Musical Memories

A few months ago my mother passed away.


My parents had a surprisingly large influence on my musical tastes – they weren’t like most of my friends parents. My childhood home had a fantastic record stash including Simon & Garfunkel, Blondie, Roxy Music, ABBA, and many other bands that I still love. They took me to my first live concert, Bryan Ferry’s Bete Noire tour in 1988. I hated Ferry at that time, I was into hard rock. I went because they had an extra pair of tickets and my cousin and I had nothing better to do that night. Ten minutes before the show started, I was still mumbling “Bryan sucks – kill the synths!” Thirty seconds after the first song started, I was a convert. I danced through the entire concert, in awe of what I was seeing and hearing. As we left Exhibition Stadium, I elbowed my way to the front of the merch-booth line, buying a T-shirt. I still have it.

So obviously my parents encouraged me musically. When I was 14 and learning to play the guitar, my mother had a piano. She wasn’t especially good, but loved plinking away at it. We used to play David Bowie’s “Space Oddity together.” Only that song, nothing else seemed to work – we just weren’t that good.

As Mother’s Day is coming this weekend, I was thinking about how my surviving family will deal with the weekend. I thought I’d be fine. Then I heard ‘Space Oddity’ on the internet radio and my heard dropped.

I miss you Mum! Happy Mother’s Day!

My Clown

Last night I was in the studio, programming MIDI drum tracks for the new album.

This was an enjoyable process – I have basic patterns completed, along with “scratch tracks” for bass, guitar, and keyboards. These are used to guide through the song so you know whether you’re in a verse or chorus, but will be replaced with the real instruments for the final version. A bit like wooden support beams in a building, in place until the concrete sets.

So I had the drums up louder than everything else (I was focusing on them, after all), and had set up a microphone to sing along. I’ve found that this helps to give me a “live” mindset, the ideal I’m going for with this album. So back to the drums, I’d sing along stopping when something needed adjusting – “no, that kick doesn’t work there, it should push the beat a little,” “ouch, that sounds weird,” that sort of thing. And over the course of a few hours, I had the drum tracks programmed for 3 of the 10 songs. And to be honest, I replayed them a few times afterwards just having fun jamming along with myself.

Late in the evening, I was working on ‘My Clown’. It’s a soft, brooding acoustic song. Humming along waiting for the first verse to arrive, I “ahhhh’d” a really cool line. Since my voice isn’t my strongest instrument, I grabbed a nearby guitar and plucked the riff on it. Suddenly a jolt went up my spine – AN IDEA! I saved a backup version of the soft song, and started a new one. A 4-bar aggressive disco/house beat was looped. I copied the organ line from the slow version, sped it up, and added it to the drum loop. I then hit ‘Record’ and laid down the idea with a dirty overdriven guitar. Within 15 minutes I had the new version of ‘My Clown’ laid out. Aggressive and dirty, sexy in a way that didn’t exist before.

My Clown’s an evil clown.

After the adrenaline rush wore off, I went back and listened to the original version. There’s a creepy tension that didn’t translate into the sexy funk version. And I’ll probably stick with the original.
But who knows - this song now has 2 completely different identities that I can get to know.