Salon de la Guerre is very proud to announce that its latest modern classical album, Uncle Ernie’s Progress, is now available for streaming or purchase on all the major music websites, including Amazon, Apple Music, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, TikTok and Bandcamp. This is my sixth attempt at classical music, and, like other albums in this series, it tells a musical story about the member of an extended family.
I have tried to improve on and embellish previous efforts, and this time added computer sax and marimba parts (after spending a little too much time listening to Frank Zappa’s early ’70s work).
The album was made with two software programs: GarageBand and Logic Pro, and I wrote many of the parts with a scoring tool. I try not to fool my listeners about what I’m personally performing and what the computer is doing, so here’s full disclosure: There are three piano pieces here I have scored and let the computer generate (including “Ernie’s Score,” “Ernie Sells His Steinway” and the bookends to “Ernie’s Goodbye”) and the effect is that of a player piano. But the piano parts elsewhere, including those on “Ernie’s Heart Monitor,” “Half a Heart,” “Half a Stomach” and “Betina’s Gone,” for example, I played directly onto an iPhone keyboard using my own intuitive keyboard playing style. For a self-taught piano player, I can sometimes do impressive things, but I’m not a trained concert pianist, and don’t want anyone to walk off with that impression.
I’ve sometimes tried in the past to use classical music theory terms to describe what I’m doing, but I’ve given that up, and confess that I’m not even sure what key I’m playing in. I have struggled with the idea of learning more music theory in the spirit of curiosity and self-improvement and intellectual rigor, but the fact is that any good artist simply creates first and asks questions later. All I’ll add is that I’d read a bit about Frank Zappa using major second intervals in his chords (in other words, making a chord out of two notes sitting right next to each other instead of separated, an approach that can sound eerie). I tried to mix some of that idea into the new album, but probably stopped pursuing that aim whenever I’d hit on my own new melodic ideas. My whole approach to music is to always learn something new when I’m creating anything and then let inspiration take over from there–or otherwise be guided by a new conceptual idea. (For instance, what would happen if I used microtonal experiments, using tones between the degrees of the scale, to make country music the way Gram Parsons would? Or what if I tuned a guitar with open tunings like Thurston Moore and then played it like Maybelle Carter, tapping out the melody on the bass and scratching the higher strings for the chords to make post-punk country music? If you’re interested in that, you can check out my album Air is a Public Good.)
Unfortunately, this approach also means I keep genre hopping. I have three other albums sitting in various degrees of completion. One is folk, one is electronic dance music and one is alternative rock. Whatever it is, I’m hoping at least one thing I make this year turns you on.
As always, the album was completely composed, arranged and produced by Eric R. Rasmussen. Copyright 2023. Cover photo credit: SoumenNath
Check out a track from Uncle Ernie’s Progress below.
In a few weeks, Salon de la Guerre will release a new album, another electronic symphony. This one is called Uncle Ernie’s Progress, and I’m hoping to release it in January or February. I created the album at my home studio in November and December.
While the project started out with Frank Zappa vibes (it included lots of marimba parts) I soon returned to my favorite classical music instrumental standbys, including GarageBand’s version of an erhu and string arrangements. The album was made on both GarageBand and Logic Pro. Though it’s all instrumental, the album, like my other classical albums, follows the adventures of an extended family. I do this for thematic and dramatic reasons, and also practical ones: The albums with the family titles (with figures in half shadow) are my classical albums. This is the only way I know to keep you from mistaking this stuff for my rock music, aside from changing the name of my act altogether when I’m doing classical works. (Some friends have suggested I get rid of my band name for all projects. Hmph! So I showed them! I even trademarked it! Do not doubt the strength of my wrong-headed convictions, philistines!)
An update! While my original post included a new song from Uncle Ernie’s Progress, I recently came across an article in The New York Times about the ways song pirates were stealing other people’s music and releasing it under their own names. For that reason, I’m going to cut back on offering sneak previews, which would make it easier for thieves to publish my stuff on the major platforms. I’m sorry if you came across a dead link, but I’ve removed all hints of Uncle Ernie’s Progress from Sound Cloud for now.
Nothing on TV nowhere to Explore Nothing to wake up for
Got no thoughts to write No verse to put forth Nothing to wake up for
But I had a thought and a mug to drink from And I’ve got two eyes and legs and thumbs And I’ve got the memory of you and know you have a memory too And that will have to do
I’ve read all the books and watched all the porn Got nothing to wake up for I’ve been to Florida and seen some of Rome Got nothing to wake up for I’ve made some love and built a home And now I’ve got to roam it alone
But I have a toothbrush and some food And a sink and I still have thoughts to think And I’ve got an ocean and flowers and vines The things I put in my head are mine
And so I open my eyes and stare at the floor That’s something to wake up for
I am extremely proud to announce that Salon de la Guerre’s 33rd album, Even Toy Dogs Get the Blues, has been released today. It can now be found on all the major digital music platforms for streaming or download, including iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Amazon and Bandcamp. (You can also make TikTok videos with Salon de la Guerre music, if you’re so inclined.)
As longtime readers know, Salon de la Guerre is my nom de rock, and I’m responsible for all the writing and playing (though I thank Apple for the useful sample here and there). Most of this album was made on my iPhone and home computer, save for one track with a guitar flip-out.
The album includes a lot of sketches of compulsive characters—spies, smugglers, strip club patrons, scam artists, obsessive dog lovers and Buddhists.
I recorded the album at my home in New York from May to July.
Salon de la Guerre fans take heart. After taking a year off from music, I’ll be returning to the streaming services in a couple of weeks with a new album called Even Toy Dogs Get the Blues.
I largely stopped writing music in 2022 because I’d been neglecting my fiction; also, I suffered musical equipment failure and, most important, nobody is knocking down my door for new material. But after completing the first draft of a new novel around March (a sequel to my book Zip Monkey) I opened up my iPhone’s GarageBand app to make sure the virtual piano keyboard was working properly (after I dropped the phone). Pretty soon, I was accidentally writing new music. Yes, it’s that simple.
I’m tempted to use horrific cliches like “back to basics” with this album. Since upgrading my technology two years ago, I hadn’t made a rock album on GarageBand for a long while. In 2021, I fell in love with my new Logic Pro software and started writing songs in musical notation for the first time. I got five new albums out of that program and then belatedly discovered that it also did wonders in brightening my guitar sound.
And yet …
It’s just too damn fun to sit around the house with my phone making up melodies on cool prefab instruments. I can do it at the gym too. Or on a train. Or in a boat with a goat. And there are advantages to going the lo-fi route: I keep the songs from getting too filigreed and overproduced and strangling the life out of them. If there’s a guiding philosophy behind Salon de la Guerre, it’s that music can come from anywhere. Sometimes I like playing it on a guitar, and sometimes I just like tapping it out video-game style on my app.
I did throw in a new wrinkle, by using jazzier piano chords this time around to go with the loud guitars. It was not my plan, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the music came out kind of Steely Dan-ish in places. (Steely Danish?)
I’ll also humble brag a bit that this album probably demonstrates my strongest singing ever. I’m a writer by trade, not a vocalist, but I’ve had to learn to interpret my own material because I don’t have the time or money to start a band and hire singers. Over the years, I’ve become less self-conscious about my singing voice. It has a quality and I feel better about it every time I ship out new work.
The new album is a mix of the fun, sad, weird, ominous, propulsive, perverse and literate. In other words, quintessential Salon de la Guerre.
I’ll be releasing it in the next week or so, but until then, here’s a teaser–a jokey take on pickup lines:
Sights of minnow, despair Fish dream to nonaction The rudderless course of a ship Its hull beating against a manless dock
Upended cups on bollards Cranky pier beams And glinty eyed gulls Are harbinger of somebody’s breakfast
Mere muff grazers Spill onto the dock Warning of a fatuous Sunday Afternoon When the boat will be full But not full of anybody Willing to say what needs to be said
One thought is embarrassed to death In a throat Because the men want what they want And you will have what you have
Late in the day Jackson lost on the beam One thought parts Into milk and cream
Your eyes too full of pain and fear You couldn’t tell me the truth right then Not about anything Not right here
Curses spilled from her mouth And milk leaked into the shirt The baby biting hard at new blood And macrophages Baby still colostrum-laughing Licking poems off her pages
A poem of milk Is to be consumed by whomever needs it And blood is fed Brain, stomach and heart The whole water bed
And even light can cut And conjugate Talk soft to The Earth that was its mate
And even life on Mars In tiny yurts and huts Can’t lose the link to Earth Still stirring in our guts
Eric R. Rasmussen is a novelist, composer, journalist and filmmaker. He is the author of ten novels, including the three-volume work The Ghost and the Hemispheres. He is the sole force behind the musical act Salon De La Guerre. And he is the writer/director of the online Web comedy series “The Retributioners” starring Stephanie Faith Scott.
Beauty is Imperfection 