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We’re proud to announce that two of our songs, Carne Asada (available on our album) and SPF 45 (available above) will be on the TV! Both songs will appear in the PBS series Gourmet’s Adventures with Ruth, episodes “Seattle” (airing this weekend!) and “Mexico”.
This elates those of us at Get Help HQ for several reasons. When Get Help originally kicked off, the idea was to sell jingles and cash in. In pursuit of that end, we named all of our songs after Mexican menu items, a market slam-dunk. It was partly self-effacing, partly laziness, but still, we figured at best we’d get picked up by Dr. Scholl’s Odor Eaters or this generation’s Pet Rock. So a Conde Naste show about food on PBS…? Wow. We couldn’t have asked for more. We’re like six degrees of sep from Bill Moyers! We’re bona fide!
This is the first posting of SPF 45, so listen to it here, and then listen for it on Gourmet Adventures this weekend. You can find local listings here.
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Somewhere in this apartment, on the back of an unused band postcard was a list of 10-12 things to do that I was supposed to do the next morning, no doubt scratched out with a nearby marker found late the night before. Pretty simple stuff. A sample: (1) buy soap, (2) wash dishes, (3) find jeans (4) finish new song.
The first three are confidently crossed-out with a much more indelible marker, but #4 was going to take a little more time. By design, of course–items 5-12 would require some serious effort, and we procrastinators make lists like this all the time so we feel like we’re accomplishing something.
But I had real ambition to finish this song. After coming up with the simple portamento synth part and mining Garageband for a drum beat, the bass line wrote and played itself. This was the point in that afternoon when I made that list.
When I got to “(4) – finish new song”, I was going to try and come up with some sort of vocal, but decided to plug in the pedals and add a little noisy guitar. I recorded three tracks in three takes, with the idea that I’d listen to the parts later on and pick out my favorite bits.
Walking around with it 8 weeks later, I realize that listening to music to pick out your favorite bits. After 20 or so listens to this one, I realized I enjoyed looking around for them as much as I did hearing them.
I think I lost that list long before I got to #12. But I never got to vocals, and I like it just fine. Most importantly, now I can cross ‘post song’ off today’s list.
