Christopher Cogott

Nur Ein V and Spintown’s Spintunes

cogottc — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 15:05:04 +0000

So………. it’s been quiet in here for awhile huh? I wasn’t slacking though. Most of my time was taken up by the Nur Ein V competition. I meant to put up each song here as the competition rolled on but obviously never got around to it. My plans are to remix each song and put them here and on Bandcamp. Each song needed to be written and recorded so fast that they could all use a better mix.

Also, I just signed up for another songwriting competition. This one is over at Spintown. It’ll be starting up over the weekend. You could check that out here. Over 30 people are in this one. Should be a lot of fun.

Keep checking back for the remixes of songs from Nur Ein and I’ll also have them for free downloads at Bandcamp.

You can go directly to Nur Ein V here and listen to the entire competition round by round. A lot of good stuff.

Song – The Prisoner’s Dilemma

cogottc — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:02:04 +0000

This song was written for the Circle Of Titles collection which was put together by Jon Eric over at Song Fight. The plan is that all participating members submit one title. All the titles would then get randomized by Jon’s Super Duper Randomizing machine and we’d get someone else s title to write a song about in return. The title I got: The Prisoner’s Dilemma. Not knowing what a prisoner’s dilemma was at the time, I had to call on Wikipedia to the rescue. After reading the definition, and still not too sure what it means, I wrote a song about it.

The song needs a little setup and I’ll try my best NOT to confuse anyone. It’s about a guy and a girl who both get arrested for doing some kind of horrible crime. Actually, I don’t know if the crime was that horrible, but it was a crime nonetheless. It’s sung from the guy’s wishful thinking point of view while he sits in his interrogation room trying to decide what to do next. At the same time, she is in her own room, possibly having the same thoughts as he is. Here ya go. Hope you like. Rock on!

The birds were recorded outside the window when I was trying to record vocals. They were VERY annoying at the time. I figured I’d record them and those are the birds you hear in the song.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma

Download it here at Bandcamp.

Song Fight Failure

cogottc — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:29:46 +0000

Well it wasn’t a complete failure. I did manage to get most of the music finished. Ran into a few snags so it couldn’t be completed in time. The song was originally written as a waltz (by accident) and couldn’t get the drums to sound right so rewrote the music as 4/4. Then the bass I was using sounded like turd so……new bass. Then some of the lyrics weren’t fitting with the music and sounded forced. You could tell a good song when the music and words just flow naturally and it wasn’t happening with this one. The last big snag was that the song file became corrupt due to some Windows updates I installed (by accident). I smell a Mac in my future, perhaps? I was able to eventually recover from that but by then it was too late and had to throw in the towel. There you have it in a large nutshell, the anatomy of a Song Fight failure.

Here’s what I had so far. I don’t usually put out an unfinished song but I’m in the sharing mood today. There’s an absence of a guitar solo which would be where the drums go to the splashy open hi hats and at the end also. The end of the song I was experimenting with a bunch of percussion and will probably take them out. I didn’t want to submit it to Song Fight because I am one of those that believes instrumentals should not be submitted. I do like the song and the direction it’s going and think it would fit nicely on the new album. As of this posting the new songs have not been put up yet at Song Fight, when they do, show your support and vote for your favorites.

Double Take

Song Fight – Please Stop

cogottc — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:14:49 +0000

Here’s my latest contribution to Song Fight (which is also my song #8). Check out the competition for this round here, or just click on the picture, and vote for your favorites. This might be my last Song Fight for awhile so I can concentrate more on my album that I’d like to finish sometime during this summer. If I can find the time, I’ll try to squeeze a Song Fight in here and there. Any collaborators out there?

Please Stop

Download song here.

Happy New Year!

cogottc — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:44:18 +0000

It’s been almost a year since I started this site, writing and recording songs. I’m having a ton of fun and I’m looking forward to starting this year off doing more of the same…… BUT MORE! Here’s some of what I have in mind for the new year. I don’t want to look at them as resolutions. I’m better when I call them “goals”, “deadlines” and “plans”.

Right now I’m in the process of taking a 12 week course about recording that Joe Gilder from Home Studio Corner is providing. It’s called the Production Club and worth every penny! If my math is right, it should be completed sometime in March. If any of you are thinking about getting into this, or kind of know what you are doing and want to know more, I highly recommend getting in touch with Joe. Check it out here.

I will be writing an album of new material for release in June, if all goes according to plan. So far nothing has been written for it, but I will start writing all or most of the demo songs for it this month. I’m real excited about doing this and it should be a lot of fun. I might be looking for other musicians or collaborators for this.

I’ll continue to write for Song Fight and maybe other song writing contests as long as I have the time and inspiration to do so. These will go into the Lets Go Swimming album, as well as older songs that have already been written but not yet recorded.

I am going to renumber the songs for my longtime goal of 100 songs starting with the first 4 covers I recorded. Seems a shame to push them to the side since they are still full blown songs. I’ll probably do some more covers, since I enjoy doing them, and put them in the Trials And Errors album.

That’s all I have for now. I think that’s more than enough for me. I was considering doing some videos and possibly playing out again but I would need a lot more time for that. Plus I would need someone to play out with. I’ve never done the solo thing before. Thanks to all who stopped by and thanks for the encouraging words. You’re awesome! Looking forward to a productive year.

In the meantime…

Song #7 – She Already Knows

cogottc — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 03:57:40 +0000

Ok. I know I put this one out there already, but this is the mo’ better remixed remastered “official” final version. I also needed to re-record a couple parts that sounded weird to me. When you only have about a week to write, record, mix, etc, there is always going to be something that was rushed along which can sometimes be a good thing, but more likely not.

I wrote this thinking that the girl in the song might actually possess psychic abilities to read minds, but now after hearing it about a couple hundred times, I think the guy might be just a little paranoid. So here ya go. You can listen right here and even buy it here.

She Already Knows