'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.

New Song Finally Finished! (Almost)

Started recording "Call On Me" back in December of 2012. I'm finally at the point (I believe so anyway) that I just have to mix and master the song now. I am considering re-recording a couple of guitar parts that feature the Leslie speaker sound. I'm not 100% sure if I will but it's pretty minor stuff regardless. So here is the mix/master I came up with as of last night:





I'm actually pretty happy with the sound. Everything can be clearly heard. Drums sound pretty good. I am however planning to move the background vocals during the choruses to either side instead of in the middle as they are in this version. And I may give the electric bass a little boost in volume.

For anyone who may be interested, I played an Epiphone Les Paul for all the electric guitar parts through a Fender Super Sonic stack, a Fender J-bass and a Yamaha S90 for the Rhodes sound.

My inspiration for this song was actually The Bee Gees. I was going through a time where I was listening to their early songs and checking out all their late 60's and early 70's videos on YouTube. I was just messing around on guitar and trying to come up with a melody over the guitar chords and some of the words just started flowing out. After I had the main theme of the song I started writing the lyrics to match. And then I spent way too long on recording it. Truth is I abandoned it for a long, long time and didn't finish it up. I had spent a lot of time on (Doesn't That) Blow Your Mind and you might say I was creatively exhausted. Excuses, excuses. I pretty much blew off 2013 but in all honesty I did some a pretty good reason. As I look through my recording log book--which I'm not very consistent with keeping up to date--I see that all of 2013 is blank except for nearly the very last month, which is when I managed to cut those 2 Christmas recordings. So it wasn't a complete waste. Pending all things possible, I promise myself to make 2014 a much more productive year. I Already have this song done. "Already". LOL. Album will be on the way as soon as I finish up recording one last song and go back and remix some of the others.

But for now I want to enjoy all the work I put into "Call On Me." If anyone should happen to give it a listen (Bootsy) I hope it sounds like music to your ears. I'll be back in the studio tonight tweaking and making adjustments.