
D.N.S. <Knock-Yourself-Out>
"I Don't Even Have An Opinion..."
| ||||
| The Actual Update Blog | 616 giorni fa | |||
| Okies, so if anyone hasn't noticed already, there has been a long quiet spell at camp DNS (the non-gay reference is implied here). There has been good reason(s) for this, namely Chriis' appendix, Dara's Leaving Cert and Neil and Ken's drug addictions. Glad all that's over... So basically what's going down over the next few weeks and months is this; there more than likely won't be much gigging from us until summertimesummertimesummertime, but that's not to say we shan't be working away. We hope to have around 5 new originals by then, aswell as buttloads of covers. This isn't any kind of excuse posting or anything, nor is it a publishng to clarify our ongoing existance, it's merely an update. Now the philisophical/BS part: It is important to take a step back as a band and figure out what ye want, as playing the same old gigs with the same old songs is a bit boring. We have nearly fully established outr purpose and have been writing songs that have moulded themselves into a newish sound that is either going to impress you or revolt you. That's the god honest truth and that's a god awful haircut you have there Neil... So if you would kindly keep on supporting this little ship of hope and maybe we'll bang out the odd tune or two before summertimesummertimesummertime. Go raibh mile maith agaibh. Also, look out for the upcoming projects involving DNS members; Bearded Onslaught, Teh Blues Band and Tralee United Keep it in your pants, Neil and the band | ||||
| 2 commenti | ||||
| The Stories Behind The Music Of DNS | 842 giorni fa | |||
The idea for this blog was utterly and totally ripped off from a blog posted not so long ago by another Tralee band by the name of Stupid Betty. I thought it was a great idea and decided it would be fun to do the same thing for songs by DNS. So here it is, the stories behind the songs and the names of the songs, in chronological order, no doubt. Thanks to Ivan, Mark, Colin and Tony for not filing lawsuit. Tough Love It was the summer of 2006 and 4 young sons were occupying their time by playing loud music in a spare house somewhere in the vicinity of Oakpark, Tralee. After half learning a classic Led Zeppelin tune, the lads felt it was high-time they self penned a song to show the world (the KDYS side of it) that they were much more than a bad cover band. We had already been jamming like mad, not really intending to keep any ideas for actual songs, when Ken suggested that we do a sort of guitar/drum duel riff thing, which transpired to be the intro to Tough Love, so in reality it was the drummer who instigated the writing of this song. The first song. Ever. After we looped the opening bars a couple of times, the band burst in to an out-and-out jamfest for no shorter than 20 minutes, each member putting equal amounts of sweat into this funky facade of thick-skinned riffery. At the end of this initial play, we had all the intro parts and the 2 first verse parts down. Then we went to the shop for, among other things, Fruit Pastilles and Ice-Burgers. When we returned we recorded the next jam onto our ghetto tape player to see what it sounded like to outside ears. Being, inexperienced in the art of songwriting, we thought this was the coolest stuff ever written. Well, I did anyway. The next day we played together, as far as I can remember, we literally 'balled in' the outro section, which we conjured from nowhere. It was going swimmingly. At home later that week, I (that is, Neil) was messing about with simple powerchords and came up with the cheesy chorus, but it went perfectly with the rest of the song, and so, it stuck. We had the bones of our first original!! 'Oooooh, this is so much fun' we said. I'm not sure if that happened or not, anyway, it seemed all that was left was lyrics and a solo, and heaven knows how much I would suck at both of those, but I was nominated to do the former out of necessity, so I stepped up to the plate. I based the lyrics on my very little knowledge of the alien race sometimes referred to as females. This gets cheesier every second. So I sat in my room, humming the verse music in my head, and basically free-wrote the lot. I was actually quite proud of it at the time, I especially liked the way that it didn't rhyme. Not so typical for a first song, might I add. The title is pretty self explanatory; The chorus refers to the fact that love, or what you might think is love at the time, is a pain in the ass, and will come back to haunt you once it dies. The solo was also written in the weeks following the initial writing, but I don't want to dwell on that to much. Nobody wants to know where I ripped the licks from, do they?? So that's it, the story of a song, start to finish. After 8 In the last few days before Dara Ken and Neil were shipped off back west for 3 weeks to speak Irish to an insufferable mid-wife, the main/verse riff was penned in the early afternoon in the brothers' bedroom. I had just being toying with it really, not expecting to have it used for anything in particular. When we arrived at the Gaeltacht, we were pleased/surprised to notice that the room we had been assigned to also contained the 2 next-most metalheads on the course. It was strange that only 3 people in the whole place had long hair, and all of them were in the same room. Naturally, we befriended these new boys in ways which are too graphic to mention, and it wasn't long before we discovered that Adam Govan, the dirty goth freak from Dublin, had brought his acoustic guitar down with him, so I (who had his electric tucked underarm) had a jamming buddy for the next 21 days. One evening when we were wasting time, I showed Adam the main part to this not-yet song, and we both started gluing bits here and there, and eventually we had a full tune. I asked Adam to write lyrics, just to see how he went about it, and upon being requested a topic, Ken said "Just write it about being fucked off your head, Y'know like, I'm sure you've done your fair share...", so that was that. There is a really early cut of the song with Adam on vocals, which we ghetto-taped, floating around somewhere in the practice house. After the Gaeltacht ended, the 3 DNS lads returned to Tralee for more practice in 'The Other House'. We decided to show it to Chris and he said that he liked it; "I like it" he said. So it was pretty much implied that this would be the next song to be completed. Although there was much ground already covered, there was far to go to turn this acoustic affair into the physc-rock trip we were aiming for. I spent a few hours at home looking at the lyrics, understanding them and changing parts that I either didn't get or like. The end result is rather different than the original tape, wether it is better or not, no one will ever know... Dara had bust out this bass solo that went perfectly with the rather strange middle section, and Ken had the drums down after a couple of run-throughs. Chris put his own spin on the vocal melody, and after about a week the only thing left was a title. The first title we made up, and was still being used up until after out first gig, was 'Mean John', which really had no relevance to the subject of the song, other than the fact that Mean John refers to certain pavee, and that pavee's drink and do drugs etc. We liked the title none the less, as it sparked a humorous fire which can be traced back to Ewan Lynch's gross misunderstanding of the phrase 'Peter, I mean John', who is foxy behemoth of a traveller, who's nose has been broken more times than he's had a solid meal, and who's intimidating stature has struck fear into the heart of many a Tralee youth. I'm trailing a little off the mark here, but I feel it is my duty to warn ye, ye rapscallions ye. At this stage we were back to school a few months, settling into TY (except for Dara, the 5th year mogasaurous rex) and the idle conversation in class often leaned towards band business. In art one day (it's shocking how vivid this is in my memory), we were discussing what the next songs we should write should be about, and Ken, as creative as ever, suggested one about getting plastered every weekend, a hobby quite familiar to all of us at this stage. I said that we already had one that was kinda about that, and then he said he meant something about like knocking yourself out. We all thought that was a really cool idea, and then Ken said something about how usually after around 8 O' Clock every Friday or Saturday, there would always be at least one of us in a state of need, ie. Mouldy. Considering the fact that we thought the 'Mean John' title wasn't working aswell as we had intended, it was mutually agreed that we should amend it to (following a bout of deep discussion) 'After 8'. Other meanings that can be drawn from this include 'The state of us after 8 pints', 'The state of us after 8 joints' and, of course, 'Yum yum I love After Eights, the mint centre inside all that rich chocolate...Heaven! You now know the story of our second song, and for those of you who are going 'OMGZ DNESSS DuNt rIght thEyZZZ oWn mUsAkZZZ!!!!1111, it was merely the product of a friendship in a time of boredom. It's not like we ever tried to hide it either. So there you go, song uimhir a dó, sin é!!! We Urgently Need Clothing After a full summers worth of practicing almost everyday, mostly just messing around and trying new riffs with random things, we had stockpiled a huge amount of half-songs, melodies and parts. Some of these were just dumb, such as the one where we had a bongo groove under a Thin Lizzy-style riff, or the 5/4 slap bass/drum crazy thing that never got farther than a couple of bars without getting ridiculously bad. The point I am trying to get across here is that we had alot of things that could have been the basis for our next song. Thank god we chose the simple one, an Arctic Monkeys-type powerchord riff which was passably OK for a new tune. Although we didn't play this song live until November 8th 2006, we had been working on in in some way or another since the middle of the summer. The main part came about through idle jamming and originally had the snare drum copying the guitar rhythm, with the bass doing the same thing as it does to this day, but it felt empty without the pounding drum pattern you hear now, so that is what we went for. We thought it sounded fairly good, even if it was a bit indie-schmindy for my liking. As clueless as ever about the lyrical direction for the song, I asked Chris to give the whole writing thing a shot, and he said that he start anyway, and not to mind the results. I informed him that I'd write lyrics aswell, and maybe we could mash them together in some way to make a kind of super-lyric that would blow minds and hearts wide open. Or not. One thing we had do get started before the commencing of lyrics-writing (at least for my part) was verse and chorus music, so we donned our thinking caps once more. There was a follow-on section that could be used as a verse already floating around after the summer, but it was very gappy and didn't really take the song anywhere in particular. But it gave a clue as to what was to come next. We also had the stoppy part after the second verse 100% done since the summer. I suggested that we should have a verse where it goes like one line of singing then a guitar melody thing to break up the monotony of the whole thing, and it would be different to the other two songs we had done already. The guys thought that'd be a good idea and we went to work on the thing, using the C powerchord as the singing part, and putting an upper-register descending chord pattern in after. Sorry to get all technical on all ye non-music guys, but this is all important. I think. So I went home with the knowledge of how many words could fit in every line and so went about finding said words. The resulting lyrics sheet was quite possibly the worst I have ever produced. The way it was written was so cheesy you wouldn't believe it, and all the lines were as predictable as Christmas. I went along to practice and showed it to the boyos, and they quite naturally were very reluctant to say yes to it, so I immediately started thinking of another angle of attack. By the way, and I suppose this should have been mentioned this before, the subject for this song was something along the lines of how very drunk we were getting most nights of the summer, and how this made it the best summer ever. At this stage, it was well after the summer, and we were working on the deadline of debuting this tune at the CBS The Green gig in November, so there was no time spared in working on it. In the next few days, it was decided that the lyrics should specifically focus on the few nights of The Rose of Tralee festival, and how all the town was just gathered in a square, dancing, watching bands and drinking themselves silly all in the name of Ray Darcy. Not exactly, I suppose, but anyway, I went about it, while Chris worked his magic on his own set of words. Since he wasn't around during the festival, he had his own Ballyhuige-based ramblings. We showed up with our finished lyrics on the same practice day, a Saturday no doubt. Showdown. Again, not exactly. Chris tried his own work first with the music we had so far, and we all had our part to say about it, and then the same as done with the other lyrics. Then a very strange thing happened. It was a Saturday evening, so we all said we'd go to mass. Upon returning, all of us thinking about the lyrics situation, Ken was warming up his little handsies since it had been rather chilly outside and, in the process, dropped one of his sticks mid-fill, resulting in a unique-sounding kind of drum pattern. I told him to do it again, and he said that he couldn't remember what it sounded like. I hummed it out for him and he started looping this crazy beat, and I joined in on guitar, and the rest of this story will be finished in the 'Knock Yourself Out' chapter, as that it what resulted from this jam so fine. It had so been decided by a higher power which lyrics were chosen for this current song, and it seemed to be working perfectly. We used the intro riff as the chorus, with different drums, obviously. Dara was the creative force behind the next part, the chromatic stomp, as I like to call it, as of right now. I didn't like it at the start, and I protested against it's use. Alas, it grew on me within 5 or so minutes, and then the elder brother made up a bassline that can only be described as 'Fucking Cool'. I put a funky-staccato 2 chord riff over it and Ken knocked out the beat which held the thing down in legend fashion. The rest of the thing wrote itself, and again we came to the naming process. There is a picture on the DNS bebo of one of the toms on the crappy kit with a big yellow sticker on it that says 'We Urgently Need Clothing'. It is an advert for one of those charities whereby you donate old clothes. Ken had the idea that this catchy phrase could be applied to the fact that we always got in some way naked while drinking during the festival. So it stuck. End of story. Very long story. More coming soon, stay tuned. P.S. comments would be greatly appreciated. P.P.S. Shane Young is trying to blackball us, don't listen to him. -DNS Crew. More coming soon, stay tuned. | ||||
| 6 commenti | ||||
| Maybe We Shouldn't Gloat Since John Buggy Said Not To But... | 860 giorni fa | |||
| Sneem Battle of the Bands went very well, I think everyone will agree. Despite the shitty weather, the turn out was OK, everyone played a legendary gig, to be fair, and it was a great day/night out. I am aware of the alleged 'Dodgy Judging' but, alas, every dog has it's day... 4th Place: Conforza 3rd Place: The Unknown Saints 2nd Place: Gnossis 1st Place: D.N.S I am genuinely shocked that Trench did not place, or win for that matter. They had the whole crowd going, and they performed legendarily. Gwan lads. Finally, I would just like to say that if you were in one of the bands that playd and are reading this, well-the-fuck done! Cya. | ||||
| 7 commenti | ||||
| Best News We've Had In A Long Time!!! | 889 giorni fa | |||
| D.N.S hit the shops!!!! Blastbeat Volume V. is now available in Roxy Records Tralee, aswell as several other record stores nationwide. It features overall winners Hotstop, Munster winners Setmaker, and Tralee winners D.N.S. More info here http://www.blastbeat.org/news/bb_new... Go buy now!!!!!!! It is also available to download from iTunes, for 99cent per song, but your only interested in our one, right. | ||||
| 0 commenti | ||||
| Bangin' out Tunes | 927 giorni fa | |||
| We have decided to take time to write some new material for the coming weeks. We nearly have one song done already and hopefully another couple will come together quite shortly. We are also planning to do some covers, that we know will rumble your 'regions'....... Possibly, some acoustic sets may be done in the meantime.... Who knows? Well, thats 'bout it for the moment, S'later. | ||||
| 0 commenti | ||||
| MySpace Users Ahoy. | 933 giorni fa | |||
| Add us on MySpace, 'cos if your reading this you're interested. Love Y'all. Thanks Steven McGuire (see i used the other one this time, Steve!) and the brilliant Jess.... | ||||
| 0 commenti | ||||
| Rocked Out Of It. | 976 giorni fa | |||
| Well, I would like to start off this short message with the quote of the day, the very clever "Looks like it's back to the drawing board for Blueprint". Blueprint are a band that failed to show today. Anyway, it turned out that the winning band of today's Blastbeat Regional Final in Munster were Setmaker, an extremely talented folk/rock band from Cork. KVX (or KFC, as they will henceforth be known) came runners up, after a quirky and exhillerating live performance, complete with glockenspiel solo. The complete list of bands were: Twisted Jack Nasty DNS Fade To Flame KVX Setmaker Huge Mad Unreal thank you to all Tralee folk who showed up, ye rocked harder than a boat in a storm. We seriously love ye all. Photos and shit should be up on www.blastbeat.org, and any photos you have, kindly let them be seen up here. I mean come on, there were smoke machines!!!!!! Thanks, Dwarf. | ||||
| 2 commenti | ||||
| Just A Notice. | 981 giorni fa | |||
| Well I'd just like to say that, as you may have noticed, we have not played any new originals or covers in ages. The reasons for this are threefold: (i) We have not had much time to practice (ii) Somebody wouldn't learn the songs we chose (iii) Any attempts at original material were quickly scuppered as they lacked the sheer unrealness of previous efforts (I think) Anyway, we are trying to resolve this problem, and will hopefully rock your socks off at future live dates, with new stuff to blow your mind wide open. Thank you for your patience. Sincerely, Johnny DNS | ||||
| 0 commenti | ||||
| XXXXXXXXXXxxxxxxxx - Lovely Lyrics For The Tunes - xxxxxxxxXXXXXXXXXX | 1026 giorni fa | |||
| Tough Love Babe we have got to, We have got to find a way, 'Cause we're stuck and you know, We can't go on like this baby. Honey I can't, I can't recognise you no more, 'Cause your face is like mine, And it's changing in time girl, And you know it is (Chorus) Tough Luck Tough Luck Woman Tough Luck, And You Know It Is Tough Love That's What We Got Now Honey Tough Love That's What We Got Now, Got Now I have no idea how we got this way girl, It just happened. It was always gonna be, hard for me to tell you. There ain't no winners, In this game of love love we're playin', It's just you and me, pullin' the same old tricks again But It's Just (Chorus) (Shredding) (Chorus) -With "UGH" Neileo Carroll and Chris T. White ================================= After 8 Where I stand I can't see myself. There ain't no mirrors in the corner. Thick smoke rises up from the floorboards. Through it all I wonder...... If everyone can relate to this, It's today but today don't exist. (Chorus) Yesterday's Comin'. x2 Human faces in and out of sight. Who's been coloring my friends? Blurry eyes follow left to right. Who can say what I intend? Now I'm wide and open minded, Have I been misguided? (Chorus) Well Mr. Stranger now your face is blue. And your inside's under your eyes. Well you said now can I help you? I said OK, lets go fly........ And now ny mind is soarin'. All the while my body's pourin'. (Chorus) x2 Adam Govan and Smelly Boy and Ken ============================ We Urgently Need Clothing What a relief, a release from having to stand in your lines. I ain't got very much of it so please don't you waste all my time. Late nights and socialising's my kind of education. I'm not another 'perfect kid' with high hopes and high expectations. (Chorus) Comin' Over The Mountain, I Can See Those City Lights, The Days I've been Countin' Turn Into Summer Nights. Running around, stop and talk to any person you find. Don't hold yourself back now just let it infiltrate in your mind. Your eyes make out red and white dancing lights that move through your soul. "Some" of us are too young but you can never be too old. (Chorus) You've been with the boys, the ones with the bloodshot eyes. And you step into my home and you try to sell me all of your lies. I say "Mother, you're wrong, I've never touched a drug in my life, I'm just happy enough to be young and free and careless and part of the hype". (Chorus) Now you're dancin' like a whiteboy. I can see you dancin' like a whiteboy. (x2) You're a disgrace boy. You're runnin late boy. You're too late boy. Get on home boy. (Chorus) x2 O' Boogie and Carthy Mangan -Enjoyness- | ||||
| 0 commenti | ||||
| Tunes | 1029 giorni fa | |||
| O.K. so we totally like went to Killarney today to record 3 songs and stuff with Tony O' Flaherty what a legend! It went pretty O.K. hope you all like the stuff. thanks to Adam Govan on the co-writing of "After 8" and junk. Sound man. | ||||
| 0 commenti | ||||
| ||||
Pubblicità