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

Lo-Cal taste of Sugar Blues

the West African drumming group Foliba
played at the February 22 Open Mic

Coolio musicians meet friendly audiences at Open Mic in Fairfield.   I enjoyed three of these after they started up again in January at Cafe Paradiso.   That alchemy combined with Tuesday's practice when we were developing a new Celtic-bardic-ballad-sounding song and somebody said it might sound nice with just guitar and voice.   The cauldron brewed until Wednesday evening when a new idea wafted up, so I emailed Mike about Open Mic and the notion that he and I could duo as a low-tech taste of our band.

Open Mic that night was beautiful and touching with storytelling, poetry, and singer/songwriter sounds.   Mike liked it and we're getting songs ready for some time soon.

Update, March 12, 2013: We did perform that Celtic-bardic-ballad-sounding song at Open Mic on April 4, 2012.   We call it Would You Catch Me.