A New Avenue for My Music?

I have discovered something interesting. Other than my Exit World YouTube channel I do have another one that has a couple of videos with a million plus views and over 7,300 subscribers at the moment. The high number of views and subscribers happened this past spring when I created some compilation videos of a TV show. I had no idea I was going to get this sort of response. In fact, my first million-view video happened within just 4 weeks of uploading it. It is now at over 2 million and my subscriber count has skyrocketed from what it was before this video.

My discovery is this: anything that I upload to this channel immediately gets views and likes. Some of course get a lot more than others. But I have decided that I can use this to my advantage. I will upload some of my own original creations on this channel. Not the 'from the archives' material but my better quality material.

I have done so today. I uploaded my "In Excelsis Medley" recording from a few years back onto this channel and in about 12 hours time it has 75 views and 6 likes. There is no way it would have anything even remotely close to this on my Exit World channel. So it will be interesting to see where this goes and how many views it will have by Christmas. This may even be a way to get some sales for my music, though at the particular moment this track is not available for purchase anywhere.

I did not just upload the song, however. I took the cover of the Christmas EP I released some years ago and added some animated snowfall to it. A good visual helps promote any audio recording.

That's one bit of potential good news. In another bit, I was working on another instrumental song to use as background music for some videos. But the song was turning out so well that the thought came into my head to write some lyrics for it and turn it into a Christmas song. So I've been working on that and that's the route I'm going now. This will be a holiday tune perhaps for a single release or an EP release if I can get a few more songs recorded within the next 4-6 weeks or so. But I am really excited for this song particularly since I haven't made any new songs this year with the exception of the 2 that served as background music.

2019 Update

I didn't realize I haven't updated here since last summer! How time flies!!

Well, this is what's been going on since last June. I did not complete the Christmas song (Christmas in the City [reprise]) I was working on. I'd say I'm probably 75-80% done. I still need to finish some small synth parts, guitar parts and the drum track. But since I'm making this song a reprise I have to have the counterpart it's based on. I need a full song called "Christmas in the City." That I have not written yet. So if I plan to release at the very least a single for the holiday season, I feel I should have two songs to do so. It's not necessary, I know. Nowadays you only need to release a single track. But it may be strange to release a reprise song without having the original non-reprise song. Make sense?

The last several months I have been working on an instrumental version of "Stormy" by Dennis Yost & The Classics IV. It's a song I have always loved and I even did a guitar cover of it on YouTube some years ago. I came into a really cool Hammond organ late last year and it's a fabulous instrument. I started getting all these thoughts of doing some organ versions of my favorite songs. I started with "Stormy" and it's not quite done yet either. I really want to finish it before moving onto something else. Otherwise, I will end up with a bunch of unfinished projects. A few other covers I am excited at the thought of doing include "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'll Be Your Shelter". This organ is so cool that I have tons of songs I would like to do but I need to also stay focused on doing my own original material.

It is now April as I write this. What will I be able to get done this year? Will I get an original Christmas album ready? Or one of holiday covers? Or one of non-holiday music? Maybe an EP or a couple of singles. Perhaps a holiday single and a non-holiday single. That might be the most likely thing. Not ideal but that may be what I have to settle for. This is the era of the single. Oh, I should mention that I did officially release my song "If I Told You" late in 2018 through CD Baby, so it can be found there, on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and other places. I did embellish the song a bit with a few extra things so it is not the same version that I uploaded to YouTube a while ago. This song has become one of my personal favorites.

What I really want to do is get back to my own music. As much as I may get excited about doing covers the truth is that most no one else would be interested and of course there can be no expectations of earning any money from it. It's almost like a TAXI type thing--you custom make music based on their listings and submit to them but they don't accept it. That's a lot of time and effort to spend that could otherwise be used towards making original music that you own the rights to. Problem is, I have not written much at all since the last post. A matter of distraction and discipline.

I am going to try to crank out something before it gets too hot in the studio. But even if it does get hot I will work through it. I remember the hot July recording sessions for "Tomorrow" that I toiled through. If necessary I'll do that again.

I have lots of ideas for things to record. Another consideration for this year is to release an album of instrumental recordings. I was entertaining the thought of calling it "The Soundtrack". There are some unreleased tracks would definitely fit in well on this. And I could easily make some more. Also there is still the possibility of recording a minimoog album. Had some ideas for some shoegazing or spaced out music that could make for something interesting. Or I may just merge this project with "the soundtrack" project if I start to lack in ideas or get pressed for time.

Hey Joe

For the last week or so I've been working on recording a 'vintage sounding' version of "Hey Joe" in the sonic flavor of Jimi Hendrix's version of 1966. "Hey Joe" has always been a song I liked but especially after I discovered Tim Rose's version. I used to play his at home and anywhere I'd go. Sometimes I'd have it going for hours at a time. To me, his take on the song is the penultimate version. I like Hendrix's version as well and both versions are similar in terms of tempo and feel. Major difference being that Hendrix's version is all-out electric and Rose's is acoustic.

So when I found out about an opportunity to record a period piece version of the song for a special project I jumped on it. Fortunately I had just enough time to do it and I started and completed within 6 days, just before the deadline.

I'm a fan of Big Brother and the Holding Company when they backed Janis Joplin so my sound may have been influenced by theirs. I made a version that sounds rock, bluesy and psychedelic (perhaps) but definitely reminiscent of the late 1960's. In fact, if the recording weren't mine and I heard it and had to guess the year I would say 1968. Comes complete with fuzz guitar! Finally put that Analogman Peppermint Fuzz pedal to solid use!! It's a superb pedal for that 60's fuzz sound. Best one I've tried and I highly recommend it if you can find one.

My 'Hey Joe' comes complete with 3 layers of electric guitar, an organ track, bass, drums and vocal. Speaking of drums, I finally experimented with recording the drum part on 3 different tracks: one for the kick drum, one for the overhead mic and one for the snare. I'm still experimenting with tweaking the snare sound. It sounds good in the latter portion of the song where the overall volume is louder. But I do have more control over the overall sound of the drum set by recording this way. And since I had the drums and mic's all set up I went ahead and recorded a new drum track for my Christmas song, "It's Christmas." I have not yet mixed that new part into the song. One additional item of note is that I used my piccolo snare for this recording session. I had tried my full size snare but was not pleased with the recorded sound so I went with the piccolo and the move generated rather good results.

Anyway, let's get to the song. I uploaded it to soundcloud.com:



I also uploaded onto YouTube a mono version of it that includes the sound of old vinyl in order to simulate an old record:




The photo I created to look like album art from that era (minus the outfit discrepancies of course). It was an all-out effort which I found fun and very rewarding.