Kurt Von Stetten

Things a camera would say

KVS — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 01:45:27 +0000

Hey I am master of my destiny (and meaning)
Hey I am floating in obscurity
Hey I am making do with who I am
Hey I am making images to see
Sans feeling
Sans motion
Sans family
OH!
Hey I am wringing hands and stabbing backs
Hey I am moving forward and looking back

I am an IMPOSTER!

KVS — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 03:35:47 +0000

Demo Song about an actor that takes himself too seriously.

Fatherless sons

KVS — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:34:15 +0000

This weekend I have been going through the last 6months of song ideas because I am dropping off some tracks to The Bridge Sound and Stage for mixing. I came across this song- that I kind like but had forgot about. There are some things that I would change if it ever made it to the next album, but here it is. It is about a bunch of boys who don’t have fathers and are trying to come up with mottoes to live by.

Stills from new animation for the video “pussy”

Anger!

KVS — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:19:48 +0000

A bad childhood can mean a lifetime of anger. It certainly doesn’t help if you were given away by your parents at age 11 to go work for rich folks, live in a cellar, and never have enough to eat…

(please excuse the final cut pro shenanigans- still learning)

Spy Song!

KVS — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:51:11 +0000

Break his heart- don’t hold his hand….

KVS — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 04:26:30 +0000

Last week was very busy! CYCLOPS was released and many fine folks had a lot of good things to say about it (see blog postings below). I am very thankful to those of you who bought the record! I also debuted my video for Code of Fishermen- please check it out if you haven’t already. Below is also a song that did not make the cut for CYCLOPS, but may be on the next album. I have to tell you I am not exactly sure what the lyrics mean, but I know it was about a guy waiting for a girl to break up with a boyfriend so that he could move in.

Kudos for CYCLOPS:

DYSON SOUND

MUSIC SAVAGE

EARMILK

MY CAR IS FULL OF PLUMS

IMPOSE

EKAYA

INTERVIEW ON WMBR

Here is also a page of song notes that I found today with Angie as we were cleaning- I laughed for a while when I read this- who will ever take me seriously?

“break his heart, don’t hold his hand!

Enter the Cylcops!

KVS — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 03:01:55 +0000

My new album Cyclops is almost ready for release! The release date is DEC 13th! So to take a break from things I still have to do for the 10″ record and animated video I thought I would take a second and reflect on this last year. For some reason this group of songs on Cyclops, at least in my head, seemed to coalesce around fantasy and people that get caught up in ideas. Many of these songs describe people who are overwhelmed or captivated by a fantastic narrative. A Cyclops makes an appearance in one song (more on that in a later post)- and it seemed to make sense to me to have these songs wrapped up in this mythical figure-the cyclops- so that is what I titled the album.

Here are a couple of stills from the video I am working on for Code of Fishermen

A falling Cyala (group of male cyclops-es)

2011 presented a fair amount of challenges. It was a year fraught with peril and peppered with scurrilous characters bent on destroying all that is good. Here is a song about a man on the verge of making some really bad life choices, just because he was bored and scared of growing old. This song did not make the cut this year (it was not finished by the time I was editing for Cyclops- and is now different from this version).

Very specific feelings

KVS — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 02:48:11 +0000

The Hunter and the Deer

KVS — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 17:27:55 +0000

This is probably when people start to wonder aloud if I have lost it- because I am drawing human faced deer all day long (no one seemed to give a crap about the owls, but the deer- people aint tryin to hear that). I don’t know how I came into this story- I have been looking at old German children’s stories about the Black Forest, but none of them involve a deer. I just figured it was cool to draw- and for all of the indie rock bands with “deer” in their name none of them have any deer art on their records. So here we are- this first song that was a result of animation being made first!

Untitled from kurt Leif on Vimeo.

Song for an old timey boxer

KVS — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 03:09:26 +0000

Another song demo over some completely unrelated animation stuff I have been working on. This song has been kicking around for a while, but I never really put the finishing touches on it. I have been really into finger picking my ukulele lately (I play it more like a banjo) and I thought that it sounded right for this song.

Editors Note: The deer does have a “deer mask” that I am going to put on him to finish the animation- I mean it would just be silly the way it is now….