Over the last few months it's been difficult to find the time to devote to music. In september I left for India for 6 weeks for work, and while away I came up with a lot of ideas for music, both for news songs and the will to complete older ones.
An acoustic guitar is an important instrument for the recording artist - believe it or not I'd never had a proper one until last week! I'd made do with either borrowing other people's or getting by with a very cheap one which I gave away a few years ago. I'd been promising to get an Epiphone J200 for about 5 years and last week I finally decided that the time had come!
The First Day
I wrote this song at the start of a very productive streak in the Autumn of 2005*. It was recorded the week I bought my Rickenbacker 330 - in fact I think recording was already underway when I bought it - so I like the trivial fact that this new version has been completed in the wake of another guitar purchase.
Though a demo has been knocking around for 6 years, and Mart Owen also did his Electronic Cowboy remix of the song, this (unintentionally!) slightly slower recording is basically the same as original, just recorded cleaner and with the benefit of several years recording experience!
The song was basically about waking up somewhere after completely leaving your old life behind, and how the world woul be full of new possibilities, but also with a slight tinge of what's been left behind. The ambience sounds that bookmark the track are from some recordings I made of Diwali celebrations in Kolkata, October 2011.
Better as Friends
I've always loved the Beatles since a child, and I know that when I wrote this I was listening to them quite a lot and trying to copy some of their songwriting techniques. This was, I think, the first song I ever recorded that was in 6/8 time signature.
Again, this is a complete re-record from scratch although essentially a clean up of the original demo. I took a lot of care with the drums on this, and for the first time I've used the very natural natural sounds of Jason McGerr's refill for Reason 6. I also changed the bassline, paid a lot of attention to the rhythm guitars and took some time to get the best out of the SM58 microphone I bought for vocals but hadn't really used a lot up to this point. Vocals aside, I haven't paid much attention to micophone use before, but I'm having a lot of fun learning how to use them properly.
However, the guitar solo is lifted from the original demo. It was recorded well enough and sounded fine... so why not?!
I was inspired to write this song by a colleague I worked with. He was always breaking up with his girlfirend and having stupid fights with her. I remember going up Hanley to do some shopping one saturday afternoon and having the basic idea for the song - I came home and got it done!
At the moment I've got time on my hands and the will to record, so I hope to have more songs online soon!
*From Sept - Dec 2005 I wrote and demod Operation Nightfall, Something You've Not Got, The First Day, Canyon Song, Better as Friends, Mister G and Anytime. It must have been an inspirational time!
An acoustic guitar is an important instrument for the recording artist - believe it or not I'd never had a proper one until last week! I'd made do with either borrowing other people's or getting by with a very cheap one which I gave away a few years ago. I'd been promising to get an Epiphone J200 for about 5 years and last week I finally decided that the time had come!
The First Day
I wrote this song at the start of a very productive streak in the Autumn of 2005*. It was recorded the week I bought my Rickenbacker 330 - in fact I think recording was already underway when I bought it - so I like the trivial fact that this new version has been completed in the wake of another guitar purchase.
Though a demo has been knocking around for 6 years, and Mart Owen also did his Electronic Cowboy remix of the song, this (unintentionally!) slightly slower recording is basically the same as original, just recorded cleaner and with the benefit of several years recording experience!
The song was basically about waking up somewhere after completely leaving your old life behind, and how the world woul be full of new possibilities, but also with a slight tinge of what's been left behind. The ambience sounds that bookmark the track are from some recordings I made of Diwali celebrations in Kolkata, October 2011.
Better as Friends
I've always loved the Beatles since a child, and I know that when I wrote this I was listening to them quite a lot and trying to copy some of their songwriting techniques. This was, I think, the first song I ever recorded that was in 6/8 time signature.
Again, this is a complete re-record from scratch although essentially a clean up of the original demo. I took a lot of care with the drums on this, and for the first time I've used the very natural natural sounds of Jason McGerr's refill for Reason 6. I also changed the bassline, paid a lot of attention to the rhythm guitars and took some time to get the best out of the SM58 microphone I bought for vocals but hadn't really used a lot up to this point. Vocals aside, I haven't paid much attention to micophone use before, but I'm having a lot of fun learning how to use them properly.
However, the guitar solo is lifted from the original demo. It was recorded well enough and sounded fine... so why not?!
I was inspired to write this song by a colleague I worked with. He was always breaking up with his girlfirend and having stupid fights with her. I remember going up Hanley to do some shopping one saturday afternoon and having the basic idea for the song - I came home and got it done!
At the moment I've got time on my hands and the will to record, so I hope to have more songs online soon!
*From Sept - Dec 2005 I wrote and demod Operation Nightfall, Something You've Not Got, The First Day, Canyon Song, Better as Friends, Mister G and Anytime. It must have been an inspirational time!
No comments:
Post a Comment