G'day
& welcome to the archive!
Ever heard the old saying?
You don't have to be. . .
Oh right, you have. Sorry I forgot, you already came in the front door.
Anyhow, welcome to the archive proper, the heart of karosongs.com, documenting the history and the more than 50 songs that have resulted from an extraordinary but improbable musical experience.
Remember who gordon is?
an idiot musant
channeling original songs
from deeper universal energies!
But you got all that already, right?
No? Ok then . . . (sotto voice) . . . ah, guide hat on, commencing presentation.
planning your visit
Planning your visit
— meet the channel
Make this your first stop. Bit of a character but highly recommended.
— the grand tour
The full karosongs story has several aspects, or what you might call faces . . . if you're looking to justify using an old illustration of a three-faced mace as a bit of conceptual eye candy.
Three of these main sub-stories are:
-
The story of the songs themselves and how they came into being across more than 30 years. (See the songs.)
-
The story of the universal energies pushing the songs forward and gordon's relationship with them. (See on channeling.)
-
And the story of how each new karosong has trained gordon's voice and actively reshaped his vocal mechanisms. (See on singing.)
Those sub-stories all intertwine of course, and so they infill and amplify each other to convey the overall karosongs story.
Yep. You noticed right. There are other aspects to the full karosongs story only touched on, or not told, at this time. Some of these may eventually appear as ruminations on gordon's song blog. Other topics may wait on other media. You know the old saying . . . no, not time will tell. . .
Time's a tattletale!
— songsheets
Like cartoon superheros, each song has its own brief 'origin' story too, and that's recounted in its songsheet (these briefs often fill-in the main sub-stories). As well, each songsheet includes the most current demo(s) with lyrics, as well as a vault of archival recordings of any different versions.
— quick tours
Passing through at lunch? Only got time for a quick nibble? No idea where to start? Overwhelmed by the sheer number of songs?
Well, you can tour the songs in thematic groups with any one or more of several playlists in any order.
-
What makes a karosong? Are there characteristics that define these songs? The karo'esque tour attempts the definition.
-
Try the async tour of the songs arranged by their asynchronous collaborator;
-
Don't miss the flavours of karo tour — it groups songs by their largest thematic similarities;
-
Explore how multiple karosongs have created story 'tracks' across major topics like karma and greed in the 'tracks' tour;
-
Discover the 'lily' genre, a distinct style of karosong with a female narrator;
-
And finally check out the Gord's Gold playlist, gordon's personal list of favourites, least favourites and challenges.
Don't like it? No prob. Spit it out. Spittoons provided.
Please aim.
caveats
Before you p### off
But before you go off — to be clear — karosongs on this site . . .
-
are not for download or release . . .
They are only low res demos of the songs that gordon has channeled into this existence. They have been created in gordon's 'home studio', a desk with a computer, audio interface, microphone and speakers, using the open source digital audio workstation Ardour and the open source audio editor Audacity, both running on Linux.
-
are what they are . . .
This is the way they channeled, with these lyrics, with these melodies, with these versions.
-
are works in perpetual progress . . .
Each song has literally taught gordon how to play it, how to sing it, and that process continues for every song as gordon's vocal ability improves. Any particular recorded version reflects gordon's ability to sing that song at the time the recording was made.
-
are not sung professionally . . .
Although improved by years of channeling, gordon's singing voice is at best ... well, you can best decide how best to describe it. He looks forward to hearing the songs performed by real singers and musicians.
-
are not 'produced' . . .
When it comes to gordon's vocals, what you hear is pretty much what the microphone got. Beyond basic processing and mixing for clarity, no effort has been made to 'sweeten' or 'correct' gordon's vocals.
-
will always be their own worst versions . . .
When, hopefully, real musicians and real singers find these songs of interest, they will inevitably create better versions by adding their own musical skill and personality to the bare structures gordon has channeled.
