Quotes of the dead

I'm still playing around with Garage Band, discovering some new features every day.



One would probably think that I have gone nuts for good after listening to that new stuff. I'll let you guys guess who actually wrote the lyrics.

Latino Stuff

Yeah I love my iMac! It's so awesome! Oh didn't I tell you that's what I brought back from London? It's a 24" flat screen mac, with a double core 3ghz CPU. Freakin'ly strong and cool.



Here is what I did with it tonight. I used the Magic Garageband feature, which generated automatically a backing track with istruments and a style that I picked up. Then I plugged my guitar and improvised some "Santana" style solo... Quite exciting!

The sound is great, I love that software, it's the perfect scale/improvisation learning companion!

Paris Clem: a happy nerd

Crazy week-end !

It's been a busy week-end for the Clem! It started on Friday night with a farewell party for Benoit who left wat.tv to work for a Rich Internet Applications (RIA) start-up. Then Saturday morning I had a rehearsal with The Acolyts, it was a good one, we managed to settle the structure for the songs My Psycho Dinner and Zoidberg. Ruben came and took a lot of awesome pictures! You can find them on his blog: http://www.boubablog.fr/. Then I ran to the railway station to meet with my parents in London!! There we did some quick sightseeing and some shopping. Shopping indeed as we went to the Apple store on Regent Street. Pretty awesome place I tell you! I will write another post about what I bought there, which will make all of you completely jealous! Well, enjoy the music, don't hesitate to comment about it and let me know your listener experience!
NB: For those who never listened to some The Acolyts music material, I have to warn you, some of it is quite heavy indeed. However there are also some light delights!

Paris Clem: for those about to blog!

The Acolyts - Rehearsal

• Harbinger covered by System of a dawn:
  
  


• 
  The great successor:
  
  


• 
  L'anus artificiel:
  
  


• 
  Harbinger, first take:
  
  


• 
  Harbinger, second take:
  
  


• 
  My Psycho Dinner, first take:
  
  


• 
  My Psycho Dinner, second take:
  
  


• 
  Zoiberg and bonuses:
  
  


• 
  Harbinger one more time:
  
  

Edit: I realized that the mp3 player wasn't working on IE from the begining :) I found a workaround but I won't do it on the old posts.

Keeping the effort

It's important for me to keep doing this recording exercise, it pushes me to practice my guitar, improve my ability to mix and the composing process.

Last week's interpretation of Opeth Harvest was quite poor, so I decided to record it again. It's better:

I also kept writing the song I have in the pipeline, It is called "Peculiar land whispered to mind". It doesn't have lyrics yet, but a few guitar riffs and arpeggios that I like, so I've put'em all together and here is the result: I'm singing some random Finn words on top. The song is pretty far from complete but I just want to show the progress, kind of a "making-of" a song.

I hope you guys like it !

Paris Clem: a trooper!

Harvest

It's a Opeth song and damn it's good! So, well, I tried to play it and after about a whole freakin' Sunday afternoon spent recording/learing how to play the song... Here we go, a new song for Paris Clem Ze Blogue !!


Apart from that there isn't some exciting new stuff. I bought a hat lately and quite frankly it rocks. I've been writing a song during the past week but it isn't finished, I think it will take some time because it's a bit ambitious (ruuuun ruuuuuunn !!).

Bisous!

The Clem.

Edit - For those who don't know Opeth, you're really missing something! check this song : Face of melinda (live)

Revelations.

It's a maiden song that I butchered.


I've also been working on some Acolyts song, the one called "The Nameless". I wrote the intro for it in november '07 but I couldn't find something to follow it. It's been progressing a bit with a few more riffs, but still it is pretty far away from the complete thing I'd like it to be (does that make sense?).


Enjoy!

The Mule

As my list of "stuff I got to do in 2009" says, I have to record more stuff, even if it's weird! After last night's heavy partying I had a lot of sleep to catch up. So I got to bed at about 6pm (crazy!), I was falling asleep watching 1968's The Thomas Crown Affair. I usually don't hit the sack that early, so I had some weird sleep, sweating, having nightmares, my brain thinking about weird stuff at full speed. At some point I decided it was better to get up, that it was probably something like 4am or so. Well it was 10pm! So I grabbed my good old pal Harbinger (the SG guitar) and started playing. Somehow the weirdness of my dreams was still present, I could remember how it felt and I wanted to put it in a musical experiment. The music... I had to add a lot of effects on my sound, to make it blurry, chaotic. I used some harmonizer with a slow attack so the guitar sound signature becomes more like a strange violin/cello. Just a tad of a bluesy crunch. Massive echo/reverb to add texture and gloominess. Just what I was looking for. But I wanted also some kind of industrial sound, then comes the idea of inputting a drum sample in the effects. It made it sound like some evil desert caravan, with a hypnotizing rhythm pushing the listener in some horrific oriental scenery... I love it! The Lyrics talk about The Mule a mind controlling character from the book Foundation and Empire. Imagine a slow spaceship caravan, gliding in the deep silence of the universe, taking control over the planets one by one, winning battles against impossible odds... At its head, The Mule. A general who rose from nowhere, he is a legend, but no one has seen him. He inspires despair in the heart of his enemies.
Now to make it even more original I used my Doom/Crooner voice tone.
The result is some Metalish Industrial Oriental Sci-Fi Doom. And it's uber weird!
The Mule : Download

The shadow rises, upon terminus
A wave of fear, spreads on the foundation
Worlds collapses, combatants lost courage
The dark prince, will rule us all !

He controls your emotions
Raises your deep daemons
You can't resist his hold
He possesses your soul

All fear the Mule

No one will, stand in his way
His darkness, corrupts the hearts of men
The old kingdoms, have already fallen
The battle cry, roars upon terminus

He controls your emotions
Raises your deep daemons
You can't resist his hold
He possesses your soul

All fear the Mule


Well I hope someone enjoys it! :)

Paris Clem: Wishing you a happy new year!

2008 summary

I just went to Ruben's blog and read his last post about 2008, what he did and did not. I guessed I could do the same, because this blog is about talking about me after all (quite a selfish exercise indeed).
So this year I:

• Came back to France in February
• Worked from abroad with Right Now
• Looked for an appartement
• Found a new job in Paris
  
• Finaly found an appartement
• Partied a lot (especially during the summer)
• Met a few new friends
• Traveled across Europe to meet with the ERASMUS crowd
• Wrote some songs
• Had tons of fun rehearsing with the Acolyts
• Had a pretty darn good time with the "gens sympas"
• Went to an Iron Maiden concert!
  

This year I did NOT:

• Conquer the world
• Play live
• Hook up with any woman
• Find time to write down these crazy musics I got in my head
• Exercise enough
• Traveled enough (even if I came back from the USA, went to Spain, Belgium x2 and Slovakia)
• Celebrate Xmas
  
• Die (fortunately!)
  
• Find the cool version of myself I lost somewhere in Finland (I got to get it back! It could be sauna related)

Humm this is not a complete list, if you guys got anything to add to it, please tell me!

Future Clem '09

It's X-Mas! (not yet)

Ho ho ho! X-mas is coming! Booo, the vampires and mummys are crawling in the streets shouting tricks or treats, then they all gather to eat a big chunk of turkey and go egg hunting to digest.
When they get 10 chistmas eggs they all start listening to some Acolyts bootleg. That's why I give you some music so you can do the same!

L'Anus Artificiel:

My Psycho Dinner:

Harbinger:

Shaï-Hulud:

Zoidberg and the free buffet:

These were recorded last weekend at our rehearsal. I was using my brand new portable mirophone, I'm still learing how to use it so the sound isn't optimum. Also Martial wasn't there so there is only one guitar playing (mine).

Well enjoy!

Paris Clem: and his misconception of christmas.

My psycho dinner

One day, I had a terrible blues experience. It was sudden, almost deadly. It came unannounced, stealthily and stroke me right in the heart. Leaving a scar that would last for my lifetime. This song is just a poor testimony to what really happened that day.

Click here to download the song if you don't have flash installed, rename the .clem into .mp3

Lyrics:

The blues x6

I just finished eating my dinner
when suddenly the blues
took control over my body
I could feel the blues vibrations inside of me
I had to grab my guitar and let it loose
or it would destroy my mind

Working seventy hours
wooh I earn good money
Oh women, I got this feelin'
I'm sleep walking

Why do I get this feeling
This feeling.
That I'm not livin' my life like I should
Oh like I should

There's emptiness inside of me
Oh why did you let this be
Where are you? I'm still looking
And still I wonder

Why do I get this feeling
This feeling.
That nothing's real but... but...
Is there a need for real?

Why do I get this feeling
oh This feeling.
That nothing's real but... but...
Is there a need for real?

solo.

Oh women
I'm here can't you see
Oh you never you never
Look at me

Oh lord
Why do I get these feelings
If I can't change any of this
Oh oh noooo.

The blues went away
just like a train of thoughts that was lost
nothing could get a hold on it anymore
The blues was gone, and so was my peace of mind!

//End of lyrics

I hope you enjoy that one and have fun listening to it just as much as I had creating it !

Paris Clem: In the heart of blues.