Friday 17 April 2015

A Musical Journey - Part 2 The 1980s - Part 3

This blog will be my musical highlights of 1986-1990.  Basically, my time entering the 6th form until I left school.

1986 was the year for me when everything changed in my musical landscape.

1985 has seen me buy Iron Maiden's "Live after death" album on a whim.

In 1986 I finished school and after deciding not to try for art school, I decided to go back to the 6th form and do some A levels.

This song instantly send me back to my time in the 6th form.  Funny how music can do that!

Eurthymics - Thorn in my side.




In 1986 Maiden released the Somewhere in Time tour.   When I started in the 6th form I was reunited with Ian, a friend from infant school.   He was into metal and when he found out I had "Live After Death", said about Iron Maiden playing locally in a few weeks. So a ticket was purchased.

Iron Maiden - Wasted Years


 It was during the guitar solo on this tour and them playing "Walking in the air" that I decided I wanted to play the guitar.   I went home and asked for a guitar for Christmas.

Ian then spent the next few months plying me with metal vinyl to see what I liked.


Metallica - Master of Puppets





Anthrax - Madhouse


and Queensryche - I will remember




Def Leppard - Photograph


1986 was the start of hair rock with Europe and Bon Jovi!

Bon Jovi - You give Love a bad name




Christmas 1986 my parents bought me my first guitar and amp.  Having never played the guitar, I promptly picked it up, played with the whammy bar and snapped a string.  I then had to wait three days for the local music shop to open so I could buy new strings.  Not a good start to my musical career.

I did work out how to play the bassline to Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain" from ear

So that was it, I learnt to play the guitar by ear and by other guitarists at school showing me things on the acoustic that was in the 6th form common room.


In 1987, I saved up my babysitting and paperround money and bought the first of many guitars.   A Marlin Sidewinder in Candy Apple Red.  For a while I had a Marshall amp too.  (which I didn't like)





It was a thing of beauty at £150 in the local music shop.  I still have this guitar!  It sounds quite bad, the electrics need some working on, but the neck is nice to play on it.

So the rest of the '80 was my rise in love of metal, as well as still following all the bands (still going) that I always liked before, Howard Jones, Duran Duran, Hazel O' Connor, Teard for Fears.

As well as getting into other pop things.

Suzanne Vega - Small Blue Thing




But rock was where I was heading.  Thrash metal was what I was learning to play the guitar with.

1987 saw me travel for the weekend from my native Cornwall up to Donnington for my first ever festival.



Bon Jovi headlined, with Dio, Metallica, Anthrax, W.A.S.P and Cinderella



That was it for me, live music was a big love.  I used to get Kerrang on a Wednesday, see who was playing live in London at the weekend, then occasionally jump on a train on a Saturday morning and come back on a Sunday.

Managed to see Queensryche more times than probably any other band. 

Queensryche - I don't believe in love.



Exodus - Toxic Waltz






Testament - Practice What you Preach



Megadeth - Holy Wars




There was a definte change in music from 1986 - 1990.  Stock, Aitkin and Waterman, seemed to be filling the charts up with their brand of pop.  (Some of it good, some dreadful).  And the rise of electronic dance music / house music which really wasn't my cup of tea.

Mel and Kim - Respectable



Black Box - Ride on Time




There was some great pop songs in  the late '80s though.

Sam Brown - Stop


The Bangles - Eternal Flame



The Pogues- A fairytale in New york



I could give loads of great music in the '80s. But this blog has gone on far too long.

The '90s / 00's and todays music should be shorter in length.   The '80s were the formative years, since then the styles haven't changed much just the bands.









Sunday 12 April 2015

Sweet Lemons


Ok it has been a month since my last blog update.  I was hoping to get out the next blog in the ongoing musical history, but they are time consuming and I haven't had big blocks of time to do one.

So I will start the next one and save it as draft and chip away at it.

The last month, we reconvened on recording the new Hair Thieves EP.  So a lot of the time I have been doing music has been recording and writing for that.

As far as this project is going, I have gone through my archives and songs from this years FAWM and realised I have sixteen potential songs to work on for this album.   Most of it is music only, only a couple have completed lyrics.

So I have been playing with a pair of old Hair Thieves tunes, called "Sour Grapes" and "Sweet Lemon Mechanism".  These were going to be the start of the previously planned Hair Thieves album, but when we decided not to do an album, but only do EPs, they were dropped.

So I am trying to ressurect them.

The main problem with them, is in some cases, I don't have the VST instruments (like Groove Agent 2 plus some others) nor the effects pedals (Digitech Whammy) to rerecord sections of it again.

So I am struggling with getting new grooves I like to work with the tracks.   Stupidly, in the case of Groove Agent 2, I recorded the audio output of it and not the midi.   I have Groove Agent 4, but that doesn't have the kits from previous versions.

I think I have decided on the first tune to release.  "Persephone" was planned to be the first track released, but I have decided that "A Winters Memory" will be the first tune, since I think I have an idea brewing for the video.

This will be backed by a track called "Tabanid" which is another rejected Hair Thieves tune, with no chours.  This was almost finished, but I aim to re-record it in a slightly different style for this release.

So I am chipping away at this project, though not as fast as i would like.

More soon.