poor folk". After a few hundred years, most all of the wealth and power has been consolidated around the members of two particular professions -- the medical, and the legal professions. In the future, you are one of three things:

1) A rich doctor
2) A rich attorney
3) A poor person

The gentleman in my story is neither 1 nor 2.

The first character we meet is the doctor's nurse, Brenda Blade. She informs the rich doctor that he has a patient in need of a new face ("He's not looking at all well lately"), and brings the patient in for consultation. The doctor shows the patient an "entry level" model known as Dashing Don. Of course, the rich don't get, and stay, wealthy by accepting a reasonable compensation for their efforts. So true to the exploitive nature of the medical/pharmaceutical fields, the pricing on this entry model (which costs about $70 to manufacture) is $10,000. The patient explains that he can't afford that, as his budget is only $100.

As luck would have it, there's a small startup medical company that has just brought to market an extremely low price "super-discount" model. (The company formerly direct-marketed a home surgical kit for laymen known as "Suture-self". Say it fast a few times.) The company plans to mass market the product for $80, and make their margin on volume sales. Like Walmart. And to achieve that price point, just like Walmart, they have to use the cheapest possible materials/construction, and have it assembled by unskilled third world children. This "super-discount" model is called the "Jerry Too". That isn't a misspelling. The "Too" isn't a model number. The marketing department forecasts that first quarter sales will be so brisk that 3 out of every 5 men in any given town will be sporting this exact same face, thus making them all literally jerry too.

The patient eagerly choses this affordable option, and the face transplant is performed... successfully. After a few hours recuperating in the hospital, he's anxious to see the results, so he peels away the bandages, and is horrified by what he sees. The jerry too was never field tested, and in fact this is its first installation. No one (with a business degree) could have predicted (nor frankly cared) how awful this shoddy product would be. The patient looks like... um... a Walmart employee.

So what does a person of the future do when "faced" with a difficult problem? Does he attempt to fix it himself? Does he seek the assistence of someone who can fix the problem? Of course not! He runs to the nearest rich attorney in order to sue someone (but typically ends up only being exploited by yet another self-serving power-broker in a corrupt system).

If all of this reminds you of something you heard by Frank Zappa, then you may actually be prepared for what you're about to hear. God help the rest of you.

Trivia: I play the part of the doctor (and keyboards). No one else in the band felt he was evil enough to do the part justice.

The patient is played by the guitarist Mark. Helium, people.

Brenda Blade is a large, very hairy man from New Jersey. To this day, she's the ugliest female nurse I've seen. But a good bassist. When this song premiered before a live, and extremely bewildered audience, I talked him into dressing for the part. Over the years I've managed to convince a lot of people to do a lot of things they never would have done if they considered the long-term psychological consequences. Today, few of them still talk to me (or anyone).

P.S. No banjos were injured during the production of this song.

But if I had a banjo, it would have been.

P.P.S. Flac format so Spencer can encourage listeners to tune in to his podcast by announcing he'll air this song if they don't.

https://soundcloud.com/j_e_f_f_g/the-rich-doctor
Last edited by j_e_f_f_g on Sat Apr 22, 2017 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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funkmuscle
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by funkmuscle »

real heavy Zappa vibe!! good work!
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Here's a cute, and very short piece I wrote as a guitar exercise back when I was a music comp major.

https://soundcloud.com/j_e_f_f_g/guitar-piece

And a piece for piano and synth from the same time period.

https://soundcloud.com/j_e_f_f_g/prelude
Last edited by j_e_f_f_g on Sun Apr 23, 2017 12:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by Ricardus »

I definitely hear the Culture Club, but not the Zappa....
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Ricardus wrote:I definitely hear the Culture Club, but not the Zappa....
Rich, if you ever again compare me to Boy George, I'll dig out my 14.4k modem and program it to call your home every morning at 4am. There's no similarity between me and Culture Club whatsoever. Just implying otherwise makes me really want to hurt you and make you cry. Oh crap. Someday you'll get hit with karma, karma, karma... Crap.

You know, Jan was always your mom's favorite. (She said the sex was better.)

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kbongosmusic
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by kbongosmusic »

Ha, that was funny! I knew I joined this motley crew here for reason ;) Loved the story write-up as well, some very refined jaded/cynicism humor. I could hear the Zappa in the song. I'll bet the new model face was put on with a pair of heavy-duty zircon-encrusted tweezers.
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Here's a rough and quick mix of a song I wrote entitled "Joan of Arc". It never got completely finished because someone was supposed to sing the lead vocal, and someone else was supposed to play the guitar solo at 4:35. Both chumps let me down. So i have a solo violin playing the vocal, and the guitar solo is missing. At some point i'll probably play it myself, unless one of you guys wants to take a stab at it. I present it here as a challenge to this forums' guitarists. It does only about 10 key modulations over the course of 32 measures. It could be worse. 30 seconds later you'll hear me play a piano solo in 7/8 meter over other key modulations, with a 5/4 bar tossed right in the middle for laughs. so stop whining and do my guitar solo.

And maybe there's a singer here who wants to do the vocal? i can't believe how difficult it is to find someone to sing a lyric like:

Joan of Arc -- Was she a brave young spark, or just a gambler with too much at stake?

Anyway, every note you're about to hear was written, arranged, performed, and recorded by me. Using a Windows midi app I wrote. And this mix is all No Budget Orch. So i'd like to thank nobody for their assistance -- especially that singer and guitarist.

Trivia: This includes my favorite bit of music theory known as "a deceptive cadence".

http://wikisend.com/download/986902/JoanOfArc.flac

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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by folderol »

Rich Doctor - A cross between 'Watch With Mother' & 'Life of Brian' :lol:
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by Ricardus »

j_e_f_f_g wrote:
Ricardus wrote:I definitely hear the Culture Club, but not the Zappa....
Rich, if you ever again compare me to Boy George, I'll dig out my 14.4k modem and program it to call your home every morning at 4am.
The ABBA influence is there, too.
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Ricardus
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by Ricardus »

I remember Joan of Arc. I offered to play on it at one point, but it's probably over my head. I remember this back in your Roland RAP-10 days.

I have a bunch of super talented friends who would be ideal to play guitar on this, but they're all out of state, and super busy with cover bands.

Jeff, were you hearing a male voice or a female voice on this? I can probably find a singer for it.
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by tatch »

this is pretty unnerving and delectable, could be mixed more aggressively but am definitely hearing the zappa. elucidating context for all your past forum hijinks for sure. I do have to question the lack of scientists or engineers in your dystopia though, perhaps they have both been entirely superseded by their own terrible creations.
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by lfz »

Big Zappa fan. Reading the description and the comments I'd really love to hear the song, but the wikisend link is down. You should really consider another way to share the files, https://archive.org 's interface is really pretty right now and you can also preview the files in place, etc...
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Updated the link in the original post.

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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by ufug »

I'm embarrassed to say I missed this the first time around.

j_e_f_f_g, you are a genius. I want a little bust of you to put on the piano I don't have.
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Re: Music to commit suicide by

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

ufug wrote:I want a little bust of you
Too late. I just paid my taxes, so I've already gone bust.

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