Hello everybody, how's your day? I've spent today looking at music again. I've got all the songs uploaded now in readiness for getting the Special Edition of A New World Order onto iTunes, and other places. The Special Edition features 10 extra titles on top of the 22 songs that were on it originally in 2004. When I get paid I'll make sure that I get that on there, and I'll renew Colours to make that available as well.
I've also been looking at what needs doing for the One Day set as well, and will have the parts for that set down as soon as I can. Someone that Rob knows is going to be putting some rock organ onto Together for that set, and vocals are needed for that song still as well. I'm looking forward to getting that out at last, as I'm sure are everyone else involved, including Tony whose song 'F***ed Up' is on there. A great punk song that really needs to be out there for people to hear.
So, as I said to my friend Craig Waring when I was chatting with him last night, "you wait for years for me to release something, and then I have three projects in a year." That's just me to a 't'. In truth, as I've probably said before, it's all just based on the fact that I didn't want to do the vocals on everything, as I saw someone else doing a lot of the vocals on the set. Oh well, someone has to do it, and I've sat on it for too long now.
With work I am still looking for something else, and I'm sort of left up in the air as well at the moment. I rang today about my shifts and was told that I would either have Tuesday or Wednesday off, and that they would let me know. Here I am on monday night still not knowing what I am doing. It's all a part of my not wanting to constantly be doing 6 shifts a week, which is for a variety of reasons. Firstly, there's the fact that despite telling them when Louise has her days off, they haven't yet given me the same time off so that we can actually spend time together. Secondly I'm getting tired and would actually like some free time to be able to live, rather than bloody work all of the time. Thirdly, I believe that it is causing problems with mine and Louise's relationship. Fourthly, there is the fact that there is approximately £45 per week I spend on fuel that I don't get back on expenses. This is approximately £180 per month on fuel, which I would prefer to spend on other things if I'm being honest.
There are so many reasons why I want to find some other job. I want to do less hours so that I have more free time. I also worked out that whatever I work, so long as it's over 30 hours, that the tax office will top up my money accordingly. This is like an eye opener to me. I hadn't realised this, and now I know that I don't have to do crazy hours to make enough money to live. There's also the fact that, the less shifts I do, the less fuel I have to pay for, and I would much rather spend my money on something else, such as saving to catch up with the one month I'm behind on rent, and then save the money to move to a bigger place. The latter is a good thing, because it gives room for the fact that I will eventually be getting another guitar. I miss the times when I had more than one of each of my instruments - I'd love either a Telecaster or a Stratocaster. I don't think there's much use of having a Les Paul unless it was a full blown Gibson.
While in the studio recording on Friday, me and Rob both took some video footage of the session, which in honesty I would have loved it if there had been someone else there to film some session footage, because I really like the idea of having visual footage of sessions. Keep it to yourselves, but I like the idea of using the footage to potentially make music videos. So, Rob took a video of me putting down a guitar track, which I have uploaded onto youtube, and I took some footage of him playing drums, which I need to work on because they are very large files that need to be made smaller to upload to the site. I am doing that at this moment, and will get footage of Rob up soon. If I had thought about it sooner, then I would have got us to take a lot more footage, and more photo's as well.
Next time I'll take a full set of cameras with me, my two digital cameras, and my digital video camera, and explain to people how they are used, and then they can use them whenever they like to capture pictures, video, or whatever. I think then there's the potential for multi-media. I had an idea a long time ago of releasing a set on a DVD, where there are music files, but also video footage as well, but that would be an incredibly expensive undertaking. It's the sort of thing of thing where if I was signed, then I would possibly suggest it as a promotional idea.
I have my head very firmly planted in the clouds, as you can see. I like to think that if I haven't got any dreams, then there is nothing there to reach for. Although, saying that, I would like to quickly put that I have the greatest thing that I could ever wish for with love (aw - I know, I'm a romantic).
I think I'll finish the blog off there now, because as ever I've been writing this for absolutely ages. And I still haven't been contacted about whether I'm having either Tuesday or Wednesday off. If I'm honest I'd prefer Saturday off, because I hate being stood in a store for 11 hours.
Anyway, everybody take care.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 28th February 2011 (40 years, 3 months, and 2 days old)
Monday, 28 February 2011
Sunday, 27 February 2011
More musical stuff, with interesting recording details from this week's session again
Hi. So the music I've been working on recently has brought me so many thoughts. It's funny how it can do that, and in a way because it is actual new music, it has that thing to it that makes it more interesting. If you think about it, it's easy to see where that comes from. Sometimes songs can take some time to get from the initial idea to a finished product. In those instances, I can sometimes lose interest in the song. I do get the interest back enough to finish the song, but I don't keep that initial interest for long.
When I started work on the One Day set, all the songs were started at the same time in a way, because I had either the entire music on demo tapes, or snippets of ideas. Those first couple of sessions were basically spent sifting through the material that I'd got on the tapes (around 4 hours worth of ideas), where we basically went through and every time we came across something that sounded interesting, we transferred it from the tapes to their editing software. From then, songs were worked on in bits and pieces, based usually on what instruments I showed up with, and who turned up to sessions as well.
This means that songs were sometimes worked on a little, and then not touched again for months (or a couple of years in a few cases now). But I am adamant that I'm going to finish the One Day set off, because I really want to get this new stuff out and play it live. A lot of what I'm writing at the moment is much more rock related, for the most part. There are some other songs that I'm writing, but there's something dramatic and attractive to the rockier numbers that I've been writing and coming up with. I like the whole thing of surprising people in music as well lately - tempo changes, key change, a chord progression that shouldn't work but does, and that sort of thing. It's almost like the song Good Morning World from the new set has given me a new thing to play with, because that has all the changes there, and plays with them really well. Basically it's made me think more about creating contrast in music, and I'm playing with it, by trying to see how far I can take that.
In essence, it's the ultimate thing of what I'm trying to do - take from all styles of music, of performance, and everywhere, and mix it up. Before it manifested itself as being songs that were all different styles on a set, but now I've taken that a step further, and I'm starting to understand how that can work.
But, I have to admit, that's still probably just the odd one off song that is like that. A lot of what I'm writing is still very much standard-ish, but there is a lot of riff related rock material at the moment, which when I get into the studio to record them, I think will be relatively quick recordings. I think I'll go more for starting and finishing work on songs quicker, so that there's no chance of getting bored of something or getting bogged down in, "could we just put a little of this or that in there." In some ways, the longer you spend on something I've realised that you can always think of things that you could add to songs. What happens is that until it's finished I'm constantly listening to the songs and thinking "what does this need for it to be finished?" If the songs are worked on quicker, then I'm not constantly wondering that, because they are already finished and I don't need to worry about that part of it.
Also while I was in the studio the other day, it was invigorating in so many ways. I felt that excitement of playing with someone again, and that is always exciting when you're working with other people, seeing the way that something gets shaped into a full performance. I mean really I sort of write the songs, but they aren't complete effectively until everything is put down and a recording is finished. I agree that the art of a good song is that when it's pulled back to it's basic parts you can still have a good song. However, when you hear a record as a whole, you hear the little bits in the background. You hear the twiddly keyboard and guitar runs, you hear the fills on the drums that make you want to air drum to them, you hear the harmonising in the case of acts like The Beach Boys, and all of those things.
Sitting there and watching Rob put drums down was like a wow moment. Even though it was just the two of us, I still only went in with the basic one guitar and vocal that I came up with writing it. During that day the song was built up to become what it is. I wasn't initially going to use the acoustic guitar on the song at all, but we both said that it would be good to put down one, even if it never got used in the final master, which is actually a good idea. I've never really thought of things that way. He was of the mind that if you come to the final mix of a song and you're there thinking "ooh that needs something there", then you actually already have it because you've recorded all these things that were germs of ideas that you weren't sure you would ever use. They are there then, whether you use them or not is immaterial.
So, we set click tracks up for each tempo of the song. A tempo is the speed that a song is played at. A click track, as virtually every musician in the world must know, does exactly what it says basically - it has clicks on it that are timed to count the length of the bars at the same tempo (or speed) of the piece. We sort of cheated with this in a way, because a couple of sections are at 96 beats per minute and another section is at 150 beats per minute, which is quite a drastic tempo change let me tell you. Because of this, it was easier to just treat them as different recordings. That's really a digital record era trick either - a lot of bands in the old days have used this same trick by recording songs as their separate sections, and then they spliced the tapes together to make a whole song. Nowadays it's just easier to do because of the whole digital thing of having the pieces there on a computer to basically copy and paste together.
To this I put the acoustic guitar part down for the first section of the song (double verse, chorus, single verse, chorus), and then a clean electric guitar (just through an amplifier without any effects). Then Rob laid the bass guitar down to it, which both of us added slight bits to such as some "pops" and fills. After that I added volume swell parts on the electric guitar (you play something on the guitar with the volume down and then turn the volume up to create an almost organ feel to the part). I make this sound like it was all done so quickly, but really it took a lot of time, because the fact that you're basically making it up means that you have to find the right notes for the part, the tone of the instrument, and how to use the effect, because there is a rhythm and timing aspect to the way you use any effect. If someone plays a part that is basically a run with a specific rhythm, and then a second guitarist comes in and supposed to be doubling that, it sounds awful if that second guitarist plays a note early or late, for too long, or not long enough. It is exactly the same with when you're using effects on instruments and parts.
There is one thing we didn't put down, because I forgot to take a "wah pedal" with me. But, hopefully I'll remember that for next time as something I put down while on a break from recording something else. After that, we put all these bits together so that this section had all those parts together correctly. After this came the time for the drums to be put down for that bit.
This was done very quickly I think, considering that neither of us had talked about the song or anything before that day. I think there were three takes before we got the finished drum tracks for that. When I say drum tracks, what I'm alluding to is that a lot of the time nowadays there are a lot of microphones used to capture the drum kit's sound. There are some recordings where people still use minimal microphone techniques, but they are few and far between. In this instance we had so many microphones on the drums - two on the bass drum (one in front and one behind), two on the snare drum (one on top and one underneath), one on each of the three tom drums, one on the "hi-hat" cymbals, one on the "ride" cymbal, and two 'overhead' mics - one over the left side of the drum kit and the other on the right side of the drum kit.
After this, we started on the 150bpm section. Andy Dawson from Savage works in the same building as the studios, and I used his gorgeous Fender Telecaster to lay down one distorted track using a different amplifier set-up. Ask Rob for equipment details, because all I know is if I like something then I like it, I don't really remember the names and numbers and things. Actually, it would be helpful if Rob responds to this with some more details if he could as it might be helpful to people.
Then I did a second distorted track (double tracking), but this time playing my own Ibanez guitar (that is a Gretsch copy I think). Double tracking is when you technically do the same thing again, which brings the part out more. A lot of people use it when they put vocal parts down. In this case, it was all that was needed to create a BIG DISTORTED sound, especially when I then added the bass guitar part into the mix, which used chords as well, which is rare on bass parts.
After that, we fixed the arrangement of that so that it comes in with one guitar for a couple of times through the riff, and then the bass and second guitar come in at that point. Then Rob went in and played the drums to that section, with the drums coming in at approximately the same time as the bass and second guitar. I say basically because he does a drum run to lead into that. That took him three takes to get the drums down, and that third take is what makes up the finished drum tracks.
After that I went in and put double tracked vocals down for the first section, and had a try at the second section vocals, but felt it wasn't right. Not that the notes I was singing were wrong or anything, but I think it just needed something else, and Rob too must have thought the same because he asked me if I thought they were right. I said I wasn't happy with them, and he said that the part worked to his vocal range perfectly, so we swapped places and he sane that section of the song, and his voice was so very right for it. This was double tracked as well.
While in there, Rob added claves to the first section of the song, percussion instruments, and I added some shaker percussion instruments. Finally, I then went back in again with the acoustic guitar, played the verse section again for the ending, and then added a single vocal. The reason for not double tracking the last bit was for dramatic purpose more than anything, because it was basically saying, "look, this is where I am, I'm on edge and worried about things, but hopeful at the same time." An honest feeling and emotion, to complete an incredibly emotional lyric, which unfortunately I still can't think of a title for because each of the two choruses has very different lyrics. The whole thing does tell a story though.
Oh well, that is so much information. I know that I so want to get myself a Fender Telecaster now after playing Andy's on this song. It is a fantastic guitar! I'm also thinking of getting rid of my 5-string bass and replacing it with a 4-string.
There we are, that is today's blog, and a very detailed one at that. Surprised I remembered that much.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 27th February 2011 (40 years, three months, and one day old)
When I started work on the One Day set, all the songs were started at the same time in a way, because I had either the entire music on demo tapes, or snippets of ideas. Those first couple of sessions were basically spent sifting through the material that I'd got on the tapes (around 4 hours worth of ideas), where we basically went through and every time we came across something that sounded interesting, we transferred it from the tapes to their editing software. From then, songs were worked on in bits and pieces, based usually on what instruments I showed up with, and who turned up to sessions as well.
This means that songs were sometimes worked on a little, and then not touched again for months (or a couple of years in a few cases now). But I am adamant that I'm going to finish the One Day set off, because I really want to get this new stuff out and play it live. A lot of what I'm writing at the moment is much more rock related, for the most part. There are some other songs that I'm writing, but there's something dramatic and attractive to the rockier numbers that I've been writing and coming up with. I like the whole thing of surprising people in music as well lately - tempo changes, key change, a chord progression that shouldn't work but does, and that sort of thing. It's almost like the song Good Morning World from the new set has given me a new thing to play with, because that has all the changes there, and plays with them really well. Basically it's made me think more about creating contrast in music, and I'm playing with it, by trying to see how far I can take that.
In essence, it's the ultimate thing of what I'm trying to do - take from all styles of music, of performance, and everywhere, and mix it up. Before it manifested itself as being songs that were all different styles on a set, but now I've taken that a step further, and I'm starting to understand how that can work.
But, I have to admit, that's still probably just the odd one off song that is like that. A lot of what I'm writing is still very much standard-ish, but there is a lot of riff related rock material at the moment, which when I get into the studio to record them, I think will be relatively quick recordings. I think I'll go more for starting and finishing work on songs quicker, so that there's no chance of getting bored of something or getting bogged down in, "could we just put a little of this or that in there." In some ways, the longer you spend on something I've realised that you can always think of things that you could add to songs. What happens is that until it's finished I'm constantly listening to the songs and thinking "what does this need for it to be finished?" If the songs are worked on quicker, then I'm not constantly wondering that, because they are already finished and I don't need to worry about that part of it.
Also while I was in the studio the other day, it was invigorating in so many ways. I felt that excitement of playing with someone again, and that is always exciting when you're working with other people, seeing the way that something gets shaped into a full performance. I mean really I sort of write the songs, but they aren't complete effectively until everything is put down and a recording is finished. I agree that the art of a good song is that when it's pulled back to it's basic parts you can still have a good song. However, when you hear a record as a whole, you hear the little bits in the background. You hear the twiddly keyboard and guitar runs, you hear the fills on the drums that make you want to air drum to them, you hear the harmonising in the case of acts like The Beach Boys, and all of those things.
Sitting there and watching Rob put drums down was like a wow moment. Even though it was just the two of us, I still only went in with the basic one guitar and vocal that I came up with writing it. During that day the song was built up to become what it is. I wasn't initially going to use the acoustic guitar on the song at all, but we both said that it would be good to put down one, even if it never got used in the final master, which is actually a good idea. I've never really thought of things that way. He was of the mind that if you come to the final mix of a song and you're there thinking "ooh that needs something there", then you actually already have it because you've recorded all these things that were germs of ideas that you weren't sure you would ever use. They are there then, whether you use them or not is immaterial.
So, we set click tracks up for each tempo of the song. A tempo is the speed that a song is played at. A click track, as virtually every musician in the world must know, does exactly what it says basically - it has clicks on it that are timed to count the length of the bars at the same tempo (or speed) of the piece. We sort of cheated with this in a way, because a couple of sections are at 96 beats per minute and another section is at 150 beats per minute, which is quite a drastic tempo change let me tell you. Because of this, it was easier to just treat them as different recordings. That's really a digital record era trick either - a lot of bands in the old days have used this same trick by recording songs as their separate sections, and then they spliced the tapes together to make a whole song. Nowadays it's just easier to do because of the whole digital thing of having the pieces there on a computer to basically copy and paste together.
To this I put the acoustic guitar part down for the first section of the song (double verse, chorus, single verse, chorus), and then a clean electric guitar (just through an amplifier without any effects). Then Rob laid the bass guitar down to it, which both of us added slight bits to such as some "pops" and fills. After that I added volume swell parts on the electric guitar (you play something on the guitar with the volume down and then turn the volume up to create an almost organ feel to the part). I make this sound like it was all done so quickly, but really it took a lot of time, because the fact that you're basically making it up means that you have to find the right notes for the part, the tone of the instrument, and how to use the effect, because there is a rhythm and timing aspect to the way you use any effect. If someone plays a part that is basically a run with a specific rhythm, and then a second guitarist comes in and supposed to be doubling that, it sounds awful if that second guitarist plays a note early or late, for too long, or not long enough. It is exactly the same with when you're using effects on instruments and parts.
There is one thing we didn't put down, because I forgot to take a "wah pedal" with me. But, hopefully I'll remember that for next time as something I put down while on a break from recording something else. After that, we put all these bits together so that this section had all those parts together correctly. After this came the time for the drums to be put down for that bit.
This was done very quickly I think, considering that neither of us had talked about the song or anything before that day. I think there were three takes before we got the finished drum tracks for that. When I say drum tracks, what I'm alluding to is that a lot of the time nowadays there are a lot of microphones used to capture the drum kit's sound. There are some recordings where people still use minimal microphone techniques, but they are few and far between. In this instance we had so many microphones on the drums - two on the bass drum (one in front and one behind), two on the snare drum (one on top and one underneath), one on each of the three tom drums, one on the "hi-hat" cymbals, one on the "ride" cymbal, and two 'overhead' mics - one over the left side of the drum kit and the other on the right side of the drum kit.
After this, we started on the 150bpm section. Andy Dawson from Savage works in the same building as the studios, and I used his gorgeous Fender Telecaster to lay down one distorted track using a different amplifier set-up. Ask Rob for equipment details, because all I know is if I like something then I like it, I don't really remember the names and numbers and things. Actually, it would be helpful if Rob responds to this with some more details if he could as it might be helpful to people.
Then I did a second distorted track (double tracking), but this time playing my own Ibanez guitar (that is a Gretsch copy I think). Double tracking is when you technically do the same thing again, which brings the part out more. A lot of people use it when they put vocal parts down. In this case, it was all that was needed to create a BIG DISTORTED sound, especially when I then added the bass guitar part into the mix, which used chords as well, which is rare on bass parts.
After that, we fixed the arrangement of that so that it comes in with one guitar for a couple of times through the riff, and then the bass and second guitar come in at that point. Then Rob went in and played the drums to that section, with the drums coming in at approximately the same time as the bass and second guitar. I say basically because he does a drum run to lead into that. That took him three takes to get the drums down, and that third take is what makes up the finished drum tracks.
After that I went in and put double tracked vocals down for the first section, and had a try at the second section vocals, but felt it wasn't right. Not that the notes I was singing were wrong or anything, but I think it just needed something else, and Rob too must have thought the same because he asked me if I thought they were right. I said I wasn't happy with them, and he said that the part worked to his vocal range perfectly, so we swapped places and he sane that section of the song, and his voice was so very right for it. This was double tracked as well.
While in there, Rob added claves to the first section of the song, percussion instruments, and I added some shaker percussion instruments. Finally, I then went back in again with the acoustic guitar, played the verse section again for the ending, and then added a single vocal. The reason for not double tracking the last bit was for dramatic purpose more than anything, because it was basically saying, "look, this is where I am, I'm on edge and worried about things, but hopeful at the same time." An honest feeling and emotion, to complete an incredibly emotional lyric, which unfortunately I still can't think of a title for because each of the two choruses has very different lyrics. The whole thing does tell a story though.
Oh well, that is so much information. I know that I so want to get myself a Fender Telecaster now after playing Andy's on this song. It is a fantastic guitar! I'm also thinking of getting rid of my 5-string bass and replacing it with a 4-string.
There we are, that is today's blog, and a very detailed one at that. Surprised I remembered that much.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 27th February 2011 (40 years, three months, and one day old)
Saturday, 26 February 2011
Continuing info on recording session and musings
Hi all. How is everybody? I hope you're having a nice weekend.
I'm still listening to the fruits of yesterday's session, which is still without a title damn it. There are choruses (sort of), but each one has different lyrics. Always a tricky situation that. I also feel weird listen to my own song like this as well, which probably sounds strange. It's strange listening to yourself singing in some ways, and not something that I've always been comfortable with. There probably are some people who like listening to themselves, but I'm definitely not one of those.
I have a wah guitar part I want to add to the verses, and I'd like to add some guitar licks into the middle section - not a solo as such, but just runs and things. I'm purposely stopping myself from posting it up on myspace, because I want it to be a complete surprise to people, although saying that there are two people who have heard it so far other than myself and Rob. It has started something in me though, because I have started writing riffs again in a very big way, which I haven't done so much for years. So, after the One Day set comes out, expect the set after that to have a lot of rock and metal influences, or I may even do it as a different project - I'd love to have a full rock band to be honest. I've been getting very nostalgic, and coming up with riffs and licks always gave me such a buzz.
Oh, is that the time? Bloody hell, I've been here for a couple of hours and have only typed this much up? I keep getting sidetracked. The internet is a bad thing for me to get stuck on. I've gone all this time without a drink as well.
Ooh, I've just heard the chord change on the chorus - awesome, three times of B, A, E, F#, E, A, and then the fourth run is the same except the E, A at the end altered to C#m to D - try it yourself and you'll see how nice that sounds. Took ages to get the vocal right for that change, especially since I double track my voice most of the time.
I've started reading another blog today, which I think could be very interesting, especially to musicians and in particular guitarists. It's by Laurence Juber, who is a fantastic guitarist. He was guitarist for the last incarnation of Wings, and has since gone on to be an amazing jazz guitarist - Matt Blick would love him, but don't let that put you off. He's amazing, without being like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and that sort of thing. Not that I'm putting them down because I have their music in my collection and enjoy it, but they can be a bit too showy for some people, whereas Laurence Juber (and others like John Scofield and the ilk).
Anyway, I'll leave this as a very short blog for me, and get on. It is the weekend. Have a lovely one everybody.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 26th February 2011 (40 years, and 3 months old)
I'm still listening to the fruits of yesterday's session, which is still without a title damn it. There are choruses (sort of), but each one has different lyrics. Always a tricky situation that. I also feel weird listen to my own song like this as well, which probably sounds strange. It's strange listening to yourself singing in some ways, and not something that I've always been comfortable with. There probably are some people who like listening to themselves, but I'm definitely not one of those.
I have a wah guitar part I want to add to the verses, and I'd like to add some guitar licks into the middle section - not a solo as such, but just runs and things. I'm purposely stopping myself from posting it up on myspace, because I want it to be a complete surprise to people, although saying that there are two people who have heard it so far other than myself and Rob. It has started something in me though, because I have started writing riffs again in a very big way, which I haven't done so much for years. So, after the One Day set comes out, expect the set after that to have a lot of rock and metal influences, or I may even do it as a different project - I'd love to have a full rock band to be honest. I've been getting very nostalgic, and coming up with riffs and licks always gave me such a buzz.
Oh, is that the time? Bloody hell, I've been here for a couple of hours and have only typed this much up? I keep getting sidetracked. The internet is a bad thing for me to get stuck on. I've gone all this time without a drink as well.
Ooh, I've just heard the chord change on the chorus - awesome, three times of B, A, E, F#, E, A, and then the fourth run is the same except the E, A at the end altered to C#m to D - try it yourself and you'll see how nice that sounds. Took ages to get the vocal right for that change, especially since I double track my voice most of the time.
I've started reading another blog today, which I think could be very interesting, especially to musicians and in particular guitarists. It's by Laurence Juber, who is a fantastic guitarist. He was guitarist for the last incarnation of Wings, and has since gone on to be an amazing jazz guitarist - Matt Blick would love him, but don't let that put you off. He's amazing, without being like Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and that sort of thing. Not that I'm putting them down because I have their music in my collection and enjoy it, but they can be a bit too showy for some people, whereas Laurence Juber (and others like John Scofield and the ilk).
Anyway, I'll leave this as a very short blog for me, and get on. It is the weekend. Have a lovely one everybody.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 26th February 2011 (40 years, and 3 months old)
Friday, 25 February 2011
Recording session today
Hey all, sorry so late but I've been in the recording studio today, and it was so very much fun. I hope that all of you had a great day too. I must first apologise to my friends Cory & Dawn whose wedding was today and I was intending to go to the do in the evening, but the session overran quite substantially, and I was absolutely whacked. I'll see them both very soon I promise.
The engineer today was one that I haven't worked with before, but I do know him, though I haven't seem him in so very long. Rob Huskinson, who is a fantastic musician. We both played bass on the song, and he plays the drums, as well as coming up with guitar parts for me.
It's interesting how songs can be shaped from the writing of a song, to the end product. When I wrote the song I expected it to be very grunge rock sounding because of the chords and lyrics essentially. When I got into the studio and started playing it though, me and Rob decided to alter it. First of all I wasn't going to use an acoustic guitar at all on the song, but then decided to use one for a lot of the song.
Once again it was one of those songs that I write where there are different sections that use different tempo's and feels. I sort of like playing with the whole concept of contrast. It also makes it interesting when writing songs, because you can go to places where you can't with a straight forward piece. This song for instance has a complete story to it, which is incredibly dramatic in a way.
Additional to this is the fact that it changes key for the middle section, and then goes back again. This is always an area where you have to really work on how to in and out of that, without it sounding completely wrong. A quandary for so many that.
The verse and chorus parts of the song were in my original vision straight forward grunge, and I just played the acoustic track that way sort of, and then added the clean guitar with Andy Dawson's Fender Telecaster, which is a beautiful guitar. I also did clean guitar on my own Ibanez. When double tracking it's sometimes good to use more than one guitar to git that sound of multiple guitarists essentially.
Other parts added today were a "swell" guitar, which was basically playing the chord, holding that chord, and then turning the guitar up to get a sound sort of reminiscent of an organ. There was another guitar added in the choruses, and the bass part for the main body of that song was by Rob, with me and him "punching in" some additional bass bits.
After this Rob played the drums for that main body of the song. Then I laid down the distorted guitar tracks for the middle section, to which bass was added by me, and then Rob put drums down to that. Then I played acoustic guitar again for the return to the main body of the song after the middle section. This was then followed by me singing all of the song's lead vocal (double tracked, which means I recorded them twice to get a sort of feel I like that warms something up), and then Rob double tracked lead vocals for the middle section.
Finally, Rob added claves, and I added shakers to give some percussion to the song. There are probably one or two things that are still needed, but that's pretty much a song done. Written one day, recorded the next. Catch it while it's fresh. The lyrics were altered in places, but that happens with most people's lyrics I believe. It's well documented that John Lennon's lyrics were never the same at time of recording to what they were when he first wrote songs. Not that I'm comparing in any way, but I'm just saying that these things happen.
So, a productive day then. I hope that this was fascinating to you. I may go into more detail tomorrow, but right now I'm absolutely shattered and want to get to bed. Take care everybody.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 25th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 30 days old)
The engineer today was one that I haven't worked with before, but I do know him, though I haven't seem him in so very long. Rob Huskinson, who is a fantastic musician. We both played bass on the song, and he plays the drums, as well as coming up with guitar parts for me.
It's interesting how songs can be shaped from the writing of a song, to the end product. When I wrote the song I expected it to be very grunge rock sounding because of the chords and lyrics essentially. When I got into the studio and started playing it though, me and Rob decided to alter it. First of all I wasn't going to use an acoustic guitar at all on the song, but then decided to use one for a lot of the song.
Once again it was one of those songs that I write where there are different sections that use different tempo's and feels. I sort of like playing with the whole concept of contrast. It also makes it interesting when writing songs, because you can go to places where you can't with a straight forward piece. This song for instance has a complete story to it, which is incredibly dramatic in a way.
Additional to this is the fact that it changes key for the middle section, and then goes back again. This is always an area where you have to really work on how to in and out of that, without it sounding completely wrong. A quandary for so many that.
The verse and chorus parts of the song were in my original vision straight forward grunge, and I just played the acoustic track that way sort of, and then added the clean guitar with Andy Dawson's Fender Telecaster, which is a beautiful guitar. I also did clean guitar on my own Ibanez. When double tracking it's sometimes good to use more than one guitar to git that sound of multiple guitarists essentially.
Other parts added today were a "swell" guitar, which was basically playing the chord, holding that chord, and then turning the guitar up to get a sound sort of reminiscent of an organ. There was another guitar added in the choruses, and the bass part for the main body of that song was by Rob, with me and him "punching in" some additional bass bits.
After this Rob played the drums for that main body of the song. Then I laid down the distorted guitar tracks for the middle section, to which bass was added by me, and then Rob put drums down to that. Then I played acoustic guitar again for the return to the main body of the song after the middle section. This was then followed by me singing all of the song's lead vocal (double tracked, which means I recorded them twice to get a sort of feel I like that warms something up), and then Rob double tracked lead vocals for the middle section.
Finally, Rob added claves, and I added shakers to give some percussion to the song. There are probably one or two things that are still needed, but that's pretty much a song done. Written one day, recorded the next. Catch it while it's fresh. The lyrics were altered in places, but that happens with most people's lyrics I believe. It's well documented that John Lennon's lyrics were never the same at time of recording to what they were when he first wrote songs. Not that I'm comparing in any way, but I'm just saying that these things happen.
So, a productive day then. I hope that this was fascinating to you. I may go into more detail tomorrow, but right now I'm absolutely shattered and want to get to bed. Take care everybody.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 25th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 30 days old)
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Moaning about work, and more waffling, yet again
Today's blog then hey... What to write about? I know; make it up as I type it.
So, I've still got a few days off until I'm back to work, but even so I have been contacted a few times and have been given six shifts for my first week back next week, which will mean having to pay for 240 miles travelling myself before I even get any bloody expenses. The way this thing is I am absolutely pissed with it all. I don't mind having to pay a little bit towards fuel obviously, but this really takes the piss. I have a few jobs that are possibilities, and can't wait to give my notice in. They can kiss my exhaust fumes!!!
I know that I should really moan about work online because I've heard of people getting into trouble when they've moaned about work online, but I don't give a shit to be completely honest. I am trying to gather the guts up now to send a message with the Area Manager to let them know that I'd prefer shorter weeks. I know that I'm not going to worry about too much time in the future, because I am adamant about getting another job altogether. It may be in security, but it certainly won't be with them because they lied to me in the interview by saying that they paid for the entire journey if I went over 30 miles... First of all it's over 40 miles, and they only pay for the miles after 40 miles. As well as that there was the agreement that I would do sites within a 30 mile radius, and maybe occasionally go out of that area. That has obviously changed, and so I'm looking for something different where I'm not taken the piss out of.
It's taken me a long long time to get to the point where I won't let people take me for granted. Some people I know got to that stage much sooner in life, but me it's taken a long time. There are still a lot of my friends who will get carried away by the hours and getting the cash, and I can understand it in their lives, but I'm changing now. I'm turning away from the sort of person who wanted to make tons of money. The tons of money is good, but now I'm starting to think that there are more important things in life than that. But that's me as I am now.
Had another text apologising for "hounding" me. Obviously they're having manpower problems at the moment, otherwise I'm sure that message wouldn't have been put that way. In some ways it's because of how people are treated as workers that cause them to look elsewhere and leave them. I'm already in that area, and I've only been working with them since mid October. I don't mind doing the odd extra shift, but I am getting sick of being a Relief Officer and getting a rota with 6 shifts every week that is a minimum of 50 hours per week with the addition of a weekly total of a minimum of 12 hours.
Anyway, that's enough of that. While at my aunt's yesterday, I got songs uploaded ready for the Special Edition of A New World Order, and I've been incredibly generous by making the original 22 titles now up to 32 titles, adding ten songs that were recorded in the sessions that made the album, but weren't used. I had plenty of material to work with back then that's for sure. After going to my aunt's yesterday I came back with some discs and discovered recordings from then that I had completely forgotten about. There were obviously around 50 or more songs in total recorded at that time, which also included a rough version of Don't Run Away, which I had completely forgotten I had done. It wasn't actually intended for A New World Order, but was just something that I performed live just to get the idea down. I did that a lot back then. In some ways I sort of look back on that period with happy thoughts, and it was so weird how I'd recorded songs.
Back then I went in with songs and performed live acoustic guitar and vocal together, and then add to that with other parts if necessary. In some cases I also had harmonica as well for that initial track. After this was done I would add the other parts. Everything on A New World Order except for When I Was With You was recorded that way. It was surprising how it worked. The lesson I learnt from this period though was that in some cases it was time consuming because I wanted to cheat at times and basically copy and paste, but working as quick as I was through songs, I didn't even give the engineers time to set up a click track to keep the timing constant throughout the songs, so I couldn't do that and had to play all the way through songs every time I put a new instrument on, which was sort of how I had known to record before then anyway, because I had never been in before then since they became fully digital. Before then I had only recorded using the analogue set-up.
Again this has taken me absolutely ages to sort out, mainly because the signal has been terrible again with the mobile broadband signal. This is something that I still need to get sorted eventually, but it's useless doing anything until we move from here to somewhere more permanent. That plus the whole initial outlay to get everything installed and that, since there are no connections in this flat anywhere, which is strange in this day and age. I don't think I've come across a place without a telephone thing in a room somewhere for some years. Well strange..
Anyway, to finish off, I don't know why but I only took photo's of two things yesterday at my aunt's, so above and below this little bit I've put a picture of each for your delectation.
Have a fantastic day y'all. Here's to some interesting blogging tomorrow with studio information and stuff. Take care of yourselves.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 24nd February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 29 days old)
So, I've still got a few days off until I'm back to work, but even so I have been contacted a few times and have been given six shifts for my first week back next week, which will mean having to pay for 240 miles travelling myself before I even get any bloody expenses. The way this thing is I am absolutely pissed with it all. I don't mind having to pay a little bit towards fuel obviously, but this really takes the piss. I have a few jobs that are possibilities, and can't wait to give my notice in. They can kiss my exhaust fumes!!!
I know that I should really moan about work online because I've heard of people getting into trouble when they've moaned about work online, but I don't give a shit to be completely honest. I am trying to gather the guts up now to send a message with the Area Manager to let them know that I'd prefer shorter weeks. I know that I'm not going to worry about too much time in the future, because I am adamant about getting another job altogether. It may be in security, but it certainly won't be with them because they lied to me in the interview by saying that they paid for the entire journey if I went over 30 miles... First of all it's over 40 miles, and they only pay for the miles after 40 miles. As well as that there was the agreement that I would do sites within a 30 mile radius, and maybe occasionally go out of that area. That has obviously changed, and so I'm looking for something different where I'm not taken the piss out of.
It's taken me a long long time to get to the point where I won't let people take me for granted. Some people I know got to that stage much sooner in life, but me it's taken a long time. There are still a lot of my friends who will get carried away by the hours and getting the cash, and I can understand it in their lives, but I'm changing now. I'm turning away from the sort of person who wanted to make tons of money. The tons of money is good, but now I'm starting to think that there are more important things in life than that. But that's me as I am now.
Had another text apologising for "hounding" me. Obviously they're having manpower problems at the moment, otherwise I'm sure that message wouldn't have been put that way. In some ways it's because of how people are treated as workers that cause them to look elsewhere and leave them. I'm already in that area, and I've only been working with them since mid October. I don't mind doing the odd extra shift, but I am getting sick of being a Relief Officer and getting a rota with 6 shifts every week that is a minimum of 50 hours per week with the addition of a weekly total of a minimum of 12 hours.
Anyway, that's enough of that. While at my aunt's yesterday, I got songs uploaded ready for the Special Edition of A New World Order, and I've been incredibly generous by making the original 22 titles now up to 32 titles, adding ten songs that were recorded in the sessions that made the album, but weren't used. I had plenty of material to work with back then that's for sure. After going to my aunt's yesterday I came back with some discs and discovered recordings from then that I had completely forgotten about. There were obviously around 50 or more songs in total recorded at that time, which also included a rough version of Don't Run Away, which I had completely forgotten I had done. It wasn't actually intended for A New World Order, but was just something that I performed live just to get the idea down. I did that a lot back then. In some ways I sort of look back on that period with happy thoughts, and it was so weird how I'd recorded songs.
Back then I went in with songs and performed live acoustic guitar and vocal together, and then add to that with other parts if necessary. In some cases I also had harmonica as well for that initial track. After this was done I would add the other parts. Everything on A New World Order except for When I Was With You was recorded that way. It was surprising how it worked. The lesson I learnt from this period though was that in some cases it was time consuming because I wanted to cheat at times and basically copy and paste, but working as quick as I was through songs, I didn't even give the engineers time to set up a click track to keep the timing constant throughout the songs, so I couldn't do that and had to play all the way through songs every time I put a new instrument on, which was sort of how I had known to record before then anyway, because I had never been in before then since they became fully digital. Before then I had only recorded using the analogue set-up.
Again this has taken me absolutely ages to sort out, mainly because the signal has been terrible again with the mobile broadband signal. This is something that I still need to get sorted eventually, but it's useless doing anything until we move from here to somewhere more permanent. That plus the whole initial outlay to get everything installed and that, since there are no connections in this flat anywhere, which is strange in this day and age. I don't think I've come across a place without a telephone thing in a room somewhere for some years. Well strange..
Anyway, to finish off, I don't know why but I only took photo's of two things yesterday at my aunt's, so above and below this little bit I've put a picture of each for your delectation.
Have a fantastic day y'all. Here's to some interesting blogging tomorrow with studio information and stuff. Take care of yourselves.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 24nd February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 29 days old)
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Day out, thoughts on recording, boxes from the past
Hey, how are you? How has your day been? I've been out today and visited family, which made a lovely change. While there, I went through some of my stuff that's there and brought some back. While Louise is out at work one of these next couple of days, I'm going to go through a couple of TAPES of recordings that I found. It's funny, but it was like reliving moments when I was going through a couple of boxes of my stuff there, and actually they were boxes that I'd not gone through for many years. I found a couple of tapes of Cornerstone, and there are a load of tapes of Shadowplay I suppose. Not sure where all those are, because the boxes are all mixed up all over the place. This is why I thought I had my entire DVD collection here at home, but then found some earlier at my aunt's. I've brought some back with me - a few classic albums DVD's, because I am one of those people who is fascinated in how music is made.
It's really weird going through stuff like that because it's like something suddenly comes back to you. One of the other tapes I've brought back home is of the gig that was done at the Paradise Club with the line-up of Jim, Paul, Stephen, James, Eric, and Phil. In some ways I'm sort of interested to listen to these recordings, but I know that the recordings with me playing in 1993 will be cringe-worthy. I say that now because I realised as soon as I looked at the dates on the tapes that things weren't exactly as I had at first thought.
It appears that rehearsals were still going on into September 1993 with the line-up as shown (although I think that Eric may have stopped being part of it by then). I don't know what it is with this "selective memory" of mine, but my memory of dates aren't exactly perfect. Why is that?
I did want to find a CD full of Shadowplay, Jewel, and select Cornerstone recordings as well, but to be honest I just couldn't get to any other boxes because there's too much stuff in there! I'm hoping that my brother Richard will help me with this because he apparently has my mini-disc collection, and that has a couple of mini-discs with music from that time frame on. There was some great material from that time, and there are a lot of memories that need bringing back.
Oh, one thing I did find that I want to check out has absolutely surprised me, and I hope that it's still working because it is such an incredible find. I hope that Paul's reading this... I found the tape we used on the 4-track at Ray Peskett's to record Butterfly :-) It's recorded at a quarter speed, so can't tell much on a conventional tape player, but if it's there then the original three tracks of Paul's rhythm guitar on one, my bass on one, and the third track of Paul's guitar solo and James's lead vocal should be on there. That is amazing to me. If so, then I'd actually be interested in getting each individual track separated into four different wav files to save for posterity. I know that sounds weird, but it would be awesome to do. Actually in all honesty, Paul reminded me the other day of how stoned we were when we recorded it, and that's why it was recorded in that manner. I've remembered since that there was also the fact that originally we were just going to use a single mic on the drums like they did in the early period of multi-tracking and just record it on the four-track. I always had a love for The Beatles, and essentially I was thinking then that if they could come up with music that sounded so good on basic four-track, then why not try and see what we could come up with! What can I say, I was a different person back then, lol.
I also realised looking at things there that dates were wrong with other things as well. A New World Order (which is being issued on iTunes soon as the previously mentioned Special Edition) was actually originally released in 2004 rather than the 2002 that I originally thought. Also, Colours was from 2006 and not 2005 according to the year on the disc itself. Just little things maybe to some, but it's frightening to me that I would get these details wrong.
Anyway, I had a lovely time with Lynn, we chatted for absolutely ages, and it was nice to catch up with her. It was also great to see Liam. I loved seeing Rachel and Damia when they can around to visit later. We chatted about all sorts of things, which I suppose is how everyone's conversations are like. I suppose it's like that because of going so long without seeing each other. We talked about family, about the past, about music, about work, and funnily enough about the blog as well as other things. The blog is making me think a lot lately, because I'm beginning to wonder whether some things ought to be talked about, or whether I should leave certain things alone.
I stopped off at Mansfield on the way there to make sure that recording on Friday was a definite at The Old Library studio, which it is (yay). I'm not sure what I'm going to do to be honest. There are so many options available. I could work on finishing all the vocals on the songs that need finishing, but in some ways I'm sort of into the idea of starting something new because I like the buzz of working on a new song. It's such a tough choice for me to make. In some ways, I get bored working for too long on something, but I know that it needs to be done.
There's also the fact that I'm with an engineer I've not worked with before, and I'm not sure whether to use their expertise in getting something finished or starting something new. That's a tough one. I have ideas all of the time, and I'll take some instruments with me just in case. Tempted to take acoustic guitar, mandolin, and the organ (maybe with maybe some bits in a bag as well), and if I need to go electric, they have some great instruments there, although they do have something on which may mean that their instruments will be unavailable. Small car, very little room, and travelling to and from Mansfield. Hmm?
I like the idea of absolutely going for it with a rock riff or something like that, but I never know where inspiration will take me. That's if I do something completely new of course. I have a list of ideas on the laptop, which I'll be taking with me of course. I'm hopeful at getting some photo's and maybe video footage as well. I'm so addicted to photography and all that. Of course I'll put some stuff up on Facebook and Twitter if any video footage or photo's are taken.
This has taken a few hours to do today again because I keep getting side-tracked by other things, and chatting with people and all sorts. I think I'd best leave it there, because there are things to do tomorrow. So, another short (ish) blog then.
Ah well, I'm sure normal service will be resumed soon when I'll be doing the usual gabbing on and on. Here's to a lovely day for you all tomorrow. Take care.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 23nd February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 28 days old)
It's really weird going through stuff like that because it's like something suddenly comes back to you. One of the other tapes I've brought back home is of the gig that was done at the Paradise Club with the line-up of Jim, Paul, Stephen, James, Eric, and Phil. In some ways I'm sort of interested to listen to these recordings, but I know that the recordings with me playing in 1993 will be cringe-worthy. I say that now because I realised as soon as I looked at the dates on the tapes that things weren't exactly as I had at first thought.
It appears that rehearsals were still going on into September 1993 with the line-up as shown (although I think that Eric may have stopped being part of it by then). I don't know what it is with this "selective memory" of mine, but my memory of dates aren't exactly perfect. Why is that?
I did want to find a CD full of Shadowplay, Jewel, and select Cornerstone recordings as well, but to be honest I just couldn't get to any other boxes because there's too much stuff in there! I'm hoping that my brother Richard will help me with this because he apparently has my mini-disc collection, and that has a couple of mini-discs with music from that time frame on. There was some great material from that time, and there are a lot of memories that need bringing back.
Oh, one thing I did find that I want to check out has absolutely surprised me, and I hope that it's still working because it is such an incredible find. I hope that Paul's reading this... I found the tape we used on the 4-track at Ray Peskett's to record Butterfly :-) It's recorded at a quarter speed, so can't tell much on a conventional tape player, but if it's there then the original three tracks of Paul's rhythm guitar on one, my bass on one, and the third track of Paul's guitar solo and James's lead vocal should be on there. That is amazing to me. If so, then I'd actually be interested in getting each individual track separated into four different wav files to save for posterity. I know that sounds weird, but it would be awesome to do. Actually in all honesty, Paul reminded me the other day of how stoned we were when we recorded it, and that's why it was recorded in that manner. I've remembered since that there was also the fact that originally we were just going to use a single mic on the drums like they did in the early period of multi-tracking and just record it on the four-track. I always had a love for The Beatles, and essentially I was thinking then that if they could come up with music that sounded so good on basic four-track, then why not try and see what we could come up with! What can I say, I was a different person back then, lol.
I also realised looking at things there that dates were wrong with other things as well. A New World Order (which is being issued on iTunes soon as the previously mentioned Special Edition) was actually originally released in 2004 rather than the 2002 that I originally thought. Also, Colours was from 2006 and not 2005 according to the year on the disc itself. Just little things maybe to some, but it's frightening to me that I would get these details wrong.
Anyway, I had a lovely time with Lynn, we chatted for absolutely ages, and it was nice to catch up with her. It was also great to see Liam. I loved seeing Rachel and Damia when they can around to visit later. We chatted about all sorts of things, which I suppose is how everyone's conversations are like. I suppose it's like that because of going so long without seeing each other. We talked about family, about the past, about music, about work, and funnily enough about the blog as well as other things. The blog is making me think a lot lately, because I'm beginning to wonder whether some things ought to be talked about, or whether I should leave certain things alone.
I stopped off at Mansfield on the way there to make sure that recording on Friday was a definite at The Old Library studio, which it is (yay). I'm not sure what I'm going to do to be honest. There are so many options available. I could work on finishing all the vocals on the songs that need finishing, but in some ways I'm sort of into the idea of starting something new because I like the buzz of working on a new song. It's such a tough choice for me to make. In some ways, I get bored working for too long on something, but I know that it needs to be done.
There's also the fact that I'm with an engineer I've not worked with before, and I'm not sure whether to use their expertise in getting something finished or starting something new. That's a tough one. I have ideas all of the time, and I'll take some instruments with me just in case. Tempted to take acoustic guitar, mandolin, and the organ (maybe with maybe some bits in a bag as well), and if I need to go electric, they have some great instruments there, although they do have something on which may mean that their instruments will be unavailable. Small car, very little room, and travelling to and from Mansfield. Hmm?
I like the idea of absolutely going for it with a rock riff or something like that, but I never know where inspiration will take me. That's if I do something completely new of course. I have a list of ideas on the laptop, which I'll be taking with me of course. I'm hopeful at getting some photo's and maybe video footage as well. I'm so addicted to photography and all that. Of course I'll put some stuff up on Facebook and Twitter if any video footage or photo's are taken.
This has taken a few hours to do today again because I keep getting side-tracked by other things, and chatting with people and all sorts. I think I'd best leave it there, because there are things to do tomorrow. So, another short (ish) blog then.
Ah well, I'm sure normal service will be resumed soon when I'll be doing the usual gabbing on and on. Here's to a lovely day for you all tomorrow. Take care.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 23nd February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 28 days old)
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
General stuff and nonsense
So here we are with another day. I now have no pre-written blogs left to type out and am going to just type whatever comes to mind. It seems to have worked previously, because I've received no reports of people dying of boredom just yet, although I'm sure there's still time. I mean, there are people that never come away from their computers, much like that World Of Warcraft fanatic on that episode of South Park, so someone may not have been discovered dead yet. We never know. You could just see the scene right now, Crime Scene Investigators show up, smell the rotting corpse, see them at the computer with their cursor hovering over the minimize/close option on their page in readiness to do something. It brings a tear to the eye doesn't it.
Oh well... What's happening with you? Anyone discovered any interesting blogs and new podcast's for me to check out? I'm going to be back to having loads of time to fill on journeying to and from work places again soon and have nothing to listen to in my stereo-less car. Next time I buy a car I'll make sure that the bloody car stereo works as well as everything else. You can get bored shitless driving around for ages without even the radio in the background to stop you from dropping off on the roads full of earth movers, JCB's, and all the flaming roadworks that are going on absolutely everywhere. These roadworks just get worse. Now if a journey used to take an hour, you feel like you should maybe double the driving time because you'll probably come across say seven or eight sets of temporary lights/junctions where they're "making the roads safer and better" - thanks. Can't they actually have some thought and say, "hey those roadworks are only about a mile or so away from those others, perhaps we should stagger them so people don't have too many of them when they're out travelling?" No, they don't bloody think of that because if they can't get in to work, they just switch their computers and have their phones ready to work from home. Lovely, "work from home"!!! Wish I could do that. These people probably still expect their secretaries and personal assistants to show up at the offices that they can't get to, and I'm sure that if they were a couple of minutes late because of the traffic the bosses (on their phones from home) would seriously chastise for it, even when they obviously didn't even want to bother trying to get to work themselves. Sorry, I've heard of this sort of thing, and have actually seen it happen as well. Double standards piss me off, what can I say!? - I'm not sure whether I should have put an exclamation mark or question mark there, so put the point across more by emphasising it ;)
... ... *time passes* ... ...
Sorry, had a bit of a break there while doing other stuff. Somebody on Twitter put me onto a dubmix of The Beatles Eleanor Rigby, which I liked. There are a few things I've come across over the last few months that I've liked on there, not that they're exactly original though, because it's not really their song is it, but it's an inventive way of keeping something in people's moods, and making it relevant to music today, if that's actually needed really. Some music is timeless. Here is another one that I think is quite cool, but shouldn't work - The Beatles Vs Shaggy :-)
Since I'm in the youtube mindset, here we go with some more stuff to check out;
1. Pearl Jam - Spin The Black Circle
2. Beastie Boys - Sabotage
3. Iron Maiden - Wasted Years
4. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - The Rascal King
5. Queen - Innuendo (or alternative original version with gulf war footage)
There we go, a bit of viewing for you. Some great songs I think too. I'm spoiling you there I think. Anyway, obviously you can see that I love youtube, and in fact I think I'll have a look and maybe put some more links up for you another time too. Yes, I think so.
I've been very on and off today with this blog, just can't seem to get away from the other stuff I have going on internet wise - guess I'm addicted, plus I have other things that I should be doing. Going out into town in a little while just to see where it is that I live. Going to see my aunt tomorrow (yay), and going through some bits while I'm there, hopefully to return with a disc of really old Shadowplay and Cornerstone material. That would be great. In fact, I wish I could get hold of my minidisc collection, because I'd love to get the stuff put onto CD sometime while I'm in the studio, maybe do a couple of discs in the background each time I'm recording, so I'm recording the Project Marv (or whatever it is I'm doing) stuff, and getting that onto disc in the background. While thinking about the past, I remembered that me and Matt (Cornerstone) also worked a rough demo cover of D'Angelo's Brown Sugar, and lots of other stuff. In a way, I think it might be helpful to listen through old stuff, and there's also the fact that me and Paul are both very nostalgic at the moment with regard to the Shadowplay/Jewel period definitely. Who knows where that could lead?
Anyway, please take care of yourselves.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 22nd February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 27 days old)
Oh well... What's happening with you? Anyone discovered any interesting blogs and new podcast's for me to check out? I'm going to be back to having loads of time to fill on journeying to and from work places again soon and have nothing to listen to in my stereo-less car. Next time I buy a car I'll make sure that the bloody car stereo works as well as everything else. You can get bored shitless driving around for ages without even the radio in the background to stop you from dropping off on the roads full of earth movers, JCB's, and all the flaming roadworks that are going on absolutely everywhere. These roadworks just get worse. Now if a journey used to take an hour, you feel like you should maybe double the driving time because you'll probably come across say seven or eight sets of temporary lights/junctions where they're "making the roads safer and better" - thanks. Can't they actually have some thought and say, "hey those roadworks are only about a mile or so away from those others, perhaps we should stagger them so people don't have too many of them when they're out travelling?" No, they don't bloody think of that because if they can't get in to work, they just switch their computers and have their phones ready to work from home. Lovely, "work from home"!!! Wish I could do that. These people probably still expect their secretaries and personal assistants to show up at the offices that they can't get to, and I'm sure that if they were a couple of minutes late because of the traffic the bosses (on their phones from home) would seriously chastise for it, even when they obviously didn't even want to bother trying to get to work themselves. Sorry, I've heard of this sort of thing, and have actually seen it happen as well. Double standards piss me off, what can I say!? - I'm not sure whether I should have put an exclamation mark or question mark there, so put the point across more by emphasising it ;)
... ... *time passes* ... ...
Sorry, had a bit of a break there while doing other stuff. Somebody on Twitter put me onto a dubmix of The Beatles Eleanor Rigby, which I liked. There are a few things I've come across over the last few months that I've liked on there, not that they're exactly original though, because it's not really their song is it, but it's an inventive way of keeping something in people's moods, and making it relevant to music today, if that's actually needed really. Some music is timeless. Here is another one that I think is quite cool, but shouldn't work - The Beatles Vs Shaggy :-)
Since I'm in the youtube mindset, here we go with some more stuff to check out;
1. Pearl Jam - Spin The Black Circle
2. Beastie Boys - Sabotage
3. Iron Maiden - Wasted Years
4. The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - The Rascal King
5. Queen - Innuendo (or alternative original version with gulf war footage)
There we go, a bit of viewing for you. Some great songs I think too. I'm spoiling you there I think. Anyway, obviously you can see that I love youtube, and in fact I think I'll have a look and maybe put some more links up for you another time too. Yes, I think so.
I've been very on and off today with this blog, just can't seem to get away from the other stuff I have going on internet wise - guess I'm addicted, plus I have other things that I should be doing. Going out into town in a little while just to see where it is that I live. Going to see my aunt tomorrow (yay), and going through some bits while I'm there, hopefully to return with a disc of really old Shadowplay and Cornerstone material. That would be great. In fact, I wish I could get hold of my minidisc collection, because I'd love to get the stuff put onto CD sometime while I'm in the studio, maybe do a couple of discs in the background each time I'm recording, so I'm recording the Project Marv (or whatever it is I'm doing) stuff, and getting that onto disc in the background. While thinking about the past, I remembered that me and Matt (Cornerstone) also worked a rough demo cover of D'Angelo's Brown Sugar, and lots of other stuff. In a way, I think it might be helpful to listen through old stuff, and there's also the fact that me and Paul are both very nostalgic at the moment with regard to the Shadowplay/Jewel period definitely. Who knows where that could lead?
Anyway, please take care of yourselves.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 22nd February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 27 days old)
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Stay-cation, thoughts, this and that
So today is Sunday, a day of rest, or so we would believe... How is today for you by the way? I'm still on holiday (another week left yet), and I have the car to wash soon, with my own very lazy hands in fact! I suppose that I could be out there now doing it, but in a way I can't be bothered, but I know it has to be done because Louise even said yesterday that it looks like it's been through an RAC Rally or something, it is absolutely filthy. Mind you, it has done a good few thousand miles since I got it at the end of September. The other week alone I did over 600 miles with it.
I sort of like the idea of having holiday time to relax and catch up. I'd love to go away somewhere, but in the absence of money to pay for this, a "stay-cation" is a good alternative. Tomorrow for instance, while Louise is at work for her four hour shift, I will be getting some instruments out and getting some practice in and, hopefully, get some other stuff done in that long time of 4 hours! I wish we had a bigger place, because then I could just steal myself away somewhere and spend some time practising and stuff. I hate living in flats (or apartments as some call them), because there is no real privacy and, in a lot of circumstances, space.
This is something else that I intend to rectify this year for definite. It's not like a New Year's Resolution sort of thing, because they generally tend to get broken. When I gave up smoking, I gave up a little while after New Year, because I didn't want it to be linked with it. I gave up cold turkey as well, which is unheard of now with all this Nicorette Patches and shit. I don't think that they work really. I think that it's all to do with the will power that you have yourself, even the adverts say that you need will power for them to work. Why not just save the twenty odd pound you spend a week or whatever on these things and just buy some sugar free gum and go for it? It's the same bloody thing basically.
Here is the picture I meant to put up the other day by the way, which would have been the one for the Slave Song single. I decided, without any feedback, to just issue the old A New World Order set from 2002 instead for the extra bit of money. I'd sort of decided that anyway, but as you saw in the blog, it was something that I decided whilst typing that out. Because it's a digital release anyway, I can go to town with the track listing and issue it as a Special Edition. I was wrong the other day, there are 22 songs on the set anyway and not 24. I'm going through a list of titles that I recorded at that time that weren't included and already have five extra songs I'm going to add to the set as bonuses, and know that there will be more than that even. As I said, about 30 songs for £7.99 is a really good deal. If I could just edit the existing Colours set that is there then I would do a Special Edition of that as well, because there are a couple of songs that were left off that.
Two songs that won't feature on the special edition of A New World Order are The Rising Storm and In The Shape Of Things, because they have been re-recorded for inclusion on the new forthcoming set, which I'm wondering about calling One Day. That is another set that will have absolutely loads of songs on it. I like to give value for money. I know that some of my friends give songs away free and am wondering about looking into that possibility for some songs in the future, but to be honest I think I've worked hard on the music I produce and there is a hell of a lot of it. Admittedly, looking back on songs, some better than others. I'll be sad and give a commentary on A New World Order - Special Edition when it's available, and that will be a completely honest opinion as well, including songs that I now cringe at.
The forthcoming set, which as I said may be called One Day, has 23 songs already, and I am tempted to add some other stuff to that as well such as alternative versions and demo's from the A New World Order. You can find a couple of things already up on the myspace page - Down The Line (I think it's just the instrumental backing), Messed Up, and Goodnight World are all from One Day. I'm just looking at art work now for the next set, which I think could be great. I suppose it doesn't matter really considering that it will just be a tiny picture on an i-pod or i-phone screen, I don't know how it would be on one of those i-pad things, although I'll admit to some interest in what an i-pad is like.
If it was a full on CD, record, or something, then I would probably get Skip to organise a full-on package for the set, with artwork and everything in there, but since it's just a digital release with only a single picture, then I don't see the point to it all really. It's not like anyone really looks at the picture while they're listening to the songs anyway. Do they?
Well, I think that I'll leave that there, and it will probably surprise people that this was made up completely on the spot as I'm typing it up. Here's to more blogs ahead. I think I'm getting used to it now. Well, considering that I'm basically just waffling anyway.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 20th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 25 days old)
I sort of like the idea of having holiday time to relax and catch up. I'd love to go away somewhere, but in the absence of money to pay for this, a "stay-cation" is a good alternative. Tomorrow for instance, while Louise is at work for her four hour shift, I will be getting some instruments out and getting some practice in and, hopefully, get some other stuff done in that long time of 4 hours! I wish we had a bigger place, because then I could just steal myself away somewhere and spend some time practising and stuff. I hate living in flats (or apartments as some call them), because there is no real privacy and, in a lot of circumstances, space.This is something else that I intend to rectify this year for definite. It's not like a New Year's Resolution sort of thing, because they generally tend to get broken. When I gave up smoking, I gave up a little while after New Year, because I didn't want it to be linked with it. I gave up cold turkey as well, which is unheard of now with all this Nicorette Patches and shit. I don't think that they work really. I think that it's all to do with the will power that you have yourself, even the adverts say that you need will power for them to work. Why not just save the twenty odd pound you spend a week or whatever on these things and just buy some sugar free gum and go for it? It's the same bloody thing basically.
Two songs that won't feature on the special edition of A New World Order are The Rising Storm and In The Shape Of Things, because they have been re-recorded for inclusion on the new forthcoming set, which I'm wondering about calling One Day. That is another set that will have absolutely loads of songs on it. I like to give value for money. I know that some of my friends give songs away free and am wondering about looking into that possibility for some songs in the future, but to be honest I think I've worked hard on the music I produce and there is a hell of a lot of it. Admittedly, looking back on songs, some better than others. I'll be sad and give a commentary on A New World Order - Special Edition when it's available, and that will be a completely honest opinion as well, including songs that I now cringe at.
The forthcoming set, which as I said may be called One Day, has 23 songs already, and I am tempted to add some other stuff to that as well such as alternative versions and demo's from the A New World Order. You can find a couple of things already up on the myspace page - Down The Line (I think it's just the instrumental backing), Messed Up, and Goodnight World are all from One Day. I'm just looking at art work now for the next set, which I think could be great. I suppose it doesn't matter really considering that it will just be a tiny picture on an i-pod or i-phone screen, I don't know how it would be on one of those i-pad things, although I'll admit to some interest in what an i-pad is like.
If it was a full on CD, record, or something, then I would probably get Skip to organise a full-on package for the set, with artwork and everything in there, but since it's just a digital release with only a single picture, then I don't see the point to it all really. It's not like anyone really looks at the picture while they're listening to the songs anyway. Do they?
Well, I think that I'll leave that there, and it will probably surprise people that this was made up completely on the spot as I'm typing it up. Here's to more blogs ahead. I think I'm getting used to it now. Well, considering that I'm basically just waffling anyway.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 20th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 25 days old)
Saturday, 19 February 2011
Thoughts on the modern world
Hi, here we are again with yet another one of my blogs where I waffle on about stuff, get things off my chest, reminisce, and basically put what I like in here. I'm not sure I could do the whole one subject thing every day forever, although come to think of it, I think that I could probably do a blog where I talk about one subject specifically, but not each and every day. Hmm, I'll have to think about that one - nice idea. Not telling you, because you might nick it off me, and that's my fortune for pete's sake!!!
I apologise to all of my friends named Pete or any variation thereof, it's just a phrase I'm going through ;-)
It's funny really how the internet and all of that seems to have such a hold on every aspect of life. Back in the late 70's as a young 'un, I don't think anyone could have foreseen such a change in so short a time, except for those who wrote sci-fi future based shows, films, and books, where they tended to maybe go too far with their expectations.
Even relatively recent films such as the Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes film Demolition Man, there were some writers who just didn't get it right. Even before the whole "in the future" thing, they had a cryogenic prison where people would be frozen for so long and have their brain rehabilitated basically, and they had semi-futuristic gear as well. That was supposed to be 1996 Los Angeles... Hello, we're in 2011, and we are nowhere near that advanced... yet! Still a damn good film though :D
I know that it's weird me talking like this about the hold that the internet has on people, what with me being on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and doing this blog (and thinking of doing another maybe). However, what I am talking about is how in a lot of ways the internet stuff seems to take precedence in the lives of people over everything else. I used to use it in some ways at work to relieve boredomwhere I'd play the games on Facebook, etc, and happily chat with people (which I do miss). Now though I have a job that doesn't allow me use my laptop, so I have less time to be on, and I rarely use it home when I'm with Louise anyway because, well, we don't get much time together anyway.
That is a case of prioritising really. I still go on the social networking thing and all of that, but for the most part it's just to stay in touch with people because of not being able to see them due to work and all of that. Obviously I've already said what's going to happen with the work thing - I'm going to get a different job.
I think in some ways that we've lost something with this networking thing, which is actual real in-person contact. I don't see too much of a problem with the social networking thing (I'd be an hypocrite if I said otherwise), but that is to a point. We should still have the in-person thing, because I think that's healthier than the whole internet thing.
When I was a young 'un as I mentioned, we had board games and stuff that groups played together in person, rather than 'virtual versions' of the games that we can play online. We would play Monopoly, Scrabble, Cluedo, Kerplunk, Frustration, Mouse Trap (I still don't understand that game really, it's sort of pointless), and all of those other games. Playing those games as a group together in a room, not on computers, allowed actual real interaction rather than the less interesting virtual interaction.
I know that talking like this will probably make me seem like an old fart, but really all I am saying is this - The computer is a fantastic invention that can be incredibly helpful, fun, and so many others things. However, we should not let it stop us from enjoying what is out there, or from spending time with people in person. I don't see the problem with just sitting down with people and enjoying their company without everything else getting in the way of it. In fact, and this will get me some feedback I'm sure, instead of watching a programme on TV, that's what a recorder is for. You can gain so much from sharing time with people and finding who someone really is, and not what their avatar and the details on a networking site tell you about them.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 19th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 24 days old)
I apologise to all of my friends named Pete or any variation thereof, it's just a phrase I'm going through ;-)
It's funny really how the internet and all of that seems to have such a hold on every aspect of life. Back in the late 70's as a young 'un, I don't think anyone could have foreseen such a change in so short a time, except for those who wrote sci-fi future based shows, films, and books, where they tended to maybe go too far with their expectations.
Even relatively recent films such as the Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes film Demolition Man, there were some writers who just didn't get it right. Even before the whole "in the future" thing, they had a cryogenic prison where people would be frozen for so long and have their brain rehabilitated basically, and they had semi-futuristic gear as well. That was supposed to be 1996 Los Angeles... Hello, we're in 2011, and we are nowhere near that advanced... yet! Still a damn good film though :D
I know that it's weird me talking like this about the hold that the internet has on people, what with me being on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and doing this blog (and thinking of doing another maybe). However, what I am talking about is how in a lot of ways the internet stuff seems to take precedence in the lives of people over everything else. I used to use it in some ways at work to relieve boredomwhere I'd play the games on Facebook, etc, and happily chat with people (which I do miss). Now though I have a job that doesn't allow me use my laptop, so I have less time to be on, and I rarely use it home when I'm with Louise anyway because, well, we don't get much time together anyway.
That is a case of prioritising really. I still go on the social networking thing and all of that, but for the most part it's just to stay in touch with people because of not being able to see them due to work and all of that. Obviously I've already said what's going to happen with the work thing - I'm going to get a different job.
I think in some ways that we've lost something with this networking thing, which is actual real in-person contact. I don't see too much of a problem with the social networking thing (I'd be an hypocrite if I said otherwise), but that is to a point. We should still have the in-person thing, because I think that's healthier than the whole internet thing.
When I was a young 'un as I mentioned, we had board games and stuff that groups played together in person, rather than 'virtual versions' of the games that we can play online. We would play Monopoly, Scrabble, Cluedo, Kerplunk, Frustration, Mouse Trap (I still don't understand that game really, it's sort of pointless), and all of those other games. Playing those games as a group together in a room, not on computers, allowed actual real interaction rather than the less interesting virtual interaction.
I know that talking like this will probably make me seem like an old fart, but really all I am saying is this - The computer is a fantastic invention that can be incredibly helpful, fun, and so many others things. However, we should not let it stop us from enjoying what is out there, or from spending time with people in person. I don't see the problem with just sitting down with people and enjoying their company without everything else getting in the way of it. In fact, and this will get me some feedback I'm sure, instead of watching a programme on TV, that's what a recorder is for. You can gain so much from sharing time with people and finding who someone really is, and not what their avatar and the details on a networking site tell you about them.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 19th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 24 days old)
Friday, 18 February 2011
Changed my mind, more mumbling and waffling
Once again I'm going to make something up on the spot with my blog today. I did start typing something, but I still feel like it's time to leave off that subject for a while. Maybe there are some people out there wondering what I'm on about, but trust me when I say that it's a tough subject to talk about.
I'm just on the Tunecore website at the moment, where I am uploading a song for eventual sale on iTunes, Amazon, and other places. I'm looking forward to having it on there, although it is an old song from a good few years ago. It is however, one of the best songs I've ever written in my opinion. Ooh, I know... I'll talk about the old material sometime soon I think? Yeah, that's a good idea. See what I can remember about them.
Actually, as a bit of a thing (can't remember the word), I've decided to place a question on Facebook and Twitter asking whether people think I should release a single song, or a full album for only £5 more. Depending on that depends on what happens, well maybe. I'm sort of leaning towards the complete album thing to be honest, because that extra £5 is making me wonder about putting more songs on the set since it's a digital release anyway. There are, I think, 24 songs on there or something, and I could bolster that to 30 if I add some more tunes from that recording period and put them as BONUS TRACKS - see what I did there? I'm using the industry standard to sell something. I'm adding songs and thinking of calling it a SPECIAL EDITION - the guaranteed way to get people's interest so it seems.
I too am one of those that has fallen for that before now. Let's face it, I just get too much into my love of music, and if an updated version of something comes out, I will invariably buy it. I now have three different versions of the Band On The Run album, and I have the enormous Born To Run box set that includes, I think, one CD and two DVD's, which have the making of (including footage from the recording), and a live concert. Let's face it, any live footage of Bruce Springsteen is well worth it, he's The Boss.
I'm going to my aunt's next week for the first time in a very long time, and am so looking forward to it. I'll be going through some of the stuff that I have stored there, and sifting through it. There are a few things I'm looking for, which include a CD of old Shadowplay, Jewel and Cornerstone recordings, and a good few other things. It's nice to be able to have the time to catch up with family and friends, because these days it just seems more difficult to see people and catch up. That's my main reason for looking for another job.
When I first took on this new job I have, which if I'm honest isn't too bad really, I was basically just trying to get out of being unemployed, and so I agreed to be what's called an Area Relief Officer. I thought, "well, I won't get that much to do, and they probably won't send me too far." How wrong was I? Very. In one week I must have done around 600 miles the other week. I don't mind driving, but I get sick of it sometimes, and the way that fuel is going up is just crazy. The government are all for people not using their cars so much, but you can't really use public transport to commute either, because that's just too bloody expensive and, in the case of buses, it takes far too long. You have to drive to work and back if you work some distance and, if you're a night worker (like I was, and may soon have to be again), you can't get a return ticket on a bus or most trains that you use over two days (technically the beginning and end of a shift).
I am still waiting for people to get back to me about this whole release a single song or an album business. Still no response. I actually think in some ways that no one is that bothered about my music, and that they're just being nice with things that they say. After all, and this is very sad, I am the only person that actually bought anything of mine on iTunes, just really to see if it worked (plus, I like having the pictures up on the screen and everything. Silly I know. I am still edging towards the full album though personally.
In fact, sod it. I'll issue a full album then. I think that £7.99 is a good price for around 30 songs anyway in anyone's money. Above now I have put the picture that would have been the picture to go with the single I was going to issue, but now I'll issue the full album it was from way back when. Well, I was going to put a picture, but this blogging thing is being a bit of an arse today - thanks.
I've been trying to finish this blog for numerous hours, but the signal on the 3 network has been, shall we say, less than co-operative to put it politely. In fact, so sick of it, think I'll finish now and enjoy what's left of my day now that I have wasted all that time.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 18th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 23 days old)
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Retford trip, promotion, northern lights, and stuff
So, we both went out yesterday to Retford, and it was the first time we've been there since moving to Newark. I like Retford very much, and next time me and Louise are hoping to meet up with Jon James Hall and his family, because I haven't seem them in so long, and I like Jon and his family so much. As well as that, I think Jon is an incredibly talented person - I think everyone should get his album Do Not Record Over, which is just amazing from start to finish. He is the singer that I originally had in mind for a lot of the songs on the Project Marv set that I'm soon finishing at long last. When it comes out, I'll be all self-promotional and do a write up on here about it. See what I can remember about it.
I wish we'd have taken photos while we were in Retford in a way, but a chance never really came. The time was obviously spent on the shopping side of things. Next time we'll have longer and actually sit in the park and stuff, so I can get some pictures taken. I foresee a good panoramic picture... I just thought, since a panoramic picture is made of three different pictures technically, while I'm setting up the second picture, someone who's walking through the first one could show up on the second bit as well, and thus be in the picture twice, or even three times? I have weird thoughts a lot, as I'm sure you've noticed.
I think we'll be looking out tonight in the hope that we can catch the Northern Lights here in the UK, which I found about just half an hour ago when I started typing this up. My beautiful Louise is at the side of me on her laptop looking at stuff on the old internet, which includes news on yahoo and that sort of thing. I doubt we'll see anything out of these windows, but you never know, and I have my camera ready for anything anyway. If I get any photos, then I'll post something up anyway.
I'm betting you've already guessed that this blog is being made up completely on the spot. I have other things, but am leaving them for a little while. Firstly I fancy the idea of doing something general today, and the next subject that's prepared is a very touchy subject that's being started, so I thought I'd leave that a little longer. It's also good to just see where things go.
Next week I'm hoping to get a recording session in with Rob Huskinson engineering. It'll be interesting to see how that turns out. I'm always fascinated and open to people's opinions on music shaping the way that a song finishes up. In some ways that's why I like working with other people, whether they be playing or just offering advice, I always take anyone's ideas on board. I think that's a good thing, because although I am very experimental and open minded, there is a tendency that I can sometimes replicate what I've done before, even if it's only a feel or a hook or something.
You know what, I'm actually looking at that link I posted earlier for Jon's album and I'm wondering about downloading it myself. It's a free download, and every song on it is amazing. I think it's better than a lot of 'signed' music that's come out for a long time. I have the CD at my aunt's in Shirebrook, but there's something about downloading it with the artwork included in the files,and it adds another download to his list on the site. I think everyone should get it on there because it's free for god's sake!!!
Sorry, it's become a promotional thing, but I'm just adamant that even if it ends up not being your thing, free downloads are just an absolute have to! If anyone knows of other free downloads they think I should check out, then please let me know, because as I've said before, I am always open to new things musically, as well as blogs, podcasts, videos, and all sorts of stuff.
Do you know what? I think I'll leave this here as a short thing. Not much of a blog I know, but it is a blog that is probably more in line with what other people type about.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 17th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 22 days old)
I wish we'd have taken photos while we were in Retford in a way, but a chance never really came. The time was obviously spent on the shopping side of things. Next time we'll have longer and actually sit in the park and stuff, so I can get some pictures taken. I foresee a good panoramic picture... I just thought, since a panoramic picture is made of three different pictures technically, while I'm setting up the second picture, someone who's walking through the first one could show up on the second bit as well, and thus be in the picture twice, or even three times? I have weird thoughts a lot, as I'm sure you've noticed.
I think we'll be looking out tonight in the hope that we can catch the Northern Lights here in the UK, which I found about just half an hour ago when I started typing this up. My beautiful Louise is at the side of me on her laptop looking at stuff on the old internet, which includes news on yahoo and that sort of thing. I doubt we'll see anything out of these windows, but you never know, and I have my camera ready for anything anyway. If I get any photos, then I'll post something up anyway.
I'm betting you've already guessed that this blog is being made up completely on the spot. I have other things, but am leaving them for a little while. Firstly I fancy the idea of doing something general today, and the next subject that's prepared is a very touchy subject that's being started, so I thought I'd leave that a little longer. It's also good to just see where things go.
Next week I'm hoping to get a recording session in with Rob Huskinson engineering. It'll be interesting to see how that turns out. I'm always fascinated and open to people's opinions on music shaping the way that a song finishes up. In some ways that's why I like working with other people, whether they be playing or just offering advice, I always take anyone's ideas on board. I think that's a good thing, because although I am very experimental and open minded, there is a tendency that I can sometimes replicate what I've done before, even if it's only a feel or a hook or something.
You know what, I'm actually looking at that link I posted earlier for Jon's album and I'm wondering about downloading it myself. It's a free download, and every song on it is amazing. I think it's better than a lot of 'signed' music that's come out for a long time. I have the CD at my aunt's in Shirebrook, but there's something about downloading it with the artwork included in the files,and it adds another download to his list on the site. I think everyone should get it on there because it's free for god's sake!!!
Sorry, it's become a promotional thing, but I'm just adamant that even if it ends up not being your thing, free downloads are just an absolute have to! If anyone knows of other free downloads they think I should check out, then please let me know, because as I've said before, I am always open to new things musically, as well as blogs, podcasts, videos, and all sorts of stuff.
Do you know what? I think I'll leave this here as a short thing. Not much of a blog I know, but it is a blog that is probably more in line with what other people type about.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 17th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 22 days old)
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
More waffling
Initially this was going to be a more structured blog, which I'd written. However, I didn't get very far with that before I was taken away from it. I wanted to do something that I had thought about, and where I wasn't just waffling on the laptop. Oh well, best laid plans and all that. I do have some other blogs written already, but I think it's nice to veer away from bombarding people with my life story. I'm trying to space that out.
I'm hoping that some people will get back to me with some music and stuff to review in these blogs. I don't mind doing that, much like I used to.
I also love listening to podcasts while I'm driving around for work, whether they be chat or music related. Blogs are also great to check out, when I have the time to do so. I'm usually out of the house for a minimum of ten hours for work, so understandably time is not always easy to find. Such is the way these days I'm afraid to say.
Now then, I have nothing written, which shows how much time I have. It's awful when you just don't have the time to do things. Louise says that I'm addicted to the internet, especially social networking and this blog. She could be right, but in a way I'm using them for a reason. In all they give me some escapism from work and all of that. There's also the fact that because I am so far from people now, and I am someone that has got used to having a close family and my friends to see, that I am using the social networking to stay in touch with them. I hate that work is so intrusive.
I went out for a wander last night, and while I was out I realised that I had been so silly when I was looking for work after being made redundant last year. All I was thinking about was making the money to take care of myself and Louise and to pay the bills. I had completely forgotten that here in the UK the tax system has contingencies in place so that you can get what are called top-ups for your money, because you can be below what they say is the minimum you need to live on. I'm going to look into these things right now.
It's awful that with all the money that the Inland Revenue get, that they don't just sort these things out for you without you haven't to ask them about it. I hate that whenever you are entitled to things, that they don't get in touch and tell you what you're entitled to, but leave you to work it out for yourself. I know it makes me sound stupid, but I never knew about top-ups until someone mentioned it a few years ago. It infuriated me in some ways, because I suddenly worked out that I could have had top ups before then, and no one had let me know.
I actually did go to the tax office here in Newark yesterday and found that it was closed with a notice outside saying "open Mondays and Wednesdays", which was something else that made me angry. Okay, so it was Tuesday and they were closed, which is stupid - only open for 5 hours a day, twice a week. There were people actually in there though, which I thought was stupid as well. Why can't they be open when there are people working there. I find it a lot nowadays that places are only open at certain times, and also there are shops that suddenly decide to close before the times on the board outside. I've got to a shop before that's supposed to close at half five, and they were closed at ten past five. I warned people that I'd venting.
I was just thinking of finishing, but I've got the telly on in the background and it's reminded me of something else that is irritating. I've got Challenge on and there's old Family Fortunes on (which was preceded by Catchphrase). Okay, not everyone's cup of tea, but in some ways I think these game shows now are no where near as good as they were then, because nowadays they're all celebrity based programmes, whereas then they were actual members of the public. In some ways it was more interesting with real people, and I find the whole celebrity culture thing disgusting anyway, as I've stated before in posts.
Okay, I think I'll leave it at that. Except to say that I'm in the studio soon putting some keyboards onto a song, which will mean nearly finishing the album at last. It will be available on itunes for April I hope, when I can at last get on with the follow-up, which I hope to be quicker at finishing.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 16th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 21 days old)
I'm hoping that some people will get back to me with some music and stuff to review in these blogs. I don't mind doing that, much like I used to.
I also love listening to podcasts while I'm driving around for work, whether they be chat or music related. Blogs are also great to check out, when I have the time to do so. I'm usually out of the house for a minimum of ten hours for work, so understandably time is not always easy to find. Such is the way these days I'm afraid to say.
Now then, I have nothing written, which shows how much time I have. It's awful when you just don't have the time to do things. Louise says that I'm addicted to the internet, especially social networking and this blog. She could be right, but in a way I'm using them for a reason. In all they give me some escapism from work and all of that. There's also the fact that because I am so far from people now, and I am someone that has got used to having a close family and my friends to see, that I am using the social networking to stay in touch with them. I hate that work is so intrusive.
I went out for a wander last night, and while I was out I realised that I had been so silly when I was looking for work after being made redundant last year. All I was thinking about was making the money to take care of myself and Louise and to pay the bills. I had completely forgotten that here in the UK the tax system has contingencies in place so that you can get what are called top-ups for your money, because you can be below what they say is the minimum you need to live on. I'm going to look into these things right now.
It's awful that with all the money that the Inland Revenue get, that they don't just sort these things out for you without you haven't to ask them about it. I hate that whenever you are entitled to things, that they don't get in touch and tell you what you're entitled to, but leave you to work it out for yourself. I know it makes me sound stupid, but I never knew about top-ups until someone mentioned it a few years ago. It infuriated me in some ways, because I suddenly worked out that I could have had top ups before then, and no one had let me know.
I actually did go to the tax office here in Newark yesterday and found that it was closed with a notice outside saying "open Mondays and Wednesdays", which was something else that made me angry. Okay, so it was Tuesday and they were closed, which is stupid - only open for 5 hours a day, twice a week. There were people actually in there though, which I thought was stupid as well. Why can't they be open when there are people working there. I find it a lot nowadays that places are only open at certain times, and also there are shops that suddenly decide to close before the times on the board outside. I've got to a shop before that's supposed to close at half five, and they were closed at ten past five. I warned people that I'd venting.
I was just thinking of finishing, but I've got the telly on in the background and it's reminded me of something else that is irritating. I've got Challenge on and there's old Family Fortunes on (which was preceded by Catchphrase). Okay, not everyone's cup of tea, but in some ways I think these game shows now are no where near as good as they were then, because nowadays they're all celebrity based programmes, whereas then they were actual members of the public. In some ways it was more interesting with real people, and I find the whole celebrity culture thing disgusting anyway, as I've stated before in posts.
Okay, I think I'll leave it at that. Except to say that I'm in the studio soon putting some keyboards onto a song, which will mean nearly finishing the album at last. It will be available on itunes for April I hope, when I can at last get on with the follow-up, which I hope to be quicker at finishing.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 16th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 21 days old)
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Shadowplay, Part Three
So Tim left the band and we were left needing a drummer. We asked Andy Mason who played guitar on Hope, to join on drums and he accepted. He had been the original drummer for Delirium (who became D-Elz). He was also drumming for Electric Gypsies, a blues rock cover band. I caught both bands live a number of times, becoming friends with them all.
I remember sitting in on a recording session with Electric Gypsies, and in a break some of us went onto the stairwell and sang Every Rose Has It's Thorn - Andy & Space on guitars, Max singing lead, and me with Andy & Space singing back vocals. Good times.
A lot happened before we actually recorded or played live (started editing what I was going to write now, because what I had remembered wasn't quite right). Me and Paul did a lot of writing, and we experimented with singer/keyboard player Owen (can't remember his surname, sorry). A set of lyrics he started writing for a piece of music me and Paul had written was cool, but the whole thing didn't seem to work for some reason.
We did a lot of writing, but when we did go back to playing live we still played mainly covers. I can understand that now looking back, but I was irritated by it back then and for a while after. In some ways I'm still of bothered by playing covers, because you will be inevitably compared, unless you do a drastic re-interpretation of something. I actually thought that what we were writing was too good for people not to hear.
In January 1996 we went into Bandwagon again, and this time we recorded what was definitely the best recording we ever made together. The song was called Down, which me and Paul wrote together with some of best lyrics ever - "Where are the daggers as you try to cut me down, where are the dragons as you burn me to the ground..." The hard hitting lyrics spoke of a person who had got sick of people walking all over them. The music equalled the words, with the best licks that Paul and me had ever come up with. Andy helped with the instrumental lead into the solo sections, so all in all the three of us had come up with a cracking song that is still awesome.
The engineer for the session was Mark Allsop, who we knew as the drummer for Clownhouse and Quango, bands that all three of us loved to bits. He was, and still is, a great all round musician, who can play all sorts of instruments. For this song, Mark got the absolute best mix ever. The drums especially stood out, and my bass kicks ass big style. Paul's numerous guitar takes led to some amazing tracks of guitar, and his vocal was flawless as well.
After this we carried on rehearsing for a long while, until we were ready to gig with a big change of sound that matched that of Down. The setlist was sharpened to include material that was more rhythm related, with myself and Andy particularly knuckling down to getting "in" with each other musically. My bass playing had to link with both the drums for the rhythm side of things, but also had to make up for the lack of a second guitar, or a keyboard or any other instrument - a feat that all three piece bands have to get around really, because when say the guitarist starts soloing, the background music has to still have some semblance of the tune itself.
We were absolutely hot by the time we were gigging, and I'm not messing there. We had the ability to play around 200 songs off the cuff at that point, which ranged from A to Z (well, sort of). We knew everything from Rage Against The Machine's first album, everything by Red Hot Chili Peppers up to that time (One Hot Minute being the most recent album then), also material by Chic, Prince, Queen, Free, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Guns 'n' Roses, the list just went on and on.
We'd gotten into Lenny Kravitz big time, but my idea of merging three of his songs was vetoed - Are You Gonna Go My Way, Stop Draggin' Around, and Always On The Run, but we did do them separately. We also got off on doing Cupid's Dead during sound checks - mint riff.
Later in the year we returned to the studio, but with the idea of recording ourselves at Bandwagon. This was mainly because I couldn't afford an engineer (as I was the one who always paid for recording sessions). So we turned up to record a song that me and Paul wrote together called The Gravy Train. I like the song, with it's many hooks, licks and my fun time lyrics, inspired by Sly & The Family Stone - "Let the music take you, to a higher state of mind, dance to the rhythm, it'll take away time..." I was about just going out dancing and having a good time with mates. The music was made from ideas that me and Paul had that were put together and cleaned up in places (my ideas made less messy by Paul), and it included three distinct sections, with lyrics. Paul took the verse vocals, I took the leads into the choruses, and Andy took the rapped choruses.
We started by recording a live guide with the three of us playing together, and then me and Paul went for it with overdubs. Even I recorded three bass tracks. I don't know why now looking back, but it seemed right at the time (perhaps an ego thing maybe?) We mixed the song very quickly, and that was that.
Notable mentions also go to Denton Williams, who played drums for a short while in rehearsals while Andy was at university, and we did actually try out the female singer Suzi Marriott from Ripley. She had a lovely voice, and we changed our set dramatically. We tried a setlist with her that included Car Wash by Rose Royce, Le Freak by Chic, Blow Your Mind and When You Gonna Learn by Jamiroquai, and more of that kind of acid jazz, 70's funk and soul, and that sort of thing.
We were basically on hold for a long time, during which I'd started a course at West Notts College in Mansfield doing Popular Music, and I was working with Cornerstone. While on the course and all this though, me and Paul still jammed together and wrote, waiting for the band to get back together, which didn't actually happen. I wish we'd have recorded some of the songs that we had written such as Wichita Falls, My Problems, and lots of others. Paul brought a friend of his into the fold singing (I can't remember his name at all, sorry), and Paul had written a beautiful song called Butterfly (his lyrics were amazing).
The three of us (me, Paul and the singer, was his name James?) met up at Ray Peskett's place (a mate on the same course as me), here one of the course's 4-track machines was (me and Ray had been working together on songs as well, such as the fabulous Travelling Man). Ray recorded the three tracks of Paul's guitar, my bass, and the vocal. Paul then added guitar soloing onto the same track as the vocal - quite a bad idea actually looking back on it. This recording was then transferred to the reel-to-reel at Bandwagon, where me and Ray recorded Jamie Thackeray (another friend from the course) drumming to the songs (Paul was in the session as well). It's not the best recording ever made, but a great song.
That was the last of Shadowplay however - the band finished as so many do. I thought the music was great, and we think we became a red hot band in the end. Everyone involved are still great friends (except for those we've lost contact with), and in some ways it would be cool to maybe get back together some time and see what happens. I miss being in a band in so many ways.
After the band and the Cornerstone business, I virtually gave up on music. I thought of myself as being useless without it being part of a band. I kept writing now and then, but nothing came of it until Andy came around to visit me and I got the guitar out and played him something I'd written. He said it was an amazing song and that I should record it, especially after I told him that I'd done a rough demo at home with bass, second guitar, and tin whistle added. The song that amazed him was Slave Song.
Anyway, that's the Shadowplay story then... Hope you don't mind my wanderings into my life history - just getting things out there ready for when I inevitably forget it all and have to be reminded, lol.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 15th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 20 days old)
I remember sitting in on a recording session with Electric Gypsies, and in a break some of us went onto the stairwell and sang Every Rose Has It's Thorn - Andy & Space on guitars, Max singing lead, and me with Andy & Space singing back vocals. Good times.
A lot happened before we actually recorded or played live (started editing what I was going to write now, because what I had remembered wasn't quite right). Me and Paul did a lot of writing, and we experimented with singer/keyboard player Owen (can't remember his surname, sorry). A set of lyrics he started writing for a piece of music me and Paul had written was cool, but the whole thing didn't seem to work for some reason.
We did a lot of writing, but when we did go back to playing live we still played mainly covers. I can understand that now looking back, but I was irritated by it back then and for a while after. In some ways I'm still of bothered by playing covers, because you will be inevitably compared, unless you do a drastic re-interpretation of something. I actually thought that what we were writing was too good for people not to hear.
In January 1996 we went into Bandwagon again, and this time we recorded what was definitely the best recording we ever made together. The song was called Down, which me and Paul wrote together with some of best lyrics ever - "Where are the daggers as you try to cut me down, where are the dragons as you burn me to the ground..." The hard hitting lyrics spoke of a person who had got sick of people walking all over them. The music equalled the words, with the best licks that Paul and me had ever come up with. Andy helped with the instrumental lead into the solo sections, so all in all the three of us had come up with a cracking song that is still awesome.
The engineer for the session was Mark Allsop, who we knew as the drummer for Clownhouse and Quango, bands that all three of us loved to bits. He was, and still is, a great all round musician, who can play all sorts of instruments. For this song, Mark got the absolute best mix ever. The drums especially stood out, and my bass kicks ass big style. Paul's numerous guitar takes led to some amazing tracks of guitar, and his vocal was flawless as well.
After this we carried on rehearsing for a long while, until we were ready to gig with a big change of sound that matched that of Down. The setlist was sharpened to include material that was more rhythm related, with myself and Andy particularly knuckling down to getting "in" with each other musically. My bass playing had to link with both the drums for the rhythm side of things, but also had to make up for the lack of a second guitar, or a keyboard or any other instrument - a feat that all three piece bands have to get around really, because when say the guitarist starts soloing, the background music has to still have some semblance of the tune itself.
We were absolutely hot by the time we were gigging, and I'm not messing there. We had the ability to play around 200 songs off the cuff at that point, which ranged from A to Z (well, sort of). We knew everything from Rage Against The Machine's first album, everything by Red Hot Chili Peppers up to that time (One Hot Minute being the most recent album then), also material by Chic, Prince, Queen, Free, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Guns 'n' Roses, the list just went on and on.
We'd gotten into Lenny Kravitz big time, but my idea of merging three of his songs was vetoed - Are You Gonna Go My Way, Stop Draggin' Around, and Always On The Run, but we did do them separately. We also got off on doing Cupid's Dead during sound checks - mint riff.
Later in the year we returned to the studio, but with the idea of recording ourselves at Bandwagon. This was mainly because I couldn't afford an engineer (as I was the one who always paid for recording sessions). So we turned up to record a song that me and Paul wrote together called The Gravy Train. I like the song, with it's many hooks, licks and my fun time lyrics, inspired by Sly & The Family Stone - "Let the music take you, to a higher state of mind, dance to the rhythm, it'll take away time..." I was about just going out dancing and having a good time with mates. The music was made from ideas that me and Paul had that were put together and cleaned up in places (my ideas made less messy by Paul), and it included three distinct sections, with lyrics. Paul took the verse vocals, I took the leads into the choruses, and Andy took the rapped choruses.
We started by recording a live guide with the three of us playing together, and then me and Paul went for it with overdubs. Even I recorded three bass tracks. I don't know why now looking back, but it seemed right at the time (perhaps an ego thing maybe?) We mixed the song very quickly, and that was that.
Notable mentions also go to Denton Williams, who played drums for a short while in rehearsals while Andy was at university, and we did actually try out the female singer Suzi Marriott from Ripley. She had a lovely voice, and we changed our set dramatically. We tried a setlist with her that included Car Wash by Rose Royce, Le Freak by Chic, Blow Your Mind and When You Gonna Learn by Jamiroquai, and more of that kind of acid jazz, 70's funk and soul, and that sort of thing.
We were basically on hold for a long time, during which I'd started a course at West Notts College in Mansfield doing Popular Music, and I was working with Cornerstone. While on the course and all this though, me and Paul still jammed together and wrote, waiting for the band to get back together, which didn't actually happen. I wish we'd have recorded some of the songs that we had written such as Wichita Falls, My Problems, and lots of others. Paul brought a friend of his into the fold singing (I can't remember his name at all, sorry), and Paul had written a beautiful song called Butterfly (his lyrics were amazing).
The three of us (me, Paul and the singer, was his name James?) met up at Ray Peskett's place (a mate on the same course as me), here one of the course's 4-track machines was (me and Ray had been working together on songs as well, such as the fabulous Travelling Man). Ray recorded the three tracks of Paul's guitar, my bass, and the vocal. Paul then added guitar soloing onto the same track as the vocal - quite a bad idea actually looking back on it. This recording was then transferred to the reel-to-reel at Bandwagon, where me and Ray recorded Jamie Thackeray (another friend from the course) drumming to the songs (Paul was in the session as well). It's not the best recording ever made, but a great song.
That was the last of Shadowplay however - the band finished as so many do. I thought the music was great, and we think we became a red hot band in the end. Everyone involved are still great friends (except for those we've lost contact with), and in some ways it would be cool to maybe get back together some time and see what happens. I miss being in a band in so many ways.
After the band and the Cornerstone business, I virtually gave up on music. I thought of myself as being useless without it being part of a band. I kept writing now and then, but nothing came of it until Andy came around to visit me and I got the guitar out and played him something I'd written. He said it was an amazing song and that I should record it, especially after I told him that I'd done a rough demo at home with bass, second guitar, and tin whistle added. The song that amazed him was Slave Song.
Anyway, that's the Shadowplay story then... Hope you don't mind my wanderings into my life history - just getting things out there ready for when I inevitably forget it all and have to be reminded, lol.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 15th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 20 days old)
Monday, 14 February 2011
Waffle waffle blah blah
It's interesting how your memory works really. I hate the fact that I've been talking about things and looking at things, and suddenly realised that I have got facts wrong. Yes, I've got facts wrong about me! That is such a scary thing, though I'm guessing it's probably similar to other people with their memories.
I came across a book with gig details in, and suddenly noticed that my memory of gigs wasn't as great as I thought. I mean, it's not like we did that many of them. I booked and planned loads of gigs, especially for Shadowplay/Jewel, but we didn't do as many as I'd have liked. A lot of the time it was because Paul and Andy had other things going on, such as work. That is something that I can now understand so much, because work gets in the way of my music, and that really grates at me.
When I said what songs me and Paul played at The Portland Arms for the first gig, I was so very wrong. We didn't actually play any of the songs I mentioned, and I don't know why I would have got it that wrong. We actually played Tears In Heaven, What Can I Do (our own song), and Stairway To Heaven (never liked doing that song, because always felt we couldn't do it justice). After that we took a break, and then came back on again later to do an instrumental piece I was working on, which at the time I called Variations (which became the song Hope once Jim Annison wrote lyrics and Paul came up with chorus music), and we also did Hendrix's Killing Floor. I only played guitar on Variations, and tambourine on the rest.
There were other mistakes I made in my memories as well. The Portland Arms acoustic nights were on the first and third Tuesdays of each month. Also, the songs I performed for my solo turn that time were different to how I remember. I didn't perform Eight Miles High, although I did learn it at the time because I love the song so much. I actually did Eleanor Rigby, Chasing A Dream (an original that only got played then), Things You Do (Jim's song reworked by me), Closer To The Heart (Rush), and What The Hell's Goin' On (my song again).
I bet you're thinking, he's making this blog up on the spot aren't you? Well, you're right, I thought I'd leave from the story of my life a little, well sort of... This is just me trying to blog whatever comes to mind on the spot and finding an opportune place to finish it off. Worked originally, and besides... Louise is asleep at the side of me on the settee today, and it is Valentine's Day, so should really be devoting every moment to her.
So, this looking back at the details has helped in some ways. It has also given me a time line in a way, because my knowledge of when things happened and that is legendary. That's why it takes me so long to do things, because I don't realise it has been so long. Shadowplay then started in 1994, with me and Paul doing our first gig, obviously as the picture above shows, on Tuesday July 19th. Friday December the 2nd was the first gig as a band with Tim on drums. That was a good slog of gigs then as well, where we played that gig, then Saturday 3rd at Groucho's (next door to the museum at that time), Sunday 4th at Stockwells, Wednesday 14th at Westfield Folkhouse, and Saturday the 17th at the Frog & Nightgown.
We never did another gig then with Tim, and I know for sure even now that he left the band around April of 1995. After that is interesting, because the next gig in the book is with Andy Mason on drums on Wednesday April 10th 1996 (I've got used to this attaching pictures thing now haven't I). That gig's set (if you can't read it above) included eight Red Hot Chili Peppers songs, Prince's Controversy, two Lenny Kravitz, Foxy Lady, Guns 'n' Roses, Rage Against The Machine (Bullet In The Head), Sunshine Of Your Love, and four originals. It was at the Westfield Folkhouse.
Then we played The Bowl In Hand on August 7th 1996 and Stockwells on August 18th. They are the only dates I have for Shadowplay gigs. I'm pretty sure we did more, but I must just have forgotten to take notes. I do know that they gigs were great with Andy, and we had some good times with Tim as well. I think we tried the female singer (Suzi) during a period between the two line-ups, I'm sure Paul could tell me if he reads this, and that it would have basically been her with us three as musicians.
The song titles we were working on with her though I am sure of. We were looking at doing songs by acts like Rose Royce, The Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, Chic, and all that sort of thing. It would have been interesting for sure, and in some ways it's funny how things changed. There are always different aspects to bands that people probably never see. They never saw us in rehearsals just messing about doing So What by Miles Davis, or the songs that were never played live that were rehearsed, such as Killing In The Name Of, Naked by Reef, and other songs. We even looked at the idea of doing a cover of a Clownhouse or Quango song as well, which is something that's never been said. I loved the riffs in Saltwound by Quango, Andy Dawson is such an amazing guitarist, as I'm looking forward to hearing on the forthcoming reformation of Savage - a great and underrated band.
There were mistakes with the Cornerstone gig information as well, which also surprised me. That though is another interesting one. I'd written a song called Trying To Break Me, but the music was entirely different to how it ended up. While learning Sowing The Seeds Of Love, I suddenly started messing around and came up with the verse for what would become the music to Trying To Break Me. The song didn't actually fit with the whole Shadowplay/Jewel thing, but it did fit with another project I was working on - Cornerstone. During the one gig that Cornerstone did, we performed 14 songs, 12 of which were originals. Billie Jean was just something that me and Matt rehearsed and came up with a different arrangement for. We also intended to put a different arrangement of the Anita Baker song Sweet Love into future sets, but we never did play more than one gig.
Anyway, the Trying To Break Me thing... In some ways it sort of tells a good story in itself. There was music that me and Andy liked, but it didn't float Paul's boat so much, and so on for all of us really I suppose (though I've always been open-minded that way). Me and Andy loved and still love the music of Fishbone, and we were interested in doing songs like Sunless Saturday, End The Reign, and even the fantastic When Problems Arise. Matt from Cornerstone got me into the music of Keziah Jones, and I introduced Andy to it.
In truth, the music that a band plays is sort of the open ground where everyone of you meets. That is what gives the band it's style and feel. Without you, you go off on tangents, much like I do now with Project Marv where I do everything. That's not a bad thing in my opinion, I can think of bands that do well working that way, such as The Beatles and Queen. They are acts who where made up of members who were all open-minded and liked to try new things. They basically loved the thrill of discovering new music and getting inspired by it. All of the members of The Beatles have constantly talked about the fact that were "turned on by new things."
The bands I was in were helpful in a way, because if you think about it, although not everyone in a band contributes to the writing of a song, they contribute to it becoming one of their songs and to how it sounds in the end. They actually help so much with the selection of songs and some songs would just sound wrong. Again I'll mention The Beatles (sorry to those who don't like them), but some of the songs that they wrote for others just wouldn't have been the same if they'd have done them with The Beatles. The same goes for songs that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote for others, they wouldn't have worked with The Rolling Stones, and so many other people. Leo Sayer wrote for Roger Daltrey and others in the 70's.
Flipping heck, I've not half gone on here. And here was me thinking I'd have trouble. How wrong was I? It probably doesn't make too much sense really, but then this is rambling on isn't it.
Almost forgot... A friend has posted on Facebook that today being Valentine's Day isn't really different to any other day when it comes to feelings. He's right of course. I love Louise no matter what day it is, every single day. I've took time off to spend with her, but that could really be any time in the year. I'm taking advantage of it being Valentine's Day by spoiling her, but then I buy her gifts, flowers, and cards in fact all of the time. I buy her thank you cards to show my appreciation, and vice versa. Love isn't just for one day alone, but I'm still going to show how much I love her today :-)
Have a lovely day everybody.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 14th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 19 days old)
I came across a book with gig details in, and suddenly noticed that my memory of gigs wasn't as great as I thought. I mean, it's not like we did that many of them. I booked and planned loads of gigs, especially for Shadowplay/Jewel, but we didn't do as many as I'd have liked. A lot of the time it was because Paul and Andy had other things going on, such as work. That is something that I can now understand so much, because work gets in the way of my music, and that really grates at me.
When I said what songs me and Paul played at The Portland Arms for the first gig, I was so very wrong. We didn't actually play any of the songs I mentioned, and I don't know why I would have got it that wrong. We actually played Tears In Heaven, What Can I Do (our own song), and Stairway To Heaven (never liked doing that song, because always felt we couldn't do it justice). After that we took a break, and then came back on again later to do an instrumental piece I was working on, which at the time I called Variations (which became the song Hope once Jim Annison wrote lyrics and Paul came up with chorus music), and we also did Hendrix's Killing Floor. I only played guitar on Variations, and tambourine on the rest.
There were other mistakes I made in my memories as well. The Portland Arms acoustic nights were on the first and third Tuesdays of each month. Also, the songs I performed for my solo turn that time were different to how I remember. I didn't perform Eight Miles High, although I did learn it at the time because I love the song so much. I actually did Eleanor Rigby, Chasing A Dream (an original that only got played then), Things You Do (Jim's song reworked by me), Closer To The Heart (Rush), and What The Hell's Goin' On (my song again).
I bet you're thinking, he's making this blog up on the spot aren't you? Well, you're right, I thought I'd leave from the story of my life a little, well sort of... This is just me trying to blog whatever comes to mind on the spot and finding an opportune place to finish it off. Worked originally, and besides... Louise is asleep at the side of me on the settee today, and it is Valentine's Day, so should really be devoting every moment to her.
So, this looking back at the details has helped in some ways. It has also given me a time line in a way, because my knowledge of when things happened and that is legendary. That's why it takes me so long to do things, because I don't realise it has been so long. Shadowplay then started in 1994, with me and Paul doing our first gig, obviously as the picture above shows, on Tuesday July 19th. Friday December the 2nd was the first gig as a band with Tim on drums. That was a good slog of gigs then as well, where we played that gig, then Saturday 3rd at Groucho's (next door to the museum at that time), Sunday 4th at Stockwells, Wednesday 14th at Westfield Folkhouse, and Saturday the 17th at the Frog & Nightgown.
We never did another gig then with Tim, and I know for sure even now that he left the band around April of 1995. After that is interesting, because the next gig in the book is with Andy Mason on drums on Wednesday April 10th 1996 (I've got used to this attaching pictures thing now haven't I). That gig's set (if you can't read it above) included eight Red Hot Chili Peppers songs, Prince's Controversy, two Lenny Kravitz, Foxy Lady, Guns 'n' Roses, Rage Against The Machine (Bullet In The Head), Sunshine Of Your Love, and four originals. It was at the Westfield Folkhouse.
Then we played The Bowl In Hand on August 7th 1996 and Stockwells on August 18th. They are the only dates I have for Shadowplay gigs. I'm pretty sure we did more, but I must just have forgotten to take notes. I do know that they gigs were great with Andy, and we had some good times with Tim as well. I think we tried the female singer (Suzi) during a period between the two line-ups, I'm sure Paul could tell me if he reads this, and that it would have basically been her with us three as musicians.
The song titles we were working on with her though I am sure of. We were looking at doing songs by acts like Rose Royce, The Brand New Heavies, Jamiroquai, Chic, and all that sort of thing. It would have been interesting for sure, and in some ways it's funny how things changed. There are always different aspects to bands that people probably never see. They never saw us in rehearsals just messing about doing So What by Miles Davis, or the songs that were never played live that were rehearsed, such as Killing In The Name Of, Naked by Reef, and other songs. We even looked at the idea of doing a cover of a Clownhouse or Quango song as well, which is something that's never been said. I loved the riffs in Saltwound by Quango, Andy Dawson is such an amazing guitarist, as I'm looking forward to hearing on the forthcoming reformation of Savage - a great and underrated band.
There were mistakes with the Cornerstone gig information as well, which also surprised me. That though is another interesting one. I'd written a song called Trying To Break Me, but the music was entirely different to how it ended up. While learning Sowing The Seeds Of Love, I suddenly started messing around and came up with the verse for what would become the music to Trying To Break Me. The song didn't actually fit with the whole Shadowplay/Jewel thing, but it did fit with another project I was working on - Cornerstone. During the one gig that Cornerstone did, we performed 14 songs, 12 of which were originals. Billie Jean was just something that me and Matt rehearsed and came up with a different arrangement for. We also intended to put a different arrangement of the Anita Baker song Sweet Love into future sets, but we never did play more than one gig.
Anyway, the Trying To Break Me thing... In some ways it sort of tells a good story in itself. There was music that me and Andy liked, but it didn't float Paul's boat so much, and so on for all of us really I suppose (though I've always been open-minded that way). Me and Andy loved and still love the music of Fishbone, and we were interested in doing songs like Sunless Saturday, End The Reign, and even the fantastic When Problems Arise. Matt from Cornerstone got me into the music of Keziah Jones, and I introduced Andy to it.
In truth, the music that a band plays is sort of the open ground where everyone of you meets. That is what gives the band it's style and feel. Without you, you go off on tangents, much like I do now with Project Marv where I do everything. That's not a bad thing in my opinion, I can think of bands that do well working that way, such as The Beatles and Queen. They are acts who where made up of members who were all open-minded and liked to try new things. They basically loved the thrill of discovering new music and getting inspired by it. All of the members of The Beatles have constantly talked about the fact that were "turned on by new things."
The bands I was in were helpful in a way, because if you think about it, although not everyone in a band contributes to the writing of a song, they contribute to it becoming one of their songs and to how it sounds in the end. They actually help so much with the selection of songs and some songs would just sound wrong. Again I'll mention The Beatles (sorry to those who don't like them), but some of the songs that they wrote for others just wouldn't have been the same if they'd have done them with The Beatles. The same goes for songs that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote for others, they wouldn't have worked with The Rolling Stones, and so many other people. Leo Sayer wrote for Roger Daltrey and others in the 70's.
Flipping heck, I've not half gone on here. And here was me thinking I'd have trouble. How wrong was I? It probably doesn't make too much sense really, but then this is rambling on isn't it.
Almost forgot... A friend has posted on Facebook that today being Valentine's Day isn't really different to any other day when it comes to feelings. He's right of course. I love Louise no matter what day it is, every single day. I've took time off to spend with her, but that could really be any time in the year. I'm taking advantage of it being Valentine's Day by spoiling her, but then I buy her gifts, flowers, and cards in fact all of the time. I buy her thank you cards to show my appreciation, and vice versa. Love isn't just for one day alone, but I'm still going to show how much I love her today :-)
Have a lovely day everybody.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 14th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 19 days old)
Sunday, 13 February 2011
Computers, consoles and games
Computers and that have come on a hell of a lot over the years. I know that those younger than I don't see it quite the same way, and whenever I talk about things I seem to just advertise my age, without even trying. When I was about nine I think, a friend had one of those classic Atari games consoles with Asteroids and that on. It was so unreal to me. I though when we got Electronic Battleships that it was like a wow moment. Some may think that it's weird saying that, but I'm sure that that's because everyone born after say 1982 has had technology always there.
When I was at Broughton House School, they got a BBC Microcomputer, which were the height of computing back then. The competition to them were the tiny Sinclair ZX81 and the Commodore Vic 20. I've played on the former, but not the latter one.
At Broughton House School, David Cooper had Astro Wars as a present, which was the height of handheld gaming back then - the DS Lite of it's day. They also had the Space Invaders arcade machine at school as well, which was awesome - wasted so many hours on that. To this day I still think it would be so cool to have my very own Space Invaders arcade machine.
I wasted one hell of a lot of time on arcade machines as a kid. In Mansfield, there was an amusement arcade where Wilkinson is now, and that was a fantastic place with absolutely loads of great games in. There are so many arcade games I've played such as the aforementioned Space Invaders, Pacman, Afterburner, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the list just goes on and on.
We got a Commodore 64 at home eventually, and it was amazing. Even now I look back happily at games such as Summer Games, Ghostbusters, Bubble Bobble, International Karate +, The Last Ninja, Way Of The Exploding Fist, 720, and oh god the list goes on. You could so easily get addicted to winning Impossible Mission ("Destroy him my robots!") - mint game.
I think, like everybody, we had so many games that we played. This was most definitely the start of the whole friends coming to yours to play games.
My stepdad (John) learnt programming on the Commodore 64. That grew to him eventually being a programmer. He worked on Suse Linux. Again that is a story that I will no doubt come back to. His first foray into programming was a mouse walking across the screen, which was really good, except the sound was like horse hooves. Me and mum so laughed at that. I feel bad now, because he had worked right through the night on that as well. He obviously did get so very much better at it though.
The only game we had on the BBC at Broughton House seemed to be one called Granny's Garden. There were a lot of games like that back then. Basically a very blocky and pixellated background picture, with text in a sort of early role playing thing - "You open the gate and there is a fox eating chickens. What do you do?" Quite mind numbing after playing fighting games at the arcades.
Oh the hours wasted on these games. So many hours wasted. My brother Mark and my stepdad frequently played through the night to complete The Hobbit game on the Commodore 64 computer. Much the same as years later when me and mum would stay up for hours to beat Bubble Bobble, trying not to die throughout so that we would get the bonus loot rooms - woohoo! That was an amazing game to play.
At Castle Hill School they had the Sinclair QL, which I didn't think was too bad, but not really all there. The little microtape things were fiddly and always came unwound. I still sort of liked it though, mainly because of how different it was maybe.
Eventually at home came the Atari ST, as opposed to the Commodore Amiga. Both bloody good, but the ST won out for me. Again I ended up with so many games for that bloody decent computer.
My stepdad got a PC. A bit weird to start with in my opinion. They had an Indiana Jones game, but again it was text based, which I found boring back then.
My brother James got some great games consoles - SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, all the way up to Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 3. Some fantastic games on these. Louise remembers being downstairs at my mum's watching that Roger Moore film where there are two of him, and he's watching the other living his life, while I was upstairs playing a Sonic The Hedgehog game with James. Sorry darling. xxx
I did get a PC eventually, and a laptop. I'd play Unreal Tournament against my brother Mark, who'd whupp my ass as per every game - he's so competitive, just like when we played Monopoly and all those board games as kids.
I feel awful closing off now, because I may have left something out of the blog that I should have mentioned. Oh well, best had or I'll be in trouble for having too long a break at Mansfield Woodhouse.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 13th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 18 days old)
When I was at Broughton House School, they got a BBC Microcomputer, which were the height of computing back then. The competition to them were the tiny Sinclair ZX81 and the Commodore Vic 20. I've played on the former, but not the latter one.
At Broughton House School, David Cooper had Astro Wars as a present, which was the height of handheld gaming back then - the DS Lite of it's day. They also had the Space Invaders arcade machine at school as well, which was awesome - wasted so many hours on that. To this day I still think it would be so cool to have my very own Space Invaders arcade machine.
I wasted one hell of a lot of time on arcade machines as a kid. In Mansfield, there was an amusement arcade where Wilkinson is now, and that was a fantastic place with absolutely loads of great games in. There are so many arcade games I've played such as the aforementioned Space Invaders, Pacman, Afterburner, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the list just goes on and on.
We got a Commodore 64 at home eventually, and it was amazing. Even now I look back happily at games such as Summer Games, Ghostbusters, Bubble Bobble, International Karate +, The Last Ninja, Way Of The Exploding Fist, 720, and oh god the list goes on. You could so easily get addicted to winning Impossible Mission ("Destroy him my robots!") - mint game.
I think, like everybody, we had so many games that we played. This was most definitely the start of the whole friends coming to yours to play games.
My stepdad (John) learnt programming on the Commodore 64. That grew to him eventually being a programmer. He worked on Suse Linux. Again that is a story that I will no doubt come back to. His first foray into programming was a mouse walking across the screen, which was really good, except the sound was like horse hooves. Me and mum so laughed at that. I feel bad now, because he had worked right through the night on that as well. He obviously did get so very much better at it though.
The only game we had on the BBC at Broughton House seemed to be one called Granny's Garden. There were a lot of games like that back then. Basically a very blocky and pixellated background picture, with text in a sort of early role playing thing - "You open the gate and there is a fox eating chickens. What do you do?" Quite mind numbing after playing fighting games at the arcades.
Oh the hours wasted on these games. So many hours wasted. My brother Mark and my stepdad frequently played through the night to complete The Hobbit game on the Commodore 64 computer. Much the same as years later when me and mum would stay up for hours to beat Bubble Bobble, trying not to die throughout so that we would get the bonus loot rooms - woohoo! That was an amazing game to play.
At Castle Hill School they had the Sinclair QL, which I didn't think was too bad, but not really all there. The little microtape things were fiddly and always came unwound. I still sort of liked it though, mainly because of how different it was maybe.
Eventually at home came the Atari ST, as opposed to the Commodore Amiga. Both bloody good, but the ST won out for me. Again I ended up with so many games for that bloody decent computer.
My stepdad got a PC. A bit weird to start with in my opinion. They had an Indiana Jones game, but again it was text based, which I found boring back then.
My brother James got some great games consoles - SNES, Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, all the way up to Wii, Xbox 360, Playstation 3. Some fantastic games on these. Louise remembers being downstairs at my mum's watching that Roger Moore film where there are two of him, and he's watching the other living his life, while I was upstairs playing a Sonic The Hedgehog game with James. Sorry darling. xxx
I did get a PC eventually, and a laptop. I'd play Unreal Tournament against my brother Mark, who'd whupp my ass as per every game - he's so competitive, just like when we played Monopoly and all those board games as kids.
I feel awful closing off now, because I may have left something out of the blog that I should have mentioned. Oh well, best had or I'll be in trouble for having too long a break at Mansfield Woodhouse.
Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too boring.
Marv - 13th February 2011 (40 years, 2 months, and 18 days old)
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