I haven’t been blogging much lately. I keep thinking that nothing is really progressing, and then BAM – i write 2 more songs before lunch!
I wrote a good one last weekend, titled (for now) Swagger And Twirl. It describes myself around a decade ago, in the depths of Glitter/Glam rock. Let me explain (yeah, TRY to stop me)…
I’ve always loved old-school punk rock. The Stooges, MC5, New York Dolls, that sort of thing. Rude, aggressive, and dirty – that’s one of the things I admire most in art. That goes for photography too, I’d rather see a shot of a burned out urban factory than a pretty landscape anytime.
Physically, I’ve usually been on the ‘nicer’ side of fashion. Before shaving my head, I paid a lot of attention to my hair and makeup. I thought nothing of dying my hair teal, and slapping on some eyeliner and whore-ish red lipstick. There was also sightings of designer shirts, leopard-print tights and red patent leather shoes, blending with my extensive tattoos to set up a unique visual. I wasn’t always put together in the best taste and have literally stopped traffic on Yonge Street with gawkers.
I’ve had to stop the makeup and hair dye – as I age it’s looking more and more like Buffalo Bill from The Silence of The Lambs. But there was always an appreciation for nice suits, watches, and the like.
The glam and glitter scenes really combined these two, personified in 1970's David Bowie, Bryan Ferry and the like. Glitter often had a prettier musical side, but that was cool in it’s own right. Once I realized that one could present a tight, stylish image with a balls-out guitar-driven sound, I knew my place was somewhere in that. Really starting in the early 70s, images started appearing of a lipsticked, fashion-conscious guitarist, Les Paul slung low, blasting out obscenities in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Blending the swaggering confidence and aggression of the iconic rock’n’roll guitarist with the staging presentation of the fashionable created a unique and multi-faceted scene that has withstood many deviations over the decades.
Having dinner with my fiancé the other night, we were talking about attitudes and egos with performers. How the need to feel confident in your abilities can be the only thing that keeps you going. I commented that there was a time I’d walk into a club with the attitude “I am the king of all I see, and fuck those who disagree.” We scrambled for a pen and a napkin, and the song started to take shape.
Swagger And Twirl – the perfect combination. Maybe that can be the song for entering the night. Leaving the night will require a sequel: Stagger And Hurl.
Maybe…
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Alien
In 2005 I got engaged and moved from central Toronto to a small town 1.5 hours away, to live with my betrothed.
I’ve never felt comfortable in rural areas, and this time was no different. I agreed to move, and own that responsibility. However, the impact was much harder than I’d expected; instead of a relaxed life, I felt unsafe, unwelcome, pretty much un-everything. I couldn’t find a single person or activity in the town that suited me. Even my spouse seemed happy to disappear, leaving me lonely in this quiet empty space.
Still, ever the optimist (haha), I focused on my writing. Alien pretty much epitomizes that stage of my life.
Alien
A foreign street
A promise kept
So out of place
So out of time
Alien space
I’ve come for you
So out of play
So out of mind
Unfriendly air
Is closing in
To choke me down
I’ll somehow win
Endurance run
I would repeat
I do for you
Do what you need
Don’t see the pain
This way we win
I’d lie for you
My only sin
My life for you
In foreign land
Give up my home
To hold your hand
As an aside, this song also worked as a fun experiment. I took the vocal tracks (with no music whatsoever), copied them to a CD, and handed them to a group called Electric Colony. My only comment was that it was recorded at 80beats/minute and the chord changes were Aminor, Fmajor, Cmajor, Gmajor.
As they had never heard my versions, what came back was an entirely different being. I really love that music can be interpreted so individually…
Both are available on this blog’s player. Mine is ‘Alien’, and EC’s is the "Elecolonized Remix."
I’ve never felt comfortable in rural areas, and this time was no different. I agreed to move, and own that responsibility. However, the impact was much harder than I’d expected; instead of a relaxed life, I felt unsafe, unwelcome, pretty much un-everything. I couldn’t find a single person or activity in the town that suited me. Even my spouse seemed happy to disappear, leaving me lonely in this quiet empty space.
Still, ever the optimist (haha), I focused on my writing. Alien pretty much epitomizes that stage of my life.
Alien
A foreign street
A promise kept
So out of place
So out of time
Alien space
I’ve come for you
So out of play
So out of mind
Unfriendly air
Is closing in
To choke me down
I’ll somehow win
Endurance run
I would repeat
I do for you
Do what you need
Don’t see the pain
This way we win
I’d lie for you
My only sin
My life for you
In foreign land
Give up my home
To hold your hand
As an aside, this song also worked as a fun experiment. I took the vocal tracks (with no music whatsoever), copied them to a CD, and handed them to a group called Electric Colony. My only comment was that it was recorded at 80beats/minute and the chord changes were Aminor, Fmajor, Cmajor, Gmajor.
As they had never heard my versions, what came back was an entirely different being. I really love that music can be interpreted so individually…
Both are available on this blog’s player. Mine is ‘Alien’, and EC’s is the "Elecolonized Remix."
Friday, April 16, 2010
Voicing My Opinion
First off, I'll be honest. I have never particularly liked the sound of my voice. I am a good guitarist, bass player, I'm a reasonable pianist (for what I need to do), and can fake my way through a 3-minute song on bongos and congas. I can drum, but only if I don't use my feet; this is one of the reasons that I program my synth to play my lines. Oh, and I can clap to a 4/4 beat.
I have been writing and recording my own albums (easier to write than "group of songs") for 15 years, and outside of band projects I've only had ONE person play ONE bassline on ONE of my songs. Part of it is my controlling nature, part of it is my wanting to pitch this as "all me, good and bad," and part is artistic respect: I don't feel right telling another musician or artist exactly what to do. So, I know how I want my words to be presented and have to do it myself.
After 15 years, I have just arranged for singing lessons. I have a few go-to notes that I regularly use in my songs, but they're pretty weak. Singing my own songs is not a problem - I write the music around my vocal limitations. But I can almost never sing someone else's song. Most of the time my voice wavers close to the right note, and sometimes it flies off into left field. I want to gain a few more notes in my repertoire, improve my delivery, and find a better way to start on pitch. I've got a good teacher, and I'm really looking forward to starting next week.
So who knows? Along with a set of songs i'm REALLY loving, this upcoming project could sound quite different...
I have been writing and recording my own albums (easier to write than "group of songs") for 15 years, and outside of band projects I've only had ONE person play ONE bassline on ONE of my songs. Part of it is my controlling nature, part of it is my wanting to pitch this as "all me, good and bad," and part is artistic respect: I don't feel right telling another musician or artist exactly what to do. So, I know how I want my words to be presented and have to do it myself.
After 15 years, I have just arranged for singing lessons. I have a few go-to notes that I regularly use in my songs, but they're pretty weak. Singing my own songs is not a problem - I write the music around my vocal limitations. But I can almost never sing someone else's song. Most of the time my voice wavers close to the right note, and sometimes it flies off into left field. I want to gain a few more notes in my repertoire, improve my delivery, and find a better way to start on pitch. I've got a good teacher, and I'm really looking forward to starting next week.
So who knows? Along with a set of songs i'm REALLY loving, this upcoming project could sound quite different...
Monday, March 29, 2010
OPM - Other People's Music
This weekend I had the rare opportunity to spend the entire time alone at home (except for drinks, pool, and a cool jazz quintet on Saturday night).
Without much to do, and not feeling rushed to work on the new album, I spent hours playing acoustic versions of some old favourites. I haven't had so much fun in ages, and only stopped when my voice started giving out.
As a brief sampling, the setlist included With Or Without You, Heroes, Working Class Hero, Wave Of Mutilation, Irish Heartbeat, Let Me In, and about a dozen others. All simply one acoustic guitar and one vocal.
When I was learning to play the guitar, it was a huge help to learn a multitude of covers. Since I started writing my own music in the late 90s, for the most part I stopped playing others'. I may have to change that...
Without much to do, and not feeling rushed to work on the new album, I spent hours playing acoustic versions of some old favourites. I haven't had so much fun in ages, and only stopped when my voice started giving out.
As a brief sampling, the setlist included With Or Without You, Heroes, Working Class Hero, Wave Of Mutilation, Irish Heartbeat, Let Me In, and about a dozen others. All simply one acoustic guitar and one vocal.
When I was learning to play the guitar, it was a huge help to learn a multitude of covers. Since I started writing my own music in the late 90s, for the most part I stopped playing others'. I may have to change that...
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Guitars – A love story
I received my first guitar for Christmas when I was 14. A low-end acoustic, it still managed to spark my interest. For my birthday 4 months later*, I was given a cheap electric model. That was enough to get me into lessons, and learning songs like The Stones’ “Miss You” and AC/DC’s “Hells Bells.”
I saved my pennies, and on Thanksgiving Monday 1991, my Dad drove me and 4 friends around Lake Ontario. The purpose: to stop at Rochester NY’s famed House Of Guitars, picking up a Fender Telecaster. This sole instrument would propel me in my goal of becoming Keith Richards.
The 1991 Fender Telecaster (with current modifications):
This 1974 Tele Custom had a huge impact on the production of Overture. It’s the only electric guitar on the entire album. I wanted to make the songs sound the way the guitar looks, if that makes sense to anyone else.
Hope you enjoyed this history/guitar-geek ramble.
* do the math, it’s coming up soon!
I saved my pennies, and on Thanksgiving Monday 1991, my Dad drove me and 4 friends around Lake Ontario. The purpose: to stop at Rochester NY’s famed House Of Guitars, picking up a Fender Telecaster. This sole instrument would propel me in my goal of becoming Keith Richards.
The 1991 Fender Telecaster (with current modifications):
I bought this guitar in 1991 for $300. New models are almost twice the price.
I upgraded the pickups twice. The first was to put Heavy Metal-type pickups in, unfortunately due to my tastes of the time. A couple of years ago I replaced them with a Fender Texas Special in the bridge, and a Fender Gold Dual-Lace Sensor in the neck. I also replaced the bridge ($1 on ebay) and the tuning keys. I actually had to cut the pickguard to fit the new bridge, but didn't have a saw. If you look slightly behind the centre of the guitar, you can see the wobbly edge of the white, that I cut with A DRILL. When you don't have the right tool, use a drill. Really, only the body and neck are original. And there’s a really cool Skull pin glued into the body, which I bought at the X-Pensive Winos’ Massey Hall show in 1992.
This guitar was my primary instrument from 1991 on. I used to to smash a padlock (dent on the upper front of the body). When I played with Lovejoy in 2000, I performed with them 9 days after meeting and hearing them for the first time. I played so much learning the set, that my finger split while onstage, smearing blood all down the neck.
It has 18 years of extensive wear, eroding my favourite places on the neck. Like water running through a stream, the fretboard has slight indents where it’s most used. This subconsciously directs fingers to specific notes and patterns.
When I was 15, at the height of my Rolling Stones/ Keith Richards obsession, I saw a poster of him with a 1972 Fender Telecaster Custom. It was the most beautiful guitar I had ever seen, and I swore then that I would own one. It’s a classic model, and highly prized. Given the value and rarity, I decided that I’d accept either a 1972 model (first year produced), a 1974 model (my birth year), or a 1973 (because it’s in-between). A 1975 would be worthless to me.
In late 2008, I suddenly came into an unexpected few thousand dollars. After 19 years, I still hadn’t been able to afford my Holy Grail of Guitars. So I quickly went on Ebay and found a model better than I’d ever expected:
The Bigsby isn’t rare in and of itself. But they were usually added after the purchase. Mine has the Fender ‘F’ logo instead of the Bigsby script. Rarer. And the body wasn’t drilled through for strings, like the after-market installs were. The only part of this guitar not original is the bridge pickup, which someone replaced with a Seymour Duncan model. I plan on buying a Fender ’74 pickup, to put it back to 100%.
This guitar has been played by other people for 35 years. It is road-worn. It has a soul, a presence. The fretboard has been eroded by others’ personal tastes, routing my fingers to new and unexpected phrases. These notes and positions are NOT usually my favourites. This actually caused conflict when I first played the guitar, it felt decidedly uncomfortable. I resolved it by locking my ’91 in the closet for 6 months playing nothing but the ’74. It worked, and the 1974 Telecaster Custom is my (musical) dream-come-true.
I do love the history of my guitar – it suits me perfectly. The Ebay seller gave me the name of it’s previous owner, and I google-searched him. Here’s a pic of my instrument with it’s other lover. This pic is wonderful, and I hope to be able to live up to it’s Dead-Elvis past.
This 1974 Tele Custom had a huge impact on the production of Overture. It’s the only electric guitar on the entire album. I wanted to make the songs sound the way the guitar looks, if that makes sense to anyone else.
Hope you enjoyed this history/guitar-geek ramble.
* do the math, it’s coming up soon!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
If You Love Music...
If you love music, PLEASE READ THIS LINKED ARTICLE.
One thing you might notice about my recordings: they are noticeably quieter than most 'store-bought' discs. That's on purpose. I put a lot of time into writing and recording these songs. I put a lot of effort, practice, education, and frustration into mixing and mastering these songs. I don't want to waste it by squashing my product to death.
There's an industry-wide process that squashes the life out of music, for the sake of making it louder. If you make the loud bits quieter, and the quieter bits louder (also known as compression), this lessens the dynamic range of the track. With less dynamic range, you can then boost the volume so that the quiet parts are loud, and the loud parts are LOUD! The louder the song is, the more noticeable it will be, the more likely it will be to make money.
This has been going on for over a decade, progressing more and more until reaching a point last year where (rumour says) Metallica's mastering engineer requested to be omitted from the credits. He was so ashamed of what he had been forced to do by the labels. The album was all over the news as fans returned discs either thinking they were defective, or out of disappointment from the quality of the product.
Unfortunately this overcompressing, "Brick Wall" mastering ruins the sound. What it doesn't tell you (and even this article doesn't address this) is that it also causes ear fatigue, increased migraines and headaches, and eventually hearing-loss.
Enjoy whatever you want to listen to, but please - protect your ears and give the musicians some respect. It's probably too late to get back to where the quality was in the Nineties, but hopefully it won't get much worse...
For more information, google "Loudness War" and see what comes up.
One thing you might notice about my recordings: they are noticeably quieter than most 'store-bought' discs. That's on purpose. I put a lot of time into writing and recording these songs. I put a lot of effort, practice, education, and frustration into mixing and mastering these songs. I don't want to waste it by squashing my product to death.
There's an industry-wide process that squashes the life out of music, for the sake of making it louder. If you make the loud bits quieter, and the quieter bits louder (also known as compression), this lessens the dynamic range of the track. With less dynamic range, you can then boost the volume so that the quiet parts are loud, and the loud parts are LOUD! The louder the song is, the more noticeable it will be, the more likely it will be to make money.
This has been going on for over a decade, progressing more and more until reaching a point last year where (rumour says) Metallica's mastering engineer requested to be omitted from the credits. He was so ashamed of what he had been forced to do by the labels. The album was all over the news as fans returned discs either thinking they were defective, or out of disappointment from the quality of the product.
Unfortunately this overcompressing, "Brick Wall" mastering ruins the sound. What it doesn't tell you (and even this article doesn't address this) is that it also causes ear fatigue, increased migraines and headaches, and eventually hearing-loss.
Enjoy whatever you want to listen to, but please - protect your ears and give the musicians some respect. It's probably too late to get back to where the quality was in the Nineties, but hopefully it won't get much worse...
For more information, google "Loudness War" and see what comes up.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Wow - Writing Jag
Sorry I've been negligent with this blog. After a few weeks focussing on other aspects of my life, my muse has returned. I've been writing like a fiend!
In the last couple of weeks, the next album has been born. Along with 'What To Say' and 'Love Isn't Enough', I can now add 'Home', 'The Dream', and 'Wow' to the set list!
Wow
What do you think, to bring up words like that?
So poetic, not for me.
Whenever I try I always fall down
I can only say ‘Wow’
How did you learn to present like that
So emotic, just for me
You hold the charisma, you turn me around
I can only say ‘Wow’
How do you live with yourself like that
Open-shuttered, not like me
I couldn’t decide, I don’t know how
I can only say ‘Wow’
How do you excise your demons like that
Show no fear, breaking free
I’d love to follow, but I can just bow
I can only say ‘Wow’
(c) Matt Swift 2010
Written to force the end of writer's block, I was listening to the latest James album, Hey Ma. I've been a fan for years, but it finally struck me how great a lyricist Tim Booth is.
In the last couple of weeks, the next album has been born. Along with 'What To Say' and 'Love Isn't Enough', I can now add 'Home', 'The Dream', and 'Wow' to the set list!
Wow
What do you think, to bring up words like that?
So poetic, not for me.
Whenever I try I always fall down
I can only say ‘Wow’
How did you learn to present like that
So emotic, just for me
You hold the charisma, you turn me around
I can only say ‘Wow’
How do you live with yourself like that
Open-shuttered, not like me
I couldn’t decide, I don’t know how
I can only say ‘Wow’
How do you excise your demons like that
Show no fear, breaking free
I’d love to follow, but I can just bow
I can only say ‘Wow’
(c) Matt Swift 2010
Written to force the end of writer's block, I was listening to the latest James album, Hey Ma. I've been a fan for years, but it finally struck me how great a lyricist Tim Booth is.
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