Monday, December 31, 2012

papa was a...

Know what I'd love to see?

I'd love to see Mick Jagger's and Keith Richards' children form a band and do a version of "Papa Was a Rolling Stone."

Friday, December 7, 2012

musicifying with hp

I am still planning to record a track with wreckless eric and amy rigby. That will probably happen some time next month. At least now I have the song to record.

I had three songs that were complete. But I also already have servicable demos of each of them. So rerecording with Amy and Eric would, in a sense be a lost opportunity. Sure, I'd have a recording of Wreckless Eric doing one of my songs. But it wouldn't increase the number of sonmgs I could put on a demo disc to send to producers, etc.

So my plan was to write a new song. Which I did. The song, "Five Missing One," is meant to be an old-time western-style song. I've been kind of sitting on the idea for a while, letting it gestate. I asked my friend, HP (whom I'm visiting and about whose music I have blogged before), if he would be interested in collaborating on it when I was visiting him on vacation. I ended up writing pretty much the whole song in the week or two before vacation, and tonight sat down with HP to finish it up and record a rough demo. In the event, it didn't need much more songwriting. There were a couple places that I had alternate lyrics that I was choosing between, and HP helped me decide. There were places where I wasn't sure that I had the right chord, and HP helped me with that as well. There were a few places where he helped me improve the melody. But HP said he doesn't think he contributed enough to justify sharing the songwriting credit. So, even though I offered to register the copyright in both of our names, he said to do it in just my name.

And we recorded a rough demo. It's three tracks -- me on guitar, HP on lead vocals, and HP doing harmony. It'd not a perfect demo. There's some distortion on the guitar track, and it's definitely too fast. But I think it's good enough to take to Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

validation

It's interesting how I get a thrill when a song I love comes on the radio. Nick Lowe's "Cruel to Be Kind" or Dave Edmunds' "I Hear You Knockin'" are two good examples. It doesn't matter that I have the song in my CD collection and I can pretty much listen to it whenever I want. Somehow it's a special thrill and I have to hear it all the way through. I think it's somehow about my taste being validated.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

hey you

Nighttime. We're driving through the Nevada desert. The kids are drowsy and starting to fall asleep. I'm flipping through radio stations to stay awake. Pink Floyd's "Hey You" comes on, and I stop flipping. Then Sharon, my middle child asks me to change stations. "This song is creepy," she informs me.