Musicfolio
KeithHandy posted in Featured Posts on May 2nd, 2007
Here is a reverse-chronological list of “projects”, “collections”, or “albums”, spanning back to the early days. Since it’s taking forever to get all the audio up here, I’ll make up for it by throwing in some demos and partial mixes I happen to have lying around.
The songs are at varying stages of re-working, and not all “mastered”, so some fiddling with your volume may be necessary. (You know how they say “do not adjust your set”? What have those bastards ever done for you?? Life is short. Go ahead. Be that guy. Adjust your set!!) If the Flash players don’t all show up for you, or don’t all work, or any links lead you astray, please write me at keithhandy at gmail dot you-know-what to let me know. Thanks!
Real Connection (200[?])
Lately, I’m writing a lot of new songs that I’m very excited about, and they seem to be forming the core of a completely new album. More about this as it reveals itself to me.
Selling Purple to the Blind - session video 1 - session video 2 (@3:30)
Patience Lonely Traveler
Can You Show Me Where the Angels Are?
The Guys with the Ties
Real Connection
Soul Peer - session video 1 - session video 2 (@6:00)
(Other titles as I write them)
Fr. Hifta Ryphtor (2007 2008?)
I swore I would never do a second rock opera… and I didn’t. But, in the mid 90s, I did start jotting ideas on 3×5 cards for something that could have gone down that path. What actually emerged, fortunately, was a collection of new songs with a story-like structure that wasn’t explicitly narrative.
It’s You - session video
Broken Wheel - download mp3
Tea Time Pow Wow
Happy Birthday Pump Prototype
Crush of Adrenaline
Curtis’ Classic Collection of Comforts - session video 1 - session video 2
Bemoaning Moments - session video 1 - session video 2
What Do You Think Of Yourself? - session video 1 (@1:20) - session video 2
Rival Big Bang - session video 1 - session video 2 - download mp3
(Other titles as I work them into the order)
I’m far enough along on recording Fr. Hifta Ryphtor that I could — and should — finish it this year. I’m listing it as a20072008 album to motivate myself to complete it. :)In case you’re wondering, “Fr.” is pronounced “FIFF-tur”.
Leave of Absence vol. 2 (2000)
(See notes for volume 1 below.)
Never Turn Back - download mp3
Open the Window
P.S.R. - music video
Quit Your Job and Join a Traveling Hindu Cult
Revelation in the Resonance
Soldiers of Music
Ten Years From Now
Undue Strain
Various Fakes
Waitin’ For The Wind
X-Ray Tex and X-Ray Ted and the Marvellous X-Rated X-Ray Specs On Their Heads
You Feel Exactly Like Me
Zero Gratitude
Leave of Absence vol. 1 (1999)
Having accumulated a widely-varied assortment of musical odds and ends in the late 90s, with no better system of organization (and no better motivation to remix them), I wrote up a 26-song list in alphabetical order, one title per letter. Some untitled instrumentals were slotted into the remaining letters and named accordingly. I used three full remixes and parts of two other songs from the aborted Open the Window album. Layers became Open the Window, to avoid a conflict with Lice Blue Hue; and There Will Always Be More became Exactly What You’re Looking For, to avoid a conflict with Ten Years From Now.
Are Any Signals Coming Through?
Blinds (Venetian) in a Detective’s Office
Cheap Thrills - download mp3
Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Millennium
Exactly What You’re Looking For
Friend in the Room
Grandpa’s Little Secret
Handy By My Side
If You Were Mine
Julie
Kid in a Candy Store
Lice Blue Hue
Milwaukee’s Best
In simplest terms, this is an album of leftovers. The forced song order often juxtaposes serious songs against humorous songs, or hi-fi against lo-fi, in a way I wouldn’t have thought to do otherwise — to surprisingly good effect.
Through Forbidden Black Doors: A Rock Opera (released 1998 and currently being reworked)
I’ve had an on-and-off relationship with this puppy for my entire adult life. I came up with the idea in 1987, in the summer between my high school graduation and freshman year at college. I wrote the entire first draft within a year and promptly recorded an incomplete (and horrible sounding) demo. In 1992/1993 I wrote some additional material for it — some of the best songs, actually — and hastily finished the demo. In 1994, after acquiring a Fostex R8, I began recording an “official” version, and in early 1996 I hosted a listening party to showcase it. Then I took a razor blade and splicing tape to all the original reels, to begin work on a remix that I could squeeze onto one CD, and released that in 1998.
Workers’ Theme - session video - download mp3
Stay With The Group
What Do We Make Here?
881 Drifts/Outside - session video
The Supervisor Locates His Pen
Questions and Answers
The Nursery Room/The Cathedral Room
Through Forbidden Black Doors
The Party’s Over
The Sunset/Slab of Clay
Solitude/Flashes of Colored Light
No Outside After All - session video 1 - session video 2
Scratched Off/Called Off
Smile!
Do You Remember?
This Is Your Chance
Almost Outside
The Operation (To Put Your Mind At Rest) - session video
The Thing That Happens Next
Nicole’s Thoughts - restoration video 1 - restoration video 2 - restoration video 3
Still not entirely happy with the CD version, sometime around 2001 I set out to “quickly” do a new remix and restore the bits shouldn’t have been cut. I intended to do this over a period of maybe two weeks at the most… and I suppose you could say it’s turning out to be a rather long two weeks. :)
Unfinished Business (1996)
Recorded in my off-time as a “sister album” to Open the Window, and serving as a therapeutic diversion from the exhaustingly complicated Through Forbidden Black Doors — for this quirky primal scream, I raided my angsty high school oeuvre for material, and bookended the oldies with a few newer and even angrier tracks.
Hey F***er
Bird
Hard - session video
(She’s A) Rag Doll
Gladly
Baby (containing more Bird)
Qualified for Suicide
The Mark Walnicki Page
Third Bird (containing more Hey Fucker)
Have You Heard The Good News? - download mp3
Insomnic Hallucinations
Wet Foot
Unfinished Business was unusually fun to record. Never at any point being my primary focus, I didn’t care about “releasing” it, or if anyone liked it. I allowed myself to improvise spastically on the guitar, sing self-effacingly, and be more relaxed about technical problems (for example, when my digital reverb kicked the bucket, I accepted it as an invitation from the universe to try running vocals and percussion through my guitar amp’s spring reverb — despite the angry spirit of the music, it was produced with a more “playful” approach).
Open the Window (1992)
This was my first effort recording a complete album under my own name. Though I did a lot of good work on it, the overall experience was plagued by compulsive fixation on insignificant details. Attention to detail is a good thing, mind you, but when you are having trouble making peace with your life outside the art, perfectionism becomes a paralyzing mindset where your concept of “good enough” becomes so abstract that you can no longer visualize it.
The Truth
They’re Gonna Take Away My Rock and Roll
Dear Diary
Wake Up
Layers
Mana
If You Were Mine
Lullabye for a Fallen Angel
There Will Always Be More
It wasn’t until years later that I was able to come up with relatively simple ways of fixing whatever bugged me about the songs. I consider the album itself to be obsolete, but most of the tracks have been happily remixed, and can be found on Leave of Absence and elsewhere. Feel free to reconstruct the album yourself.Sample track (forthcoming): Dear Diary (excerpt)
The Golden Age of Cassettes (early demos, 1984-1987)
Sample track (forthcoming): Insomnic Hallucinations - first demo
Extreme Leftovers
Blah blah blah something about “Extreme Leftovers”.
Mana - download mp3
S. Picture Book
Don’t Let Me See It
Eben
The Grass is Greener
Momentum
Steamboat Willie
Phone Booth
A Moment Before Cosmic DeathBlah blah blah more about “Extreme Leftovers”.
Guest appearances on other people’s work
Sample track (forthcoming): Walt’s Dream (The Peachy Nietzsches)
