Tag: Songwriting

New (Old) Song

I finished another song today. This one was written in 1991. I can’t say for sure, but it might have been the first song I ever wrote from top to bottom all by my lonesome. At least I can’t remember anything older. There were actually two others that were written at about the same time that might have been my first solo effort. It doesn’t matter.

I think it was 1994 or 1995 that Mike, Dan, and I went into Northeast Broadcasting School’s 24 track studio after hours and recorded four songs. This was one of them. The other three have all been redone in GarageBand too. At first I wanted to record this one, and then make a playlist with all four. Then I thought I’d record the other three too. Then I thought I’d add a few new songs onto the end, just for fun. Then I thought I’d keep the three finished recordings and still add the new songs.

As of this moment, I’m going back to the original plan. Just the four old songs, using the already finished recordings. Yippee.

There is one cool thing about this demo, from my goofy point of view at least. Ever since I started playing the home recording game back in 2007, every song I’ve done (with one exception) has either used a headphone amp, or some kind of software amplifier simulator for all of the electric guitars. Not this one. This one is my actual, real life, physically there Marshall amp. Somehow that little fact made this one seem 100 times more fun.

Here it is:
http://alonetone.com/robertjames1971/tracks/drift-away.mp3%20

RPM is Coming – Continued

I was sitting in the basement with my step son last night, watching Mythbusters, playing a little wii u, flying his remote controlled helicopter (which he got for his birthday [I think] a couple of years ago and completely forgot about it without even ever opening the box… the downside of living in two houses, methinks) when I took out my new 12-string and noodled for a bit before snapping a couple of camera+ pics. When I posted them here I wrote that RPM is coming soon. 32 days.

I have also said not long ago that I was going to make a mini project out of four old songs. I have expanded that a little. Three nights ago, my step son was in bed and my step daughter was enjoying the 30 minutes she gets to stay up after he went to bed. I was exhausted. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but I wanted to make sure she got to bed at the right time so I forced myself to stay awake.

How did I do it?

Garageband for iPad. I came up with a bass riff and a drum groove. Just like I’m going to be doing ad nauseum come February. So I decided to make a project out of it. This was Friday night, so there were five days left in 2013. I decided I would come up with a riff or two (or three) a day for the last five days of the year, and then while working on the four old songs during the month of January, I would also finish off the five new songs. the difference is that the old songs need to be 100% Garageband for Mac, while the five new songs will be 100% Garageband for iPad.

What do you think the chances of me finishing any of this are?

0%? Sounds plausible.

NaSoAlMo Day 11 Update

Today is November 11. The day we honor those who fought for our country. For me, it’s also been a NaSoAlMo day. I have all the “songs” I am going to need. Right now the count is at seven songs and 33 minutes. That’ll do. All of the songs have the full arrangement spec’d out, all of the rhythm guitars, bass, and drums finished, and a random keyboard here and there. All that remains is lyrics, melodies, vocals, and lead guitar.

The mess that is the new version of GarageBand has taken 90% of the fun out of this for me. There are little things that are just infuriating. When in measure display mode, you used to be able to click on a beat within a bar and the play head would snap to that spot. Now, it snaps to the spot until you let go of the mouse button, then it moves a fraction of a beat to one side or another. Sometimes it would take four or five clicks to get it into place.

Other changes are gigantic. Where are all the effects? What do you mean I can’t add anything other than compression and EQ? And while we’re on the topic of compression and EQ, where the hell are all of those incredible presets that the old GarageBand had? This alone has pretty much destroyed any chance I had of ever being happy with a recording again.

Anyway. Seven songs. Lots of padding, I’m afraid. None of the songs are under three minutes. Very proggie of me, if I don’t say so myself. I have an idea of how to tie everything together into one big suite. I bought some sound effect tracks from iTunes last night. I think I am going to try and make the full 33 minutes sound like a listener flipping around a radio dial. Silly. Stupid, even. It’s just my sort of stupid silliness though.

19 days to go. Really, I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of finishing this one on time. I don’t care though.

National Solo Album Month

If you don’t like music, specifically bad music, then I owe you an apology in advance… Because if I can keep motivated, we’re looking at a months worth of bad music on this little page. November is National Solo Album Month, or NaSoAlMo for the cool kids. I’ve tried this many times, but never saw my interest last beyond the first few days. I’m hoping this year will be different. The plan is to do all the same stuff I do for RPM In February, but focus more on acoustic guitar (for rhythm parts at least) and to try and use different drum and bass sounds in GarageBand. I started piecing together an idea tonight. Just like Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, it’s just a primary rhythm thing… And that is the last time you’ll ever hear me speak of my music in the same breathe as Jimi’s.

Let’s hope I stay motivated. I want to have some kind of creative (noisy) output to offset my slowly losing my mind at work.

Rock on, brothers and sisters.

A New/Old Song Called Thoughts

This was written at the same time as Laughing. The plan was to try writing songs that I could sing while playing the guitar. I think I played my first bedroom recording of this (with me playing my brother’s drums, gasp!) to Mike the bass player but he passed on it. This song should be brand new to everyone else on Earth. I always liked it, but never pushed anyone to play it. I don’t know why. As for the meaning of the lyrics? I have no idea at all.

A New/Old Song Called Laughing

I don’t remember a whole lot about this one. I wrote it along with two others in my bedroom at my parents’ house, probably in 1993 or 94. I know the idea was to write stuff that I might be able to sing and play at the same time. This was played by at least one of the short lived, unnamed bands I was in during the mid 90’s, but never to an audience. As for what the lyrics are about? I haven’t a clue.

Two More Songs

I was hoping there would be three songs to post tonight, but I’m way too tired so you’ll have to settle for two.

These were both started in 2007 when I first tried and failed the RPM challenge. This makes five of those seven songs that have finally been finished. The lyrics to the first one are about nothing, hence the song title. I was trying to make a point in the lyrics to the second song, but I can’t figure out what that point was. Typical.

These two files will eventually be deleted, someday, when I finish recording all of the songs that I consider to be part of my leftover songs project. Once they are all done I’ll move the whole thing over to bandcamp. But I’ll put these here for now.

…Where the 80’s Live Forever!

I consider the first “real” band I ever played in to be Tempest Fero.  Horrible name.  Fun band.  It was Mike on bass, Jeff on drums, Jim on keyboards, and some fat doofus on guitar.

We had a number of “songs” that we’d come up with that were just instrumental riffs that were fun to jam on.  Goldfish, Toilet Water from Hell, Guppies from Mars and Beyond.  Yeah, we were 16 and 17 year old nerds.  I remember toward the end of my junior year in high school we had decided to stop looking for a singer and start just doing it ourselves.  Jim was good.  Jeff was better.  I wasn’t so hot.  Mike only sang when it was funny.  I thought that if we were becoming a real band we should probably write lyrics to our instrumental songs.  My first attempt was really bad, but I fudged it into a melody that went over Goldfish.  Time for a Change was born.  It was the first song I’d ever written or cowritten that was really complete.  My simple melody got trashed in favor of a better one that Jim came up with.  They were sort of similar, but Jim’s blew mine out of the water.

All of that happened about 25 years ago.  Now, after all of this time, I give to you, oh internets, a sloppy little GarageBand demo recording of Time for a Change, 2013.  Gasp in wonder at how lame it is…

But wait, there’s more!

I had to dig through a box full of old cassette tapes to find the arrangement and the lyrics, but I eventually found a tape that was in awful shape, with the worst wow and flutter in the history of magnetism.  It also didn’t have Mike playing bass. That made me sad.  Still, there were four other songs on the tape.  One of them was a song that Mike and I wrote in his basement while playing with his 4-track recorder.  This was probably either late ’88 or early ’89.  I really can’t recall.  Jeff took over the melody this time and made my simple, feeble attempt a billion times better.

The lyrics came from two places. I bought a copy of Steve Hackett’s Till We Have Faces album and the opening track was called Duel.  It was based on a Spielberg movie of the same name about a commuter who is stalked by a psycho driving a truck.  That idea, combined with nearly getting in a head on collision while driving home from work late one night made up the basis of what was sadly probably my best lyric effort with Tempest Fero.  Not to imply my lyrics ever got much better, but this was the best I had come up with at the time.  Jeff had started writing lyrics for T.F. too and his squashed mine like the proverbial grape.  Anyway, in the hopes of not making Time for a Change feel all lonely and stuff, I also made a new GarageBand demo of One on One Duel…

Enjoy these two flashbacks to Rob’s early days of writing music, way back in the 80’s!

Prime Meridian Revisited

Former Genesis lead guitarist Steve Hackett has twice released albums called Genesis Revisited which include newly recorded versions of old Genesis songs.  I figure if it’s good enough for Steve then it’s good enough for me.

I have two newly recorded Prime Meridian songs that I could use for Prime Meridian Revisited, if I ever wanted to do one of those, you know?

Dead Sheep is my white suburban pretentious college student attempt at analyzing the inner city gang situation of the early 90’s.  I wholeheartedly apologize for my younger self.  Really.

Overexposed was co-written by me and Mike the Bass Player.  The lyrics are about how freakin’ sick we all were of seeing OJ Simpson’s face on the television.  I still wanna puke a little just thinking of all the media coverage.

Maybe I’ll start on a Tempest Fero Revisited too.  That’ll be good for a laugh.