The Very Melon Project
created by Luke Johnson
"Very Melon" is a modern art project that involves audio tracks and a few small visuals (prints). It was created by Luke Johnson of the band Roosterhead.
Very Melon is a musical, contemporary offshoot of the Bizzarokawaii Movement, and it features low-fi brilliance that creates a unique listening experience. The album was made with the goal of taking a song too weird to classify and transcribing it into seven completely different genres of music, all performed by one musician using anything but state-of-the-art equipment. The genres chosen were acoustic (busking-style), rock, jazz, swing, dance, country and a capella and the instruments used were acoustic and electric guitars, a trap set, an electric bass guitar, a harmonica, a vibraslap and a bugle. It was completed this past summer.
Luke recorded on an old Portastudio 4-track cassette recorder setup a la Guided By Voices' early years, but then I mixed and mastered each song using a free digital editing program called Audacity. I tried to stay true to the instrumentation and feel for each genre; for example, the country version featured jangly acoustic and electric guitars, harmonica, honky-tonk-style bass and shuffling drums, while the dance version used heavy vocal delays and a synth effect played on an electric bass guitar and featured a breakdown section typical of the genre.
These are the tracks:
1. Very Melon (Acoustic Busking)
2. Very Melon (Rock)
3. Very Melon (Jazz)
4. Very Melon (Swing)
5. Very Melon (Dance)
6. Very Melon (Country)
7. Very Melon (A Capella)
Background:
"This past summer, my best friend from high school, Chris Dog, invited me to his wedding. Pretty normal thing, right? Well, not exactly...the last time I'd seen him, I was moving to California and he was moving to Japan; one of the biggest things we had in common was a shared determination to make our dreams happen, and those dreams were sending us both thousands of miles from home in opposite directions. Also, it was clear that this wasn't going to be an ordinary wedding in any sense of the word; he was marrying a Korean gal who didn't speak a word of English, and Chris Dog didn't speak a word of Korean...they talked to each other in Japanese, a language that neither of their families spoke, and as I didn't speak any Asian languages whatsoever, this was going to be an event where communication was mostly impossible!
While mentally preparing for the randomness that I knew would soon ensue, I thought of the perfect wedding present. Chris Dog thoroughly enjoyed the wackiest of Japanese anime, and one of his favorites was an obscure show that featured a villain shaped like a giant letter “V” with a weakness for melon that resulted in an episode featuring the strangest, funniest song, Very Melon. I don't know if it was the broken English translation, or just the absurdity of singing an ode to fruit, but this song more than any other made Chris Dog laugh, and with all the confusion and stress that he would be facing at the wedding while trying to decipher and translate all the different languages, he would need a laugh more than ever. My wedding present would be a CD containing a recording of Very Melon...check that, seven different versions, one for every day of the week, all in different genres that Chris Dog was familiar with, with me playing all the instruments. The result was a hilarious performance art project that has garnered attention in the OC Art scene."
created by Luke Johnson
"Very Melon" is a modern art project that involves audio tracks and a few small visuals (prints). It was created by Luke Johnson of the band Roosterhead.
Very Melon is a musical, contemporary offshoot of the Bizzarokawaii Movement, and it features low-fi brilliance that creates a unique listening experience. The album was made with the goal of taking a song too weird to classify and transcribing it into seven completely different genres of music, all performed by one musician using anything but state-of-the-art equipment. The genres chosen were acoustic (busking-style), rock, jazz, swing, dance, country and a capella and the instruments used were acoustic and electric guitars, a trap set, an electric bass guitar, a harmonica, a vibraslap and a bugle. It was completed this past summer.
Luke recorded on an old Portastudio 4-track cassette recorder setup a la Guided By Voices' early years, but then I mixed and mastered each song using a free digital editing program called Audacity. I tried to stay true to the instrumentation and feel for each genre; for example, the country version featured jangly acoustic and electric guitars, harmonica, honky-tonk-style bass and shuffling drums, while the dance version used heavy vocal delays and a synth effect played on an electric bass guitar and featured a breakdown section typical of the genre.
These are the tracks:
1. Very Melon (Acoustic Busking)
2. Very Melon (Rock)
3. Very Melon (Jazz)
4. Very Melon (Swing)
5. Very Melon (Dance)
6. Very Melon (Country)
7. Very Melon (A Capella)
Background:
"This past summer, my best friend from high school, Chris Dog, invited me to his wedding. Pretty normal thing, right? Well, not exactly...the last time I'd seen him, I was moving to California and he was moving to Japan; one of the biggest things we had in common was a shared determination to make our dreams happen, and those dreams were sending us both thousands of miles from home in opposite directions. Also, it was clear that this wasn't going to be an ordinary wedding in any sense of the word; he was marrying a Korean gal who didn't speak a word of English, and Chris Dog didn't speak a word of Korean...they talked to each other in Japanese, a language that neither of their families spoke, and as I didn't speak any Asian languages whatsoever, this was going to be an event where communication was mostly impossible!
While mentally preparing for the randomness that I knew would soon ensue, I thought of the perfect wedding present. Chris Dog thoroughly enjoyed the wackiest of Japanese anime, and one of his favorites was an obscure show that featured a villain shaped like a giant letter “V” with a weakness for melon that resulted in an episode featuring the strangest, funniest song, Very Melon. I don't know if it was the broken English translation, or just the absurdity of singing an ode to fruit, but this song more than any other made Chris Dog laugh, and with all the confusion and stress that he would be facing at the wedding while trying to decipher and translate all the different languages, he would need a laugh more than ever. My wedding present would be a CD containing a recording of Very Melon...check that, seven different versions, one for every day of the week, all in different genres that Chris Dog was familiar with, with me playing all the instruments. The result was a hilarious performance art project that has garnered attention in the OC Art scene."