Superficial Hero

Not exactly Superficial Hero news…but I have been working on recording a friend’s black metal project, and oddly enough, it’s giving me a lot of ideas for the eventual recording of new Superficial Hero material. I’m working in Logic Pro these days, and it seems like every time I use it I discover something new and awesome about it. At the moment, I’m particularly in love with the endless possibilities availble for Buss and Aux routing on the mixer, and the super intuitive interface for editing together comps of multiple takes. But that’s music tech nerd talk.

Also, I see someone found this site by googling “dylan abbott plays guitar”. Huh. I wonder if I know you. If so….hi?

When I was cataloguing our songs the other day, I forgot a couple. They’re both pretty fragmentary, and one is  untitled, so it’s easy to forget them. But since I just threw together some guitar based demos for Reed, I figured I’d mention them here too. The first, and oldest, one is called “Tilting at Windmills”, and it has exactly four lines of lyrics written. It dates waaaay back in the band history, though I don’t think we ever played it together. It probably showed up on some 4 track demo tapes at some point. The original working title for this one was “General Electric”. Why? Because the first two chords are G and E minor. G. E. Get it?

The second song doesn’t have a title. It’s a mid tempo number, not quite a ballad, but somewhere close to that territory. It strikes me as sort of moody…maybe wistfully melancholy? It’s been around for a while, but enver went anywhere. Maybe we can rescue it from aimlessness now. If I had to come up with a working title for this off the top of my head, I’d call it “Summer”. Why? Because it’s based on chord shapes that I learned from Police songs. Andy Summers being the guitarist of the Police. Yeah.

By my reckoning, Superifical Hero has about 7 “legacy” songs to work on. These are songs that were, for the most part, written and performed during the original lifetime of the band, but never properly recorded or released on one of their two official releases. Here’s a quick rundown for our legions of adoring fans:

She Believes. This is basically the reason we’re even approaching this project. It’s a nice, driving pop song, with loud guitars and a catchy hook and a breakdown that was sometimes anchored by glitchy electronic sounds. If we could record only one of these remaining songs, this would be the one.

Cameo AKA When The Credits Roll. This one had potential, but never quite lived up to it. I think it’ll need a little re-working to be really effective, but it’s pretty close. Heavily rhythmic without sacrificing pop sensibility. Maybe a little too long and scattered in it’s “current” form though.

The Owl in Daylight. This is a good one. It’s built around harmonized guitar/glockenspiel arpeggios over a rolling bass melody, and lots of dynamic changes. It’s engaging, which is surprising since it’s essentially the same chord progression over and over. The lyrics are odd….At this point I think of them being about a very specific person and situation, even though they were written before that situation happened. It was one of those things where after the fact, you can’t imagine the words being about anything else, even though they weren’t about that at the time they were written.

How To Save The World. This is one of my favorite songs from the end of the S. Hero era. The guitar work is creative and odd, in a Sonic Youth-y way, and it’s got a hook that will knock your ass out. Probably second to She Believes on the priority list. It needs a little polishing, but it’s 99% there, I’d say. It also has the lyric that we’re taking our working title from. More about that in a later post.

The Mixed Meter Song. Completely composed, but lacking lyrics. The working title comes from the fact that it moves between 4/4 and 9/8 between the verse nd chorus. There may be some 6/8 thrown in as well. the demo version we were working with had a giant, layered synth string part on top of tom-heavy drums that really brought it home.

Drop D Epic. There’s a 10-minute demo recording of this made on 4-track, but no full band version. It’s played in Drop D tuning, and it’s really long, hence the name. Another track with no lyrics, and that could definitely use some work, but it’s got a lot of promise.

Untitled #3. This one’s not really a legacy song like the others, as it was released on the original Castaway EP, way back in the day. But it evolved a lot during the life of the band, especially after we went drummer-less. There’ a late-era 4 track version that really blows away the original recording, and we’re planning on trying to recapture that energy.

Pacific Daylight. Not even sure I should include this on the list, since it’s pretty lost. There are no remaining recordings, and neither if us really remember how to play it. I remember some bass chords, an outro in 5/4, and a difficult guitar part to sing along with. We’ll really have to jog our memories on this one. It may be lost forever…

And finally, there’s a bit of a new song in the works. So far it’s just a couple of guitar parts and a vague idea of an arrangement, but I’m already excited about it. Reed hasn’t heard this one yet, so maybe we’ll get a second opinion of it soon. If I can get off my ass and get him a demo recording.

So that’s the run down. We’ll see where this set of songs takes us in the next little while.

A note for interested parties: The original Superficial Hero website is still online, ont he free hosting service it original resided on. Please take a stroll through the internet of yesteryear; a land of splash pages, browser and resolution recommendations, framset tags, and image maps for navigation. I don’t think this site is supposed to be online, since it hasn’t been touched in well over 5 years, but it still contains an archive of blog posts, show announcements, and lyrics. The version at that link is the second design, and also includes a link to an archive of the very first design that went online before the first show. Truly a walk down memory lane.

A band was started almost a decade ago. It was formed by the members of another band that was started even farther back. They wrote some songs, played osme shows, recorded a couple of releases, drifted apart and disappeared.

Well, now they’re returning.

Superificial Hero was originally active in Sonoma County circa 1999-2001. Their lineup included Dylan Abbott on guitar and vocals, Reed Raymond on bass, Lonnie Gilmore on drums, MRC on drums sometimes, and a drum machine and some keyboards powered by a battered desktop PC. Dylan and Reed are currently planning on reviving a slate of songs that they performed towards the end of the bands life, but never properly recorded. Some of these songs were among their best (in the opinion of the band itself) but were never done justice. We’re changing that/ this blog will document that process.

The complicated part of this? Dylan and Reed are now living several hundred miles away from each other. Technology is a wonderful thing though, so we’ll see how that helps them realize their ambitions. Stay tuned.