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CVC Designs – It Pays to Be Nice: A Holiday Compilation by A Group of Friends 2010

Every year my friend Charles of Better Names for Baby, http://fuckyeahcharlesvestal.tumblr.com/, and A Year of Record fame releases a Christmas compilation of original Christmas songs by his friends. This year, I contributed one and a half songs: one I did with Charles called “TANZEN” and one I did by myself called “Robots Destroyed Christmas”. For those of you involved in my musical history, you will recognize that robots destroying things is a very very common theme in my music. I don’t know why, I don’t care why. It will no doubt continue to permeate everything I do in life.

Want to hear the two tracks I worked on? Here you go.

TANZEN–

[audio:http://cvcdesigns.com/xmas/10/songs/13%20___FROHLICHE%20WEINACHTEN___%20-%20TANZEN%20%28Radio%20Edit%29.mp3|artists=FROHLICHE WEINACHTEN|titles=TANZEN]

“TANZEN” (German for Dance) was inspired by a conversation Charles and I were having one night at the Gypsy bar. We thought it would be funny to write a dance track where the only lines were “Ich bin Santa. Du bist ein Elf.” For those of you who don’t speak German (like me), that just means “I am Santa. You are an Elf.” The chorus is just “tanzen” repeated, encouraging the listener to get on the floor and shake dat ass with yuletide cheer. Later we incorporated the Frau Claus verse, the Ich liebe Rudolph movement, and the vocoder interlude. I think, for an afternoon’s hungover work, it came out pretty well. It makes me laugh.

Robots Destroyed Christmas–

[audio:http://cvcdesigns.com/xmas/10/songs/14%20The%20Black%20Laser%20-%20Robots%20destroyed%20Christmas.mp3|artists=The Black Laser|titles=Robots Destroyed Christmas]

The production of this track was much more involved than “TANZEN” mostly because this is the first real track I’ve ever produced in Logic so I had to learn how to make things work. There was a whole hell of a lot of dicking around and noodling with sounds and trying to get things balanced. It also highlighted the need for a subwoofer for my computer if I am going to continue to make music on it. I can hear everything in the mid and high ranges quite nicely, but the rich low end I so desperately crave and is so vital to a decent mix eludes me. I apologize if this kills your sub. It shouldn’t.

In this track I wanted to explore a few Christmas-y themes: fire, death, robots, snow, blood. These are things we commonly associate with Christmas time and I thought that bringing them all together in one, hard-edged place that makes you want to dance was a good idea for the benefit of humanity. I think I accomplished something with this that I will be able to expand upon in further pieces of music about robots destroying things.

Now that I’ve given you a taste of the 14 tracks on the album, go get a copy here: It Pays to Be Nice: A Holiday Compilation by A Group of Friends 2010

Be sure to check out the track by mitzidodge too. Enjoy!

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