'Song For A Friend' on YouTube

I still want to post here with some level of regularity despite the hardship I am going through right now. Writing here and focusing on my music is actually quite therapeutic. I just wish I had all the time and energy necessary to be devoted to these things. I notice that many of the blogs that I follow post a lot more frequently than I do. I really do hope that things work out to a level where I will have the necessary means in all respects to keep all this going.

Recently I uploaded to YouTube a song I made several years back. This song has been on soundcloud for a while but I never really spread it around that much. This was a special project creation for a young friend who died from cancer in his teens. Some mutual friends decided to create a tribute to him on what would have been the commemoration of his birthday. I decided to contribute a song. Some songs come fast--words and melody--other songs come very slow. This one came fast and it's a good thing it did because the target date for this tribute was his birthday which was not very far off. The recording and everything was finished rather quickly and in time.

I have thought several times about changing some of the lyrics to make for less specific details and perhaps creating a wider audience appeal. I feel the song has tremendous pop sensibilities and I drew inspiration from at least 2 songs--'Leaving Ninety-Nine' by Audio Adrenaline and 'February' by Ten Shekel Shirt--that I like very much. (In fact, the title of the Ten Shekel Shirt song influenced me to originally title the song in a similar fashion. I have gone on to change the title several times). However, as I mentioned before, I'm not very keen on trying to re-work old songs, or at least old songs which have already been recorded. There are a few things I could do to make the recording sonically superior. But as far as a re-write, there are no plans for that unless I received a professional suggestion to do so.

As it stands the song is officially called "Song For A Friend." Here it is:




On this recording I used 2 guitars which I no longer own. One was the emerald green Carvin CT-6 and the other was a Rickenbacker 350V63. I'm not completely sure but there may have been a third guitar used. I did not keep recording notes at that time so I can only go by memory. Bass used was a Fender Jazz bass. This song also features some prominent slide guitar playing which I incorporated during a slide phase I was going through. I certainly do plan to add more slide to my recordings as I see fit.

So what do you think of the song? Someone upon hearing this song for the first time said it sounded like the Beatles. I found that to be interesting.

Bandcamp Page Fully Up & Goals for 2015

Well, my Bandcamp page is finally up and running! My new album release is completely there along with the 3 Christmas songs I have recorded. Basically everything that I intended to be officially out there is now available for legit purchase and download. Of course, I have other tunes out there on YouTube and soundcloud that are not really available for official download. Many of those will eventually be released on future albums. Some will never be other than in bootleg capacity.

I had a thought about recording an instrumental album.I already have several instrumental songs that are noteworthy for inclusion in such a project. And some other tracks which I thought about rewriting lyrics to may end up becoming instrumental songs altogether. It's just a thought. Again, I don't wish to spend too much time revisiting old material. Also if I should release an album of instrumental works, ideally it will be as an addendum to an album of singer/songwriter type material.

All that sounds a bit ambitious however. I am going to start recording a new song very soon and fiddle around a bit with one or two older ones. I will try much harder to make 2015 a more productive year relative to the past years. As I look back on 2014, I started and completed only 3 songs. I updated several songs from past years for release this year. And I began a new recording which I did not finish. Overall I feel that I accomplished more than in past years--especially considering the album release--yet still a rather unproductive year.

I read about a guy who participated in a projected where he wrote and recorded one song per week. Imagine that! Fifty-two songs in a year! That's definitely too ambitious for me but I do think that one song per month is quite reasonable. The keys to accomplishing that is to spend more time writing new songs, finish up writing some of my other songs and keep the production values not overly complicated. Will I actually release my 2nd album this year? It's possible if I work hard enough at it. I've always admired recording artists who released an album per year, not to mention those who released more than one in any year. The Beatles put out at least one album each year from 1963-1970. America did so from 1971-77. The Moody Blues from 1967-72. Creedence Clearwater Revival from 1968-72 with at least 7 albums. The Doors from 1967-71 with 6. Bread from 1969-72 with 5. R.E.M. from 1983-88.

But it seems to be art lost on today's artists. Nowadays the album release rate is about 1 every 2 or 3 years. And that's not counting the more established artist, such as U2, who are never in a hurry to release new albums. Albums are a bit longer now than they were in 1969. Many reach the 50 or even 60 minute mark. Thus artists feel less an obligation to release new music on an annual basis. Personally I prefer the one album per year schedule and if all I had to do in life was make music I would most assuredly abide by that pattern.

It's quite a bit late as I write this so I just want to close with a link to my Bandcamp page. I first signed up on Bandcamp in 2010 but only now is it complete and will be one of my official music pages.

Exit World on Bandcamp

A Christmas Single

I like the 'old' practice of releasing singles with A sides and B sides and the special artwork that was featured on the covers. Not all singles had such artwork. Some just came in plain white sleeves or such. But some releases--such as the Beatles' singles--had unique artwork/photographs on the sleeves.

That was a pretty cool practice but who releases singles anymore? I know they used to release cd singles before but those things usually featured 4 to 6 songs on them and were aptly called 'maxi-singles' or something to that effect. And most of the songs were always different versions or mixes of the same one song. The radio version would be on there along with a remix by "DJ Kool" and another remix by "DJ Badass" among others. Pretty superfluous in my opinion. I realize a cd can hold about 80 minutes worth of music and it may be considered a waste to only have 2 songs on there. But then at least have a few other songs that the artist/band worked on themselves instead of the outsourced-to-dj versions.

The neat thing about the Beatles' singles was that all the ones they ever released were not part of any albums. So you had to buy both the singles and albums if you wanted to have all their music. Their reasoning was that they didn't want to sell the fans the same music twice. But I can only imagine how much better the already great "Revolver" album would have been with the "Paperback Writer" and "Rain" single on there!

Anyway my whole point in mentioning all this is that since I recorded 2 songs for this past Christmas it could be considered a single and I made a cover design for it. That is, were I to officially release it. Perhaps I actually will for Christmas 2014 in the early part of November. Well here is the official cover art for it:

There it is. I wish all the readers of this blog a most blessed and prosperous new year. And stay tuned for more music and updates!