Friday, October 08, 2004
I feel music a-brewing.Among those of you who've actually heard my music (and none of you have heard *all* of it), I know quite a few have been eager to hear new material, so here's the score as it stands, and what I have in mind.
Actually, no... let me go right back to where it all started, and then you'll understand exactly what it is I plan to do.
Way back in 1986, when I still lived in my parents house, I bought an electric guitar... just coz I thought it'd be cool to have one, and figured it couldn't be *that* hard to learn how to play. Truth is, it was just one of those days when I had money burning a hole in my pocket, I was bored, figured electric guitars were cool... so what the heck.
Needless to say, I soon discovered guitars were actually bloody difficult to play, and for the best part of 2 years, I didn't touch the thing.
Then in late '87 I left home and took up lodgings in Milton Keynes before moving into my first flat. In that time I found myself with a circle of frineds who were into the local music scene. We went to all the local gigs, saw lots of bands, many of who'm were utterly crap... and decided if they can be that crap and go up on stage and do that... why don't we?
And so was formed 'The Non-Existant Puppies'. A disaster of a bedroom band with an ever changing lineup, some of who'm actually had instruments, and some who could 'almost' play them... a bit (kind of).
Over a period of a year or so we never played live... never actually got out of my bedroom in fact, but what we did manage to do was record some *very* badly produced 'songs' onto tape.
And yes.... I still retain the only (known) copy of those tapes. If anyone else has copies stashed away somewhere (I seem to recall doing edited hilights for Trish and Jackie), they're either very sad, or just haven't cleared all the junk out of their loft in around 15 years.
So anyway, as all bad bedroom bands do, the Non-Existant Puppies disbanded, mainly coz I realised I was the only one putting in any money or effort, and was still the only one who'd learned how to play more than one note.
I eventually bought a 4 track portastudio, a cheap and crappy keyboard, and between '89 and '93, working under the 'performing' name of Overjoy recorded a large number of tunes. Many of these are now lost, but I do still have the edited hilights on a tape that was provisionally named Silver. It's a rough and ready collection of tunes and you can hear my lack of skill, but some of those tunes have a real charm to them, and are almost quite good in their own way.
Then in around '93.. maybe '94, I don't remember, I started making a completely new style of music, entirely electronic alternative stuff using Octamed, and later Octamed Sound Studio on the Amiga computer. Going by th name of Cold Steel Brainstorm, I put together a mini album called Huh?, burned it to CD, and managed to sell around 15 copies to work friends and colleagues. How many of those copies still exist I couldn't tell you. Again, these tunes are quite primitive in terms of production values, but a couple of them have an energy that really is quite surprising, and show signs of things to come. If anything, they show my liking for quirky music that doesn't conform to any specific genre and a willingness to experiment.
Next, somewhere around '97ish I picked up a 2nd hand Roland MC 303, and took another step towards producing half decent music. Over the period between '97 and 2000, I completed a CD album which has been on sale online via peoplesound.com for some time, with mp3s available for download from my two main websites.
Since then, I've only produced 3 other tunes, 2 of which were available for a very limitied period via this blog, and one which has never been completed beyond a mono mp3 copy which two or three people beyond myself have heard. Technical issues, a lack of enthusiasm for the equipment I've been using when I know I could do so much more with the right gear, and generally being distracted by other things have kept me form producing anything else.
This brings us to today then.
So... I'm in the position where I could dig out my mixer and Roland, hook them up to Steinberg Cubase on the PC and produce some pretty impressive music... but no. It's not enough.
I figure when I start work on my next project, I intend to go all out and do something ground breaking (well, groundbreaking in terms of music I can make anyway). So the plan is to get my guitar sorted out (it needs a little work), get a decent guitar effects unit, brush up on my chords and stuff, get a decent mic... and *then* start recording.
We're looking at a month or two.
More than this though... I intend to *pay* (shock horror) for decent webhosting, dig out all my old tapes and CDs and make every half listenable tune I ever did (and some which arent... Non-Existant Puppies cover of Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas, anyone?) available for download on mp3... or at least as many as I can fit in the storage space abailable to me on the web server.
Including the brand new tracks, as and when I record them.
I know there are a few people who say I'm nuts to make all of my tunes available for free, but in the time I've had that one CD for sale via peoplesound, only *one* copy has ever been sold. So sod it... if I want people to hear my stuff... like, all of it, then I'm just gonna have to make it all available for free. If I add advertising via google adsense, I may just be able to break even with regard to server costs.
Labels: music
Steve 11:31 PM [+]
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