My Big, Black Cock. » Scott Crawford’s Free Music.

Free Music Volume 10: “Bald Mountain Party” by Richard C. Hackley and Scott Crawford

Scott Crawford — Fri, 21 May 2010 09:56:20 +0000

Bald Mountain Party by Richard C. Hackley and Scott Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at: http://www.mybigblackcock.com/

This means you can play it on commercial and non-commercial radio, remix it, copy it for your friends, put it on your web site, whatever, as long as I am properly credited, this license information is included wherever you choose to put my music, and, if you sample it, remix it, etc., your music containing any part of my music must be released under this same license unless you contact me specifically to negotiate other terms that I agree to.

Here’s the song, in both 320k MP3 and WAV format. (Sorry, FLAC nerds, but you’ll just have to convert your own. Consider it your punishment for the years of y’all being snobby to people on torrent sites, while posting “lossless” copies of things like Sammy Hagar albums. As I’ve said in the past, “When you post Sammy Hagar albums to torrent sites, EVERYBODY loses”.)

Bald Mountain Party: 320k MP3 | WAV

Right-click these files (or Control-click it, on a Mac) and go to “Save as…” to save the. If you want to play them first to hear how they sound, click the play buttons next to the mp3 download links.

Bald Mountain Party
original music by Modest Mussorgsky, adapted by Richard C. Hackley (vocals and keyboards) and Scott Crawford (drum programming, sampling and mixing)
lyrics by Richard C. Hackley

It’s just a lifeless rock
where nothing ever grows
But ev’ry Halloween
a strange event unfolds

Bald Mountain party
Bald Mountain party
Bald Mountain party

No living thing goes near
Bald Mountain party
Even the vultures fear
Bald Mountain party

The party starts at night
attended by the dead
Who frolic in the dark
while humans are in bed

Bald Mountain party
Bald Mountain party
Bald Mountain party

The spooks and skeletons
the ghosts and goblins
They gather at this place
most of them float in

They leap and dance about
a deep and fiery pit
And in the jostling
some of them fall in it.

But no one cares ‘cuz it’s their type of fun
They know it ends with the morning sun

Mayhem and wild abound
Bald Mountain party
No sign of letting down
Bald Mountain party

Some of the creatures fly
up high above the rest
They see an evening meal
and snatch a party guest

That’s how this party goes
there is no courtesy
And everybody knows
“Don’t turn your back on me!”

But when the day begins
Bald Mountain party
This party always ends
Bald Mountain party

‘Cuz they can’t stand the light.

Some info about this song: this is the song that took 143 years to finish, 4 plus of which were my fault! Thank you to Richard, first and foremost, for being patient with me while I took my sweet time on things. The first mention in my inbox of this most unlikely collaboration of ours in my inbox was on April 30th, 2006. That whole “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans” thing applies here. Ironically, Modest Mussorgsky’s “Night On Bald Mountain”, the framework we stretched our song over, also had its share of problems getting finished and released to the public. Mussorgsky didn’t live to hear his composition performed, in fact. Rich and I have at least heard the finished product, and will hopefully live for a good while past it, so we may come out ahead here, knock wood.

My contributions to the song were the drums, all the weird, scratchy, panned out sounds you hear, and I also spent a fair amount of time getting the mix to where it is right now, which mostly involved making Richard’s awesome harmony vocals come to life as the monsters you hear them as now, and staying the hell out of the way of the original piece as much as I could. I gave some serious thought to additional instrumentation, but decided not to put my foot through a Van Gogh, so to speak. Maybe if we do remixes, I’ll have another go at it. Hopefully, you all enjoy what we came up with.

And now, for a bit more on the song, I turn the floor over to the man, the myth, the legend…Richard Hackley.

“Around 2000, I started pondering writing some songs based on the questions, “What if famous composers from history had been prolific song writers instead? What would their famous works sound like in song form? What would their lyrics say?” What held me back from actually putting something together was taking the time to do necessary research of a composer, his life, times, passions, etc. Then, a couple of on-going things dovetailed together.

Scott and I had been in contact (via internet) for a while, and eventually talked about a collaboration. Without being fully honest with Scott at the time, I had silently questioned how this might turn out. Me, as an elderly, Bible-believing, Bible-belt lifer, easy listening, soft-rock crooner type — him, as a younger, New Jersey, not particularly religious, cutting-edge performance artist. We had heard each other’s works. He saw possibility. I only wondered, “What would a child sound like coming from those parents? Could it be anything but a bastard?”
I’d been performing local music programs at various Halloween-themed events since the early 90′s. I was looking for some fresh material. I recalled that Mussorgsky’s “Night on Bald Mountain” was generally about a late-night party of dark forces. With this pre-made story line, I was spared the need for study of Mussorgsky’s life and times. I knew I had a decent library (both in my head and on my shelves) of books, movies, stories, religious doctrines, etc., regarding devilish things. I knew it would not be hard to conjure up my own demonic party in lyrics. So, I thought, how about a spooks-and-goblins collaboration with Scott, based on Mussorgsky’s composition? I was thinking our two styles might merge in this venue. Scott approved the idea. Stage one was completed in my basement. Once I completed all my tracks, I mailed them to Scott who, after digesting what I had done, added his layers.

It’s been a slow and arduous labor for both of us. But, if the child is indeed a bastard, we are both happy with him.”

From here, as mentioned earlier this week, I still need to re-record the vocals on “If I Could” and the slow “Something True” to finish the “babykiller.” album. Gonna try and get this stuff done before the Mayan calendar ends so I can get on with my life and maybe finish writing/record/release some new songs, perhaps even perform some of them live.

While I’ll be doing all of this free of any kind of mandatory charge, and I think I’m going to move forward with that plan for the rest of the time I’m making music, donations of any size above $1.00 USD (below that, and PayPal fees make your donation kind of useless, sadly; if you want to give me less than a dollar, do it in person) are greatly appreciated. Donations will enable me to compensate the people who work on this music with me as best I can (in this case, if you’d like part of your donation to go to Richard, please say “for Bald Mountain Party” on the PayPal form), as well as perform much-needed repairs and upgrades on my aging home studio. Ideally, this will result in more music being made and released, though I’m trying to take this music thing one tiny act at a time these days. In the meantime, thanks in advance for your continuing support, as well as for all the support you’ve given my music and I over the years. As always, if you have any questions about this release or anything else, suck@mybigblackcock.com. For any questions directed to Richard, he can be reached at richardhackley@mybigblackcock.com, or you can contact him via his Soundclick page.

Free Music Volume Nine: “Obsolete”

Scott Crawford — Tue, 18 May 2010 11:52:14 +0000

Obsolete by Scott Crawford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at: http://www.mybigblackcock.com/

Obsolete: 320k MP3 | WAV

Obsolete
Music and lyrics by Scott Crawford
Bass by Kage Hopkins

I used to be a novelty
paranoid child
when aggression was in fashion, drove the little girls wild
They evolved, outgrew “the truth”, but I remained the same

So you’re tired of “reality”?
The Man has heard your cries
gave you cookie cutter demigods with anime eyes
“cute and fully poseable, vapid and disposable”
never be a man like the bastard I am

Can you take me to a time
when opinion ain’t a crime
and the girls will spread their legs for a ringing voice of anger?

Clarity is gone
it’s rebellion.com
and there’s no place in this world for a ringing voice of anger

And I still remember honey on your body and mine
chains were holding us together, but for once, it felt fine
we’re different people now, but some things never go away, yeah

Well, the word came down from heaven
I’ll be going on trial
gonna try to euthanize me, evidence of denial
“Let’s put him on a stage and see just how much he can take;
make him pay for all his actions, make him live with his mistake”

Can you take me to a time
when opinion ain’t a crime
and the girls will spread their legs for a ringing voice of anger?

Clarity is gone
it’s rebellion.com
and there’s no place in this world for the voice of truth

I want to spill my guts on you
make you all feel just like I do
You like your martyrs saccharine sweet?
My way of life is obsolete

Nobody wants me, it eats me alive
and I am so out of focus, I feel like I’m blind
Been through five years of heartache, and 10 years of lies
and I’m just so broken up inside

Will the world ever listen to anyone sane?
I wish someone would douse the fire in my brain
At the end of my rope, as I choke on my pride
and I’m just so goddamn dead inside

Can you take me to a time
when opinion ain’t a crime
and the girls will spread their legs for a ringing voice of anger?

Sanity is gone
It’s a fucking atom bomb
and there’s no place in your world for the voice of truth

I want to kill myself for you
make you all bleed just like I do
and though your gods will taste defeat
my fucking life is obsolete

my fucking life is obsolete

my fucking life is obso-

Some info about this song: this is another one that came together lyrically in about 5 minutes, and took 10 years plus to finally call “finished”. Some of it was recorded here, but most of it was recorded in a duct taped together home studio in Texas. There are almost no actual chords used on the guitar (which was a beaten up electric 12 string with 5 strings on it, run through a distortion pedal with a dying battery). Instead, notes were layered and transposed where chords, or a facsimile of them, were needed. The song’s a bitch to sing live, but I have done it a few times, and the vocals you hear here were all, for better or worse, from a single take.

From here, I’ll finally be releasing my long-awaited collaboration with Richard Hackley soon if Richard and I can just let go and release it into the wild, and I still need to re-record the vocals on “If I Could” and the slow “Something True” to finish the “babykiller.” album. Gonna try and get this stuff done before the Mayan calendar ends so I can get on with my life and maybe finish writing/record/release some new songs, perhaps even perform some of them live.

While I’ll be doing all of this free of any kind of mandatory charge, and I think I’m going to move forward with that plan for the rest of the time I’m making music, donations of any size above $1.00 USD (below that, and PayPal fees make your donation kind of useless, sadly; if you want to give me less than a dollar, do it in person) are greatly appreciated. Donations will enable me to compensate the people who work on this music with me as best I can, as well as perform much-needed repairs and upgrades on my aging home studio. Ideally, this will result in more music being made and released, though I’m trying to take this music thing one tiny act at a time these days. In the meantime, thanks in advance for your continuing support, as well as for all the support you’ve given my music and I over the years. As always, if you have any questions about this release or anything else, suck@mybigblackcock.com.

How We Did In March

Scott Crawford — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 02:47:42 +0000

I told you I was bringing back music stats. The question is, do you care?

Zenova: 161
Tonight: 134
Sybil Instrumental: 130
Puppet: 128
Wolftab: 127
Something In My Drink: 127
Ecstacy: 127
Sybil: 115
Sybil (version): 100
New Song: 84
Untitled: 83
Something True (Overnightscape): 73
Something True: 70
Love Life And Sign: 69
The Scott Crawford Show: 68
Chord: 67

I’m amazed that Baidu respected my robots.txt file, but they did, and I’m working with a far more realistic picture of what the music’s traffic is now. Slower here, of course, but way more realistic, which is also way more helpful.

I will be trying to get “Obsolete” back up over the weekend, like I’ve been saying I’d do for a while. In the meantime, Drop me a line if you’re out there listening and like what you hear.

Thank you for another month of your continued interest and support, and by all means, even if you can’t or won’t donate (the button’s right below this paragraph), please add my page on Facebook, as well as the page for my other band Get Precious.

Music Stats To Return In April

Scott Crawford — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:18:03 +0000

We’ve got a clean month ahead (February started out with some Baidu traffic), so I’ll start posting them again now that I’ve got a slightly more accurate picture of what’s doing. Amazingly, contrary to reports I’ve heard previous to this, excluding Baidu on robots.txt actually worked, or is at least working at the moment.

Also: “Obsolete” is going to be posted very soon, I swear.

Music Traffic Reports On Hold

Scott Crawford — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:48:08 +0000

Baidu traffic went crazy in January (3000-ish plays for “Wolftab”? No way!), so I’m going to change our robots.txt, see if Baidu actually honors it (they’re notorious for ignoring excludes), and proceed from there. Hopefully, at some point, we have a realistic picture of what’s going on here. Stay tuned…

For those of you who were complaining that my music was hard to find even with the category link…

Scott Crawford — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 11:11:08 +0000

“Here, my dear.”

I should be posting “Obsolete” soon, in its current state. I made peace with it, and want to get to the present day at some point in my life.

How We Did In December

Scott Crawford — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 12:21:14 +0000

Man, either the bots like the alt.abortion stuff, or it’s catching on in some part of the world:

December:

Zenova: 932
Wolftab: 690
Something In My Drink: 680
Love Life And Sign: 558
Puppet: 343
Tonight: 281
Something True: 259
Sybil: 248
The Scott Crawford Show: 242
Ecstacy: 203
Sybil Instrumental: 202
Something True (Overnightscape): 177
New Song: 165
Untitled: 159
Sybil (version): 156
Chord: 154

Total:

Zenova: 3522
Wolftab: 2520
Something In My Drink: 2137
Ecstacy: 1984
Sybil: 1974
Tonight: 1743
Sybil Instrumental: 1728
Untitled: 1632
Love Life And Sign: 1627
Puppet: 1620
Sybil (version): 1323
The Scott Crawford Show: 1234
Something True: 1049
Chord: 1040
New Song: 1010
Something True (Overnightscape): 848

The usual lack of specific data accompanies these numbers. Y’all know the drill. Drop me a line if you’re out there listening and like what you hear. Those of you who are fans of this stuff will be pleased to know, in the meantime, that the New Year brings 2 new synths (new to me, anyway) and a returning synth to my renovation-in-progress studio, so hopefully, I’ll be getting started on some stuff with those soon.

How We Did In November

Scott Crawford — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:53:41 +0000

Big jump forward in raw numbers! I’m thinking that Bing’s catching on, whether we want it to or not, since a lot of those hits came from Bing.

November:

zenova: 915
ecstacy: 858
untitled: 563
wolftab: 452
tonight: 414
love life and sign: 314
puppet: 312
something true: 272
something in my drink: 261
the scott crawford show: 245
sybil: 196
sybil inst: 188
something true (overnightscape): 183
sybil vers: 173
new song: 169
chord: 124

total:

zenova: 2577
wolftab: 1830
ecstacy: 1761
sybil: 1726
sybil inst: 1526
untitled: 1473
tonight: 1462
something in my drink: 1457
puppet: 1277
love life and sign: 1069
sybil vers: 1067
the scott crawford show: 992
chord: 886
new song: 845
something true: 790
something true (overnightscape): 671

Still not much real input on who’s listening to what and why (really, these could all be bot hits; whichever…), because I did go with the “give it away and pray” model here, but that’s fine, because as I’ve said before, the other option involves annoying people. As a consumer, I don’t like to be annoyed, so I can’t see the point of promoting a product in a way that would annoy me if someone else were selling it to me. As for what’s being done on my end, the “rebuild the studio” project took a big step forward this week, because I redid things in a way that gives me a ton more workspace. Workspace is our friend. So, we’re inching ever closer to finishing the album, finishing some of the other projects I have laying around here and getting started on some Get Precious work.

How We Did In October

Scott Crawford — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 02:27:57 +0000

6 months of free music! Crazy shit.

October:

something in my drink: 389
wolftab: 380
zenova: 260
sybil: 207
tonight: 198
love life and sign: 186
something true: 199
sybil inst: 179
puppet: 175
the scott crawford show: 169
something true (overnightscape): 168
ecstacy: 143
untitled: 142
chord: 138
sybil vers: 137
new song: 132

total:

zenova: 1662
sybil: 1530
wolftab: 1378
sybil inst: 1338
something in my drink: 1196
tonight: 1048
sybil vers: 994
puppet: 965
ecstacy: 923
untitled: 910
chord: 762
love life and sign: 755
the scott crawford show: 747
new song: 676
something true: 518
something true (overnightscape): 488

Fell *just* short of my goal of 500 plays/downloads for every track (12 short on the live “Something True”, but I’m 18 ahead on the studio one, so that must mean something, right?), but traffic’s been steady, and songs that didn’t do well in other months did well in this one. In total, even if plenty of them are bot hits (and I’m sure they are), there’ve been over 15,000 attempts to access the songs I have on my web site in 6 months. If you’re one of the humans or even one of the bots who’ve done so, I’d love an email telling me who you are, what you thought of the music, or whatever you’d like to tell me.

Donations are still very quiet since the initial batch of ‘em, but again, this is about giving back to music, not just about taking from the people who listen to it. I have the resources, limited though mine are in general, to do this, so I’m doing it. I did put together a list of all of my donors to date, and that will be added to the liner notes for “babykiller.” once I finish rebuilding my studio setup and do the last 2 songs. That’s still a little ways off in terms of both time and money, but it’s coming.

How We Did In September

Scott Crawford — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:44:41 +0000

I bet you thought I forgot about this. Either that, or you didn’t give much of a rat’s ass. “But, sir! I only have this small part of a rat’s ass to spare on this Saturday morning! Please don’t use the curling iron on me!”

September:

zenova: 258
sybil: 258
the scott crawford show: 255
wolftab: 248
something true (overnightscape): 207
ecstacy: 195
something in my drink: 193
sybil inst: 190
puppet: 188
tonight: 178
something true: 161
sybil vers: 146
love life and sign: 145
untitled: 138
chord: 122
new song: 121

total:

zenova: 1415
sybil: 1323
sybil inst: 1159
wolftab: 998
sybil vers: 857
tonight: 850
something in my drink: 807
puppet: 790
ecstacy: 780
untitled: 768
chord: 624
the scott crawford show: 578
love life and sign: 569
new song: 544
something true (overnightscape): 320
something true: 319

Some songs move up the list, some songs move down the list. You know how it goes. By next month, barring any new releases (and I really wanted to get at least one out in October, but I’m not sure how logistically possible that is, as I haven’t even started ripping my studio apart or digging up raw tracks yet), every song on this list will probably have been played or downloaded at least 500 times by something, human or robot. That’s kinda cool. No more news on the donor front, but that’s OK. Donate if you like, don’t if you don’t or can’t afford to. A lot of my doing this is a matter of giving something back to music, which has given me so much. Speaking of donors, I’m still slacking on digging up my PayPal transactions to create a proper donor list for the liner notes, but it is still on the to-do list and I haven’t forgotten about doing it. Been a weird, busy, in some ways rough month, so it’s something I just haven’t gotten to yet. Soon. Thank you for another month of your continued interest and support, and by all means, add my page on Facebook, as well as the page for my other band Get Precious. It’ll make us feel all warm and squishy inside.