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I may be Self Dorking, but unless I've got the date wrong, I think a little birdie told me that today is Alexis' birthday.

I know he's not around here a lot these days, but for those who have had the benefit of his musical knowledge, collabed with him or just listened to his wonderful "fresh jazz" music it's a day to celebrate.

Many happy returns, my dear friend. I've chosen my image where I'm raising a drink.....it seems to suit both my reputation and the occasion.


Cheers

Brian

I've received two pieces of great news today, involving members of ims.

Firstly Alexis Van Eeckhout has become a proud grandfather again with the birth of Julian born 18 April, 2008. Alexis assures me that mother and child are both well, although as Julian took his time in coming the grandparents are a bit stressed.

Secondly, Corrado Rossi posted a blog on myspace today celebrating that his composition "Where" had been chosen the Best Classical Song for 2007 on IACmusic.com. Here's the text of Corrado's blog:

Happy to share with all my friends this great news!
My song "Where" has won the Golden Kayak on IACmusic.com for the Best Classical Song of 2007
Considering I had also 4 final nominations, this was a beautiful result for me.
Thanks to everyone for the support and... enjoy the song!

http://iacmusic.com/artist.aspx?ID=18319


Congratulations to Alexis and Corrado on their great news and achievements.

Cheers

Brian

Just some random thoughts that occurred as a result of a gig I played last week.

It was a 40th birthday party. I’d played a 40th late last year and the birthday boy had asked me to play some songs from the year of his birth. I agreed to do so, but was horrified when I checked the net and found the top song of the year was Snoopy versus the Red Baron, with To Sir To Love and The Last Waltz not far behind..

Ultimately I was able to cobble a set together including Gimme Some Loving, Brown Eyed Girl, Happy Together, I’m A Believer, Whiter Shade of Pale, Paper Sun, Gimme Little Sign, Friday On My Mind, River Deep Mountain High, I’m A Man and some others.

Now I’m not saying that the music in 1967 was crap. Clearly there was a lot of good music about. But it seemed to be surrounded by a fair amount of schlock.

For last weeks gig I had an embarrassment of choice. I did one keyboard bracket which included, for example, Hey Jude, Hole in My Shoe, Dock of the Bay, Daydream Believer (okay some schlock in 1968) , Baby Now That I’ve Found You, Midnight Confessions, Heard It Through the Grapevine, Lady Madonna, and then follow it up with a guitar bracket that included Jumping Jack Flash, Sunshine of Your Love, White Room, All Along the Watchtower, Elevator Driver, Itchycoo Park, Mighty Quinn, Lazy Sunday Afternoon, Piece of My Heart , Baby Come Back, Hold On I’m Coming, Fire, On The Road Again.

All in all, it occurred to me that in the space of 12 months things had got a lot heavier and rockier. Obviously the release by Bobby Golsboro of “Honey” militates against my argument. And as I’m in Australia and music hits us months after it’s hit the States and Europe some of those that I’ve included in the 1968 list were probably hits elsewhere in 1967.

But I just found it curious that between the two years there seem to be so many more tracks from 1968 that I consider to be classics than the year before. And 1968 was also a very torrid year in political terms with student riots in Paris, the Democratic Convention etc.

Just some random thoughts that I thought I would share.


Cheers

Brian

Back in times before I was legally able to drink (way back), our licensing laws provided that hotels had to shut at 6pm. Women weren’t allowed in tbe bars (unless they were serving beer).

Notwithstanding the undoubted “good intentions” in attempting to limit access to alcohol, the reality was that pubs were packed to the gunnels each afternoon with blokes wanting to throw as much amber liquid down their throats as time would allow.

The era became known as the “Six O’Clock Swill”

During my time at uni I worked in a sheep skin/cow hide factory. The laws had been liberalised by them but I starkly remember each lunchtime going up to the pub with my mates and devouring 4 schooners of beer in an attempt to eradicate what had gone before and what was likely to occur thereafter.

“Six O’Clcok Swill” was the first song I recorded as a solo artist. A “full production” version was included in my original CD “N.I.C” and I recorded an acoustic version for inclusion in my soon to be released “A Tort Stripped Bare” acoustic CD.

In January, 2008 I attended a seminar given by Pat Pattison from Berklee U (don’t tell Rapster, he’s got a thing about Berklee). It was the most instructive two days I’ve ever been involved in. Pat is a wonderful communicator. At the lunch break on the first day I rang my wife and said words to the effect of: “I can’t believe it. I’ve learned more in the last 2 hours about songwriting than I’ve learnt in the last 30 years”.

After imparting his wisdom to us, Pat devoted the afternoon session of the second day to giving critiques on the work of those participating. I chose to do this song, even though Pat had warned against doing a “song that you’ve released on a CD”. I was happy with the original version but was interested to see if there was more in it.

The original version of the song was written in “third person” about a character “Ted”. He was a composite of people I’d worked in the sheep skin factory with.

Pat’s initial comments were quite flattering. He seemed to genuinely like the song. But he raised the point that this was a song about someone that the listeners didn’t know and who, realistically, given the lyrics, they probably didn’t want to get to know all that well.

He suggested changing the focus of the song to “first person” and I did a run through, changing the lyrics where appropriate. There was no doubt that this made the song more powerful. But as Pat said, you’re not going t be able to sell it in Nashville in that form because no one’s going to want to get up on stage and sing that he’s a drunken philanderer.

So we tried it, at Pat’s suggestion, in the second person focus. That’s how it this version is recorded. To me it gives the song a much more personal edge.

But Pat wasn’t done yet. He highlighted the chorus as the best part of the song and the part that shouldn’t be changed. He then invited me to tap out the rhythm of the verse lyrics (in the original version) while he tapped out the rhythm of the chorus lyrics. This exercise revealed that the rhythms for both the verse and chorus were pretty much identical.

If the chorus was the standout, in Pat’s logic, why give the game away in the verse. His suggestion: the original verses and chorus contained lots of words, lots of short note. Get rid of some words or notes from the verses, or trade short notes for long notes, so that the spotlight comes on in the verse.

I’ve been very longwinded about this blog for a reason. On this and other sites that I’ve been on there are some incredibly talented people putting up some fine music. There are a lot of shonks out there wanting to take our money for their creative assistance..

For those wishing to aspire to songwriting I cannot recommend too highly attending one or more of Pat’s courses. It’s not a case of teaching you how to write by numbers. Pat works on the basis of using techniques to draw the real emotion into the song. The word commercial was used only once during the seminar, and by a participant, not Pat. The participant had indicated that a change suggested by Pay had made the song of another participant “more commercial”, but Pat’s response was “Yes, it does. But only because it make the person listening feel the emotions that the writer’s trying to convey”.

If you get the chance to participate in one of Pat’s seminars, or are interested in the assistance he can give to us as writer, feel free to PM me. He’s coming back to Oz in June and July and I will be lining up to participate.


Anyway, if you’re still reading this my rewritten acoustic version of “Six O’Clock Swill” is now up. Would be interested in your comments, particularly from those that know the original version.



Cheers

Brian

I am hoping someone might have a bright idea. I have been working on a song for the Same Title Madness promotion.

I have recorded the basic backing track onto my zoom 8 track and was planning to add vocals and guitar. I am still tinkering with the lyrics and decided to burn a CD of the backing track on the internal CD drive in the Zoom so I could play it back repeatedly and work on the lyrics. I've been having trouble with the CD playing of late, but it had always burnt okay. Yesterday I couldn't get it to open the CD door to remove the existing CD in there and to be blunt about it I think in my anger and frustration I may have stuffed the whole CD drive up.

I am wondering if anyone has any bright ideas as to how to get the recording off the Zoom in a form that will enable me to burn it into CD form. My computer recording system is pretty primitive. I use an early version of Cakewalk Home Studio that I use to program my drum and bass tracks.

I thought about setting up a new cakewalk audio file and playing the track on the Zoom with the output from the Zoom into the input of the audio interface for the computer. The Zoom has RCA outputs and I had an RCA to a 1/4" jack lead that I used to try that but it didn't seem to work.

If anyone's got any bright ideas I'd be grateful.

Cheers

Brian

Belated Happy New Year to everyone on ims. It's still summer over here and I've been taking a very extended break and haven't been around.

I''m now back in harness at work and look forward to catching up on the tracks I've missed. In the coming weeks I will be posting some acoustic tracks I recorded just before Christmas. Although I love playing in the one-man band context, it's not a way to promote one's own material. So I've decided to try the "acoustic route" with a view to maybe picking up some pub/club work and hopefully getting some festival work. I'm told we have a big festival circuit out here where even someone with my limited talents might get a gig in the tent down the back alley.

The tracks are a combination of new tracks, some collabs with Lex Zaleta and some of the track from my CD "NIC" which I've pared back to acoustic versions.

I recorded the CD in one day and pretty well did it as I would "live" playing guitar and singing at the same time. So there are some forgotten lyrics, some bum chord changes and you probably wouldn't want to put a metronome on any of the tracks. There were 16 tracks recorded, but one, Unvictorian Victoria, has some real guitar issues and will probably be deleted from the final CD.

I didn't record the CD for sale. I really did it for promotion. I'll be getting a short run pressed for distribution to community radio stations and promoters ets. I'll make all of the tracks available for free download in here.

Hope to catch up with everyone in coming days/weeks/months.

BTW many thanks for all the kind birthday wishes yesterday. Thanks for rubbing in the fact that I'm an old man and getting older.

Cheers to all


Brian

This is very much a change of pace for me. It's very mellow and has a fairly country feel to it. The story behind it is in the info section if you're interested. It's very much a "lyric-based" song. Unfortunately, in terms of pitching it's too long, but blowed if I can work out how to shorten if.

Cheers


Brian

I finally completed the mixing and mastering of my acoustic CD "The Tort Stripped Bare" yesterday.

As a result I have replaced the earlier versions that I'd posted here with the new mastered versions. Unless I've clicked the wrong button they should be available for free download.

The tracks as

Six O'Clock Swill
Time To Train the Horses
Oldest Roadies on the Earth
Mid Life Crisis

I've also decided to add Come on By as a bonus track to the CD, even though it's not unplugged. Can't imagine it fitting into any other CD I'm likely to do so this seemed a good place for it.

It too has been mastered and the new version has been put up in place of the original.

Not asking people to go back and review their reviews. Just letting you know they're there.

Cheers

Brian