Project SONG. 2days 1song
source: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113659105
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October 12, 2009 - Not everyone can write and record a song in two days, but that's the Project Song challenge faced by Chris Walla (of Death Cab For Cutie) and J. Robbins (of Jawbox and Burning Airlines). What made this project especially difficult was that the two had never even met before they stepped into NPR's performance studio.
But it didn't take long for Robbins to pick up his bass guitar, for Walla to pick up a guitar, and for the two to begin their musical friendship.
I supplied some inspiration for their song: photo collages created by artist Tom Chambers. They chose a photograph of a house in a canyon filled with water, tilted and flooded. Not far from the house is a dog on a boat, floating either toward or away from the house. I also supplied a series of words. They selected the word "cerebral" and promised when they wrote the song not to be too cerebral about it.
Chris Walla and J. Robbins were joined by Robbins' friend, drummer Darren Zentec. The song they created, "Mercury," takes its subject matter from that photograph, which is a bit of a cataclysmic scenario turned into a song about the climate crisis.
And a great song it is. You can hear the music and watch a video documenting the creative process as it unfolds.
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digitrash
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That's really cool! It reminded me of the RPM Challenge - an open "contest" among home-recording enthusiasts to produce an album's worth of original songs during the month of February. I participated in it a few years ago and it was really rewarding. To see accomplished artists work within the same principles is really neat.
- 2 years ago
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digitrash
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If you haven't already seen NPR's emmy-nominated Project Song, you must stop whatever it is that you're doing (after you read this, of course), and watch it immediately. All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen, as well as multimedia producer John Poole and our sound engineers, invite musicians into NPR's performance studio 4-A and give them a mere 2 days in which to produce a song. The whole thing is taped, resulting in back-stage type access to the song-writing process. As inspirational fodder, the musicians are given a choice of 5 photos and 5 words.
Bob showed them photos by Tom Chambers. And from a choice of 5 images, they selected Black Dog's Retreat. Here is a larger selection of Chambers' work -- and there's even more on his Web site. http://www.tomchambersphoto.com/galleries/view_all.php
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