Tag: songs about crying

It’s Here, A Different Gear and Free Beer

News From The Week That Was

It’s Heeeeere!!!! The first track from Songs About Crying, “Shivers and Shakes”!  See below for more details, or visit it on the releases page here.

A History of ….

Songs About Crying, Track 1: Shivers and Shakes

Shivers and Shakes is one of the older tracks, one of the ones that predates The Cube.  Scarfo was just getting back to piano, and saw an opportunity.  Writing in B flat and D minor has always seemed to him to have a special sound – something about D minor just seems a little sadder than the other minor keys.  This isn’t something that had been previously explored as this is not a key that is particularly conducive to guitar.  It isn’t impossible, it’s just uncomfortable with a lot of bar chords and we can be lazy from time to time.

Lyrically, at this point in Fighting Whiskey history, Scarfo and Boyne were toying with different approaches to writing, and this is one that fell into a particular category.  The idea was to have one of the two tell the other a story or what they wanted the feeling to be about, and the other would write the lyrics based on that.  In this case, Scarfo presented an idea to Boyne and Boyne did the writing.  The reverse of this was done on “Touching Stoves” from Dandelions, wherein Scarfo wrote lyrics to something Boyne expressed.

We wanted this to be the first song released from Songs About Crying in that it is pretty thematically indicative of the rest of the record to come.  Sound, tone, different keys, slower – this song has a little bit of all of that. 

Three Things I’ve Learned This Week

  1. No one in Fighting Whiskey is as excited about “Fun Drunks” as Euro is.
  2. A child who won’t clean his room will gladly clean a softball or home plate without being asked.
  3. The best beer isn’t just free beer – it’s surprise free beer.

Big Announcements, Why Crying and Sexy Groceries

News From The Week That Was

I’m not going to waste too much time with a regular weekly update as we have a big announcement!  We’ve talked about it for a while now, and it is finally set to be released.  On Tuesday, August 9th, 2022, Songs About Crying will go live to the world. 

In the meantime, starting next week, we will be featuring one of the tracks with a ‘history of’ on the song as well as an audio preview.  Every Tuesday (I’ll be doing it Monday night, but at different times, so Tuesday it will be guaranteed to be here), there will be a new track, its history, meaning and a chance to hear it before the album comes out.  The album cover that you see is essentially a negative of Dandelions – for an idea of why and what’s coming, see the History of “Songs About Crying” below.

A History of ….

Songs About Crying

When we started writing back during the pandemic, we were finding that our songs fit into two general categories – “angry” and “sad”.  Originally, we were going to put it all together on the first record, but as we got down to the nitty gritty, it became apparent that the two types of songs really didn’t fit together on one album.  We made the decision at that time to split it into two records – the heavier, more upbeat stuff became Dandelions and Failure, and what was left over, we were going to turn into “Songs About Crying”.  Much like not every song on Dandelions ended up being angry, not every song on Crying is sad, but there is a unifying theme.

Some of these songs are as old as the first songs from Dandelions – a lot of it was written simultaneously.  A few of them are as new as being first conceived less than two months ago, so this really has been a work in progress for more than two years.

If you are expecting more of what happened on Dandelions, you will want to adjust your expectations.  As I mentioned a few weeks back, this will be ‘your mom’s favourite Fighting Whiskey album’.  For everyone who has ever said, “Scarfo, why don’t you play more piano?” or “Boyne, try and do something a little more serious”, this is the album for you.

Stay tuned next week for information on the first track, “Shivers and Shakes” … fun little video teaser below.  Okay .. maybe not fun, it’s just Scarfo playing one of the parts on the piano for less than a minute, but it’s fun to us.

Three Things I’ve Learned This Week

  1. If you are going to buy groceries for your vegan friend, they’d best be sexy groceries.
  2. I need to start ignoring my phone on Friday afternoons.
  3. Learning a Harry Chapin song teaches you an important lesson – Harry Chapin was a dick.

Laying Tracks, Hanging Racks and Boyne Scats

News From The Week That Was

A heavy recording week this week in The Cube.  We added more layers to the newest song, tentatively titled, “Happens to You” and completely re-recorded the mystery cover that we were talking about a few weeks back.  We wanted to slow it down a bunch from the original, but what we had put down was simply too slow, so we started again 10 beats per minute faster and think we have a version that will work much better.

A History of ….

The Cube, Part III: From Dandelions to Crying to Fun

Now that we were set up, it was time to get back to work.  With the limited space, we had to hang the guitars from the walls and mount a number of shelves to cut down on the clutter.  Still, once it was ready to go, the minimalist approach really helped.  Having the piano next to the recording rack led to a whole lot more piano tunes, a lot of which ended up going on Songs About Crying.  One or two are even sneaking their way onto “Fun Drunks”.

The current setup is one that we are very comfortable with and are hoping to work with for a very long time.  

Who or what will the next history focus on?  Only one way to find out …

Three Things I’ve Learned This Week

  1. The more you scream, the more water gets in your mouth.
  2. When a “Barry White” part is needed, somehow Scarfo is the go to.
  3. Boyne jazz scatting is hilarious. Cause we needed more scat.

Room Laughs, Cube Renos and Bank Farts

News From The Week That Was

Howdy folks – sorry I missed last week, I was feeling more than a little under the weather.  The focus over the last two weeks has truly been on the third record.  I know that seems silly with the second not even being released yet, but we are in a ‘sit and let the mixes marinate’ part of the process with “Songs About Crying”.  My hope is that by the next time I am writing the news, we will have a release date for SAC put together for you.  

In the meantime, a note about the third album – tentatively titled, “Fun Drunks”, we are taking yet another complete left turn.  Following almost a year of focusing on serious and the more melancholy, the songs for Fun Drunks are the complete opposite.  They’re meant to be exactly what the title suggests – fun.  On Friday, as we were doing a group lyric session for a new track, there were multiple times that we had full on giggle fits.  3 middle aged men, sitting in a room (or a Cube, see below), giggling like idiots.  The rule was, if it gets a laugh in the room, it gets written down.

A History of ….

The Cube, Part II: From Stink to Party Cube

When the time had come to move, one of the issues was the loss of square footage.  The new room was going to be far smaller, and while we picked up a separate area for storage, the actual recording/jam/hang space was about a quarter the size of the ‘hallowed hall’.  We aimed to be optimistic about this and Puff had the line that really turned things around, “It will be our party cube!”.  From this statement came the name . . .

What is now The Cube started as a plumbing company’s storage supply room.  There will be a ton of pictures that will accompany this part of the story, but the pictures can’t tell the most important part of the transformation – getting rid of the smell.  Anyone who has ever been in a jam hall knows that, by nature, they don’t smell like roses, but this room had an olfactory bite that was beyond even our ability to ignore.  We ripped out the subfloor, tore down a wall, bleached, sealed and painted.  Once Puff had thrown down the carpet tile, we were finally in a spot where it could live up to Puff’s billing – it was now our ‘party cube’.

Once we were set up, it was back to work and we were weeks away from finishing Dandelions.

Three Things I’ve Learned This Week

  1. Being grown up doesn’t mean not talking about how funny farts are.  You just talk about how funny it is to fart loudly in a bank.
  2. I now know what a ‘piss dot’ is.
  3. Saying, “There are already a lot of scatological references here . . .” doesn’t keep the rest of the references out of a song.  Or out of the 3 things I’ve learned.

Crying, Flooding and Jumping

News From The Week That Was

The countdown is on to the release of Songs About Crying!  We are hoping to have a release date out to you by next week.  I know that we have been mentioning it a lot here in the last little while, so a little note for those who are new to the concept.  As we were writing Dandelions and Failure, we had a number of slower, more piano and acoustic based songs that didn’t really fit with the first record.  We had put them aside and are now looking to release them as a full album.  This will be nothing like Dandelions – slower, softer, more introspective.  Maybe this becomes your mom’s favourite Fighting Whiskey record? 

A History of ….

The Cube, Part I: Plucked From The Hallowed Halls

Dating back for more than ten years, Scarfo had always jammed out of a room in what was called the “Hallowed Halls” of Courtland.  This is where For The Hard Way and The Dexter Holmes story wrote, rehearsed and recorded.  After a leak made the SexDwarf room uninhabitable, Boyne joined the boys and the hall was always a bustle with creativity.  It was in this room that Fighting Whiskey was born.  Songs like Old Gil from Dandelions and Impression of You from Songs About Crying were laid down here.

Unfortunately, on an evening in May of 2021, Scarfo received an unnerving phone call.  There was water pouring out of the room.  Boyne and Stroker (long time friend of FW and guest vocalist on “Good Man” went to investigate and the news was grave.  There had been a leak from above and the hall was flooded.  Even worse, the damage inside the ceiling was inevitably going to lead to black mould, so there was no choice – Fighting Whiskey had to move.

The only remaining available room in the building was a former plumbing company’s supply room.  More on the transformation of this next week in part 2 – “From Stink to Party Cube”.

Three Things I’ve Learned This Week

  1. Baseball games played by 8 year olds do not have stellar defense.
  2. When Boyne and Linz get chatting, you either need all of the context or to ignore random sentences you hear.
  3. Sometimes you just gotta ‘Jump in’.

We’re Back, New Tracks and Grimsby Flack

Where’s My Whiskey???

I know that we have been silent for quite some time and you have our deepest apologies.  Going forward, we will be adjusting the blog post dates to Mondays to avoid ‘life getting in the way’ issues.  This will serve as the post for this Monday, and then starting Monday May 9th, we will get back to doing this on the regular – I mean it this time.

News From The Week That Was

We’ve been making progress on all fronts across the previous few weeks.  Songs About Crying is nearly locked in – we don’t have an exact release date at the moment, but you can expect that it will be released by early summer.  On the acoustic performance front, we are putting together a set that we are pretty proud of – it will be arriving at a fine establishment near you very soon.  For any fine establishments looking to book us, please email booking@fightingwhiskey.ca and we can discuss.  Additionally, we have the bones of 8 songs written for the 3rd album, which again will be a complete left turn from everything that we have done up until now.  Lastly, in the spirit of ‘Get To Know Your Whiskey’ and ‘Fighting Whiskey Recommends”, we will be starting a new feature next week “History of . . .” wherein we will look at the history of all things Fighting Whiskey.  Next week will be part one of “History of The Cube”.

Three Things I’ve Learned This Week

  1. It appears that I have unfairly besmirched the reputation of Grimsby, Ontario.  I apologize to all Grimsbians.
  2. It is possible to, in the same day, get high and mighty about a child getting spaghetti sauce in his eyebrow while later not noticing a glob of icing in your beard.  Humbling.
  3. I drastically under promote the awesome relationship I have with my mom.  Sorry mom.

Peas, Cheese and Knees

News From The Week That Was

A bit of a mental break week in The Cube this week. We tried a different exercise wherein we worked on building something together from scratch. I’m not certain if it will land anywhere in particular, but it was fun as a process to put together. It also helps to ‘eat your vegetables’ and try new approaches to break out of your comfort zone. My comfort zone does not include peas. Beyond that, just some mix updates and more critical listens. “Songs About Crying” inches ever closer …

Get to know your Whiskey!

My apologies, due to a copy and paste error last week, Puff’s answer to the last question was omitted.  By way of apology, I am dedicating the full “Get To Know Your Whiskey” section to the missing answer:

Who would be your ideal dinner guest, living or dead, and what would you serve them?

Puff: My kids when they were small, and we’d have mac & cheese with hot dogs.

Three Things I’ve Learned This Week

  1. People seem to be really mad about knees this week.
  2. Reasonable people can disagree, but assholes are always gonna asshole.
  3. I am terrible at SuperBowl prop betting.

Surprises, Lizards and 5,000 Pounds of Garbage

News From The Week That Was

Another recording week in The Cube – a test vocal line went down on top of the acoustic song last week and we are looking at recording a surprise cover to add to the new album.  (Ooooooh – surprise!!).  There were some mid-week remixes of “Run” and “Hesitant” and we are inching ever closer to getting the new record out to you fine folks.

Get to know your Whiskey!

What TV shows are you watching right now?

Boyne: My name is earl and Succession

Scarfo: Succession, Ted Lasso, and rewatching The Newsroom.  I’ll never not be watching Lost.

Puff: The Witcher, Trailer Park Boys, W/ Bob & David, Solar Opposites, Letterkenny, Sneaky Pete

What was the first LP/cassette/CD/eight track you ever bought with your own money?

Boyne: The soundtrack to TMNT the movie – the first one on cassette.

Scarfo: I genuinely don’t know.  It was probably Weezer blue, Smash or Pretty Hate Machine.

Puff: Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon was my first record, my first CD was either Queen or Run DMC

What is something that hasn’t happened yet, but would certainly break the internet?

Boyne: The internet is not a real place. I don’t really care what happens there. Or at least I don’t want to.

Scarfo: An EMP.

Puff: The Trumps turning out to be lizard people would probably do it, OR actual contact with really for real aliens.

Three Things I’ve Learned This Week

  1. When people ask, “Do you know how much crap you accumulate over a decade?”, the answer is roughly 5,000 pounds.
  2. A bad day can be helped by the arrival of wacky tshirts.  Not fixed, mind you, but helped.
  3. Living with me can make someone feel dead inside in a matter of hours.

Boosters, Cuddles and Head Injuries

News From The Week That Was

Apologies for the lack of update last week, between work being nuts, getting boosted and some family stuff, I simply ran out of time.  As for news for this week, another new song was created in The Cube, though it certainly has some work to be done on it before it actually becomes anything.  Edits and mixes are continuing on the new album and we are moving forward nicely with that.  Lastly, today marks the beginning of our new feature, “Get to know your Whiskey!”  We blatantly ripped some questions from the “Exclaim!” questionnaire, but there are some additional questions added in as well.  Enjoy getting to know us, dinks.

Get to know your Whiskey!

Why do you live where you do?

Boyne: Everyone I love is here, it’s where I’ve always been.  I work here and love what I do.

Scarfo: I was recently evicted, so this is a bit of a jerk question.  I am in the process of moving to Galt for three reasons – 1. That is where my family lives; 2. It is very, very close to the Farm League Brewing tap room (stumbling distance) and 3. The aforementioned eviction.

Puff: It’s close to family.

What are the best and worst purchases you’ve ever made?

Boyne: Best, my last PC. The worst was the laptop I bought to replace it.

Scarfo: I should probably say something about my Les Paul, but I bought an air fryer a couple of hours ago that I am pretty pumped about.  As for worst, I took my chances on a Cleveland Browns “surprise box” from China recently – it came with 4 Browns masks that don’t fit me, 4 crocheted bracelets, a phone case that didn’t fit my phone and a hoodie that Linz immediately took.

Puff:  I’d say my ’86 Gibson Melody Maker has been my best. My worst purchase was a POS car that was a financial black hole.

How do you prefer to end your day?

Boyne: Reading myself to sleep.

Scarfo: By lying down in my bed?  A nice cup of tea in the evening is very relaxing and a little RDR2 is nice as well.  Something about a cup of hot Royal English Breakfast tea and shooting O’Driscolls in their penises that makes me settle right in.

Puff: Cuddlin’ with me wife.

Three Things I’ve Learned This Week

  1. It is possible to not laugh while watching a 7 year old smash his head off of a cupboard door and hit the ground.  Not easy, but possible.
  2. When an impressionable young adult asks, “Can we do a celebrity death bowl?”, you don’t correct them on the bowl/pool issue, you just say yes.
  3. Euro shouting lyrics never gets old.

Smoking, Stealing and Splotching

News From The Week That Was

Welcome back – another week plugging away in The Cube as the new album takes shape.  After last week’s powwow, a lot of mixing changes happened, not a glorious thing, but a necessary one.  Needless to say, the new giant ashtray helped with this.  Mixing goes with smoking like morning coffee.

Additionally, Puffer added acoustic guitar lines to “Hesitant” and we have lyrics for another new one, tentatively titled, “The Storm”.  This was a result of a writing challenge from Boyne to Scarfo.  Actual conversation from two weird dudes:

Scarfo: Give me something to write about.

Boyne: Manifest destiny.

Scarfo: Already did one about that for FTHW.

Boyne: Reverse Racism.

Scarfo: I hate you.

Challenge accepted – spoiler alert, the song does not come out on the side that it actually exists.

Fighting Whiskey Recommends

Boyne’s #2 – Moseley Shoals

Who?: Ocean Colour Scene

What?: Moseley Shoals

Why?:

This is one of the most important albums in my life.  It is perfect, I used to cover these songs all the time as a kid playing chip joints and coffee houses. They made me a better songwriter and singer. I didn’t often say who wrote them mostly because this album would be half my set and that’s just embarrassing. But if someone asked I would gush about how great they were and I continue to do so today.

If you like ya know “music” you should give this a go.

Three Things I’ve Learned This Week

  1. Alexander the Great’s sister died and became a mermaid.**
  2. Being a ‘good winner’ takes practice.
  3. I apparently have splotchy skin and usually stink before noon.

**Not a verified fact.