'Cuz it's not the speed that kills...

"Hey, look! No, stupid, over there!"
"What the [expletive deleted]? It's a new full-band demo from Diefenbaker!"
"Well don't that beat all. I thought they broke up after trying to record a Wham cover..."

GRAB THE FULL-BAND DEMO OF "DIFFERENTIAL SPEEDS" HERE! BETTER THAN THE "RAW TAKE" VERSION, BETTER THAN THE "I'M BUSY" VERSION!

Believe me, I'm as surprized by it as you are.

So, yesterday, a day that just so happened to be Jesus of Nasareth's 2010th (or is that 2009th?) birthday, band Diefenbaker struggled their struggling asses into the Official Diefenbaker Practice Space (see pictures a couple posts back) at about 10pm EST or so for band practice. Since we'd had extra time off work for the holiday it was a record-breaking third night in a row for band practice. Your friend John Diefenbaker was assuming this was going to be a short one, what with the recent frequency of practice and the residual effects of Christmas dinner and all. Wednesday night we'd just run through some of the old Dief standards, with Paul Gross' "Ride Forever", from the Due South soundtrack, thrown in at the end by my request (we hadn't really touched it since we recorded the legendary demo of it on Halloween... scroll down if you missed that one), and Thursday's installment was completely focused on working out synth parts and a general direction for "Differential Speeds", the obvious next candidate to be demoed. So coming into Friday's practice, Shari had a fairly complete keyboard part for the song, so we ran through it a time or two.

Suddenly, in a rarely heretofore seen display of self-motivation and decision-making ability, Shari said, "Okay, want to record a demo of that?" In reality, I wanted to do nothing less, but I reasoned, "Well, my part's relatively easy, I can still be downstairs blankly staring at the television within twenty minutes, why the hell not?"

So the Monstrosity was hauled in on the flatbed truck required to carry it, cords were unplugged from things and plugged into other things, etc etc who cares, and there you have it. I was downstairs watching Rick Springfield videos before I knew it after nailing my guitar part in a take so overflowing with the combustive power of rock n' roll that the pick I was using couldn't stand the fury and broke up like an airliner over the Atlantic, parts of it never to be found again. True story.

The weird part was was that while I was downstairs watching Heart videos with Eddie Argos (the cat, keep up with her at @kittyargos on twitter), Shari didn't reemerge until (she says, I wasn't keeping track) four hours later. Apparently she didn't like the synth part we'd been practicing, so eventually just threw it out and came up with an entirely new bass part. I think it sounds pretty good, but I did like the key part, and it begs the obvious question: If we're going to be doing bass parts on the keyboard, why not do them on the bass guitar that's propped up in the corner that never gets used? But I shall leave that for smarter men than I to ponder.

Tonight I shall leave you with the lyrics to "Differential Speeds", which I probably should have been providing for these songs all along, as the mixes aren't neccessarily the clearest, but I just thought of it for this song. Download, listen, and read along...

Differential Speeds (lyrics by Borneman, music by Borneman/Fedak)
With open arteries, all the blood flows out
If you're not careful
But you could pull a gun, blow my heart right out
And I'd still love you
But do ya get really, the magnitude of me?
Are you in or are other plans gonna come up?
And are we a "we" or are we traveling different speeds?
I just can't bring myself to ask
'Cause it's not the speed that kills
It's the differences in speed that kill, so ya wonder why
I don't like the way you say things sometimes?
It's 'cause it's not the speed that kills
Over highways my plane floats down
Out of the cloudbank
Familiar concourse, familiar flat
Unfortunately
'Cause where I've just been is the place I'd rather be
Morning light shining through your blinds making lines
I think you feel the same, but this is all insane
Feels like we're going so fast...
But it's not the speed that kills
It's the differences in speed that kill, so ya wonder why
I don't like the way you say things sometimes?
It's 'cause it's not the speed that kills
Do you care at all? 'Cause you're not there at all
Though you call all the time, somehow that's worse than not at all
When we're face to face, I swear your face betrays
Something that makes me fear for my life
Goodbye
Landing gear deploys, I feel it come down
Impact the tarmac
An image in my mind, for just a flash
A brick wall on the runway
You know I love you?
You know that, don't you?

Oh, PS: This, as well as the other full-band demos, are available on our myspace music player, available by clicking on the award-winning graphic you see at the upper right of this very page.

Kisses, J.D.

New Diefengoodness!

First off, I'd like to sincerely apologize for the sound quality of these two:

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: Differential Speeds (raw recording) 12.19.09
(Jeff never gets my jokes)

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD: Deafening (raw recording) 12.19.09

They were recorded with a handheld cassette recorder, so the quality is dicey at best.  It should also be noted that they were recorded during the BLIZZARD OF '09. I tried to fix it in SoundForge, but now they just sound echoey. While they aren't really official 'demos' (I am working on the keyboard parts), we wanted to give you an update on what's doin' with Diefenbaker! Other than watching a lot of Due South. We could honestly be watching more Due South. Watched "Hawk and a Handsaw" last night and it has seriously been about, oh, 20 hours and I'm still laughing about the "Why am I always the fulcrum?" bit. It got stuck in my head and it won't leave me alone.

Anyway, onto the music. Jeff writes the lyrics so I have no idea what the actual meaning of 'Differential Speeds' is, so I'll let him cover that particular lyric later.  He did, however, let me into some of the mystery of the lyrics of 'Deafening'.  As much as I'd like to save it for our VH1's BEHIND THE MUSIC, it's actually really simple.  For example, the first line is "Hey, post-punk" - I have this habit, whenever dinner's done (because I am horribly domestic - although I'm terrible at cleaning) I knock on his office door - usually he's listening to music, so I make up a funny name to call him. In example, if he were listening to the The Replacements, I would say, "Hey, Paul Vest-erburg, dinner's ready." Or if he was listening to grunge, I'd say "Hey, Seattle." There have been funnier examples but I can't remember them at the moment. The chorus line "The silence on the radio is deafening" comes from a message board  after the collapse of one of Jeff's favourite radio talk shows. The rest came from listening to too much NPR, due to the lack of said radio talk show.  I've been working on lyrics myself, although I'm not terribly talented at writing lyrics.  Jeff keeps bugging me about them.  "Have you worked on those lyrics yet" "Yes, but, you see....."

He also noted that at some point we should compile some compendium of what our musical influences are.  My main influence is working with whatever small talent that I have, and going with it. Some day I'd like to play some mean Farfisa organ like Jerry Harrison, but I obviously can't right now, so my keyboarding style right now is "doing sort of a keyboard bassline with a synthy organ sound and one note at a time, which Jeff has difficulty mixing because it's neither a keyboard part or a bass part."

That said, I have compiled a list of my 10 favourite songs of all time. I have not only limited it to ten, but I have also limited it to one per band, otherwise it would look like this:

1. Roadrunner
2. Astral Plane
3. Old World
4. Pablo Picasso
5. She Cracked
6. Hospital
7. Someone I Care About
8. Girlfriend
9. Modern World
10. I'm Straight

My ACTUAL list is (it's actually in no particular order):

1. The Modern Lovers - Hospital
2. Bruce Springsteen - Atlantic City
3. Wire - Mannequin (you  have no idea how many times I've been on a bus and want to go ALALALALA  LA LA LA LA LA uh uh uh  TELL MEE and physically stop myself)
4. Billy Joel - All For Leyna 
5. The Waitresses - No Guilt (I don't even know anyone in Toronto!)
6. A Certain Ratio - Du the Du (Casse) (one of the most amazing bass lines ever - and I've always thought of  A Certain Ratio as "Ian Curtis on a tropical vacation")
7. The Clash - Lost in the Supermarket (happens to me entirely too many times for comfort)
8. The Smiths - Sweet and Tender Hooligan
9. New Order - Temptation (because I think really highly of myself and like to think that you've never. met. anyone. like me before.)
10. Gang of Four - Damaged Goods (as mentioned previously, I am a sucker for a fine bassline)

That is actually a terrible list.  I've forgotten all about The Cure, Magazine, Pulp, The Psychadelic Furs or the Au Pairs or the Slits and and and..... It's like having  five million children and then having put ten in a boat to save them  from a flood. I promise I'll do better next time. The first four are certainly for real, not sure about the rest, though.

(Top 3 Cover Songs: 1. William Shatner & Joe Jackson - Common People (try it, you'll like it); 2. The Slits - I Heard it Through the Grapevine; 3. Art Brut - Catch (I usually consider The Cure covers to be sacriligious; however Eddie Argos does an amazing job,  also likes Due South, comics and the Modern Lovers, and is otherwise worthy of having the same name as my cat, so it's okay.) 

Enjoy the recordings!
xoxo

Shari

 

"What's Doin' With Diefenbaker?" volume 6 - the rise and fall and rise again of Diefenbaker and the Spiders from Mars

Well, let's get this out of the way first:

NEW AUDIO! Click here to grab the new full-band demo of "Interstate 80" in that hip new mp3 format that all the kids are raving about!

There, now that the important part's out of the way feel free to skip the rest of my nonsensical ramblings.

It's been a very bipolar two weeks for eternally struggling rock n' roll band Diefenbaker. First, if you'll recall from the last "What's Doin'?" (or scroll down if you missed it, shame on you) we were planning on working out and recording a cover of Butch Walker's cover of Wham's holiday chestnut "Last Christmas" just in time for Jesus' made-up birthday. Well that didn't go very well to say the least. More than one band practice was stormed out of by either one or both of us, and it got to the point where I assumed this lighthearted idea to cover every gay man's favorite Christmas song was going to break up the band and I was going to have to go with my fallback plan of forming a Tegan and Sara cover band. Fortunately (for everyone, Tegan and Sara included) it didn't come to that, though the "Last Christmas" cover idea has been disposed of. So I guess we won't be needing that amazing sleeve design I mocked up...

So moving on from that, the goal this weekend was to record another full band demo, this time of the song we've been working on second-longest, "Interstate 80". Shari had spent time coming up with a synth part for it and we'd done it about ten billion times in band practice, so the song was as ready to be layed down on cassette tape as it was ever going to be. I still dreaded it, though, because the "Maybe Michelle" demo (my part, anyway) wasn't very fun to lay down. When you're just playing the song in practice and you f up, no big deal, you just keep going, but when you know that tape is running and you know that the rest of the parts can't be recorded until you do a good take - well, it's a lot of pressure, and I prefer my weekends to be pressure-free. Unless we're talking about the Billy Joel song "Pressure" popping up in an episode of Morning Video Block that I'm watching on VH1 Classic. I rather enjoy that pressure. But I digress.

The recording of the above-posted demo went very well, though, with the guitar and vocal both being layed down in one take. The synth part took a while, but I scarcely cared about that, as by that time I was downstairs watching said Morning Video Block on my DVR and having a few drinkies. The thing was fairly straightforward to mix, too, and the drums sound better (at least to me) because they are now handled by the newest member of Diefenbaker, an Alesis SR-16 drum machine. Slap dash for no cash.

In closing, please enjoy these candid, rather poor-quality photos of, as I like to call it, "where the magic happens". Helpfully tagged with highlights to enhance your appreciation.

Official Diefenbaker Practice Space, Hampden, Baltimore City, MD, USA

Key:
1) My hollowbody Ibanez electric guitar, codename: Lucy.
2) Where I stand when I play, surrounded by pedals. I don't actually use them that much, I just like looking down and seeing them there and pretending that I'm in a shoegaze band.
3) "The P.A.", a Behringer Ultrabass bass guitar amp that we run everything but the guitar through. It actually sounds very good, despite the misappropriation.
4) The Alesis SR-16 drum machine, codename: Cookie.
5) Shari's Alesis Micron synthesizer, codename: Diefenbaker-1.
6) Where Shari sits when she plays. It's from the "as-is" department at Ikea.

Official Diefenbaker Mixing Room, same location as above, just down the hall

Key:
1) Cassette tapes! Fun!
2) Japanese "X-files" comic book. I have no idea why it's here.
3) Tascam Portastudio 424mkII 4-track cassette recorder, codename: The Monstrosity.
4) Mixing notes for "Interstate 80" written on a post-it. You know when they show Butch Vig or Dr. Dre mixing something on TV, and they have those giant programmable mixing boards where the sliders move up and down on their own? Yeah, well, we don't have that, so when I'm mixing something I have to make notes of any level changes in the song so I know when to slide what where.
5) The Diefenbox. It's a New Balance shoebox full of chord sheets, work tapes, and demo tapes.
6) Netbook computer that all the lyrics to Diefenbaker songs are composed on. Also contains the Diefendatabase, where everything Diefenbaker is stored for safekeeping.

So that's all for this week, kids. I know no one is on it anymore aside from sex offenders and people in bands, but check us out on MySpace here. There's a music player there (also accessible without going to creepy MySpace by clicking the amazing graphic at the top right on the main page of the very blog you're reading right now) and links to our excellent friends. Shari updates it because I don't know how and am afraid of it.

As always, keep on rockin' in the free world, Rickies, and don't forget to tip your waitress.

Johnny D.

"What's Doin' With Diefenbaker?" volume 5 - post-Thanksgiving weekend of rockin'

(cover star courtesy of awkwardfamilyphotosdotcom)

Whew, what a weekend. A nice four-day holiday weekend certainly allows for much Diefenbaker activity, don't it? For those of you reading this in Canada that have no idea what I'm talking about: haha, screw you! Anyway, please allow me to share a sure-to-be-incomplete overview of the weekend with you, at least the parts of it that relate to perpetually struggling Baltimore-based rock n' roll band Diefenbaker...

So we doubled up on band practices on Friday and Saturday night, partially to try to make up for some of the skipped ones and attempt to get some of the momentum back and partially because, what the hell, we could run as late as we wanted - post-Thursday we had nowhere to be the next day. Also, we attempted to go more than an hour for each practice. I think we ended up clocking in at just over an hour on Friday night, then probably around an hour and a half Saturday. Yay us.

Mandatory run-throughs of "Maybe Michelle" both nights (still the only song that has a keyboard part done, which frustrates, but it's a minor bitch), and I'm pretty sure we did "Differential Speed" (formerly known as "Speed Doesn't Kill") both nights as well, which was recently added to the repertoire. Of all the originals we've worked on, Shari's changed the melody on "Differential Speed" more than any of the others and the song's certainly benefitted. It's a bit tiring for me to play, especially multiple times in a row, because it's fairly fast and it's all punky, down-strummed chord bashing, but I guess that's how, as I quipped on Friday night, Jasper Future from Art Brut stays so thin. Off-topic: I'm hilarious. Anyway...

We also ran through "Interstate 80" (Saturday night only, I believe) and debuted, from my most recent set of demos, "Deafening"! It premiered Friday night and was worked on further during Saturday's practice, after which a brief, impromptu, "VH1 storytellers" segment broke out where I went into detail about the origins of the song. It fortunately was not recorded, as it layed bare the awfulness of my inspirations as a songwriter. So now I have time to craft a web of half-truths and outright fabrications regarding the song's origin and meaning that will be fit for public consumption, as I've done with virtually all other aspects of Diefenbaker. Good times.

Post the Saturday practice (the more drunken and lively of the two), we immediately adjourned to the former Official Diefenbaker Practice Space (AKA my office) and listened to a series of absolutely atrocious covers of Wham!'s hit holiday single "Last Christmas", which inevitably led to us deciding that we need to cover it as well, though cover specifically the version done by Yuji Oda and Butch Walker for the opening credits of the Japanese soap opera of the same name (now the above image makes sense, doesn't it?). Later, we discussed the need to hire a bass player, which led to one of the best concepts I think we've ever come up with: hiring our good friend Jon Hoffman of Clayton, NJ, (AKA poopbear or, as I like to call him "The Hoff") for the job, and having him stand behind us on stage wearing a red mountie suit, a la Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP, while he played. Off-topic: we're hilarious. Anyway...

Peripherally, I've just about finished another new song (well, the melody's not new, it's been around for a while... but I just whipped the lyrics into shape over the holiday weekend) that I think is very promising. It's called "Mine" - watch this space for more, kids, I think it's gonna be big... either that or it sucks and Shari will completely shoot it down. I can never tell.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go transcribe the lyrics for the Oda/Walker cover of "Last Christmas". Seriously, that's what I'm going to do right after I post this. Livin' the dream!

Johnny D.

"What's Doin' With Diefenbaker?" volume 4

Hello friends, Johnny Diefenbaker here. Well, band practice was cancelled tonight (again... we're averaging less than one a week at this point, not counting recording sessions, which are, of course, useful in their own way, but they're not the same as practice sessions), so I was just sitting here on my ass reading All Music Guide (specifically about indie band Grandaddy... I have no idea why, I don't think I've ever heard one second of one of their songs and they have one of the worst band names in history, I'm just obsessed with cramming in as much of AMG as will fit between my ears...) listening to the newest Diefenbaker demos that I mixed yesterday and I thought, "Self, why not post the newest Diefenhotness to the Diefenblog for all the Diefenfans in the Diefenworld?" Then I punched myself in the face for overusing the Diefenprefix to the point where it gets annoying and uploaded our new demo of Maybe Michelle!

KEVIN, THIS IS A LINK TO THE AUDIO OF THE NEW DEMO OF MAYBE MICHELLE, CLICK ON IT TO HEAR THE AUDIO

For comparison's sake, I also uploaded my original one-man demo of the song recorded back in March at the very beginning of the Diefenbaker project, previously only available on hurting Soundclick.com...

KEVIN, THIS IS THE LINK TO THE OLD DEMO OF MAYBE MICHELLE, I'M PRETTY SURE YOU'VE ALREADY HEARD IT AND TOLD ME IT SUCKS

I listened to both back-to-back. I hadn't listened to the old one in a while and expected to totally hate it, but it has it's charms. The newer demo boasts much improved vocals from Shari (as opposed to me... something she's always carped about, that the demos featured my voice instead of hers, so they couldn't be accurately put out there as representative of what the band sounds like... but I write the songs, so that's sort of unavoidable) and more ass-kicking guitars courtesy of my new Ibanez run though a distortion pedal (as oppossed to the original demo's completely non-fuzzed, crap-guitar-through-chorus-pedal-only, Cocteau Twins attempt) and that burbling Gary Numan synthline, but the old demo from March isn't the worst thing in the world... even though I did record it through the headphone jack on the 4-track as opposed to the line out because I hadn't quite figured out how to use the damn thing yet.

So that's all for now. If you're interested, there's an acoustic version of this same song and a band practice snippet from when we first started working on it if you scroll down in this terrible blog. I'd find the links and repost them, but 20/20 is on and I've got to go watch it. I'm sure you understand.

Merry Christmas,
Johnny Diefenbaker

(P.S. - I apologize for the caps-locked text in the links, but my brother claimed that he could never find the links to audio in the Diefenblog, so I thought I'd help him out.)

Diefenbaker, top of the pops.

Diefenbaker, top of the pops.
Diefenbaker, top of the pops.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I can even write a long blog post about this. I'm still speechless. We were there. I looked back at Jeff and yelled in his ear: "Did he just say that or am I hallucinating?" Admittedly I was rather drunk (which honestly I still regret, it's nice when meeting people to be able to form sentences) so mishearing was certainly an option. No, totally confirmed (right at the 1:20 mark of the above video, from Art Brut's November 14th show at the Ottobar in Baltimore). Eddie Argos is now 300% qualified to be the name origin of my cat.

I met him later. I do credit the alcohol with summoning up the nerve to say hello. It was very nice meeting him! I seem to remember talking about comics. Also he told us to record more demos, which believe me, we will. Diefenbaker will be top of the pops. I also remember shaking his hand with the wrong hand because the good hand had a ciggarette in it and I couldn't figure out how to switch hands. I remember nervously adjusting my belt. It was a wonderful night.

Diefenbaker TO DOS:
Record more demos with me in them (because I'm awesome, sorry Jeff, but your solo demos aren't really Diefenbaker demos.)

Work on a three-song set that we can do with our eyes closed. We should hit up some open mic nights, there is a long standing one at Fraizer's down the street. We can walk to it, no excuses.

I did some website coding/graphic design work a month ago, still haven't been paid. Once received, I will purchase an Alesis Micron. Then perhaps I will find a way to put a guitar strap on it. Oh yes. May have to burn down a house or two before I get paid.

And that's what's doing with Diefenbaker!

Sleeve art for the forthcoming Willfully Ignorant EP

front sleeve


back sleeve

Cover star courtesy of AwkwardFamilyPhotosdotcom

Back photo courtesy of Baltika 9, AKA [FULL NAME DELTED BY REQUEST]