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Michael Bluejay's Music
I'm in the process of recording my songs and putting them on the web. Here's one to get this page started. It's not my best work, but it's all I have available at the moment.

What I'm proudest of is not the song, but how well it sounded considering the cheap recording equipment and quick & dirty process I used.

I laid down the drum and bass tracks by playing them on my keyboard and recording them into my computer with a MIDI sequencer. But MIDI records only what notes you play, so I couldn't record the vocals or guitar with my computer/MIDI setup. So I had the computer play back the drum+bass tracks I recorded, while I sang and played guitar over that. So everything's coming out of my PA speaker, and I put a microphone in front of it and ran that into the the tape deck of the cheapest Radio Shack all-in-one mini stereo system. No Dolby, even. Most importantly, this was NOT a multitrack recording -- there were no overdubs!

That was a few years ago. Now, faced with getting the song from that tape onto the web, the only working tape player I have is a Radio Shack note-taker -- intended for VOICE, not music! The output is crappy, to say the least. But I ran that into my computer just now to make the MP3.

I couldn't resist adding a second vocal track by hooking a mic to my computer and singing along with the tape, and then fiddling with the EQ. So here's the enhanced and the unadulterated versions:

Until I get some more of my own recordings up here, in the meantime, um, you can check out the recording of my getting the one-in-a-lifetime luck of being able to play with Ben Folds Five.

Other Music Projects

  • I fronted a silly punkesque band called Godzilla On Ice in the early 90's. My bandmate and I took an infamous photo of us naked in front of the University of Texas tower.
  • I was half of a duo called King Cheese in the late 90's, which played the hits of the 70's & early 80's, and got a #3 ranking in the Austin Chronicle's music poll.
  • I've performed solo on piano at Burning Flipside and Burning Man.