Hero ballads

Last summer, Mike Scanlon and I recorded two of my hero ballads in Jesse James' new studio in his basement.   (Jesse moved since then but he and his equipment are still in Fairfield.)   The space was perfect for us ~~ low-key concrete, fine audio equipment, and Jesse's keen ear for mix.   Josy sat beside Jesse behind the sound board, observing the whole scene with quiet support.

We had planned on recording only Hero so that's all we prepared, but things clicked along so well I added two more songs, although one of them just wasn't prepped enough to make the grade for the blog.

Although these songs were recorded a year ago, I didn't post them here sooner because the original intention was not to post them on the blog, but to give an interested drummer something of ours to work with until our schedules and practice spaces could line up enough for us to get together for a session.   So they have a singer-songwriter sense, almost folk sound maybe, which is simpler and quieter than usual for me.

In spite of efforts to bring players together, we were not able to play these with a drummer, and then the band evaporated within weeks of recording these songs.   So as an homage to the old band and as a sketch for a future band, I feel grateful to have these in our archives.

Drummers be warned:  we did not use a metronome and the timing is uneven.

Would You Catch Me was first recorded at our first open mic back in April 2012 after I wrote it in December 2011.   The audio file below is from June 2015.



Would You Catch Me posed a question in G minor pentatonic, and the answer in real life turned out to be "No".   From the ashes of that dashed hope came an almost country-western ballad with a few G major chords.   I wrote Hero in December 2013.




Must be the somber reflection during hibernation in winter that brings out my ballads.



Jesse James can be reached by email:   jjamestech @ g m a i l . c o m

Tiny Circus Blues

This tiny project included my first published performance of the blues: 25 seconds of improv humming for an animated cartoon called The History of Blue (from 1:15 to 1:40 in the video below).



My son Shane helped with animating and sound effects, notably the wolf whistle.   We're in this photo watching as the video is shot frame by frame.

Creating video stills with Tiny Circus, July 3, 2010, at ICON in Fairfield.
Shane Welty is in foreground under a camouflage cap, operating editing software.
I'm standing at the back wall with long hair over right shoulder.
Torrey Witherspoon is seated in front of me.

The art gallery ICON hosted Tiny Circus and Fairfield participants in their activity room (pictured above).  After the topic "The History of Blue" was chosen, we needed a story line.   We tossed around lots of ideas and considered every notion of "blue" ~ the sky, pigments and paints, fabric dyes, the water cycle, the rainbow, cold weather, and others.   My mind gravitated to love and heartbreak since that's what I write about in my songs, so I suggested that as a storyline and they ran with it.

We made sound effects in ICON's basement.  Torrey Witherspoon played mandolin for the happy-dancing first part of the video and voiced the sighing transition.   I don't remember the name of the young man who strummed chords on Torrey's mandolin for the end where I hummed.   He said he had just begun learning blues and knew one chord progression.   Well, that's all we needed.

Tiny Circus wrote about the day on their blog.   If you know other details about this day (like the strummer's name), please tell me and I'll add to the story.

Backing at the Festino

Dick DeAngelis is a great friend of music in Fairfield and last December he hosted a party for musicians.   He said musicians support causes with free performances throughout the year, and this was his way to thank them for their generosity.   Dick cooked up some great Italian food, brought red wine, and collected the cool of Fairfield to evoke a special atmosphere for making music.   Several entertained us with solos and a few of us jammed with them as back-up players.   I did a few backing vocals.   Here's an 8-minute jam from that night ~ ~ ~



Players (left to right): Keith DeBoer, Christy, David Hurlin, Jon Estrin, Trina Neal, Tim Britton
Video posted by FairfieldRocksMe

Our First Open Mic

We (Russ, Mike, me) did our first Open Mic last night:  "undrummed" was our theme for two songs.   Here's the audio file.



Things We Said Today is an early Beatles tune.   Mike played the intro twice because the mic was off when I was supposed to start singing.   I wrote Would You Catch Me in December and Mike and Russ made chords for it in February.   After our set, Keith DeBoer, the MC, introduced my son Shane for the next act.   Shane wrote the first tune, and the second is Stand By Me.



Topping off the night as the featured act was Global Cooling led by chanter Chandra Das, who filled in on a few hours' notice for Jonas Magram who'd had an accident and couldn't make the show (he's doing okay).   Global Cooling's bass player didn't make it, so Russ joined in to fill out the bottom end.

Update:   Jonas supplied the "news report" of his injury ~