As promised, my next blog post would be about the "Spooky" jam recording I made many years ago. Here it is on YouTube:
Just like the previous post's recording, I don't have an exact recording date for this but I can certify that it's sometime from 1996-1999 because during that time I was still using an analog 4-track machine. Sometime around 1999-2001 is when I acquired my first digital recorder which was a Boss BR-8 and recorded on Zip disks. Remember those? Anyway, it may be closer to 2001 as that is that date of the recording of my very own first original song, "Autumn."
But as it is, "Spooky Jam" was a tape recording. I said before that this Tascam 4 track machine had absolutely no built-in effects. The sound came out dry unless you added effects to your input signal. So the reverb you may hear on this recording was my experimentation of playing the song on the Tascam into the input of the Boss BR-8. That way I was able to add reverb and, unintentionally, some compression as well.
This recording was a much slower version of the previous "Spooky" and the instrumentation was sparse. There's an electric guitar doing various things, a bass, a harmonica here and there and my homemade drums. I still am not sure whether it's my guitar doing the bass or if it was a real bass, though I am leaning towards an actual bass. If it is a bass that would date that song at December 1998 and beyond. Again, knowing the recording date would solve the mystery.
There's only one guitar track which plays rhythm first and then some solo parts. The drum part is actually double-tracked past the mid-point of the song--one track on the left and one on the right. I really loved experimenting with panning the sounds. At first I was playing the drums like bongos and then changed to playing with sticks which at that time were just some Sharpie-type markers which no longer served as writing utensils.
I wasn't really good at improvising with guitar playing at that time. Otherwise there wouldn't have been so much dead air time on the guitar track. And the harmonica? Yeah, I couldn't play that either. The bass was a repetitive line so the drums were probably at the forefront of this recording. I should add that during the time of these early archive recordings of mine, I didn't have a metronome. So there are lots of out-of-sync sounds at any given moment. That's also why the recording fades in at the beginning and fades out at the end. I tried to preserve the best portion of the impromptu jam.
That's about it for the history on this recording. I think it sounds better with the reverb. I always felt there was something missing on my recordings even after acquiring the capability to record on 4 tracks. I used to think once I had a real piano sound that would take care of it. But it wasn't. It wasn't having real drums either. It was not having reverb and delay and compression. My music didn't come alive until I had access to the built-in effects of the Boss BR-8.
Now that I have reestablished a presence on YouTube--who am I kidding? I have nowhere near the views on my videos that I had before. At the time I uploaded some of my cover videos in 2009 and the early 2010s, some of them were actual firsts. I had the first correct "Barney Miller" theme bass cover. The first bass cover for "Skin Tight" by The Ohio Players. I had a really innovative cover for Paul McCartney's "Heart of the Country" that came up first in Google searches. I had many others as well. All gone. And even though I have re-uploaded all those videos they have gone nowhere and are pretty much dead. Other YouTubers have taken my place in search engines with their covers of the same songs. So even though I may have a presence on YouTube once again you'll need a microscope to find my material.
Regardless, it's more important to me to have my videos up on YouTube than to have the views. At least with them being on that site they're "out there" even if virtually impossible to find. And of course there's always that element of 'you never know what's going to happen." It may be discovered some day.
But anyway, this post is going to be about one of the videos I recently uploaded there. One of my all-time favorite songs is "Spooky" by Dennis Yost & The Classics IV. Even before I had real musical instruments--not counting the Casio PT-10--I made a pretty bad version of the song multi-tracked with cheap mics onto even cheaper cassette tapes. Yes, it was my rubber band and coffee can days. Extremely lo-fi. And as bad as it was I still plan to upload it to YouTube someday and link to it here.
As time went on and my lot of gear improved over the years, I decided to redo "Spooky" and this time with a vocal even. Too bad for me I didn't keep logs of when I did my recordings so I only have my hazy memory to go by. One thing is for sure: I got my first electric guitar in 1996 which came about 4 years after my very first guitar, a Harmony folk-style acoustic guitar. It had a noticeably smaller body than a dreadnought. Looked kind of like a classical with steel strings.
So the first electric guitar came in 1996 and it was an Epiphone Les Paul Special II purchased from Guitar Center. But I only purchased the guitar. What's an electric guitar without an amp, you say? Well, to me it was a lot. I had a 4 track Tascam analog tape machine at that time and I knew I could record directly into it sans an amp. To be perfectly honest I neither had nor wanted an amp at that time. A lot of that had to do with my own naivete in terms of what an amp could do for my sound, though.
But I was able to get clean tones and distorted ones as well. It was just a matter of adjusting the volume on the guitar and the input volume on the Tascam. So I thought I had everything I needed.
When I got my electric guitar I not only used it for guitar parts on my recordings but also for the bass parts. I would tune down the lowest 2 or 3 strings and it would sound sufficiently bassy. I'm not sure if that's what I did on my version of "Spooky" because I am not clear on the recording date. I didn't get my first electric bass until December 1998 so if this recording was made before then, I used my guitar for bass. Anyway, there are 3 guitar parts and the 1 bass part. The other instruments you hear are my drums (coffee & candy cans) and a tambourine and some seed pods.
To me the best part of the song is the electric guitar solo with delay. I learned the sax solo and played it on guitar. All these years later I still really like that solo. And I didn't use a pedal for that delay effect. I had to do it the way they did it in professional studios back in the day. I don't recall my exact method but the gist of it was to have a 2nd copy of the solo recorded a little quieter and lagging a small bit behind the first. Done with tape of course. I didn't sit there and play the solo a second time and record it. It was just the magic of tape.
Also, I recorded this song before the internet became a ubiquitous thing. So I couldn't go online and look up tabs for songs and get the right or close-to-right chords. I had to figure it all out myself. And I know some of those chords I played were indeed wrong because when I first did see the chords for this song they were very different from the simple ones I played. So those guys who were putting the chords and tabs out there on Harmony Central were truly pioneers and I learned a lot from them.
Finally, I decided to add a vocal to my recording. I know it's a bad one. Out of tune and pitchy. And in my natural speaking voice. It sucks. But I love the reverb on it!
My Tascam recorder had no built-in effects. Absolutely nothing. Once I purchased my first guitar effects pedal, a Korg ToneWorks 411fx, I finally had effects! But I didn't know how to use the blasted thing because it came with no manual. You see, I bought the floor model which was the only one available at Guitar Center and those models never come with their boxes or manuals or anything else. But I am grateful to the young guy who sold that one to me. I don't know what he is doing nowadays but I hope he is happy and well.
At this point I can't even tell you how I got the reverb on the vocal. Did I plug a microphone or something into the Korg ToneWorks and sing my heart away? Or was the reverb added to the dry vocal recording later? I'm not sure but the reverb was beautiful. I couldn't always tune in that reverb however. Not having the manual I couldn't always find it. I would mindlessly turn the rotary knobs until it appeared. I know it had other sounds and things but I only cared for the reverb.
And that's the story of that recording. Funny thing is, I no longer have that guitar or that bass (if I used a bass, that is) or that effects pedal. I don't regret not having the 2 instruments but I sure wish I had that pedal still. I think I know a little more about using it now. And they're going for over $100 on eBay these days.
As recently as 2019 I took that recording without the bad vocal and did a new vocal. It came out better but not without its own unique flaws. Now that I know the correct chords to play I just may do a new version or 2 of it. I'd like to do a version as close to the original as possible and perhaps a rendition featuring my own unique take on it. It's a song I never tire of. In fact, my next post will be about sort of a "Spooky" jam recording I created around the same time. Stay tuned!
I've been working on recording a new song called "Something's Wrong" the last couple of weeks. It's all written out. I just have to make a few changes. I am going for a 60's garage rock sound on this song. The simplicity and lo-fi of some of those 60's recordings beat the over-production of many later recordings hands down.
This is going to be my shortest complete recording that features lyrics so far. Just under 3 minutes. There is no specific song that serves as an influence for this one. It's more of a sound thing that is the inspiration. As of right now I've got an arpeggio electric guitar track with tremolo and the electric bass track completed. Today I did a piano track just for effect and I may add another just to fill out the sound. Not quite sure yet. I am also looking to add an organ track and/or a minimoog one. Of course there will be vocal tracks--at least 2. And I will play real drums for this song.
Other than this song I have ideas for at least 3 other songs. I know musically what I want to do with them. I just have to write out the lyrics. At this point I am thinking they will all be relatively short songs at 3 minutes or less just to keep that 60's vibe going. Once I start to arrange the songs the times may change. I don't want to stray too much from that though because the longer the song the more time it takes to produce it. And if there's any chance I am to release another album this year I cannot spend a lot of time on long productions.
Ideally I think I can finish up this song in about another week or 2. There are 2 things which may not corroborate this. First, the vocals may take me a while to get right. Vocals are always a problem. Second, I'm not sure if I will record the drums as part of the sessions for this song or if I will wait until I have another song or 2 and then just record drums for all of them at the same time. I don't like keeping a song on the side that just needs one more component to it. If I could get a song done in a week or two then I wouldn't mind waiting to get drums recorded. But since I never have a certain timeline for getting a song done I could end up keeping an earlier one unreleased longer than I'd like.
Well, I am glad to say that recording of "If I Told You" has been well underway for the last several weeks. Yes, weeks. I wish I had what I needed to just spend hours at a time each day to record. I know for a fact that I would have a lot more recorded work and I would get my songs done a lot sooner. Like the Beatles, who would get songs done in day or 2. This business of recording 90 minutes today, 90 minutes tomorrow and then not the next day is just not cutting it. But that's what I have to work with now until things get better. And they will.
Regardless, I have some acoustic guitar tracks down, some electric guitar tracks finished and that's about it. Next on the agenda is bass and some piano. May add some synth later. Drums eventually. Vocals still need some tweaking. They were the first thing I started recording and still not satisfactory.
Today I will try to get the bass down. I'm hoping that goes smoothly. I don't have any special bass part planned out for this song. If I can get it done today I will revisit the vocals and try to redo some parts there. I need to get the vocals down as perfect as possible. When you're performing live it's OK if you sound out of pitch here and there but on studio recordings there is no real excuse for it. Of course, I have a real excuse and it's good, too. My excuse is that I'm just not a good singer and I struggle to stay on pitch. So I have to do take over take over take over days and weeks even to get not only the right pitch but the right delivery.
One thing I have noticed recently is that there are a lot of examples of some out-of-pitch vocal notes on professional recordings by big artists. I don't know if that's just a case of me looking out for bad notes or if I just have perfect pitch, which I know I do not have. It does make me wonder though whether I should leave some bad notes in my recordings or just keep doing hundreds of takes till I get them right. For the most part these out-of-tune notes I have heard by artists are minor and probably not noticeable to most listeners.
To give you an idea of what this new song I'm working on sounds like, here is a video I made of me playing a demo of it:
Inspiration for this song? As I wrote before, it is influenced by early Bee Gees material. I was just playing chords and singing some lines over them and it stuck. For a long time the song went largely unfinished. Just before I started recording it is when I wrote a second verse and settled on the chorus. It's not a very long song, but I managed to make the recording into about 3-and-a-half minutes. The recording itself will feature influences from the Bee Gees (again), U2, Phil Wickham, Charlie Rich & Gordon Lightfoot. Some people may be surprised at the idea that a song could be influenced by a pretty diverse selection of artists. Others may listen to the finished product and not hear any Charlie Rich or Phil Wickham (provided they are familiar with such artits). A long time ago someone asked me who I was influenced by and I answered The Beatles. He then told me my music sounded nothing like The Beatles. I guess there is a difference between being influenced by other artists and trying to copy other artists. I realize that in most of my music I never really tried copying anyone else. As much a fan as I am of The Beatles I do not like everything they put out there. I took the inspiration they gave me from their material that I did like and combined it with inspiration from other artists and put my own touch on it to create my own unique music. So I didn't mind that this person said my music sounded nothing like The Beatles. I never really tried to copy them. Then again some people have said some of my songs do sound like The Beatles. Again, it wasn't intentional. However, in the case of 'Paperback Writer' I may make a song which is heavily influenced by it and we'll see what people think!
Anyway it is time to go do some recording. Off I go!
Today I finally tabbed out the guitar solo to the Barney Miller theme. It's was a lot less complicated than the bass tab and a lot shorter.
The tab I made is a little different from my YouTube video where I'm playing the song. On the video I pretty much kept the entire passage around the 12th fret and higher. On the tab I brought the first few measures down to a lower position on the fretboard.
Here is the video:
As I mentioned in the video description the guitar was out of tune.
Now here is the tab:
E :--------------------|-------------------------| B :--------------------|-------------------------| G :--------------------|10----12^-12-10--13-10-10| D :--------------7-8-10|-------------------------| A :------------8-------|-------------------------| E :--------------------|-------------------------| E :-----------------------------|-----------------------13-15^-| B :9----11----9-9---------------|-----------------13-15--------| G :--10----10-----10-----15^-15^|--13----13-15-15--------------| D :-----------------------------|-----15-----------------------| A :-----------------------------|------------------------------| E :-----------------------------|------------------------------| E :13-13----13-16-18^-16-16----16------|---------------------| B :------15-----------------18----18-16|18----18-------------| G :------------------------------------|---17----------------| D :------------------------------------|---------------------| A :------------------------------------|---------------------| E :------------------------------------|---------------------| In the video I also play the trumpet part after the guitar solo. I don't start playing it at the very beginning because the guitar is just about ending when the trumpet(s) comes in. So I skipped about a measure and-a-half before I start to play along with it. I tabbed out the entire horn part for guitar and here it is:
E :-------------------------|-------------13-----------|
B :-----------13-15-13------|-----------------16-13----|
G :--------14----------14-12|---12---------------------|
D :-------------------------|15----12-15---------------|
A :-------------------------|--------------------------|
E :-------------------------|--------------------------|
E :---------------13-----------|------------------------------13-------|
B :-------------------16-13----|------------------------13-15----13-15-|
G :15-13-----------------------|15-13----------12-13-14----------------|
D :------15-13-15--------------|------15-13-15-------------------------|
A :----------------------------|---------------------------------------|
E :----------------------------|---------------------------------------|
E :------13-14------13-------|-------13-14-13----13-------|
B :13-15---------16----16----|-13-16----------16----16----|
G :--------------------------|----------------------------|
D :--------------------------|----------------------------|
A :--------------------------|----------------------------|
E :--------------------------|----------------------------|
E :------14----13-14----13-|--------14----13-------|
B :---------16-------16----|16-13------16----16----|
G :------------------------|-----------------------|
D :------------------------|-----------------------|
A :------------------------|-----------------------|
E :------------------------|-----------------------|
E :----11-12-13-----------|
B :-13--------------------|
G :-----------------------|
D :-----------------------|
A :-----------------------|
E :-----------------------|
There it is! The horn part is actually longer than the guitar solo. The very last measure of the horn tab is different from what I played in the video but it's still all the same notes.
There are several versions of the Barney Miller theme but I have always preferred this one which is the one that was used exclusively through to the final season. There is another version that was used in a few episodes in the late 70's that sounds a little funkier.
As a musician I believe having a song of yours as a theme song for a television show is an excellent way to get heard. In some cases I think people will actually remember the song from a show more than they remember who was in it or what it was about. It would be wonderful to get a song placed as a theme!
