The Light of Day

Sunset revisited
KeithHandy posted in Old skool, Producing on August 31st, 2007

Yesterday’s task was to straighten out, condense, and clean up The Sunset. Written circa 1987 as a narrative intro to Slab of Clay, and remaining fairly faithful to its original incarnation, it depicts a dialogue between factory worker 881 and tourist Nicole, in a “worlds collide”-type first contact between an outsider and a not-quite-successfully brainwashed insider.

Is that what it looks like on the outside?

Not all the time
Only certain places, certain times
But sometimes it does…

Stylistically, it’s universes apart from Slab, which I’ve already done a ton of work on since the 1998 CD version (Slab now has a faster tempo, and features real drums, in turn supported by triggered electronic drums, for an enormous in-your-face beat). Sunset is less of a song and more of a conversation. Besides cleaning up the sound, I actually cut beats out. Changing a lot of the quieter bars from 12/8 to 9/8 was not some geeky attempt to be “progressive” so much as a theatrical decision to tighten up the pace of the dialogue.

The aesthetic danger that Sunset teeters on is that of sounding a bit “Disney”; and we’re not talking edgy vintage stuff like Dumbo, we’re talking sparkly corporate lunchbox fodder like The Little Mermaid. Again, though, I said “teeters”, not “falls into the gaping abyss”. So as long as the film interpretation has some bleak looking gray stuff in the background, it’ll be alright.

Did I say “film”? I really do have to come out of my shell and start talking about a storyboard/animatic for this at the local filmmaker meetings I’m attending. I’ve more than put in my time getting a “feel” for the meetings — it’s time to start soliciting for input.

I’ve “touched” several other parts of the rock opera as well lately, and it seems like there are two main things I’m doing with the weaker sections (the sections that bridge things together, but wouldn’t cut it as songs in themselves); one is the pacing, which I’m finding clever ways to tighten up by literally changing the rhythm (which kills a second bird by making it less plodding), and the other is to make some parts more colorful sounding by adding pleasing or atmospheric harmony to some of the bleaker and more monotonous melody lines.

Sometimes, when people review something, they specifically target overall length, and say the whole thing should just be shorter. My feeling about that is there is no right or wrong length for something; if it seems “long” to you, it means there are parts you’re not enjoying. That’s not to say certain parts haven’t benefitted from economizing, but I’m not a big fan of removing an entire idea from a piece, when the intention was, in fact, to make a rock opera, and not a mini rock opera. So, yes, I economize where it works to do so, but if certain bridges and segues aren’t satisfying, plan A is to ask myself what they should sound like and how I can get them there.