A Musical Journey - Part 3 The 1990s - The University Years.

1990 was the year I (co) wrote my first song (think it was called "to your heart", with my friend Tats Mcgee, who has no recollection of the song.  I believe we wrote it on keyboards) and discovered I could record myself playing on cassette recorder (badly).  It was then I started compiling ideas for songs, some bits of which might be on the new album.

I have some jams on tape from this period with Tats on drums. Including a ropey version of the above Faith no more track!


In 1990, I finally left home and  moved to Bristol to go to university.  I spent two years there before going on to complete my degree at Coventry.  So I ended up doing three courses over 5+ years.

University for me was possibly the best time of my life.  Living away from home, I met some people who would be friends for life.  I was in several bands.  I was president of the Rock Society for a while. 

I studied hard and played hard and had the best time.

Bristol was ideally suited for me being at the M5 / M4 junction.  Within easy reach of London, Cardiff and Birmingham.  I blew all the money I'd saved in the first term going to gigs in said places.

Including Queensryche twice in a week. (Cardiff and London).

Living Colour

Blur (in the student Union).

Kings X (still one of the best gigs I have ever seen)

Plus bands like Extreme, Billy Idol, Guns and Roses and loads more.

I had a couple of attempts at forming bands in Bristol.  None never made it to gigging.  Which was a shame.

Musically, my tastes was still on the rock side.   One of the guys I shared a house with got me more into Hendrix.  But other than that, the only real band I really got into, after seeing them support Guns n Roses was Nine Inch Nails.

In 1992 I moved to Coventry to finish my degree and do a Masters.  Soon I was in a band called "Reheasal For Murder", with  four wonderful friends.   We often rehearsed without cymbals.  Which made it hard!!!

Grunge was in at the time.  I was already a fan of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden


Pearl Jam

Soundgarden

Alice in Chains

plus we did some Rage against the machine and possibly some nirvana.  Fun times.

I did get to see Soundgarden and Alice in Chains live (both at Rock City). Never got to see Pearl Jam.



Coventry was good was getting to gigs, in Nottingham, Birmingham and London.

The highlight of the week was the rock disco.  Where (when I still had hair) we would dance along to tunes like this
X-CNN

X-CNN was one of the bands who played the student union.   (We didn't bothering going to see Oasis after seeing them earlier in the day on the telly).


Plus one of my favourite tunes / bands of the 1990s.  Therapy.

and The Wildhearts.

though I was also a massive Honeycrack fan.

Die Cheerleader

I saw Die Cheerleader live supporting Terrorvision in a pub in Coventry.  The singer accused me of trying to chat her up.  I don't think I was.  Honest!

So in late 1995 I finally finished at university and took two months off back in Cornwall, before moving back to Coventry to look for a job.

Ending up in Telford, writing software for Gas and Electricity meters.  Not very rock n roll.  Though there was a bunch of rockers working there, who even almost twenty years later, I still see at (or go to with) gigs.

The late '90s for me musically, was more about industrial rock.

Nine Inch  Nails

Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson

A lot of the rock I was listening to was due to having cable TV and being able to see the videos on the telly.

Obviously the mid 1990's was the time of  Britpop.   To be honest, a lot of it passed me by.   I kept out of the Blur v Oasis debate, listening to neither.  Though recently I have gone back and listened to Blur a bit.  I still don't get Oasis.

The only two / three bands I really got into at the time was

Mansun

Mansun are in my top three favourite bands of all time. I was lucky to be able to do  a Mansun cover version for last years tribute album for the Mansun Convention.




Radiohead

Placebo

Stereophonics

But to be honest I was starting to get bored a bit with rock.  Finding solace in the old music I listened to in the '80s.  The Howard Jones, Tears for Fears, Suzanne Vega, Hazel O' Connor, Stiff Little Fingers, All about Eve etc.

Anyway that is for the naughties to the present day.  Which will be the subject of another blog.

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.

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.

Fawm - Week 4 and Round up

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 - Week 3 Summary

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.

Musically a mixed bag this week.

I decided I didn't want to put any effort into writing music for Sunday's skirmish, entitled "I found my happy place".  

I decided I would try and finish the song I started in week one.  The one in 5/4 time.  So I have spent some time re-working it, so now the verse music is the chorus and the chorus the verse.

As a demo I am happy with it.  I just need to write some lyrics for it.  I tried yesterday, but my muse wasn't having none of it.

During the week, I met up with Ian, the other half of The Hair Thieves.  He had started working on a synthy instrumental for Ep7.  Even though we already have a instrumental for the EP.

I had a listen.  There was a part of it, which was screaming out CHORUS to me.  So we re-arranged and recorded a few bits, until we had a proper song structure.

I have worked out a vocal melody.  Added some guitars since.  I just need to write some lyrics. Again, I tried yesterday, but my muse wasn't having none of it.

I have however started a new Sineglider instrumental.  Called Onionhead.



It still needs a bit of work, possibly a lead guitar, more synths, in the intro / breakdown.

But I'm quite pleased with it so far.  A bit more upbeat than my normal songs.   Plus I got to use the new bass guitar I bought during the week.

So current state of play.
6 songs Demo'd
1 set of lyrics I probably won't use.
2 songs with music needing some lyrics.
1 week to go, until FAWM finishes.

There is a skirmish, I believe tonight.  So I will have a go at that.

At the start of the month, I was never really planning to have fourteen songs at the end of it.  I believed I would get at least six and really would be happy if I could get nine songs done.

So with a week to go, I am very close to achieving that.

Then I can concentrate back on which of these new songs will make it on the solo album and crack on and get the first single out sometime before the summer.

I want to get the album released before March 2016.  So much more work to be done (as well as Hair Thieves EP7 / EP8 to complete and a Sineglider EP in 2015).

I'm excited.

Fawm - Week 2 Summary. (and a bit of week 3)

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.  

So happy with how February is progressing so far.

Fawm - Week 1 Summary

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.

It is now the start of day eight, so I thought I would update my progress so far (given in 2013 I managed 3 songs and 2014 I manged 6).

Well, the scores on the door is currently sitting as 2.5.

I started off on February 1st, whilst everyone else in the house was asleep.   So it was headphones on, leave the noisy guitars alone and work on a new tune for my Sineglider instrumental project.


This is based around the Alchemy plugin by the recently defunct Camel Audio.  Shame, given I like their plugins.



As with all songs I am going to demo this month, it will be very rough and will be re-worked over the coming months.

In the afternoon, I went to visit E from my band The Hair Thieves. I challenged him to come up with a song in the three hours we had.  

To speed things up, we used Toontrack's EZKeys piano plugin.   So over the course of three hours, we chose some piano patches, re-worked the chords.   Sorted out a rough beat and started the lyrics.

At the end of the day we had a rough tune and some partial lyrics.

On the Monday I recorded the lyrics, before reconvening back at E's on the Tuesday to finish the demo.

So after deleting the vocals for lines that didn't work (either melodically or scan).  We reworked the lyrics, added bridge lyrics and recorded some more vocals.

We then called it quits in the demo and released it onto the world.

This song will probably be on The Hair Thieves EP8, so we will rework this sometime later in the year. We will possibly throw away the piano and using the chord structure re-write for guitar.

Overall we are pretty pleased with the song.

The third song that was started is called "A winter's memory" the title was given as a skirmish (where you have one hour to write and record a song, with a given title or subject).

I managed to write the lyrics in under an hour, but never finished the music.

Idea came from a conversation I had with a friend at Uni.
We was talking about his girlfriend and he said something along the lines of,

"I love her, but sometimes, I wake up and look at her and just want to punch her in the face."


A Winter's Memory

Waking from a long sleep
A vision of you
Head under a pillow
I was never so cruel
It was so easy
though I'm not thinking straight
Why is it love, comes with such hate

And the winter remembers
The ghost of you
The coldness, the darkness
The screams and untruths
And the memory sparkles
as the nights draw near
Into my silence
you're worshiped and revered.

Snow falls on the landscape
On coats of blue
Ice breaks and dredgers
Still looking for truths
It was so easy
To make them understand
The love of a woman, can melt a man.

And the winter remembers
The ghost of you
The coldness, the darkness
The screams and untruths
And the memory sparkles
as the nights draw near
Into my silence
you're worshiped and revered.


I have started the music for this.  Initially, using EZKeys again.  I am currently in the process of replacing the piano with guitar and bass.  A the moment, this is in the tuning of DGDGBD since that was the guitar to hand.   So this will be a song for the Rollasoc project.

I will try and finish the demo in the coming days.

So on to week two.   I have signed up for an exquisite corpse game.   This involves several people, with the first person writing a minute of music and then sending the last ten seconds to the next person.  This process repeats until the end of the line is reached.   The first person then stitches all the snippets together into one long song.

I did this last year and got the Sineglider tune Foxtrot 4 out of it.


So another one minute Sineglider tune will be on the way this week, given I am second in line in my corpse.

Until next week's update, I'd best crack on and write a couple of new songs.