NPCA
Posted: Sat Aug 09, 2008 2:53 pm
The Niveous Penned Concept Album:
First, a little history.
Every year, I get together with Zipline and Ken Mahru (as the band Zinkline) and write lyrics for them for their February Album Writing Month entry. The results have been exceptional and always a highlight of my musical year. Last year, I wrote 10 of the 16 songs for their album, "Grace of a Car Crash". When I wrote them, I wrote them to be a concept album. It didn't exactly work out that way but if you were to look at the songs I wrote, you can find various repeating themes. And if you put them together in the right order, you get a story.
"Stop Breathing"- a country is torn apart because of a war.
"One Shot"- the country's president is assassinated.
"As The World Turns" - the leaderless country begins to riot.
"Revenge of the Nerd"- the riots continue as technology fails.
"Poison Apples"- a new leader must be chosen.
"Holy Commander"- one of the candidates is driven by religion.
"Man of Substance"- one of the candidates is a pedophile.
"Lullabies"- all of the candidates are corrupt.
"Swamp Thing"- the elections take place, with Florida being the swing vote.
"Ark of Philadelphia"- the new leader takes power, the people chose to flee.
It's a good story but I don't feel like it was complete. Glennny and Ken's songs do stay within the themes but I still don't feel like I have written a complete concept album.
At the same time, I have been writing a novel called Septemberian. I wrote about 25 chapters or so of it before I began to struggle with some of the story logistics. I hit a bad roadblock that I couldn't write my way around and since then, I've been re-writing from the beginning. And the re-write has had its share of stumbles as I have struggled to avoid run into the same logistic errors I ran into the first time.
So, the other day, Glennny comes on to the Songfight boards and mentions that I should write a concept album. And much to my shock, it recieved a lot of replies from bands saying that they would love to be a part of a Niveous penned concept album (NPCA, hereforth). Over the last two years, I have written songs for bands such as Billy's Little Trip, Cow Exchange, Merisian, Loiano (AWHAM), Glenn Case, and others. And I adore the experience. So when all these great bands said that they would wanna be a part of a NPCA, I couldn't resist. But what should I write about? I didn't want to a rehash of "Grace of a Car Crash". And then there was the question of what to do with Septemberian.
I went away on a business trip and being stuck in a hotel room does a lot to the mind. It also gives you a lot of time to think. I began to think about how I could merge the two ideas into one. I have always wanted to try my hand at doing a concept album that runs the whole narrative gamut. I looked at Coheed and Cambria as a contemporary example and I didn't like the execution, partially because the "Amory Wars" stories that they base all their songs on are so hard to get a hold of. At the same time, I didn't want songs that run like a ministrel's tale. Then it all came together...
The concept is that I will write a song and an accompanying short chapter of prose to go along with it. The song will mirror themes found in the narrative. For example, I have written a chapter about a demon girl named Hayleigh on her first day leading a protected paranormal community and joining the "real world". And I wrote an accompanying song called "Seeing Things" which is about the "real world" and how they don't know that supernatural creatures live among them. After that, I will pass the song to community and someone will hopefully choose to do it. When I've got a song, I release it on a website as a whole package- song, story and hopefully some art as well. I don't do the art thing very well but perhaps, the art can be a community aspect as well. And once that chapter is done, the cycle starts again with the next chapter.
It would be a NPCA but it would be a very collaborative work. It would be an on-going narrative which I like (I like watching a character evolve over a long amount of time). It could be very multimedia which is something I have been looking for in a project for a long time. There is a lot of potential here.
How does the concept sound to everyone?
First, a little history.
Every year, I get together with Zipline and Ken Mahru (as the band Zinkline) and write lyrics for them for their February Album Writing Month entry. The results have been exceptional and always a highlight of my musical year. Last year, I wrote 10 of the 16 songs for their album, "Grace of a Car Crash". When I wrote them, I wrote them to be a concept album. It didn't exactly work out that way but if you were to look at the songs I wrote, you can find various repeating themes. And if you put them together in the right order, you get a story.
"Stop Breathing"- a country is torn apart because of a war.
"One Shot"- the country's president is assassinated.
"As The World Turns" - the leaderless country begins to riot.
"Revenge of the Nerd"- the riots continue as technology fails.
"Poison Apples"- a new leader must be chosen.
"Holy Commander"- one of the candidates is driven by religion.
"Man of Substance"- one of the candidates is a pedophile.
"Lullabies"- all of the candidates are corrupt.
"Swamp Thing"- the elections take place, with Florida being the swing vote.
"Ark of Philadelphia"- the new leader takes power, the people chose to flee.
It's a good story but I don't feel like it was complete. Glennny and Ken's songs do stay within the themes but I still don't feel like I have written a complete concept album.
At the same time, I have been writing a novel called Septemberian. I wrote about 25 chapters or so of it before I began to struggle with some of the story logistics. I hit a bad roadblock that I couldn't write my way around and since then, I've been re-writing from the beginning. And the re-write has had its share of stumbles as I have struggled to avoid run into the same logistic errors I ran into the first time.
So, the other day, Glennny comes on to the Songfight boards and mentions that I should write a concept album. And much to my shock, it recieved a lot of replies from bands saying that they would love to be a part of a Niveous penned concept album (NPCA, hereforth). Over the last two years, I have written songs for bands such as Billy's Little Trip, Cow Exchange, Merisian, Loiano (AWHAM), Glenn Case, and others. And I adore the experience. So when all these great bands said that they would wanna be a part of a NPCA, I couldn't resist. But what should I write about? I didn't want to a rehash of "Grace of a Car Crash". And then there was the question of what to do with Septemberian.
I went away on a business trip and being stuck in a hotel room does a lot to the mind. It also gives you a lot of time to think. I began to think about how I could merge the two ideas into one. I have always wanted to try my hand at doing a concept album that runs the whole narrative gamut. I looked at Coheed and Cambria as a contemporary example and I didn't like the execution, partially because the "Amory Wars" stories that they base all their songs on are so hard to get a hold of. At the same time, I didn't want songs that run like a ministrel's tale. Then it all came together...
The concept is that I will write a song and an accompanying short chapter of prose to go along with it. The song will mirror themes found in the narrative. For example, I have written a chapter about a demon girl named Hayleigh on her first day leading a protected paranormal community and joining the "real world". And I wrote an accompanying song called "Seeing Things" which is about the "real world" and how they don't know that supernatural creatures live among them. After that, I will pass the song to community and someone will hopefully choose to do it. When I've got a song, I release it on a website as a whole package- song, story and hopefully some art as well. I don't do the art thing very well but perhaps, the art can be a community aspect as well. And once that chapter is done, the cycle starts again with the next chapter.
It would be a NPCA but it would be a very collaborative work. It would be an on-going narrative which I like (I like watching a character evolve over a long amount of time). It could be very multimedia which is something I have been looking for in a project for a long time. There is a lot of potential here.
How does the concept sound to everyone?
