h a o m a

Afternights

Afternights was my very first rock band. It consisted of myself, Dave, and Kevin. We formed in our senior year of high school when we were all discovering rock music and wanted to do it ourselves. I really owe a lot to this band - before Afternights, I never had any respect for the bass, and only chose it as my instrument because Dave called guitar first.

We had a spotty history of intensive work and periods of stagnation, but not without results. In our first year, we wrote quite a few songs that I still consider to be good. I also took bass lessons and Dave learned a bit of guitar. We never found a drummer, and Kevin developed carpal tunnel syndrome from playing too much piano, so we eventually ended up with a bunch of good songs but nobody to play them.

A Cool Night in the Pumpkin Patch

Two years later, in 2002, I was living with Dave again, and my interest in the band renewed. Now that I had Dave's computer to record copious amounts of music on, I started learning ACID and recording songs. Dave and Kevin were soon on board, and we found ourselves undertaking our first big project: a full-length album with all the songs we had written the last few years. The recording process was long, slow, and tedious, and consumed much of my fall and spring semesters, but eventually we released A Cool Night in the Pumpkin Patch in April 2003. The album is definitely flawed - we still didn't have a drummer, so all our beats were crudely programmed in ACID. It was also my first time mixing down an album (without any prior knowledge of how it's done), and there are definitely flaws. That said, I still feel proud whenever I pop it in and give it a spin. It was truly one of the great accomplishments of my life.

We culminated our band with a live show in August 2003, right before I left for Egypt. The preparation was a lot of work; Dave was starting to lose interest, and we were pretty inexperienced to be putting on a full-length concert. Still, we persevered, and the concert was a full success - 41 people came solely to hear us, and the music was not half bad (I listened to the tapes; they're really pretty good!). It was another first in my life - the first time I got to sing and play songs I had written for a crowd.

Since the concert, we've pretty much disbanded - I was gone for a year, and Dave never really picked up guitar again. I would work with Kevin again, but in a very different setting, Tastes Like Burning. Afternights is gone; however, we got our concert, and we have our awesome CD, available for anyone to download. It was definitely a great first band.

Track List

A Cool Night in the Pumpkin Patch: Commentary

1. Encounters

Cameron Cross: guitars

David Braden: vocals, guitars, sound effects, drum loops

Music by David Braden and Cameron Cross

Lyrics by David Braden

Dark, broken, simple... with some soothing guitar, and some demented, lonely lyrics. What better way to start the album.

-David

2. Midnight Orchid

Cameron Cross: vocals, guitars, bass, drum loops

Music and Lyrics by Cameron Cross

Another guitar noodle. The lyrics are based off of floral imagery, and in the process I found my vocabulary growing more and more macabre, and the eventual result was a song about death. I am content to leave it at sonic and lyric imagery without any huge interpretation on my part. Skeleton.

-Cam

3. Captain of the Purple Grass

Cameron Cross: vocals, guitars, bass, drum loops

Kevin Emery: vocals, piano

Music by Kevin Emery and Cameron Cross

Lyrics by Kevin Emery and David Braden

This song has a very cool and funny story that goes along with it. If Kevin hasn't already told it to you, read on. So the Afternights were all sitting around one evening in Dave's basement, not long after the inception of the band in the fall of 2000. It was one of the first few sessions we had where we got together as a band - at the particular time this song was conceived, however, we weren't playing music, we were sitting around doing pretty much nothing, when one of us (probably Kevin) suggested that we all have a contest to see who could hold their breath the longest. In preparation for this important competition, we each began to hyperventilate heavily. We did this for quite a while until we were going hold our breaths for the contest on the count of three... two... one... and the room suddenly transformed from a din of gasping into complete silence. We lasted about 3 seconds before one of us (probably Kevin) burst out laughing, what with the giddiness and hilarity of it all. Of course, once one of us went, we were all gone. We tried it... about... 6 or 7 more times, each time hyperventilating until we couldn't feel our fingers, and each time bursting out into several minutes of laughter after this. I remember how funny my hands and feet felt after we finally gave up, let alone my head. So I (Kevin) said, "Dave! I wanna write a song! Say something random for me to write a song about!", and completely off the cuff of his sleeve, Dave blurts out the following words: "Purple Grass Captain"

I'd say the rest is fairly self-explanatory, but I'll explain it anyway, because I like to talk. So I got my old Casio out and plunked out this melody on only black keys (we since transposed it, but you can play the melody with only black keys), and then I went upstairs and wrote the lyrics to go along with the music (except the part Dave wrote). I also came up with the basic music for the "bridge" (on the recording, it's the part where I play piano). The song pretty much sat in that state for a couple years, until Cam pulled it out of the closet and arranged it, creating the really cool groove you hear on the CD. He created the whole sound of it, and the two of us added to it and added to it in preparation for the album, and Dave wrote another verse or two (the ones at the end), until we got to the final version we love. And we hope you do too! Or else...

-Kevin

4. Rain

Cameron Cross: vocals, bass, guitars, drum loops

David Braden: vocals

Music by Cameron Cross

Lyrics by Cameron Cross with David Braden and Kevin Emery

Yes, it was raining when I wrote this, and I was feeling sad and hurt. I enjoyed the way the sky seemed to externalize my emotions. It is one of the few songs that I wrote with a bass in my hands instead of an acoustic guitar, which is something I hope to do more in the future, as I find bass-driven songs very cool.

-Cam

5. A Cool Night in the Pumpkin Patch

David Braden: guitars, drum loops

Music by David Braden

Mmmmm... sitting down at a computer with a slew of single guitar plucks and some single drum hits - I wonder what I should do with this... And now this is the title track for the album.

-David

6. Heaven

Cameron Cross: vocals, violin, guitars, bass, drum loops

Kevin Emery: keyboards, piano

Music by Cameron Cross

Lyrics by Cameron Cross and Kevin Emery

Like most of my other songs, this began with some noodling on the guitar. I found a series of arpeggios that I found very haunting and when I found a second set of arpeggios that harmonized nicely, I was in, well, heaven (pun entirely intended. :) I decided to write about heaven and what it might mean for a little child, and beginning with a land of sweets and playgrounds I followed the thread until I arrived at a place where there is no pain, no wars, no suffering, and, eventually, nothing else, for everything has the ability to hurt us. Heaven is a land of nothingness - whether that's good or bad is up to you, but as I expect the music suggests, it's a concept that leaves me generally bitter and frustrated.

-Cam

Geez, Cam, forgot your Prozac today?

-Kevin

I don't take Prozac!!

-Cam

My point exactly.

-Kevin

Grr.

-Cam

7. The Gothic and Being in Love

Kevin Emery: piano

Cameron Cross: bass, guitar

Music by Kevin Emery with Cameron Cross

The repeating piano melody you hear at the very beginning of this song (up until the guitar stops playing continuously) is actually one of the first pieces of music I ever composed on the piano - I think even before the Afternights were founded. It sat as such in my repertoire for nearly two years until, during one of the band sessions leading up to this album, I played it for the first time for Cam. He liked it so much, he asked me to compose another part for it, and make it a full piece of music we could do something with. Over the next month or so, I composed all the other piano parts you hear on the track, as well as some other parts we didn't use in the final cut. Lastly, Cam came up with the guitar and bass parts, and we arranged and recorded it :-)

-Kevin

8. Venus in Furs

Cameron Cross: electric violin, guitars, fretless bass, drum loops

David Braden: vocals

Music and Lyrics by Lou Reed of The Velvet Underground

We were listening to the Velvet Underground one day and it occurred to me that their songs are really cool and not very appreciated in today's world, so I thought it'd be a great tune to cover. I put my electric violin through Dave's guitar amp to create the drone, then wrote a drum loop and added bass and violin and that was the song. A few weeks later Dave (who I thought would be perfect for the vocal track since he has that talking-singing thing that Lou Reed does) recorded the vocals, and here we are.

-Cam

This song is a great addition to the album because it's about kinky sex.

-Kevin

9. La De Da

David Braden: lead vocal, keyboards, whistling

Cameron Cross: guitars, backing vocals

Music by Cameron Cross with David Braden

Lyrics by David Braden

This started out as a poem that I (David) wrote. I came home one day and Cam had written some chords for it and changed around some of the words to fit more as lyrics. I don't really play piano, but we happened to have Kevin's piano and felt like it would add something to the song, so I played it. We left a big empty spot at the end for a jamming clarinet solo, but never managed to spend enough effort to hook up with Cam's brother to record the solo- so we threw some whistling and Cam in there : )

-David

10. A Warm Pumpkin Day

Cameron Cross: bass, drum loops, sound effects

Shirumanu: drum loops, sound effects

Remixed by Cameron Cross

This song began as an experiment in which I took Davefs Cool Night and practiced adding drum loops to it. I really enjoyed the interplay of the various excerpts from his guitar and decided to make it good enough to be an actual remix. There are about four guitar parts on the track and they are all from that little 50-second piece. The drum loops came from a good friend of mine who works at Fiske Planetarium that w'll call Shirumanu here; he's really into techno and had some of his extra beats lying around that he said I could play with. I really enjoyed the process of working with this song, since it was entirely constructed from pre-recorded material. I hope it makes a good dance tune.

-Cam

11. Interludin'

Cameron Cross: guitars, bass, loops

David Braden: additional programming

Music by Cameron Cross and David Braden

Cam started writing a song with some bass and drum loops, and let it sit there, untouched for a while. He opened the track file up saying something like "I just don't know what to do with this one!" I (David) took the tempo bar and slid it up from something like 80 BPM to 120 BPM and that made all the difference, "Cut, Print!"

-David

12. About the Beautiful

Cameron Cross: guitars, bass, drum loops

Kevin Emery: vocals

Music by Cameron Cross

Lyrics by Kevin Emery

This is another Cam-music Kevin-lyrics collaboration. I like having Kevin write lyrics; I am incredibly slow about it myself and Kevin's poetry always seems to have a musical aspect that eludes me. I was in a more hard-rock mood than normal and wrote this song on a heavily distorted guitar, added some slap bass, then handed it to Kevin and said, "Write." I love what he did with it, and it's also good that he sang because I would have fubared it horribly. All three of us love the Red Hot Chili Peppers and it was fun to pay homage to their style as best as we could.

-Cam

So, Cam essentially handed me all the music you hear in the piece as is, and said "here, wanna write some lyrics to this?" It was the first time I'd ever even considered writing anything like a rap song for Afternights, but I had been listening to both Eminem and the Red Hot Chili Peppers lately, and Cam's music seemed to suggest something like that, so I said what the hey, and I took a crack at it. When I first tried rapping it for the guys after writing it, it was sooooo bad. I practiced it a fair amount, though, and found a sound I liked. I especially liked how the choruses turned out, with the harmony in the first chorus, and the improv blues sound of the second chorus. For those of you who are wondering, the only voice on the recording is mine (Kevin's) - For the parts where you hear two voices (the first chorus, the second rap verse, and the ending), I did two vocal takes and overlapped them.

-Kevin

13. MacDonald's March

Cameron Cross: violin, fretless bass, guitars, drums loops

Shirumanu: ambient keyboards, drum loops

Music is traditional, arranged by Cameron Cross

I like this song. As a fiddle player, I am often frustrated by how little appreciated the genre is in the wider music world, and I have always contended that it is very accessible and beautiful to listen to if only presented in a more palatable way. In other words, take a fiddle tune and add some techno beats or rock drums and you're golden. :) This is my first attempt at fiddle-rock, and I am very sure to be doing much more in the future. Shirumanu also contributed to the song, pretty much on the spur of the moment and I must say it was the perfect touch.

-Cam

14. Floating Downwards

David Braden: guitars, sound effects

Cameron McCoon: fretless bass, bass, guitars, drum loops

Kevin Emery: keyboards

Music by David Braden and Cameron McCoon and Kevin Emery

This song started out as a neat acoustic lick to practice my finger plucking, and people liked it enough for me to record it. Cam got his hands on it and made it into the awesome, melancholy instrumental that it is.

-David

15. Same Old Memory

Kevin Emery: lead vocal, hand drum (dumbek)

Cameron Cross: backing vocal, guitars, bass

Music by Cameron Cross with Kevin Emery

Lyrics by Kevin Emery

This song is about the often overlooked positive side of attachment. Lots of enlightened people know that attachment causes suffering, but few people consider the sense of wealth and joy it creates in our lives. Truly, who cares about the stuff that money buys, unless we grow to love and care for, and yes, even become attached to that stuff, especially the important stuff like our house and our hometown. Possession then ceases to be pure materialism, and becomes a self-expression. I wrote the lyrics to a chord progression that Cam wrote a long time ago, in or before the very early Afternights days. He was kind enough to accept my input and collaboration on the final version of the music as well. For those who are curious about the drumming in the background, it's me on the dumbek. The dumbek was my main instrument long before piano was - it's an African drum (well, mine is actually Native American, but I learned originally to play it in an African style, and dumbek is the name for the African drum similar to what I have). It's about yay big... well... yeah, it's about as big as... umm... its yay big, and I play it primarily with my right hand, doing off beats with my left hand and cool finger stuff with both hands. The dumbek itself is appropriate for the song, as I've had and cherished it for years.

Ahh, yes, you'll probably notice the talking in the song - we didn't originally intend for it to be that way, but we thought it was funny and interesting, and gave the song a friendly feel, so we decided to leave it as is. The vocals were recorded in one take, from the beginning up until the harmony part. When I messed up the beginning, Cam was about to reset for another take when I stopped him just in time (I knew that we already had a good take of the first verse) Oh, for those of you who don't read it in the lyrics, the first couple lines are supposed to go:

You may be a bird my friend, who lands wherever she may be

But know that I am only free when I'm as rooted as a tree.

-Kevin

16. Electronic Sky

Kevin Emery: keyboards, piano

Music by Kevin Emery

I originally composed this piece only a couple weeks before the release of the album. I was playing around on my electric piano and decided to try the "electric piano" sound instead of the regular piano sound for a change. I liked it a fair amount, and decided to compose a chord progression that sounded good with the electric piano sound (hence the title "Electronic Sky"). The background piano ended up being a mix between the electric piano sound and one of the three piano sounds my keyboard is capable of. I composed the basic chord progression very quickly (the background piano part), and slowly and painstakingly added the vibes melody (the xylophone sounding one), taking the time to make each bar and movement sound how I wanted it to. The result was a relaxing and very spacey sounding piece that my mom loved. But a lot of other people thought it was boring, so I decided to add another piano part, and I loved the result. I didn't want to come up with melodies for the last few chords, so I did a take with just piano for the end of it. I really liked how it turned out - I think from a technical standpoint, it's some of the best piano playing i've recorded yet. Because of the complex interplay between the two melodies, and the constant changing of the chords, some people I've talked to about the piece consider this to be "musician's music" that is too busy and complex for many people. I agree - but by all means send us an email and tell me what *you* think. I especially like the fact that I touch on a variety of musical moods, starting out with a relaxing ambience, moving into a brighter mood, and then into the blues, a grandiose crescendo, and finally ending with a darker mood. This is actually the first piece of music I've written, arranged, and recorded entirely by myself (I wanted to have a solo piece for the album like the other band members did :-)... look forward to more from me in the future!

-Kevin

17. Violet Sunlight

Cameron Cross: vocals, guitars, bass, drum loops

Music by Cameron Cross

Lyrics by Cameron Cross with Kevin Emery

This is impressive - a love song from Cam! I wrote the chords and then tried to think of lyrics and the only thing that could come to mind, no matter how much I resisted it, was love, so there ya go. It'd be fun to redo this someday with a Hammond organ and a chorus of female vocalists to get as much of a Pink Floyd vibe as possible.

-Cam

18. The Real Western Experience

Cameron Cross: guitar, bass, vocals

David Braden: vocals

Music by David Braden and Cameron Cross

I love this song, because it conjures the memory of Dave and me in our dorm room up for hours writing cool guitar-bass stuff. I was listening to video game music, Metroid of all things, and was greatly inspired by how dark a simple melody could be, so Dave and I got busy writing a dark instrumental. The title came from one of my history books, The Western Experience, and Dave and I thought that adding the word "real" would be just what it needed. Do you hear the guy yelling "FUCK!" at the beginning of the song? Pure coincidence that it happened while I was recording the rain outside my window, and I think it?fs the perfect opening for this little ditty. :)

-Cam