I was going to delete the original Rollasoc blog and start a new one for the "solo" project, but I didn't want to lose posts, like my musical journey ones, or the fact that four years later, I still haven't released "A Winter's Memory", (even though it is mixed and mastered), nor "Persephone", (though that isn't far from completion).
But sometimes, you have to keep the embarressing history of a lack of progress.
So why the delay?
Time and procrastination would be the honest answers.
Working on two (well three, but one is a secret), other musical projects, which have been releasing an EP or two each for the last four years, family expansion, (which is pure fun) and a major illness, has slowed me down and possibly a lack of direction.
Since this is a vanity project for me, not allowing myself to work on it, until I completed tasks for other musical projects meant this set of songs has been a frustrating niggle at the back of my mind for a very long time now.
A couple of years ago, I decided to speed this thing up, it might be nice to collaborate with some people, so I changed the project name to The Chaos Tree, but I never got around to asking anyone, so I'm changing it back to Rollasoc.
I already have the social media names for Rollasoc and although there is no other bands called The Chaos Tree, someone is using that name on Instagram and Youtube, so it kind of tarnished the name for me.
"A Winter's Memory" had occasionally, been remixed or re-mastered over the last four years. It is currently sitting there waiting to go. But I've had in my head an idea for a music video for it, but haven't had time to start it. So it has been delayed.
I have started designing the characters for it.
So this is the first character, Marnie.
The above will be the cover for the single.
With The Hair Thieves, we used to use a manniquin as a cover, then moved onto smoke art.
With Sineglider, the covers are now all fractal images.
So going forward, each Rollasoc cover will be computer generated person / scene.
I'm not sure if any others will have animated videos, I hope so.
I'm thinking of releasing A Winter's Tale in September 2020, video or not. We shall see.
I will try and blog monthly from now on and make some musical progress.
Well, it makes a chage for me to be in front of the camera, rather than my usual prefered place behind it.
So on Thursday, as a warm up, I did a twenty minute stint at the Open Mic at the Dolphin pub in Shrewsbury (top photo).
I was a lot less nervous than I used to be, when I played live regularly. I was worried that this was a bad sign. But the sound was good and I didn't play too shabbily. Which was a relief.
On Saturday (Sept 5th), I did a thirty minute set at the Castle Grounds in Bridgnorth, as part of Bridgnorth music festival.
It was a lovely day, with a decent size crowd. I had a few technical issues, with one of the leads and was attacked during one song, by a fly that tried crawling up my nose, but other than that it seemed to go ok.
I played a few Hair Thieves tunes (Shorewards, 21st CSM, Bad Consumer) and some covers (by Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Stiff Little Fingers, Porcupine Tree).
Some people said some nice things about the performance.
So hopefully, it won't be too long before I play live again and hopefully incorporate some new material.
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.
Fawm (http://fawm.org) is an annual event to write an album in a month. The idea is to write 14 songs in 28 days and release an album.
Week 4's plan was to wrap up the songs I had been working on and not necessarily write any new ones. I'd always said I would be happy with nine songs. So in order to not stress too much,
I ended up with ten songs / lyrics at the end of the month. So I am more than happy.
On the Sunday of week four, I did my last skirmish. Another title I really wasn't interested in writing lyrics for.
The title was "Because of You".
V1
Many words are spoken in jest
Because of you, I've feelings repressed
Can't state no fact
Without a third world war
Can't critique, just silence
Like I never was born
Chorus
And banging my head
Against the bedroom wall
Feels less painful than
talking to you some more
Because of you, our happiness left
Because of you our lives in a mess
V2
Many a lip bite, blood tastes raw
Because of you, my battles not won
Can't air a grivence
Without a denial of facr
Can't shout, just silence
like I'm caught in a trap.
Chorus
And Banging my head
Against the bedroom wall
Feels less painful than
talking to you some more
Because of you, our happiness left
Because of you our lives in a mess
Bridge
And my conscious is clear
This is not about sides
I'm always wrong and
You're always right
Oblivious to my feelings
Oblivious to my plight
And you won't heed this warning
as I sing this tonight
Bonus bridge.
Obnoxious and rude
Trumps the meek and hallow
A bully's no better than
the sh*t that you prattle
It's not a sign of strength
But a sign of the fear
Pity for you
and the things that you do
Now I like some of the lines, but this is probably not a keeper. So I didn't bother writing music for it.
However, in week three, we (The Hair Thieves) started writing a new track. This week, I have put some guitar to it and some lyrics.
The song is called "Love is Overdrive" and it is probably the most pop song we have ever recorded.
The vocals, need a lot of work and the lyrics need tweaking, but it is getting there. (and nope it don't rhyme).
Been torched by love
Burnt and scarred
Drawn to a flame
My hearts desire
Never learnt
Always back for more
Heart on my sleeve
Love lies scorned
Cos when I fall
I fall so fast
Never learnt
Runing back for more
Love's infectious
Love is overdrive
Love is infectious
Love is over drive
Played the long game
Battles fought
Lost more than won
My soul devoured
Never learnt
Heading back for more
Love's infectious
Love is overdrive
Love is infectious
Love is over drive
Bridge / breakdown
Love's infectious
Love is overdrive
Love is infectious
Love is over drive
Love's infectious
Love is overdrive
Love is infectious
Love is over drive
The final song I worked on, was the one I started in week one.
It has ended up with a working title of "Beside Me".
Rivers of blind emotions
Tearing strips to the core
Lead me down, don't fear the dark might see
wilt and whither, the damage taught.
When all things pass
and dies are cast
Will you still walk beside me
When dreams are sold
and battles fought
Will you still walk beside me
Drown me in dark seductions
Smother me in warmer shores
Lead me down, don't fear that god might find
Things of value are seldom bought.
When all things pass
and dies are cast
Will you still walk beside me
When dreams are sold
and battles fought
Will you still walk beside me
I think it needs another verse and bridge to be written. A better chorus (musically sped up) . The vocals are terrible on this. It was essentially a couple of takes and I haven't worked out the melody totally yet, (nor practiced it). So it is all over the place.
As someone else pointed out, the rhyming scheme for this is across verses, so the line ones rhyme etc and the rhymes are not within the verse.
Like most things done in great haste, I can't remember if this is intentional or not. (it probably isn't).
But it is a promising start.
Finally, if you have been following this blog, you may recall, that I wrote a one minute instrumental for an Exquisite Corpse challenge.
Since the month is over, I will present the demo of it here. I'm still waiting for the final piece to go live. I will blog that when it turns up.
So that is it for Fawm 2015. Ten songs in varying states of completion.
I might post a blog next week, with all eight demos that have music.
I have really enjoyed this month. It has been very productive. I can see me finishing up the three Sineglider tunes. Both the Hair Thieves songs and probably two of the others for my solo project, (unless E wants them as Hair Thieves songs).
I am looking forward to Fawm in 2016. I am going to go for the 14 songs. You heard it here first!
Fawm (http://fawm.org) is an annual event to write an album in a month. The idea is to write 14 songs in 28 days and release an album.
Mixed week this week. I was happy to have done three songs in the first week (after only managing six during Fawm 2014).
So week 2 should have started with an instrumental on Sunday morning as part of an exquisite corpse game (each participant writes a one minute tune. The first person writes there and sends the last 10 seconds to the next person, who carries on the tune. etc. When the last person finishes, it is all stitched back together into one long song).
However, the person in the list before me, didn't manage to do theres.
So on sunday, I finished the demo for "A Winter's Memory".
Starting to really like this. There is more guitar parts recorded than ended up here. I will re-work this after February.
On the sunday there was another skirmish. This time the title was "The Devil's Highway".
So I wrote a quick song about my love affair with the M6 motorway. So glad I don't have to drive down that each day (like I did for 5 years).
Originally, I wasn't going to put this to music, buy some people on the forum said they wanted to hear it. So here it is. The demo was made using EZKeys to come up with something really quick.
I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Not sure if I will re-record this for use later. Maybe it will be a b-side or bonus track.
During the rest of the week, I struggled with starting a song from the drums upwards. Spent far too many hours trying to import some .rex files into Cubase. Cubase seems intent on importing files that are in 5/4 or 7/4 in 4/4 time, regardless as to what the song's time signature is.
After several nights of trying, I gave up and went back to using Ezdrummer.
On Friday, I was told to start the Exquisite corpse song. So in
three hours, I wrote a one minute instrumental called "Lorana". I have
sent the last ten seconds off to a chap called Tim in Australia to
carry it on.
Obviously, I can't yet spoil it for everyone, by posting the song. I will post the song once the Exquisite corpse is finished.
So Saturday I was home alone. I re-recorded the devil's highway vocals, since the original second verse didn't work for the melody I wrote for verse one. Added the music to the bridge (which I thinks needs an instrumental adding before the final chorus.
I then had a go at the failed song. So far I have some chorus music in 5/4 time, with a guitar riff. I then proceeded to write a verse chord progression in 4/4 time, that seems far too happy.
So this needs re-working further and lyrics writing.
So the scores at the end of the week are five songs demoed. One song on the go.
So this is the start of week 3, I wrote some cliched lyrics for a skirmish entitled "I found my happy place".
Really insistant that I won't write music for this and will use the rest of the time to finish the other song in progress.
"I found my happy place".
In a world of fears and regrets
Wars and famine
Children distressed
All of the illness
and all the duress
I've found my happy place
In a world where we ain't equal
race and creed
hatred begats evil
All of the pain
And all of the suffering
I've found my happy place
Because
In you, I see a shining sun
In you, I see love for everyone
In you I see hope and a reason to be
In you I see courage and the will to be free
I've found my happy place
In a world of rich verses poor
Terror, disorder
Banks rotton core
In all of the sadness
And all this disease
I've found my happy place.
Because
In you, I see a shining sun
In you, I see love for everyone
In you I see hope and a reason to be
In you I see courage and the will to be free
I've found my happy place
So at the end of Sunday at the start of the third week. I have five songs, one set of lyrics (not) needing music and a partial song musically.
So with two weeks left, I think I will improve on last years total of six songs written.
This blog will be my musical highlights of 1983 - 1986. Basically, my time from moving to the upper campas of my school until the 6th form.
By 1982 I was buying singles and albums, whenever I had the money. Sometimes compilation albums. Compilations albums were great for finding new stuff like...
Aztec Camera - Oblivious
and not so good for finding other music, (from the same compilation record)
Forrest - Rock The Boat
1983 - 1986 was a great time musically for me. Punk was pretty much dead. Synths were taking over music, it was an exciting time. For me, I couldn't get enough music (which was weird, given I dropped music at school for wood work....).
Heaven 17 - Temptation
Thompson Twins - Love on you side.
(still one of my favourite songs).
"Records and Tapes", my local music shop, was my Saturday pilgrimage into town, to check out what was coming out. John, the owner would let us play and check out new tracks, and occasionally track down some imports.
Late 1983, was the year I started and quite quickly stopped trying to be a break dancer...
Afrika Bambaataa - Renegades of Funk
Chaka Khan - I feel for you.
Malcolm Mclaren - Double Dutch
1983 also saw the start of the, still going, compilation series. "Now that's what I call music". A relatively cheap way of getting the latest hits. Of course, I was still taping the charts each Sunday and doing my own compilations. I did sometimes, compile the cd into the same order as the record. We did own a copy of Now 1.
Now 1 had, one of my all time favourite artists on ot. Namely Howard Jones. Human's lib is another of my all time favourite albums.
Howard Jones - Hide And Seek
Hide and Seek, is my favourite song ever. I don't know why!
Now 1 also had such classics on it as
Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance
Will Powers - Kissing with Confidence
All manner of dodgy '80 tunes went through our house.
Though it did have my favourite Madness song on it and the Cure.
Madness - The Sun and the Rain.
The Cure - Love Cats
1983 was also the start of my 12" collection and possibly the start of me starting to collect everything by a band.
Christmas 1983 and I got for Christmas something that would define me for the rest of my life. Namely my first computer. The Zx Spectrum. From that moment on, I wanted to be a computer programmer. Thirty plus years later I am still computer programming. (Plus I got Seven and the ragged tiger on cassette!).
1984 for me is THE music year.
The year when I started a paper round, and starting really having my own money. My mum once complained I was buying too much vinyl. My reply was that my friends were all drinking and smoking. I bought records. Which would she prefer.
My favourite memories of 1984 were playing games on my ZX Spectrum listening to Seven and the Ragged Tiger (Duran Duran), Human's Lib (Howard Jones), Thriller (Michael Jackson), No Parlez (Paul Young) and Into The Gap (Thompson Twins).
1984 was also the year of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Yep, I have some
rare 12" versions and picture discs of Relax and Two Tribes
Other 1984 highlights include
Nik Kershaw - Wouldn't it be good.
Bronski Beat - Small town boy
Plus 1984, I was introduced to two of my soon to be favourite all time bands -
Marillion.
and the Cocteau Twins.
1985 and my 12" and album collection continued to grow.
Two big musical highlights of 1985.
Live Aid
and me picking up this album, on a whim, well I quite like Run to the hills.
As a synthy punk, I'd seen Iron Maiden on Top of the Pops a few times,
and liked a few of the tunes. Bought this album with some Christmas
money. Never looked back.
Seems a bit weird to go out and buy an Iron Maiden album and also at the same time buy this album.
Whitney Houston - Saving all my love for you!
and this album. Sade - Your love is King
But that is the way I roll. I'll listen to anything me and decide myself, regardless of the genre. If I like it, well, I like it.
Highlights of 1985
Aha- Take On me
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
Madonna - Like a Virgin
King - Love And Pride
Tears for Fears - Shout
Stephen Tin Tin Duffy - Kiss Me
Marillion in the meantime had released Misplaced Childhood and had a hit single with Kayleigh.
Not my favourite album of the band. Lavendar spoils the album for me. But I did get to see them live in 1985.
So that is it for part two. still into pop music, and synth pop, still got my motown influences, but slowly adding a rock touch.
One month into the solo album and things haven't gone totally to plan.
I'm blaming this on the World Cup, (which I didn't take into account for) and also me complicating the Hair Thieves latest release by adding another song and signing us up to record a cover song for a Mansun tribute album.
However, as I stated in the intial post, I have done some planning based on on Music Success In Nine Weeks by Ariel Hyatt.
I failed to do the 5 victories thing each day. Mostly because I have a pretty good task system, so I can see the progress of things ticked off, each day!
So I have set myself a end target to release the album in March 2015, which will coincide with my birthday.
Before then, I need to set up a website (which won't be needed until I have something for people to listen to). set up distribution, social media and start playing local open mic nights and find some support slots. So much to think about, plan and do.
I have started work on the first song, however. So far I have some music and some lyrics. It has the working title of Persephone. I rejected it from being a Hair Thieves tune on the basis that it is in DADGBD tuning. So I will see what I can do with it in the next week or so.
I have also dragged out my old amp. I bought this amp in 1990 (around the time I bought the B.C. Rich Warlock). I used it to gig throughout the 1990's. Eventually selling it, before buying it back again since I missed it.
I am contemplating recording some of the material with it, given in the past, I have used V-amps. PODs and Amplitude plugin for guitar sounds, so it might be nice to record a proper amp for once.
This does, obviously, subconciously assume that this is no longer the planned acoustic album I envisaged. Plus with different tunings, this might make playing the songs live acoustically tricky.
So to Ariels, week two tasks (or months task in my case). Branding. I will write a separate blog entry on this and my problems with it. And try and do part one of my '80s musical heritage!
For those that don't know me, I am a hobbyist musician, a photographer, a writer and a software engineer.
I am in a band called The Hair Thieves, who record an eclectic mix of EPs. This is mostly indie pop rock songs with a smattering of ambient soundtracks, rock, punk and jazz twinges.
Within this blog I aim to document the writing, recording and marketing of my first solo CD.
As of today. May 17th 2014, this exists only as a series of song parts, nothing has been finalised, I have no list of tunes nor completed lyrics to work on.
All I have is some ideas, that are either in weird tunings, weird timings (or both) or have been rejected as songs for The Hair Thieves.
So this might end up a album, or an EP or an EP and an album. I don't know yet.
The Hair Thieves is still my primary focus, so working on the new EPs for that will take precedence over any solo material I write, so I am envisaging that a solo album may take a year or two to complete.
Obviously, since I am starting from scratch and have other priorities, I aim to do this in nine months not nine weeks.
This will be supplemented by various books from Bob Baker like, Guerrilla Music Marketing Handbook (in which my name is mentioned!) as well as other blogs and books.
So there it is a start, or at least a line in the sand. To be honest it is a little bit scary!
I am to blog every couple of weeks. Starting the week June 1st. Wish me luck!
by Ariel Hyatt.
(in which my name is mentioned!) as well as other blogs and books.