Alex Hates Music: Fun-a-Day 2015

Day 23

TODAY'S SONG:

"Look Forward To The Moon" by Lane Shift

I guess it would have been pretty amazing to get through this list without actually hitting one of my own songs. I mentioned before that Lane Shift was an idea for a joke band that my friend Sean and I came up with on our way to Buffalo several years ago. Lane Shift was supposed to be a mid-90s rock band in the vain of Pavement, Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., etc.

After my freshman year of college, my friend Jeremy and I came up with the idea of making a “Barbecue Band,” in which we could invite friends over for food and play music in one of our backyards. This never actually happened, but we did get together for one “jam” session, a small portion of which I recorded.

I really liked the idea of the Barbecue Band (despite not eating barbecue myself) and Lane Shift, so I tried to write a few songs that were fun, poppy, and sort of like mid-90s rock. With “Look Forward to the Moon,” I think I was hoping for something that would fit in with the Slanted & Enchanted B-Sides.

How many songs can be written based on this movie?
If I had to guess, I would say: many.

I wrote lyrics that reminded me of summers as portrayed in bad teen comedies. I was watching One Crazy Summer with John Cusack and Demi Moore a bunch then, leading to the line in one song: “It's like an 80s summer flick / And we're just watching some loser kid / Try to find another angle.” Not my best, but there's still something about it that I kind of like. Maybe it is just that it reminds me of that summer, which was a pretty fun one.

Lane Shift was pretty much shelved until two years ago when I wrote a “Lane Shift song” for my first 28 Days of Fun called “No Matter.” I kind of want to do a Lane Shift album at some point, just for kicks and giggles. I also consider the song “Wings & Billy Madison” (which I wrote on Day 19 of this project) to be a Lane Shift song.

Unfortunately, I never had quite so crazy a summer...

And here's a new rule that I just came up with for this project: Whenever I get one of my own songs, I will have to record a new version of that song. So here's my new version of “Look Forward To The Moon.”

Day 1: "One More Goodbye" by M. Ward

Day 2: "I'd Be Wrong Were I To Say I Loved You Not Quite Or Almost Always" by damian

Day 3: "If" by The Flaming Lips

Day 4: "Age of Innocence" by Billy Corgan

Day 5: "Jamming" by Bob Marley & The Wailers

Day 6: "Gentle and Delicate" by Maudlin Maladies

Day 7: "Type Slowly (live)" by Pavement

Day 8: "Get Lost" by Tom Waits

Day 9: "The Monkey Versus The Robot" by Piebald

Day 10: "Omaha" by Tapes 'n Tapes

Day 11: "Seasons in the Abyss" by Hellsongs

Day 12: "6th Street" by Space Wolves