Hey folks, first off Merry Christmas to you all! Big hugs and all that It’s actually Christmas day as I write this but I realised 2008 was drawing to an end and I wanted to post another track before that happened. It was last Christmas I started this blog in the hope of posting a new song every couple of weeks, I also hoped it would spur me to do more music and make time for it in general but to be honest I’ve fallen a little short. I’ve managed to post about an average of one track a month which isn’t too bad and I’m still hopelessly in love with music no matter what else I might do, writing, podcasting, programming or picking my nose. It dominates my thoughts.
Neil Young back in the 60's
So here it is, my final track of the year for you. It’s actually a little live acoustic cover of “Rocking In A Free World” by Neil Young. I’ve mentioned my love of Neil Young on this blog before but this song has always stuck out to me, the lyrics are amazing I think, political and hard hitting in some parts but ultimately uplifting. “Just one more kid that’ll never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be cool!” is a refrain that always lodged itself in my brain. To be honest with you this isn’t a polished recording, it’s just a live jam thrown together off the cuff with one mic and my trusty acoustic guitar. I recorded it one day when I set up to record a session of demos for new songs I had, I think this came out by accident just as a warm up. I certainly never intended to release it but as I listen back now through those recordings again, this is the track I always come back to. It has something, I dunno what, I don’t even know if it’s good. It is what it is.
You can hear as I sing it I can’t help doing a bit of a Neil Young impression with the accent and all, this wasn’t deliberate but it kind of works. I also love the live version of the song Pearl Jam always do, another one of my favourite bands. So at times you can hear I’m veering unconsciously between Neil Young and Eddie Vedder impressions in the same verse I even saw Neil Young play this at Reading Festival back in 95 with Pearl Jam as his backing band, Eddie wasn’t with them that day but man it still rocked. The ultimate performance of that tune for me I’d have to say. This is just my little attempt at that, I hope you enjoy it.
Have a great holiday season and I wish you all the best for 2009 as well, I’ll be back with more music, more stupid master plans I’ll only get halfway through and plenty of other stuff. So I’ll see you on the other side. Take care of yourselves now.
Hey folks, been a while since my last update and things have been hectic as ever but I’m back with something a little different for you this time. It’s a theme tune I wrote for my cousin’s new podcast. He’s just started a podcast with a friend which is very loosely about tea and the title of the show is “Fancy A Brew”. On listening to the first episode I noticed they had no theme music, it was sometime around then that this funny little ditty appeared and lodged itself in my brain. I had to get it out so decided to record and send it to the guys on the off chance they might find a use for it.
It’s only very short and it’s meant to be a bit funny and memorable as an intro for the show. It has a bit of a bluesy or ragtime feel to it I think and I attempted to sing a bit like Noel Coward for the full “I say, we’re British and we drink tea old boy” effect The instrumentation and recording process were not particularly exciting or exotic, it was just performed live in my studio on the acoustic guitar and all recorded with one mic. I often do separate guitar and vocal tracks even on demos but this was all just one mic in the room and I think it works pretty well, this was the first take and ended up being the best in my opinion.
It’s only short at 35ish seconds but I wanted share it with all of you as I found it quite amusing and fun to record, the whole thing came out of nowhere but then I suppose the best things always do. You can check out the podcast here if you’re interested and I hope you enjoy the song. As always comments and constructive criticism are more than welcome so feel free to post any thoughts about the tune you may have.
I hope to be back with some new music for you before Christmas so till then take care of yourselves and I’ll see you very soon
Hey I’m back, it took a while longer than expected. Like all best laid plans my intentions of recording a load of new material after writing that last update didn’t quite come off. Life got in the way as it’s wont to do I suppose and it never worked out. I did do a load of acoustic demos of new ideas and partially finished songs recently but they’re not quite ready to share just yet. So why am I writing this update wasting your time and mine you may think? Despair not my friends, I’ve dug into the back catalogue and found something I think you might enjoy. I hope you will anyway.
It’s some vintage Shed Music, if you don’t know about the whole Shed Music thing please check out this previous post. The track is called “Bring It All Back Home” it’s a bit funky, a bit hip hop and like all shed music more than a little bit mental. It’s packed with speech samples from various films and tv programs, I won’t list them all you can have fun picking them out as they go past. There’s even a bit of singing in parts as well, you’ll hear my voice popping up at times. As I think I mentioned in my previous post about “Special?!” I’ve tried many times over the years to get into scratching and DJ-ing but to be honest I’m shit at it. More of that is in evidence here sorry hehehe
This was recorded around 2001 I think, hard to remember exactly now but I’d just set up my first little home studio. I still have some of that kit like outboard compressors and effects but most of it has been updated and replaced since. Back then I recorded everything to a Fostex digital 8-track from my old analogue desk and mixed things in real time but now things mostly revolve around the computer for me, as they do in many studios. I was late moving over to the digital side of things and I still like the reassuring sound of tape reels whirring away but digital recording is so convenient I must confess. The instrumentation on this little ditty is not too complicated really, here’s a breakdown:
Programmed beats and samples from the computer
Bass guitar, my Music Man 5 string (love that thing)
Yamaha acoustic guitar
Fender Telecaster electric guitar put through a small Marshall amp
An electric piano
My girly singing voice recorded with an SM58
My attempts as scratching with speech samples
Listening to this now it stands up surprisingly well considering it was one of my first bedroom recordings. I think the bass is a bit heavy probably on the kick drum but being a bass player I have a tendency to push the bottom end a lot. Everyone loves bass right? They’d better if they come round here. They could have a Lionel Blair cut like mine lol that’s an incredibly English joke, apologies to international readers. Here’s a YouTube clip of the old beer ad I’m referring to. Enjoy
So that’s about it for now, I will endeavour to be back with you very shortly. I might post one of those acoustic demos for your approval. It also looks like I may be working with a funk/soul band in London doing some production. I’m very excited about that but I don’t have the details and it’s not concrete yet. I’ll let you know as soon as I can. take care everyone hope you enjoy the track and I’ll see you very soon.
I’M BACK Wow it’s been a while, I just looked and it’s 3 months since I posted any new music, I didn’t realise how the time had passed sorry. Anyway, as I said I’m back and I have some new music for you, never before heard anywhere in the world.. ok maybe when I was recording it but apart from that never, honest.
This is a song I wrote sometime around Christmas and to be honest I can’t remember how it came about. The main finger picking piece on the guitar is something I’ve been playing around with for a while, it’s not that complicated to play really but it sounds really impressive, the best things always do. It’s my weak attempt at imitating the kind of finger picking brilliance of Mark Knofler. I always really liked “Romeo & Juliet” by Dire Straights when I was a kid and that acoustic finger picking style really appealed to me. This was just intended to be an acoustic demo originally, something to get the idea recorded so I could add instruments and arrange it all later. Listening back now I don’t think adding more instruments would suit the song. It works pretty well as it is, so I’m gonna leave it. There’s just two acoustic guitars and one vocal track. The second guitar only comes in briefly to do a bit of a solo in the middle and that’s it, so essentially it’s just one guitar and vocal, sometimes simple works best. I have a tendency to get really into production and possibly overdo things a bit, gotta spread those ideas out a bit, make them go further hehe. No need for the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on this one, sorry folks, they’ll be gutted. I’ve leave you to listen to the lyrics of the tune and work out what they mean for yourselves, it’s not too cryptic and hopefully makes some sense. It’s called “Trains” because it mentions trains in the lyrics and I couldn’t think of anything more inventive or profound at the time. Again I’m keeping it simple. Yeah that sounds better
Hope you enjoy the song, leave me a comment to let me know what you think even if you hate it. All feedback is useful. I’m in the process of setting up a new digital studio at the moment which I hope to make open source, you can read about it here. I do have some plans to try and get some recording done in the next fortnight though, so I hope to update with some more new tunes in the coming weeks. Look out for those, take care of yourselves till then, Dan.
…shame cos we never made any hehehe Hey folks, I’m back on a boiling hot day here. I’m even wearing shorts so avert your eyes. I’m struggling to find the motivation to write this in the heat but I realised I’ve neglected you all a bit lately, I’m sorry. It’s about time I posted another track, so here it is.
It’s another one by my old band Kagnee called In It 4 Tha Money. As crazy and chaotic as ever this is a very short tune at only 1:34, short but sweet you might say. I really like it though, it was always one of my favourites in our live set. The song is actually pretty political and contains lots of little references to look out for, a lot of our stuff did. Our guitarist Spenner was a really good artist and he designed some fake Kagnee money for us to promote the track with. You can see an example below:
We got loads of this printed in different colours and threw it around at gigs, I’m sure the cleaners loved us for that the next day but it was a lot of fun. I even tried to pay for a round of drinks with one of these and the bar man really wasn’t very impressed, it was just a bit of fun though, it’s not like I actually thought he was going to accept it, I mean LOOK AT IT! Master forgers we were not, mad bastards would be closer to the mark but we had a good time and I think even the odd person who saw us did too. I emphasize the ODD in that sentence.
So that’s about it for today, it’s too damn hot for any long and meaningful anecdotes sorry. My brain is fried, so have a listen to the track I hope you enjoy it and I hope it’s sunny where you are too. I’m off to buy an ice cream or something… I wonder if they take Kagnee money? Hmm
It’s actually Christmas day as I write this but I realised 2008 was drawing to an end and I wanted to post another track before that happened. It was last Christmas I started this blog in the hope of posting a new song every couple of weeks, I also hoped it would spur me to do more music and make time for it in general but to be honest I’ve fallen a little short. I’ve managed to post about an average of one track a month which isn’t too bad and I’m still hopelessly in love with music no matter what else I might do, writing, podcasting, programming or picking my nose. It dominates my thoughts.
I even saw Neil Young play this at Reading Festival back in 95 with Pearl Jam as his backing band, Eddie wasn’t with them that day but man it still rocked. The ultimate performance of that tune for me I’d have to say. This is just my little attempt at that, I hope you enjoy it.
Sonic Real Estate - Rocking In A Free World (acoustic jam) [2:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
