Vancouver - "Lying on the Floor"

Vancouver - "Lying on the Floor"

This is kind of a vanity post, but bear with me. Back in high school I was the main bean in this indie pop group called Vancouver. I wrote all the songs, drew the sleeve art and also made us wear maroon dentist uniforms. Also in the band were Greg "Scott" Sutliff (born: Worcester, MA), Benjamin "Funk" Yoakum (born: Altamonte Springs, FL), and Shomik "Sherlock Holmes" Chakrabarti (born: Lincoln, NE). Together we would rock a bunch of shows throughout our last year of HS and generally eat a ton of Fazoli's (RIP) after rehearsals. Our EP was called The Royal Paper Air Force.

This song I've posted was a song I wrote and recorded with Greg right after school ended. It was going to be part of our second EP that never materialized. At some point, I may re-record these songs as a kind of last nail in the coffin thing. I think we did all the material live, but this was the only reasonably well-recorded one (and let me stress the word "reasonably").

The EP was gonna be called Vancouver. The track list was gonna be this:

1. Bloody Murder
2. Lying on the Floor
3. Vancouver 1 & 2
4. Ambulances

What I like about "Lying on the Floor" is that it serves as a good document of the way I wrote music when I was younger. Basically I just did what I thought sounded good and didn't really think too hard about it. I guess after I came to NY Julian kind of pointed out how I used a bazillion major seventh chords in my songs and so I kind of moved away from that for a while.

Anyhow, this song is driven by an easy-listening vibe. I had some sort of affinity for the Steely Dan-esque, even when I wasn't listening to Steely Dan. My favorite bands senior year were the Shins, Beulah (who had just broken up), and Belle & Sebastian. I also loved the second Strokes album. This song attempted to combine a lot of those influences. The middle section is influenced by Trail of Dead's Source Tags & Codes, but I basically took out all the threat and theatricality. The end canned vocal is a straight Paul McCartney impression (one of our local radio stations once played "Hey Jude" on repeat for 24 hours). What else? I really like the way the lead guitar sounds at the end. Everything has its something good.

So you can listen to this mess below. It's not played so hot but I think it's a good song with a pretty ambitious non-standard vocal melody (that I may or may not have pulled off). We were always pushing the timing off because we were all basically lame virgins with no real edge or chops. Also, I will reluctantly admit that playing with a metronome is pretty essential practice.

Lying on the Floor (Gregs Drums) - Spencer Tricker