Benjie Messer

It’s been a few months since I wrote- I’ve just been having too much fun with Bad Cactus Brass Band! We had a packed December, performing at the Desert Botanical Garden’s twenty Luminaria Nights, as well as various tree-lighting parties around town. In the spirit of New Years resolutions, we’re shooting to record our first album soon. We’ll be recording it at a live show sometime in the next few months- I’ll post more details when I know more. We’re also looking ahead to Mardi Gras in February, which should be our next really busy season.

I’ve had a nice break from composing, but it’s time to jump back in. This month I’ll be working on the latest episode of Carol Benwell’s “Stand Up Guy”, and writing music for a short film by the Rebel Filmmaker AZ Group titled “Of Blood and Gin.”

At One Light Music, we finally released the first-ever complete karaoke Messiah, which helped push Spiritrax through a great holiday season. We’ve done a few musicals for Desert Stages Theater and a Sondheim collection for Stage Stars Records. We’re also working on some extensive back-end changes to improve the functionality of Productiontrax and give it room to grow.

The Bad Cactus Brass Band has been playing a ton of gigs, having a great time, and sounding awesome. Jim Phillips of the Arizona Classic Jazz Society came to our last show at the Lost Leaf, and described us excitedly as what it would have been like “if Bix Biederbecke had a garage band.” We have many more dates coming up, and it’s always a good time, so if you’re free, come by and say hi! I’ve also been sitting in a bit with the Digital Blues Band and the Sugarthieves, but most of my focus has been on Bad Cactus. The band knows 3-4 hours of material by now. We also have our first “spin-off” gig coming up, where we get to break out our polka and klezmer books- fun!

In composing, I finished the music for “Got Milk?”, a short comedy by Chris Redish. It’s included as a bonus on the DVD with his film “20% Off”, and it’ll be making the festival rounds over the next few months. It’s not available online- some of the festivals he’s entering it in won’t screen it if it’s been broadcast. I also wrote a theme for Carol Benwell’s web comedy series “Stand Up Guy”, and scored episode 3, “Good Cop Bad Cop”.

Work has been busy. We finished a huge musical for Desert Stages, and I’m doing a batch of miscellaneous tracks for Stage Stars Records, and then hopefully turning my attention to finishing the Messiah and bulking up the winter holiday content on Spiritrax. Productiontrax has been growing by leaps and bounds too, particularly the stock video section.

Some other news: At Best Derivative has been picked up for distribution! The entertainment company that bought the rights is aiming to re-release the 2-disc DVD nationwide on November 17th. I’ll be very curious to see where it ends up- if you see it at a video store, or on demand in a hotel or something, let me know!

We just started a “DJ Elements” category on Productiontrax, for anything expressly meant for sampling or live use by DJ’s, and we started giving our contributors a choice to offer permission to sample their work (or not). So I wrote two tracks at the end of the day yesterday to get the categories started- each is available both as a full track and as separate instruments- here are the full tracks:

Latin Chillout

Trance

This is really my job? Really?

A few months ago, we got a visit at the office from a video producer named Mark Bork, who had recently moved to Phoenix from Idaho and found our name in the AZ Production Association book. Mark hired us to write music for a promotional video he was producing for a tape company called Bron Tapes. We wrote a few samples for him in different styles. They ended up picking my boss David’s first inspiration, a techno track which works perfectly. To see the video, just click here, and then on the bottom of the page click on “New Promotional Video”.

Anyway, I finally got around to posting my two unused samples on Productiontrax, so enjoy:

Funk Factory
Mark asked for “industrial” music, which means “slick, motivational, and corporate” to people who do a lot of these. I thought he meant “sounds like a factory”. Oh well, I have to make every mistake once! I kind’ve wonder what’s supposed to happen on the bridge, since I stopped writing just as it got there.

Stadium Rock
This has a fun vibe, but again, wasn’t right for the project. I had fun tweaking the digital guitar amps, getting the distortion just like I wanted it.

See, this is why my job is so great. I can make all the mistakes I need to, and still have a job the next day. That’s a luxury you don’t get freelancing.

I wrote these for a new company called Reel TV, that hosts and streams films- sort’ve like a professional-level YouTube for filmmakers, film students, actors, corporate videos, etc. They just wanted some one-minute tracks for their members to get as a perk when they joined their site. It was the most fun I’ve had at my job yet. They sent us examples of songs in the style they wanted, and we were free to make the rest up.

Alone With the Monster
Their example had hard-rock guitars over a funky beat. It reminded me of the music in my new Prince of Persia video game, so I added bird calls and sitar.

Desertscape
Straight-up Middle Eastern music. Their example had a vocalist, which I left room for in the beginning, and the empty space ended up being the best part.

Speedily
For two days, I kept trying to write action music, and it would turn out all labored and introverted. I finally finished this, but I think it still sounds a little stale.

Swat Team
I did this action theme in half the time of the last one, and it’s the first thing I wrote that my boss didn’t edit at all! I’m pleased at how consistent the concept is- like I can hear that it all came out in one piece.

X-Bump
My example was electronica, with sudden odd changes in texture. Totally new territory for me, which was fun.

So the other website we run at work is Productiontrax, which is a royalty-free media library. Hundreds of contributors sell the rights to their music and other media through Productiontrax, and thousands of people who need stock media (indie filmmakers, video game designers, website designers, etc.) come there to buy the rights to music, photography, sound effects, and video. It’s all sold royalty-free, at whatever price the contributors set.

Anyway, I’m excited that I finally stayed after work and scored a cue of my own to put up there. It’s just a short, gentle thing for strings. I had just seen Peter Jackson’s first Lord of the Rings movie, and was seeing in my head the overhead establishing shot of the hobbit village. I should go back and see what Howard Shore did there- probably something a little more lively.

Pastoral Village

There are tons more of these written down in my file cabinet at home, and hopefully sometime I’ll stay at work late and do some more.

It’s been six months since I moved to Arizona. For the last four years in Boston, I was teaching elementary general music, basing most of my curriculum on my Kodaly training. When I moved, I decided not to take a teaching job, and instead to try to make a career of being a musician. I miss teaching a lot, but not enough to go back just yet.

Anyway, I’m definitely a professional musician now, and thought that friends and family might like to to check this site occasionally to hear what I’ve been doing lately. Let me know if it’s useful to you, or if it’s not. It’s been fun for me so far.

I now work at One Light Music Productions, Inc., and my job title is Composer/Arranger. I just had my six-month review, and my boss and I agreed that I was doing an excellent job. We create custom music for various clients, including a karaoke record label in New York. We also run two big websites: Productiontrax, which is a major player in the royalty-free music and media industry, and Spiritrax, which sells religious karaoke music.

I used to dream during college about being a professional composer/arranger, but I could never afford the computer gear that professional composers are expected to have these days. So getting paid to write music on someone else’s equipment is a real dream come true.