Wipe that smile right off your face

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Wipe That Smile Right Off Your Face

Song Notes:

As far as the song goes, it started off as a simple beat that I added beat repeat to. It didn't sound quite right so I played around and added a flanger and HOLEY MOLEY that thing took off! I asked the first person to hear the song their opinion of what kind of song it sounded like. She told me it sounded like "falling and exploding." Smiles can fall. Smiles can explode across people's faces. So can a fist. Perfect! The title popped into place and that set the mood.

The overwhelming power of the intro almost left me hanging so I decided to fade in the sound of a guitar - distorted to sound like waves breaking on the shore. Combined with the strange birds sounds chirping off the drums, the crossfade shift takes the song to an entirely new place of mood and wonder. At the beginning of the song the character is exploding with anger at the smiles of others. Why all the smiles when the world is so screwed up? And why is it that the greedy, and rich, and weak in character seem to be smiling so much these days? He says to some unknown person that he wants to, "wipe that smile right off your face!" Rather than violence, the character takes a dip in the ocean to cool down. And while swimming and floating in the ocean the character comes to a decision. He will not just cool down and forgive and forget. He will get his "revenge" through a simple means... through plague. And when that "plague" spreads then he will be the one smiling.

Hmm... I wonder who that character could be?

From beginning to end this song is filled to the brim with noise candy. For all the guitarists out there who are into cool sounds, take a listen to the solo. It doesn't have a million 32nd notes or scale after scale of sweep-picked arpeggios but it does have the EXACT notes I needed and wanted and more importantly... a sound and tone that kill. The final note of the song's solo is the resolution of conflict in the character, the moment he decides to fight back. In one ear you hear that sustained note, while in the other I whisper the word plague. You are hearing the GNX4 set to the Eddie Van Halen preset sound then run through Ableton Live's saturator and chorus effects using breakpoint automation. Let you in on a secret, if you have Ableton Live you might as well stop buying foot pedals. Between the presets in my GNX4 and what Ableton brings to the table I may never buy another foot pedal again!

Wipe That Smile Right Off Your Face is a song for anyone who wants more justice in the world. This is a song for anyone who is sick to death of bailouts for the rich and corporate welfare. This is a song for anyone who has ever wanted to see our criminal politicians hang from trees instead of smiling in HDTV on the CIA controlled media channels.

This song is 100% justifiable anger! There is a time to cool off and there is a time for anger to be put to use.

--- Plague

Bass Guitar: Ken D. Webber

Rhythm Guitar: Ken D. Webber

Lead Guitar: Ken D. Webber

Drum Programming: Ken D. Webber

Voices: Ken D. Webber

Noise Candy: Ken D. Webber