Torched Laughter Studio Diary: Day 31 - Backstory
‘Torched Laughter’ was the result of a tumultuous and sultry evening I had in an opium den in Egypt. Involved was a farfisa organ and a stick of butter. There were monologues given to corpses recently exhumed for Bacchanalian amusement. Amputee children throwing sewage at passed out policemen. And cocaine. Good times were had by all involved.
That’s what I would have liked to have ocurred, but sadly it didn’t quite happen this way.
`Torched Laughter’ originated with a little Radio Shack tape recorder which I carried with me at all times a few years ago. I would mumble warbly melody lines, strum guitar ideas, and capture the sounds of my immediate environment. Guitars, planes and arguments. Any sonority committed to this tape player would be consumed by crackling, hiss and distortion. It was a dirt cheap recorder. A few of the sounds/ideas that were recorded were the foundations of a few of the `Torched Laughter’ songs. Instead of listening to the idea and then record the song properly, I took the original bad hiss recordings and built the songs around them.
This is the most straightforward recollection I have of this idea. There are a lot of other experiences that happened (much stranger, sadder, dramatic things) which contributed to `Torched Laughter.’ I apologize for alluding and not expanding on those things yet. It’s tantalizingly cheap for any of you who may have an interest in this.
The reason it has taken a week to write even this much is because of all those experiences. (started writing this last Wednesday after recording) I couldn’t figure out what to write. There is just too much. I start with one experience and then it naturally ties into another one. It’s all interconnected and the story gets longer and longer. And then I beat myself up about how over-involved I might be getting into it.
Internet assholism and cynicism aside, many of these experiences I have not come to terms with yet. Are they that bad? No. But it is a lot to take in and finally process at one time. Especially if I’m going to write them out in a coherent grammatical fashion.
I do not know how far I will get in terms of writing out these experiences. Already I’m avoiding/dreading/denying the existence of it. I have an extremely hard time conveying what I really want to say via text aside from questionable humour and hate. Everything else seems to get muddled.
We’ll see what happens.
Oh, I started recording the African Djembe on this particular day. It sounds good but I’m out of practice so the performances are clumsy at best. Need a few more days to get my hands in rhythm.
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