This weeks inspirational musical snippets

I’ve tried this week to keep in my mind, moments from snippets of music I’ve listened to that’s had an impact or inspired me. Most of them have come from music that I’d call my regular listeners but I’ve just paid attention to things that have stood out more, there have also been a few random songs that have through out a few snippets.

1. Lisa Loeb, Album: “Tails”, Track: ‘”It’s Over” This is a great album anyway, but listening to this song, the moment where the song moves from a melodic acoustic number to the full rock/pop tune with a simple pause and crash on the drums is great. A big part of it is how it just fits with the song, while augmented by a good drum/snare sound. Which brings me to #2
2. Lisa Loeb, Album: “Tails”, Track: all of them. The recorded drum sound on this album is great, as a sound it’s a good drum sound, especially the snare, a real snappy snare, but the drum sound suits the music perfectly. This will keep in my head to make sure in future the drum sound fits the individual song and the whole recording in general.
3. John Msyer, Album: “Continuum” , Track: “Gravity” Once of my favourite songs of all time, but the thing that gets me on this is the guitar solo, it’s got such a perfect sound, played on the bridge end pickups of a strat, harsh and tinny, in total contrast to the main guitars sound. The solo is short, and ever so simple, yet if you listen you can hear how skilful it is, each note isn’t struck but an arrangement of slides, hammers and pull offs. A fantastic bit of playing. I’ll try to keep in mind that less can often be more, especially in solos.
4. Perl Jam, Album: “Backspacer”, Track: “The Fixer” Two things hit me in this track, first of all how an almost non-existant guitar riff can lead a track, listen to the main guitar sound, it’s a wimpy fuzz sound that’s not even a stand out riff, more an improvisation in the background, yet it’s the thing that stands out most in the song and appears to be leading it. Genius. The second is the stereo guitar parts, great recording split left and right, two totally complimentary guitar parts, that work so well together you don’t really notice there are two parts rather than just one sound. The fuzz guitar panned hard to one sound with a funk style riff complimenting the bass, and the more classic rock sound blasting out controlled bursts on a wah pedal panned hard to the other side, writing, playing and recording quality.
5. Philip Sayce, Album: “Innerevolution”, Track: “Gimme Some More” it’s hard not to be influenced by Philip’s playing, but on this listen the playing and recording on “Gimme Some More” really captured  that modern take on Hendrix. The recording suggests a casual carefree jam, with ad-lib comments and guitar licks thrown in, it’s only when you actually focus and listen you realise how tight the band and song are and how good the recording is, it’s a testament to the players and recording engineers how natural and casually live this track sounds. This track has made me keep in mind how good natural music sounds, it doesn’t have to be over produced or multi-tracked, a natural live feel can really be a good thing.
6. John Mayer, Album: “Battle Studies”, Track: “Heartbreak Warfare”. Still impressed by this, the main guitar sound on this track, clean, but cleverly delayed simple guitar riff that’s bounced of the guitars trem in time with the delay. Way to pull a new sound out of nowhere and make it a key part of a song. I’ll try to work more on guitar sounds and the use of simple phrases rather than busy riffs.
7. Lisa Loeb, Album: “The Purple Tape” Track: all of them. In point #1 I reference the Lisa Loeb album “Tails” which is a professionally produced band album, the album “The Purple Tape” is the first recording of a lot of the songs that ended up on “Tails” (and Firecracker and Cake and Pie) in their original format of an acoustic guitar and singer. For me it’s really interesting listening to how some tracks translate to a full band track sound so different, yet retain the sound overall feel, while others just don’t translate at all and end up as acoustic songs. It really shows that working on a song and getting the structure and lyrics right allow you to then arrange that song into something much more than when it first started. (This is also true of point #6 with “Heartbreak Warfare”). If you can, Lisa Loeb put out a 2CD version of the purple tape ( here ) that has an interview that talks about the writing and recording of the songs. It’s worth while, and the whole process of viewing the two albums side by side is a good food for thought for song writers and producers.

These are all things that have hit me out of the music I’ve listened to this week. There has been much more that I’ve listened to and enjoyed, but these things stood out to me this week. I’ve love to hear what’s inspired other people this week and feedback on my comments.

Nothing to report

I’ve been back from holiday for a while and playing with lyrics and melody without much success. Some of the concepts I’ve been working on I’ve dropped as just cheesy or cliche’, some are working out well but I can’t get them to fit into the music so find myself either trying to change a lyric/melody that works, or change the music which isn’t sitting well with me as if I like both it seems stupid to compromise either/both. This has left me with either a vocal line that needs a new song writing for it, or a song with out a vocal line. While my number of musical concepts and work in progress are increasing and gaining some good output I’m struggling to keep track and actually bring some of them to a conclusion or finished product. I’m starting to wonder if a putting a few bits of work in progress snippets to friends would help to get some feedback, or maybe even work with a writing partner for some songs ? not sure at this time.

On a personal note I’ve decided to set myself some fitness goals that I may even document on this website

I’m a little disappointed that a drummer who seems a really nice guy and interesting musically and who had a bass player with him appears to have vanished leaving me again in the unenviable position of looking for people to play with. It’s more frustrating to watch people I’ve played with in the past rocket ahead falling into bed with good musicians that are carrying them.

Back From Holiday Break

I’ve just returned from a holiday in Skiathos in Greece. I had a fantasticly easy time enjoying some great weather, nice food and relaxing surroundings. I can certainly see why Joe Bonamassa decided to record his latest album “Black Rock” in Greece. While on this break I read through various books and zoned out a bit from the day to day grind. Without having a guitar or piano around I found it hard to get inspired to write music, however I pretty much listened to my whole ipod, which indirectly gave me some ideas, I also used my ipod to make lyrical notes and subject matter notes, I’m not sure how these will translate into real songs (my first attempt to pickup a guitar yesterday wasn’t really very sucessful) but it is new subject matter. I did come up with one subject matter and some lyrical content which I quite liked and it seemed to work as an honest bit of writing, however as a John Mayer fan some of it’s a little close in concept to one of his songs, however it really didn’t come from that (although I do love his song in question). I’ll see how it goes before worrying too much though.

I’m doing a charity running event this weekend at a reasonable distance away from home so I’m not sure when I’ll get both the time and the mind set and motivation to sit down and progress these ideas.

As a side note the UK has just had a large government change from the long standing Labour gonvernment to a Conservitive + Lib Dem. I can see and hear thousands of musical people writing about this now, but I have no interest in it from a musical context as I don’t see it as real subject matter.

Vomit stops music

I was supposed to meet a bass player and a drummer this weekend and was really looking forward to it, however since Thursday evening I’ve been feeling progressivly worse/sick, with what started out as a very minor cold to feeling like utter crap over the weekend. I’ve not been able to get in contact with either the guys I was supposed to meet up with, so I’m hopeful they are not annoyed and still keen to meet up to talk about playing. I think I’m over the worse of it now and coming out the other side, but I won’t know until tomorrow, thankfully it’s a short week this weekend and I can hopefully make ammends and do some music next week.

Slow moving band mates

I’ve had a few people to contact in the last week or so, and had some really good and positive exchanges over email, it’s been a slow process but I’m starting to move towards meeting people (my working situation makes it slow). Quite excited about a drummer I’ve had really good communication from and a singer songwriter who I don’t think will do “my” thing, but seems worth meeting up with, chatting more about doing something different, he seems keen and well structured in his approach. Had contact from a bass player who seems like a really nice lad, however I’m a bit worried about this as on research he’s a young guy, really young and I’m a fair bit older so I don’t think he’ll either want to play with me, or want to play the sort of thing I want to play (looks very emo) but that said lets find out, don’t know to you ask and meet up. Had some other responses too, but they have either been no-go from the start or taking a really long time to progress. It’s shocking how few people will talk to you without you sending them at least three tracks (and by the way if you are asking for tracks to be emailed to you STOP using yahoo and hotmail address that can’t take big files, get a proper email account, you want me to take you seriously yet you have a limited free email account called metal_maniac_238472394@freemail.com – it’s a two way street you know). What happened to the good old days, of meeting up, seeing if you where on the same page personally, then jamming, rather than expecting people starting a new project to have amazing quality recordings up front before people will talk to you.  Most of the people I’ve met who have asked for these sort of pre-requisits have sucks as musicians, it’s the ones that are just keen to talk/meet/play any way that I’ve had the best response from (few exceptions to the rule if you’re one of the guys I’m meeting who asked for tapes).

(note just realised I called them “tapes” – I’ll not change that, but just keep it for ammusment of how things have changed.  That was a genuine typo though. )