One Train Later
It’s one o’clock in the morning and I’m awake. Reading the final chapters of Andy Summers‘ book ‘One Train Later‘ seemed a good idea at the time. His journey from small clubs and one-off solo spots to the Police gig at Shea Stadium in 1983 was over and my mind was spinning. What a life he has led. Few of us are that talented, fortunate or (dare I say ?) victims of syncronicity (yeah I couldn’t resist).
Unable to sleep my tossing and turning is keeping my better half awake so I retreat to the kitchen, pour a pint of milk and sneak past the watchful eyes of the two cats. Taking my laptop into the living room I put on a bollywood movie. No, I don’t know why either. I can’t be bothered changing the channel. The sound is off but the colours are bright and almost technicolour. My laptop transmits a logo through the darkness as if signalling to nobody there that I’m on-line and writing.
The last couple of weeks have been high and low and full of change.
I’m ill again with the never ending sinus problem and have developed an odd renal-type infection. This is not normal and it’s bothering me. In my doctor I trust and to my body I will listen. There is a minor operation coming up in a couple of weeks which will give me another three or four years of relief from sinusitis and help me recover the energy that has been lacking since earlier this year. Slowing down and giving myself time to heal is not something I do well. It will be the undoing of me I am told.
I miss playing and writing. The problem is energy and time. Time I can make: that’s the easy bit. But if the spirit is willing and the flesh is weak then I know I should concede defeat and wait. Sunday last I sat with my favourite guitar and played a little. I lay back and fell asleep. Relaxed or poleaxed?
Changes. Next week I travel to the US for some meetings to introduce me to my new colleagues. After seventeen years in the same organisation it’s time for me to move on and find something new. Move on and learn. Although I’m not defined by my job sometimes I have to let it take the driving seat for a while.
The phone is full of little recordings containing song ideas. Chord sequences and melodies that might never leave their digital embryo.
The studio is half-full of nearly finished recordings. All just waiting for a couple of bits to be added and of course some vocals that don’t sound like I’m singing with my fingers stuck up my nostrils.
The head is full of little ambitions. Some new gigs and approaches to live performance.
From The Other Side Of The World
February is ending and I’ve not blogged since new year’s day. That’s poor form.
This time last week I started recording a new song that I’d written the previous day. Untitled ‘Song For Paul’ was born out of the news of the death of our internet mate Paul Culnane. I went into my little home studio with my guitar on the Saturday afternoon and just kept playing to see what I could come up with. For about an hour I flailed around with nothing coming but managed to get into that zen-like state when I don’t criticise or think. I’ve learned to keep the recorder running while writing. Every few minutes I rewind and capture the best bits. Not worrying too much about the lyric but keeping in mind what the whole ‘story’ of the song is – in this case it was the long-distance relationship I and others had with our friend.
Paul struck me as a troubled soul but it would be unfair to simply remember him that way. We all have our demons and we’re too quick to summarise a life by thinking only of the tough times and ignoring all the goodness. As far as I can see Paul lived for music, fun and people. He loved glam, pop and wrote about it. The internet took to Paul like a duck to water. I’d get long rambling emails from him about all sorts of music, the loves of his life and the days when things didn’t go so well. I wish I’d kept them. His Facebook page has become a bit of a memorial and people from all over the world have come together to remember a fun, loving person.
The song formed pretty quickly – I still have the writing session and it seems to have taken less than an hour to get a verse and chorus section. The middle 8 came quickly and it was definitely going to be instrumental. Recently I’ve tried writing with a capo on the guitar because it forces me into keys and chord shapes I wouldn’t normally try. In this case on Capo 3 I was able to play in C minor which would normally be tricky to maintain while writing. Along the way the chorus fell into my lap: a standard G major chord slides up to A something-or-other and then to Bflat something-or-other and back down again. When I got to the middle 8 I was able to sing a simple melody over the top of the chord changes and didn’t bother with a lyric – it was going to be instrumental and I wanted an excuse to use a mellotron sound.
I wanted to get the song recorded and online by the weekend so despite having a busy week managed to make time in the studio to work on the track. The pressure of time meant I had to make decisions and just get-on-with-it. Dan emailed a bass part and Steve emailed a few lead guitar tracks and a lovely triple-tracked slide guitar part for the chorus. Lyrically the rest of the song fell into place – Dan sent some suggestions for lyric tweaks which tipped my basic lyric over into something I was comfortable singing. By Friday I had it rough-mixed and ready for the last bit which was Dan’s participation in the backing vocals near the end of the song.
The drums are courtesy of Toontrack Ezdrummer which is a great tool for the non-drumming singer-songwriter. Basically a collection of real drummers recorded to MIDI files which are then used with a sample playback engine. This gives you the real feel of a drummer with great quality sounds. Easy to edit and adjust: the drum part in the coda is a pattern from earlier in the song with the snare taken out. I might have manually played the cymbal crash at the end. The acoustic guitar is my favourite instrument (my Martin XCT-1) mic’d by a Neumann into a TLAudio 5051 mic-pre. The strings, horns, electric piano are all from Logic which is my sequencing software of choice. I start with Garageband so I don’t over-complicate things, then I open the session in Logic Studio to edit and tweak it. Once I’m happy with those parts I export them as audio files and copy them over to my ProTools workstation. The ProTools system is over 10 years old but I’m in no hurry (or position) to replace it. It works just fine. I then track the acoustic and vocals on the ProTools system which I treat like a multitrack system. It keeps me from fannying around too much with the parts and it’s easier to use for tracking ‘real’ instruments.
The backward bit in the middle is me reading out some of Paul’s sayings & expressions. No point in having mellotrons and Harrison-esque slide guitar if there’s no backward stuff is there ? Those backing vocals at the end were fun. There’s about 8 versions of me and a similar number of Dan in that choir.
What have I learned from this ? Doing it for the sake of it is enough reason to keep writing and recording. Get it recorded and don’t put it on the long finger. Don’t be afraid to get contributors in. I can’t wait to set Steve loose on a couple of my other songs and already have a track I want to send to Dan for more bass duties.
Anyway, Paul I hope you like it.
Don’t look back in anger
This blog has been neglected of late so I’m going to try and make amends. It’s a new year and for the past 24 hours I’ve read status on that social networking site where friends are saying good riddance to 2010. I can sympathize with people who have lost loved ones, health, jobs, homes, savings and more. So long as we don’t lose hope then any year is good. Will 2011 be better? No guarantees. I’m just glad to have lived through 2010. All I ask for 2011 is that I do the same. Along the way if there are fewer bumps then bring it on.
The only 2010 retrospective I can be bothered with is looking at the new music I enjoyed in 2010.
I’ll start with the debut solo album by Fyfe Dangerfield : “Fly Yellow Moon”.
Here’s a Spotify link where you can listen to the entire album.
Probably better known as the lead singer of the Guillemots, Fyfe wrote and recorded this collection of songs in between Guillemots albums (he’s currently mixing the next Guillemots album).
Favourite tracks for me are ‘Livewire’ with it’s stop-moaning-you’ve-got-everything-to-live-for message
Livewire, your life is in the fire You got everything to play for
1-1, half time
Livewire, the world is yours to hire We got everything to live for
Don’t kick it all the time
One track on the album that jumped out at me from the radio and wouldn’t let go was the single ‘She Needs Me’. A euphoric statement from a man in love. The production reminds me of the Thom Bell strings on Elton John’s EP ‘The Thom Bell Sessions‘ and also his song ‘Philadelphia Freedom’
No other album released in 2010 really grabbed me in the same way. I played it through the spring and summer.
Old albums I rediscovered in 2010 were The Buggles ‘The Age of Plastic’ and ‘Adventures in Modern Recording’. Spotify link here for ‘The Age of Plastic’. I had been watching some old ‘Top Of The Pops‘ shows from 1979-80 and had forgotten the other singles (apart from Video Killed The Radio Star). I also had overlooked that my good friend Alan White did a lot of work with Trevor Horn so imagine my surprise when I saw Alan make a guest appearance on a live concert DVD featuring artists that had worked with Trevor Horn.
It’s my hope that by this time next year I will be able to mention my own debut album in this blog. I’m working on it…
A memo to me
Last week I was playing around with some simple chords with my capo up on 5th fret. I call this the ‘George’ setup because the sound of an acoustic is very ‘George Harrison’ up there. (Here Comes the Sun is actually up on 7th fret, that’s how he gets that sound). I couldn’t come up with a reason for the song much less a lyric so I decided to quickly record a wordless melody while I played. Ignoring lyrics I figured I’d try writing purely a melody line and put a structure on the song.
I had a Police lyric in my head which meant there was no way I would get past that earworm. I sent it to my friend Dan who mailed me back a set of lyrics.
Sometimes writing is as simple as that. We’ve to’d and fro’d with the lyrics and structure. The internet eliminated a few hundred kilometers.
I think that’s what I’ll do next time I’m blocked. I can usually lash out melody and song form. Lyrics aren’t so easy.
The song is titled ‘Memo to You’ simply because it was a ‘memo’ recorded on my phone.
songwriting brothers
Elton John& Bernie Taupin (stay with me folks… I’m not comparing myself to Reg!) used to collaborate across the ocean. This was before email and I suspect in the earliest days of fax. Fax: remember that?
I didn’t realise that Elton & Bernie didn’t actually sit together to co-write their material.
Reflecting on this I realise that some of the best co-writing I’ve done has been when there’s distance between myself and the co-writer. There is surely a thrill in the white heat of creating a song when sitting beside another writer. The speed at which songs form themselves is quite something but I find myself tempering the development in an effort not to tread on the creative toes of my co-writer. Yesterday as I demo’d the new song I traded email with Dan and was able to digest his input while routining the song. (Routining – playing it over and over). Now and again I’d riff on one of the lines he provided and might even tweak the raw lyric.
We’re now polishing it. I can stand back and become an editor now – the fundamental ‘write’ is done and the core of the song is done.
Blogged down with webbed fingers
I’ve had a little operation which means I’m forced to take it easy for a couple of days.
That’s not really in my nature unless I’m actually on holiday.
So I’ve sat with a laptop and a fistful of painkillers.
First up, if you’ve ever visited my old imadethebbc.blogspot.com blog you’ll notice you’ve been redirected here to my new blog.
The new blog is hosted by WordPress and I’m rather pleased that it was easy to transfer the 5 years of old blog posts.
If you used to visit my blog at tugofwar.spaces.live.com you’ll notice that it has gone. Microsoft decided to wrap up the spaces service and along with WordPress they provided a very simple transfer process.
Finally… I’ve put up my own website and after a bit of poking around I’ve managed to host my blog there.
Please go visit the site. I spent ages putting it together ! Looky up there near the top of this page just under my hand it says “Back to my homepage”. Click it.
Happy Days In The Gulag
My friend Daniel Prendiville has released another album. Prolific or what?
I think this is rather good. Actually no, it’s better than that.
You can listen to it for free with no guilt. But you could try buying a copy….
Update October 2010. Well, moving to wordpress means I cannot embed reverbnation widgets on my blog (yet).
So you should go to Dan’s reverbnation site and check it out. Here’s the link
Distractions
Too many distractions and stuff. As a result I’ve not blogged.
Lots to say and not enough hours int he day, far too many things I’d rather do, lots of distractions.
Something shall have to go.
The act you’ve known for all these years
So the Beatles remasters have come and gone. My verdict ? ‘About bloody time’.
Of all the hoo-haa surround the release of these Mono and Stereo discs the BBC produced some excellent radio programmes. The best of which was the continuing series ‘The Record Producers’
You can hear the multitrack deconstruction of some songs which reveal individual parts and instruments.
Never mind what I think…. take a listen (follow the link and download the MP3 file, no password required).
At The Mike Stand
Thanks to social networking and a long lost cousin I find myself interviewed in this week’s Irish Examiner (USA, Art Section)
Isn’t that bizarre ?
Read the online edition by clicking this link here and jump to page 13
or you can grab a .pdf in this link here.
I really am a chancer…. a little exaggeration goes a long way in print.
Sometimes you only have to ask
A few weeks ago I dropped a note to Graham Holland regarding his Podcast “It’s a Frog’s Life”. The podcast features acoustic music from around the British Isles. I guess I snuck in through the back door 🙂
There’s a real sense of validation when someone you’ve never met listens to and responds to a song you’ve written. I was delighted when Graham contacted me and asked if he could include one of my songs in an upcoming podcast.
I also sent in a track to another podcast but really didn’t do myself any favours: there’s no point in sending in a folk track if the podcast features indie rock music … is there ? Even if the people running the podcast are predisposed to giving you a listen.
So click on the link and grab the latest edition of the “It’s a Frog’s Life” podcast.
Or better still: subscribe to it on iTunes and give the podcast a good rating.
blue eyed dressed for every situation 