Something Industrial

The master for this is dated 3/91 but I do not remember the details of the piece. There is obviously at least one tape loop going, probably several and at around 2:40 it sounds like a chicken gets quickly sucked in so that's certainly the Mirage which was probably also doing the shadowy effects you faintly hear in the background.

Something Industrial

43rd

Now this one, the third & final from the compilation, is downright strange. It was specifically written for that compilation and the broken glass sample I created no earlier than 1989. That sample itself has a very interesting history. I was working for a company that had a large engineering lab and on a Sunday afternoon when the place was closed, I showed up with a Beyer dynamic mic, a DBX-equipped cassette recorder, a ball-peen hammer & a 1'x2' pane of glass. The breaking sounds you hear are of that pane of glass hanging from the ceiling being struck by me with that hammer. There was some interesting room ambiance in the recording plus my first couple of whacks didn't break the glass but instead produced a most unusual percussion sample which may appear later on. I cannot explain the voice samples except to say I was watching (too) many Warner cartoons from the 1930s & 1940s at the time. The sampler was an Ensoniq Mirage.

I couldn't find the actual master so this one and the previous one are from the compilation cassette itself hence the drop in audio quality.

43rd

23rd

Not much more to say regarding this piece that wasn't said about the last piece. Probably written 1986 or 1987 definitely mastered prior to 1990 as that was when the compilation, It Takes All Kinds was released. The high soaring lead voice is the Poly-800.

23rd

17th

This and the following two pieces have an interesting history. They were submitted and accepted for a compilation tape produced by the Poly-800 Users Group and found their way to many points around the globe including communist East Germany. I seriously doubt they had the slightest effect on the Berlin Wall but then again, one never knows, eh? ;-)

The master is dated 12/89 but from its title it was from early in my numbered sequence of release candidates of which there were eventually over 100 before I changed my naming system. It is obviously from my old C64-driven system and was mastered on the old four-track. The swirly lead voice is the Poly-800 and be assured, tape delays abound within.

17th

Tree

This song happened at a rough spot in my life, probably sometime in the fall of 1986. I had somehow survived a really traumatic breakup, been kicked out of a previous roommate situation as the other guy couldn't abide that I left the front door unlocked twice (garage apartment, nothing to steal, two guys, one seriously armed (him)). Anyway, I'm living with the sorriest roommates I ever had, two schmucks named Robert & Murray. It was a neat house but the railroad tracks were way too close so one had to take 'train breaks' when recording and those losers would have the teevee blasting when anything in a football uniform came on screen. Told 'em I was a smoker when they took me in but then discovered they were as anti-tobacco as they come.

So anyway, I'm in hell, and on some Saturday I go on a lousy date. She's too young (26) and kind of odd but at one point we talked about her tree house experiences when she was a kid and she tells me how her mother brought her lunch.

Next morning I wake up with this song in my head. First I write down the lyrics then w/a click on the old four track I cut the bass part then two tracks of vocals (w/some Mk III echoplex) & presto, we're done. Years later I laid down a keyboard part then a decade later I did a MIDI version then another decade later I discovered that this version, the original, is the right one and so now, here it is. The gap at the end of "there is no death" is due to physical damage on the master tape.

"Do we have to come down" - no, this song is about being in a tree, right? It has nothing to do with getting high, right? "But the might & strength of youth will keep us safe forever", can't you taste the irony in spades? Decades later I'm still surprised by the "yes, forever" outro, it's by far the most positive thing I have (or will) ever commit to tape. Enjoy...

Tree

The Truth Is

This is probably the most produced piece in my back catalog and it has an interesting history. Originally I wrote the bass & drums and made a stab at some lyrics, probably 1987 or thereabouts. And there it languished.

I was in Austin, TX at the time and at the Zilker Park Xmas tree every 8th of December there was a "John Lennon Memorial Sing-Along" which lasted into the wee hours. One year an absolutely amazing musician showed up and I say that person was amazing as he knew and could play every single Beatles song and I do mean every single one. He needed a ride home that night, I offered, and that's how I came to meet Roland St Germain. Later among other accomplishments he became the core of the "new music" version of the Grandmothers but back then that was well in the future. (& now it's 'years ago' ...)

Anyway, sometime later he was over and I played this for him and he took a copy and overdubbed all the additional material you here then brought me the results - I was (and still am) astonished. He used an analog four-track, a Fender Strat & a Casio CZ-101, nothing more. Except, of course, his amazing talents for arranging & production. Thanks again, sir, I will be forever grateful.

Lyric snippets -
"I don't need your religion
To tell me where I'll go when I die.
You've told me lots of things before, too
And all of them were lies."
[chorus]
"You know that most of of the wars in this world
Were started by religion.
How can we depend on you now
To tell us what the truth is (or should be)..."


The Truth Is

Empty Mind

From September of 1988 comes an abject lesson in the danger of giving one of those 'toy' sampling keyboards to a bored person. What I find interesting and why I posted this is the background drone, something I believe was written well before I got the sampler. Didn't do much else with the sampler, no MIDI or anything, but it was fun for a few months.

The predominant voice in the background is a sorely-missed Korg Poly-800. While quite limited by today's standards, there were characteristics in its timbre I have not heard since, analog or digital. Likewise the sequence software I was using was Dr. T's KCS on a Commodore SX-64 computer. In less than 30K of memory w/a total of 2300 events or thereabouts, that software would do things that no other package I've used since could! The secret was that any loop could link to any other at any time. I won't be posting it as it's way too long but a piece from that era was over an hour long. Can't do that today with the linear recording format that so predominates the world of MIDI software... The intro sound is the notorious ARP Odyssey/analog delay with this marvelous recursive patch that seems to constantly change itself. I have over the decades applied this patch to other synths mostly analog - the only requirement is that the synth needs to have a voltage-controllable LFO available as a modulation source.

Empty Mind

Surf Music From Hell

Another from the late 80's/early 90's. The guitar is live, played by the guy I was working with at the time. He hated this as he had to hold the same chord for quite a few bars while the bass comped against his chord but so what - isn't it a composer's duty in part to torture his musicians? ;-) All the other sounds are of course MIDI and this was recorded on the old four-track using SMPTE to sync the sequence w/the tape. The 'squiggle' noises are from a Casio CZ-1000 or a CZ-101. I still have a CZ-1 BTW...


Surf Music From Hell

Deconstruction Parts 1 & 2

By definition, when one is an experimental musician sometimes the experiments fail. This is one of those but as it was also a glorious failure I had to share it. This was most likely recorded January 16, 1999, edited & mastered January 23, 1999. The composed portion of this was, like The Black Page, written originally as a drum solo. But I am no Terry Bozzio, instead the drum solo was composed on a Roland TR-707. More on this later.

The 'band' on this was me - keys & drums, a woman I found in the musician's classified - vox & her boy toy - bass. While she had a nice voice & good breath control, she was also a nut. For starters, she claimed to be highly allergic to cats so in order to rehearse I had to cart 300 lbs of gear across town & up two flights of stairs then I & her b/f would proceed to wipe every surface w/cleaner & towels before she'd allow the stuff inside. Obviously we didn't play together very long. Worse, she had no concept of copyright WRT to lyrics, for her they were merely words to be used freely. OOPS. There are lyrics from some show tune(s) in the first, I think and the in the second she is singing Riders On The Storm so that one is stream-only. However, I don't think any fan of the Doors could possibly confuse this w/the original - while the b/f is fooling w/the Riders riff, he couldn't get the notes right. That's how, for example, My Little Red Book became Interstellar Overdrive...

The drum pattern is a fast 6/8. The "waterfall" noise parts are from a Roland JX8P controlled by an Oberheim Cyclone arpeggiator synced to the drum machine. The whole thing was live to two-track in her apartment that day. Enjoy!

Deconstruction 1

Sock Monkey Lookin' Fer Luv

This bit of strangeness is from early February, 2003. It is the soundtrack to an 8mm film of the same name I did for a tiny festival (and I'll post the film if I can ever get it transferred...). The film was every bit as silly as the name implies.

That's me on the four-string fretless, midi drums and those 'marvelous vocals' with the son of a short-time girlfriend playing three tracks of lead & rhythm guitar. Getting the right fx on the vox was a real bear, took longer then everything else to record and unlike most of the vocals I record, these were recorded "wet". You might note the octave shift that makes the vocals so sly, it's especially apparent at the fade. Likewise there's a delay at the intro, that was to accommodate the credits.


SockMonkey1.mp3

Found an second version. It's a bit more raw w/a noise synth part that I deleted from the master.


SockMonkey2.mp3

Symmetrical Dance

This is a very old song from my back catalog. The vision that inspired it was early in 1973, but the music was composed & recorded in the late 1980's/early 1990's. I really don't remember when I cut the master but as it was done to cassette I guess that dates it there. I always heard this as a very visual song and the images I have are of the sort of video that is half live/half in a mirror, kind of a split screen sort of thing where the motions in each half of the screen are precisely symmetrical. Very good on headphones if you're listening or soft & in the background if you're not.

All instruments are electronic and yes, that's a Mark III echoplex in there as well. The burbling sound in the intro & outro are an old Arp Odessey through an analog delay box, a common feature to my recordings of that era.

Symmetrical Dance