Knock Knock Knock

[Moondog Wily]

I have been working on my new album titled "Knock Knock Knock" which I hope to release some time in May. Like my last album "Real Notes", this album will have the same format. Approximately one hour, played in a single sitting (using guitar, cajon via foot pedal and voice), no overdubs, no studio trickery or magic (just chorus on the vocal choruses and pumping up the cajon sound), no additional instruments added, no mistakes removed, no auto-tuning and no regrets. I am doing my music this way at this time for several reasons. One of them is the idea that I can play live what you hear on the recordings. No figuring out how to reproduce live that cool effect I made in the studio. Another reason is I want my music to be very "human". Matter of fact, one of the songs is called "Human Genre" as I believe that in short time we will have just that, a genre of music that is segregated as human.


I did take 12 of the album last night. I would not be embarrassed to have performed 13 of the 15 songs in that take (but I know I can do WAY better and will do so). The two I am still having problems with I have not fully absorbed and am still trying to figure out the bridge and endings on those two. Today will be take 13 and maybe 14 if I have the time. I am expecting a take somewhere around the late 20's or early 30's to be a take that I am comfortable with releasing (though it did take me till take 82 with the last album). Here is a track list of "Knock Knock Knock" (subject to change on artistic human whims):


Knock Knock Knock (title track about opening your door of creativity)

Human Genre (a song written from the songs perspective, stating it's human nature)

Chin Up (a song about the passing of Taylor Hawkins)

Helio Orbit (a song about David Bowie being buried in space)

Dream Pillows (from 2001 a song about laying your head on your dreams pillows)

FunkCountryRockFolk (some of us like it all)

Happy Birthday 2025 (a birthday song for this year)

I Like Tequila (need I say more)

InfiniZoo (the infinite zoo that is the universe)

My In-Laws Is Outlaws (slack jawed with a long drawl, can you hear their lips crawl)

Sexecution (written in 2000 on my first cross country motorcycle tour)

Songstramentalist (the primary instrument I play is the song and the other instruments are just supporting characters)

Tattooed Brain (inspired by the Tattoos thread on another forum started a few weeks ago and one members response in said thread)

Richard Craniums Treasured Taints (a song about the Richard Craniums of the world - plenty of mirror time in this one but others inspired as well)

21st Century Blues (what is giving you the blues? here's a short list of mine)


If anyone is interested in providing feedback on this material prior to release, PM me and I will send some stuff when ready for review ;~)) I would love the feedback, though there are no plans for feedback on this album at this time ;~))

 

[Moondog Wily]

Here is the preliminary artwork for the album in contact sheet form (click on it to get larger size if desired)! Still need to tweak some fonts and opacity of some elements, but 95% there ;~)) Let me know if you see anything that you would change or do different!!

 

[mixmkr]

Very creative artwork. I'd have taken an audio teaser....maybe one will hapoen?

 

[Moondog Wily]

Very creative artwork. I'd have taken an audio teaser....maybe one will hapoen?

Thanks for the kind words! As for audio teaser, your comment kind of makes me think I should put together a montage of 5-10 second bits of each song. As I look through the artwork and think of it, I think it would be fun to do with one of my takes so far!! Thanks for the inspiration, I will put that together in the next few days ;~))

 

[mixmkr]

Maybe 5-7 songs? Doing all 12 might be giving up too much and start to escape as just a teaser?
Yeah the artwork is insanely good. How did that come about?
The guy in the top hat and hollowbody, reminds me of my old 60s Californian black light posters.

 

[mixmkr]

Just going by impulse, 5 twenty second clips perfectly fades into each other, would seem to be a format of choice. Like I was saying; all 12 is more like a preview like synopsis. Just brainstorming...so 1st thoughts

 

[FatFingerBlues]

Let me know if you see anything that you would change or do different!!

Change?????
I still draw stick figures

very nice work!

 

[Moondog Wily]

Yeah the artwork is insanely good. How did that come about?
The guy in the top hat and hollowbody, reminds me of my old 60s Californian black light posters.

Change?????
I still draw stick figures

very nice work!

Thanks for the kind words! To be clear, all but one of these pieces is, for the most part, AI generated. And the one piece that is not ("Helio Orbit") was not composed from original material that I drew or created, it was Space X and Hubble Telescope material combined with stuff I made in Photoshop and blended it all together!

As for how the artwork came about, I have been working with AI image generation for 2 years now and have become reasonably proficient and getting results that match what I am looking for. I generally take lyrics from my songs that are visual and related to the title and use various techniques to get different looks/feels that I think would be best suited to a particular song. So for example, the "FunkCountryRockFolk" piece with the guy in the top hat was generated from the following simple ask of the program (Midjourney) I use most: "Funk Country Rock Folk". In addition to asking for it to take that information and generate images, I also told it to use one of my personal styles ( " --personal style XXZZ") that I have developed. To develop a style, you look through a couple of hundred images their system has generated on various topics, and you say "I like this one and this one, but not that one and that one". It then takes that information and builds a style that would match with what you have picked in the style creator and then applies that style to the image generations when instructed to do so. After scrolling through the images that were generated, this is the one that I thought would work best and was the closest match to what the song was about. I then insert it into a frame, and make any fixes to the image that are necessary. This sometimes involves changing some colors, adding other elements that the AI program had not produced or produce properly, changing the backgrounds, changing or removing unwanted shadows, etc. One example above is the "Knock Knock Knock" image. It originally had a gloomy sky background and water. I changed that to a Hubble Telescope image. And the rays of the star over the peak of the building matched 100% with the slope of the building roof lines, so I was certain it was meant to be! Then I start the hard part which in my opinion is picking the right font. I have thousands of fonts to choose from and finding the right one can take longer than anything else in putting together these pieces. And it is not just choosing the font, but then about proper placement, treatments (borders, color, giving it 3D look, warping like in "Songstramentalist"), etc. I then put my logo in, ensuring that it blends well with the image in both color and placement, adjust the frame border colors and copyright text colors, etc. to produce the final image for any given piece. As I mention above, the font selection is most often the lengthiest part of these pieces, but generating and selecting a piece is not as easy as some may think (though it does get easier every day). One example would be "My In-Laws Is Outlaws". I generated many pieces and none of them gave me what I was really looking for (and I tried describing what I wanted in half a dozen different ways), so I chose what was the best of what they gave me to match the image in my head. Could I create the perfect piece for it that matches exactly what I see in my head? Sure, but that would likely take me many many hours and/or cost me thousands of dollars to have a professional artist produce exactly what I describe (and that would likely take weeks or months to get to a point that I would be comfortable with). The AI is getting better though and with the personalization stuff, it makes it easier to get what I want, or something close enough for my purposes ;~)) I am more interested in making more music. The associated packaging material (including the cover art) is not something I want to spend most of my time on, but I am very happy at what I am currently able to pump out for a very low cost in both dollars and time. As for the copyrighted material that AI is trained on, that is a topic too large for this thread, so I will simply say that there are plenty of factors that most people do not consider when they are talking about how AI is "stealing" intellectual property IN SOME CASES. It is a bit ironic that one of the songs on this album "Human Genre" is about taking my music in the opposite direction of AI and automation while I am using AI for the images, but I will cover that irony in more detail with the liner notes for this album ;~))

Thanks to all for the interest and feedback in this new project! It is appreciated, informative and sometimes even inspirational ;~)) Rock on peeps!!!

 

[Moondog Wily]

Release is pushed back to end of June or beginning of July, I need to do some stuff ;~))