Testing the water for future releases, my solo album 'Light is a feather' will be released into the ether through I-Tunes and Amazon (among many other worldwide digi-download sites) on 4th September.
I've set the price as low as I can because it's my belief that music should cost only as much as it needs to in order to pay for itself and the wages of those involved. I know it's a multi-million industry but it makes me sick that there are amazing artists out there (check soundcloud if you don't believe me) who will never be paid for their genius while the likes of Rihanna squawk away with some banal psudo-music behind her. Watch Cribs and you'll throw up in your mouth at how someone with VERY little talent lives in a gold plated mansion with more bedrooms than they have real friends to sleep in them.
A song should be pleasant to listen to (see James Morrison) - it should be easy to listen to (see Depeche Mode) - in some cases powerful with well crafted lyrics (see Alanis Morrissette) and in others, simple but effective (see Erasure). It shouldn't just have a synth riff that repeats 80 times in the first 10 seconds (see Calvin Harris). Every song you write shouldn't be about how your marriage is a nightmare (See Pink) and every melody shouldn't have just 2 notes in it (See Pitbull). You should also be able to sing the notes in the song without pulling your trousers up higher than they go (See Pharell Williams).
Anyway, I've set the price as low as the store allows (they've got to pay for the space I suppose) and it might generate a few quid to the 'get me some better studio monitors' fund in the process so I can make better sounding music and evolve the sound further.
The Urban Fox album 'Departure' is now fully in the demo stage. 12 songs with a bit of depth and all they need is a bit of restructuring, re-instrumentation and some carefully recorded vocal lines.
To get my voice 'in the zone' I sing through Tears for Fears' 'Seeds of love' album five times a day for a week - then I start recording. If you see a car at the traffic lights blasting out 'Badman's song' - that'll be me.
Thursday 15 August 2013
Wednesday 31 July 2013
Forever Burn
She met a man on a night out. They got on. They saw each other a lot. He became distant. She knew she was losing him, though her feelings for him grew stronger every day. She knew he was the one. The last night she saw him he'd been round her house and they'd talked. He didn't say anything that led her to believe he was about to walk away yet as he kissed her goodbye and walked up the steps out of the front gate, she looked at the porch light and said she'd leave it switched on until he returned. It could have been a candle or the moonlight, but this porch light represented everything she felt - a connection across time - that he wouldn't be back.
She didn't hear from him for a few days and when he finally did get in touch, he was distant, morose and apologetic. The light still burned - outside and in. He never really broke up with her, he just stopped calling. She thought of going to see him, surprising him - she thought of ringing to ask what he was thinking. She left the light on in case he returned. For him to find his way back to her.
She never saw him again and she's married now to another man - she lives in a different country - she's changed her name - she's had another child to another man - she's still crazy - she's just as happy as she ever was.
But that light still burns. And it will burn on forever.
She didn't hear from him for a few days and when he finally did get in touch, he was distant, morose and apologetic. The light still burned - outside and in. He never really broke up with her, he just stopped calling. She thought of going to see him, surprising him - she thought of ringing to ask what he was thinking. She left the light on in case he returned. For him to find his way back to her.
She never saw him again and she's married now to another man - she lives in a different country - she's changed her name - she's had another child to another man - she's still crazy - she's just as happy as she ever was.
But that light still burns. And it will burn on forever.
Wednesday 24 July 2013
New Demo...
Recorded three new demos in the last week - here is the first (unproduced as yet) with a guide vocal.
http://soundcloud.com/urbanfox93/promises-are-snowflakes-rough
The other two 'Headlights and high hopes' and the Gary Numan inspired 'The Dreamers' will be up on here (soundcloud) before you can say 'trapped in the 80's'
ciao for niao
http://soundcloud.com/urbanfox93/promises-are-snowflakes-rough
The other two 'Headlights and high hopes' and the Gary Numan inspired 'The Dreamers' will be up on here (soundcloud) before you can say 'trapped in the 80's'
ciao for niao
Thursday 18 July 2013
Denial
Sometimes you don't want to know
Don't want to hear what's going wrong
Put the world on pause
Crawl around
Find promises that don't belong
Sometimes you don't want to feel
Don't want the fear of every day
Hide your face
Sing distraction
Close your eyes until it all goes away
Don't want to hear what's going wrong
Put the world on pause
Crawl around
Find promises that don't belong
Sometimes you don't want to feel
Don't want the fear of every day
Hide your face
Sing distraction
Close your eyes until it all goes away
Headlights and High Hopes
Songs can grow organically - you either get the main theme and idea down in one sitting and go back later to beef it up a bit and add middle eights and what have you - or you just feel a nice melody or in my case, I stumble on a new sound and fiddle with the reverb and phaser until it sounds suitably wierd.
The two songs I've been working on for the last few weeks are 'Promises are Snowflakes' and 'Headlights and High Hopes'. Both are songs - and I mean 'songs' in the sense of something that flows, has meaning, emotion. They're not there to dance to. They're not there as 'lead singles from the album' to get a top ten hit in 40 countries around the world. They're carefully crafted mood peices that in my mind sound like the type of song you could put at track 10 or 12, leading the album out and leave the listener hanging, thinking, considering their lives and whether they're going to get up and do something worthwhile tomorrow. It would be highly pretentious of me to assume that though, so at the moment, they're just bits of clay - I'm spending a lot of time on the structures and the melodies so that the end product has a fighting chance of saying everything Douglas was feeling when he was writing the lyrics.
Then I'll go and spoil it all by adding vocals! Should be at the first demo stage sometime next week and up on soundcloud after that.
The two songs I've been working on for the last few weeks are 'Promises are Snowflakes' and 'Headlights and High Hopes'. Both are songs - and I mean 'songs' in the sense of something that flows, has meaning, emotion. They're not there to dance to. They're not there as 'lead singles from the album' to get a top ten hit in 40 countries around the world. They're carefully crafted mood peices that in my mind sound like the type of song you could put at track 10 or 12, leading the album out and leave the listener hanging, thinking, considering their lives and whether they're going to get up and do something worthwhile tomorrow. It would be highly pretentious of me to assume that though, so at the moment, they're just bits of clay - I'm spending a lot of time on the structures and the melodies so that the end product has a fighting chance of saying everything Douglas was feeling when he was writing the lyrics.
Then I'll go and spoil it all by adding vocals! Should be at the first demo stage sometime next week and up on soundcloud after that.
Tuesday 16 July 2013
We could have been Duran Duran...
It's surprising how little of the musician in me goes into an album. I've been reading John Taylor's
autobiography and he speaks of Duran Duran's band dynamic right at the beginning - how he and Roger Taylor fed off each other and they'd create grooves and play for hours.
I've written songs with over 30 people and most of them, in fact 90% of them were guitarists. Whether using one to strum basic chords or playing it like it was part of their own body - it was their instrument of choice when writing songs.
I'm not a good 'jammer'. I love that band environment, don't get me wrong - I love adding my paint to the pallate, feeling that vibe and getting in amongst it. I've never been a showboater so when it comes to a part of the jam where everyone gets a chance to show what they can do I get the exact same feeling every time - 'this isn't going anywhere'. It's one of my greatest frustrations with other musicians - it's because they're just that. At one with their instrument, lost in the ether of sound, feeling their way around a chord set and being happy to wallow for a few hours in the same groove. I get itchy, I want to change the chord set every five minutes, forcing others to while they gaze at each other with confused expressions which seem to say 'what was wrong with what we were doing?' and 'You're not in control here, we just want to dance around the same 12 notes, putting them in a random order over and over again in a kind of stress therapy.
Only very rarely has a song come out of any jam I've been involved in and even then they've been one dimensional. It's because musicians aren't always writers - and I've been writing music for so long, I forget that. Some musicians just want a piece of music in front of them, play their part and go home. Some want a vibe to solo along to. Some think structurally - I think in patterns and melodies.
I was invited to a jam session once at the house of an old school friend. He was a drummer and a bloody good one - he had a studio, mixing desks, a saxophone - I often used to think he invited people round to show off and when he got behind the drum kit, he was a man possessed.
However, drummers don't make good leaders.
When I got there, Urban Fox's current Bass player was there in the corner doing what he does - a guitarist whom I'd known at school though never really connected with - he was superb. He knew when one note was better than fifty, he knew chords, he knew rhythms, he knew effects.
Behind the keyboard sat a guy I'd known for about a year. He'd played guitar in Urban Fox at a gig in April 2000 although he always said his instrument was the piano. I was the keyboard player and for lack of someone with vocal talent, the singer as well. I could let him take over keyboards - but I'm not a front man and never will be. We struggled on into 2001 and the collective didn't really go anywhere. That's when I saw him behind the keyboard at the drummer's house.
They started playing a song - it was good, it sounded like they'd been playing together for years such was the talent in the room. In reality it had been about six weeks. I stepped up to the mike - 'Dead beat, like the rhythm of a drum and I don't know where it comes from' - the words started writing themselves - the melodies started flowing. This is how a band should work... I thought. It's like when Simon Le Bon first showed up to sing with Duran Duran and belted out 'Sound of Thunder' to what the band were doing.
Hang on, the riff is just going round and round and repeating. This could be so much better. However good these guys think they are, they could be much much better. We break for a rest - I can't rest - I kick the keyboard player out of his seat - he's a virtuoso, he knows jazz (a foreign language to me), he knows Cole Porter - I know Beethoven and Bach. I'm all about fugues and cadences. 'This is the bridge', I say to the guitarist who nods in an appreciative manner and starts riffing around the six chords - 'and this is the chorus'. He plays again. The drummer looks annoyed. Ian goes along with whatever's happening. The keyboard player takes his place back at the keyboard looking bemused. The song works - intro, verse, bridge, chorus.
'Why don't we record a few takes next week and I'll bring some polished lyrics along?', I say to the drummer. He dismisses me and walks off. We've known each other for twenty years. In an hour, I've done what they couldn't in six weeks. Do his toes feel stepped on? Does he think I'm trying to take his baby away? With someone, anyone, directing these musicians - these excellent musicians who were not writers or producers, this whole situation could have been very Duran Duran if only the drive was there. I'd need singing lessons and a make-over if I was going to go all 'Le Bon' but the potential in that room was huge. Unfortunately, so was the drummer's ego.
I was never invited back the following week - I knew I wasn't going to be allowed back in that studio when I saw the look on the drummer's face as I left. I found out later he thought my lyric 'dead beat' was about him. How can you lose what you never had?
Walking home that night in 2001, at 1am, the full moon hanging in the cloudless sky and reflecting off the damp pavement. The still air and empty street filled my head. I stopped and looked over at the park - a place that is usually so full of people, laughter and games - standing empty in the chilly darkness. 'I'm not a musician', I thought to myself. They were all still back at the studio, smoking, drinking, laughing, planning their next jam. A jam that would never go anywhere. A jam that would last hours and have nothing to show at the end.
When I spend a few hours in a studio, I have at least three songs, a few demos, ideas to go back to later, some riffs and at least one melody.
I've spent the last couple of months developing the ideas that were written in a few days in April 2013. Fleshing out, adding bass lines, drum patterns, synth decoration. Using my workstation to build midi patters, electronic loops, fills and guitar decoration that makes it sound like I can play the damn thing.
It's surprising how little of the musician in me goes into an album.
autobiography and he speaks of Duran Duran's band dynamic right at the beginning - how he and Roger Taylor fed off each other and they'd create grooves and play for hours.
I've written songs with over 30 people and most of them, in fact 90% of them were guitarists. Whether using one to strum basic chords or playing it like it was part of their own body - it was their instrument of choice when writing songs.
I'm not a good 'jammer'. I love that band environment, don't get me wrong - I love adding my paint to the pallate, feeling that vibe and getting in amongst it. I've never been a showboater so when it comes to a part of the jam where everyone gets a chance to show what they can do I get the exact same feeling every time - 'this isn't going anywhere'. It's one of my greatest frustrations with other musicians - it's because they're just that. At one with their instrument, lost in the ether of sound, feeling their way around a chord set and being happy to wallow for a few hours in the same groove. I get itchy, I want to change the chord set every five minutes, forcing others to while they gaze at each other with confused expressions which seem to say 'what was wrong with what we were doing?' and 'You're not in control here, we just want to dance around the same 12 notes, putting them in a random order over and over again in a kind of stress therapy.
Only very rarely has a song come out of any jam I've been involved in and even then they've been one dimensional. It's because musicians aren't always writers - and I've been writing music for so long, I forget that. Some musicians just want a piece of music in front of them, play their part and go home. Some want a vibe to solo along to. Some think structurally - I think in patterns and melodies.
I was invited to a jam session once at the house of an old school friend. He was a drummer and a bloody good one - he had a studio, mixing desks, a saxophone - I often used to think he invited people round to show off and when he got behind the drum kit, he was a man possessed.
However, drummers don't make good leaders.
When I got there, Urban Fox's current Bass player was there in the corner doing what he does - a guitarist whom I'd known at school though never really connected with - he was superb. He knew when one note was better than fifty, he knew chords, he knew rhythms, he knew effects.
Behind the keyboard sat a guy I'd known for about a year. He'd played guitar in Urban Fox at a gig in April 2000 although he always said his instrument was the piano. I was the keyboard player and for lack of someone with vocal talent, the singer as well. I could let him take over keyboards - but I'm not a front man and never will be. We struggled on into 2001 and the collective didn't really go anywhere. That's when I saw him behind the keyboard at the drummer's house.
They started playing a song - it was good, it sounded like they'd been playing together for years such was the talent in the room. In reality it had been about six weeks. I stepped up to the mike - 'Dead beat, like the rhythm of a drum and I don't know where it comes from' - the words started writing themselves - the melodies started flowing. This is how a band should work... I thought. It's like when Simon Le Bon first showed up to sing with Duran Duran and belted out 'Sound of Thunder' to what the band were doing.
Hang on, the riff is just going round and round and repeating. This could be so much better. However good these guys think they are, they could be much much better. We break for a rest - I can't rest - I kick the keyboard player out of his seat - he's a virtuoso, he knows jazz (a foreign language to me), he knows Cole Porter - I know Beethoven and Bach. I'm all about fugues and cadences. 'This is the bridge', I say to the guitarist who nods in an appreciative manner and starts riffing around the six chords - 'and this is the chorus'. He plays again. The drummer looks annoyed. Ian goes along with whatever's happening. The keyboard player takes his place back at the keyboard looking bemused. The song works - intro, verse, bridge, chorus.
'Why don't we record a few takes next week and I'll bring some polished lyrics along?', I say to the drummer. He dismisses me and walks off. We've known each other for twenty years. In an hour, I've done what they couldn't in six weeks. Do his toes feel stepped on? Does he think I'm trying to take his baby away? With someone, anyone, directing these musicians - these excellent musicians who were not writers or producers, this whole situation could have been very Duran Duran if only the drive was there. I'd need singing lessons and a make-over if I was going to go all 'Le Bon' but the potential in that room was huge. Unfortunately, so was the drummer's ego.
I was never invited back the following week - I knew I wasn't going to be allowed back in that studio when I saw the look on the drummer's face as I left. I found out later he thought my lyric 'dead beat' was about him. How can you lose what you never had?
Walking home that night in 2001, at 1am, the full moon hanging in the cloudless sky and reflecting off the damp pavement. The still air and empty street filled my head. I stopped and looked over at the park - a place that is usually so full of people, laughter and games - standing empty in the chilly darkness. 'I'm not a musician', I thought to myself. They were all still back at the studio, smoking, drinking, laughing, planning their next jam. A jam that would never go anywhere. A jam that would last hours and have nothing to show at the end.
When I spend a few hours in a studio, I have at least three songs, a few demos, ideas to go back to later, some riffs and at least one melody.
I've spent the last couple of months developing the ideas that were written in a few days in April 2013. Fleshing out, adding bass lines, drum patterns, synth decoration. Using my workstation to build midi patters, electronic loops, fills and guitar decoration that makes it sound like I can play the damn thing.
It's surprising how little of the musician in me goes into an album.
Thursday 11 July 2013
Happy Accidents
Developing the seed of an idea that is 'Headlights and High hopes', I got the piano riff worked out, layered the synths and bass templates for laying the guide vocals and then needed to add a drum track so I picked a simple four four just for now until I can open up the structure when I've got a melody down - the drums sounded a bit flat so I added a filter but picked the wrong plug-in and made them sound airy and deeply sonic! Superb!
An accident that has knocked up the atmosphere from nice to deep.
An accident that has knocked up the atmosphere from nice to deep.
Sunday 7 July 2013
The image and how you use it
I've always known this but it was made even more powerful when I was watching a few clips from Live Aid in 1985 on youtube. U2 singing 'bad', which is a good song - it's not a great song - but the way it was performed, with Bono looking every bit the confident front man, looking like he knows everything worth knowing. His not being fazed looking out at the thousands of people, not caring if any of them are standing there thinking 'this song is boring', they went on to riff the song into a nine minute epic while Bono wandered off into the crowd to dance with someone as he always did.
It wasn't just about the music - as good musicians as they were - it was all about what they represented, their message, their look and then with the Joshua Tree, it suddenly was all about the music and the countryfied image, the rock and roll and all those influences. It was about creativity until they ended up morphing into a band that mocked that which had given them the pedestal.
Urban Fox will always just be a recording band - we have played live but we know we're hobbyists, and our songs are ok. However, with the internet and distribution to various channels, you don't need radio play - we're happy if anybody stops by soundcloud or downloads us off I-tunes and likes what we do. We'll never have an image, or a message and as such, we'll always be an internet band who writes and records and releases music into the ether to try and get one of our tunes into the soundtrack of someone's life.
I know how important music has been to me, Peter Gabriel and Gary Numan managed over the years to speak for me, listening to their songs and hearing every word describing my own situation and Tears for Fears and Erasure representing everything that is maginficent about song writing - the layers, the powerful rhythms, great melodies, the usage of embelishments to light up a verse or a chorus. Listen to Erasure's 'Chorus' album - Siren Song and Home are amazing tracks - the keyboard work is nothing short of magical and continues to influence everything I write when I'm at the synthesizers, and their 1995 album 'Erasure' was their very own 'Dark side of the moon', a masterpiece which I could listen to on loop for days.
'The Hurting' is a truly magnificent album too and listening to it start to finish with the lights down is an experience I wish everyone could have - and feel the same as I do.
My hope with the new album - which incidently might be called 'Departure' after Douglas described the track 'Hope' as just that and I like it better than 'The Storm' - the album isn't a storm really, it's more of a celebration - is that someone stumbles across it and enjoys it. And that's all.
It wasn't just about the music - as good musicians as they were - it was all about what they represented, their message, their look and then with the Joshua Tree, it suddenly was all about the music and the countryfied image, the rock and roll and all those influences. It was about creativity until they ended up morphing into a band that mocked that which had given them the pedestal.
Urban Fox will always just be a recording band - we have played live but we know we're hobbyists, and our songs are ok. However, with the internet and distribution to various channels, you don't need radio play - we're happy if anybody stops by soundcloud or downloads us off I-tunes and likes what we do. We'll never have an image, or a message and as such, we'll always be an internet band who writes and records and releases music into the ether to try and get one of our tunes into the soundtrack of someone's life.
I know how important music has been to me, Peter Gabriel and Gary Numan managed over the years to speak for me, listening to their songs and hearing every word describing my own situation and Tears for Fears and Erasure representing everything that is maginficent about song writing - the layers, the powerful rhythms, great melodies, the usage of embelishments to light up a verse or a chorus. Listen to Erasure's 'Chorus' album - Siren Song and Home are amazing tracks - the keyboard work is nothing short of magical and continues to influence everything I write when I'm at the synthesizers, and their 1995 album 'Erasure' was their very own 'Dark side of the moon', a masterpiece which I could listen to on loop for days.
'The Hurting' is a truly magnificent album too and listening to it start to finish with the lights down is an experience I wish everyone could have - and feel the same as I do.
My hope with the new album - which incidently might be called 'Departure' after Douglas described the track 'Hope' as just that and I like it better than 'The Storm' - the album isn't a storm really, it's more of a celebration - is that someone stumbles across it and enjoys it. And that's all.
Monday 1 July 2013
Head of Steam
After a marathon singing/mixing session, there's two more full song demos up on Soundcloud now - both on the Urban Fox one and the Rob Shadon one.
'Love's last victim' was a bit raw so I've gone back and added some 'beef' under it so it sounds more produced. 'The Storm' is also up there - sounding quite ragged but that's demos for you.
I'm currently working on 'the destiny of truth' which has a new second verse and probably won't sound as empty as the other demo sounds.
'Love's last victim' was a bit raw so I've gone back and added some 'beef' under it so it sounds more produced. 'The Storm' is also up there - sounding quite ragged but that's demos for you.
I'm currently working on 'the destiny of truth' which has a new second verse and probably won't sound as empty as the other demo sounds.
Saturday 29 June 2013
Monday 24 June 2013
Minneapolis Blue
Previously on this blog I mentioned that it felt like September 1995 - and it got me thinking, what exactly was it about that time that I can feel? I think it was the atmosphere - it had been a long hot summer, I don't remember a bad day and I was outdoors for most of it. Then when the autumn came it was quite harsh - lately we've had some mild September - November bits but not 1995. It was cold. All the time.
I spent lots of time in the 'studio' writing the 'Intermezzo' album and a lot of time between lectures at univeristy in Sunderland Museum. I wrote the lyrics for 'Shame' in there, one of the only songs that I wrote entirely on that album - the rest coming from Douglas and his temporary exile in Ilkley. The song I have most affection for from that period (apart from Demons and Angels) was Minneapolis Blue and although I remember it coming to the fore in one of the song writing sessions I had with Douglas, he assures me 'Minneapolis Blue' was hanging around for a few years beforehand. A love story, the guy in the song had planned to spend Christmas in Minneapolis with his girl, but the song tells of the breakdown of that relationship. The depth in the lyrics made it feel like Douglas had actually been there himself. In another creative lapse for this new album I've dug out the old C90 hissy recording and 're-done' it - there's two versions - an uptempo bass driven introduction and a melacholic airy double bass and flute lament.
They'll be up on soundcloud before you know it along with another song I've been meaning to re-do since it was first recorded in 1996. It's called 'Belong to me' and hopefully it'll turn out how it was intended.
Then back to the new album. I promise.
I spent lots of time in the 'studio' writing the 'Intermezzo' album and a lot of time between lectures at univeristy in Sunderland Museum. I wrote the lyrics for 'Shame' in there, one of the only songs that I wrote entirely on that album - the rest coming from Douglas and his temporary exile in Ilkley. The song I have most affection for from that period (apart from Demons and Angels) was Minneapolis Blue and although I remember it coming to the fore in one of the song writing sessions I had with Douglas, he assures me 'Minneapolis Blue' was hanging around for a few years beforehand. A love story, the guy in the song had planned to spend Christmas in Minneapolis with his girl, but the song tells of the breakdown of that relationship. The depth in the lyrics made it feel like Douglas had actually been there himself. In another creative lapse for this new album I've dug out the old C90 hissy recording and 're-done' it - there's two versions - an uptempo bass driven introduction and a melacholic airy double bass and flute lament.
They'll be up on soundcloud before you know it along with another song I've been meaning to re-do since it was first recorded in 1996. It's called 'Belong to me' and hopefully it'll turn out how it was intended.
Then back to the new album. I promise.
Friday 7 June 2013
Promises are snowflakes
It's really hard sometimes, moulding what you hear in your head with the sounds you have available. I don't drum and I don't play guitar past grade 2 standard (probably not even that high) so I find my expression limited. I feel a bit like Brian Eno in the early 80's when he did that 'atmospheric' album - stuck with whooshy synth sounds and metallic pads. However, sometimes, those sounds and atmosphere sit perfectly. As proved by 'I'm sorry I haven't a Clue' when they do the 'one song to the tune of another' - the connection between the words and the music is so important. It doesn't seem so I suppose when you're listing to a song on the radio, it just kinda goes but when you try and sing the lyrics of 'Girlfriend in a coma' by The Smiths to the tune of 'Tiptoe through the tulips', you get what I mean.
Promises are Snowflakes is one of Doug's gems. In the lyric it states literally that 'your promises are cold' but it goes deeper than that. The promise is made, and it seems so robust and heartfelt until time causes that snowflake to fade and melt and dissappear - the meaning all but lost. That's where Doug excels, and I managed to get a rough demo of a couple of verses and choruses down this morning. At the moment, you can't really tell where the bridge and the chorus meet - you'll be able to with the vocals on top but I think the 'segway' itself needs to be more prominent. I'll just give it a whirl and see!
Ten contenders now for the final cut and another fifteen bits and peices which may or may not be developed.
Promises are Snowflakes is one of Doug's gems. In the lyric it states literally that 'your promises are cold' but it goes deeper than that. The promise is made, and it seems so robust and heartfelt until time causes that snowflake to fade and melt and dissappear - the meaning all but lost. That's where Doug excels, and I managed to get a rough demo of a couple of verses and choruses down this morning. At the moment, you can't really tell where the bridge and the chorus meet - you'll be able to with the vocals on top but I think the 'segway' itself needs to be more prominent. I'll just give it a whirl and see!
Ten contenders now for the final cut and another fifteen bits and peices which may or may not be developed.
Tuesday 4 June 2013
I've got ISSUES
I have a foible. I can't think of another word for it - a sickness? a deep issue? Whatever it is, I am obsessed with hearing a song and going 'that sounds like...'. I do it all the time - there are at least six songs in the charts right now that sound like 70s or 80s songs - which either means there's a finite combination of notes and they're bound to come back round or they're blatantly stealing stuff without giving the original artist credit.
I once posted on a forum about a song that sounded like something else and everyone went ballistic saying it wasn't stolen, it was a 'homage' to the original. I have a huge bugbear(?!) with that Christina Agui-lost-it song she does with Pitbull (Don't get done, get Dom) which has a sample (I say sample, it's actually played by a 9 year old on a broken bontempi) of the intro to A-Ha's timeless classic 'Take on me'. Not only does it destroy any affection I had for the original, it does nothing for the pathetic attempt at a GCSE music project that these two 'great artists' are vomiting into my living room.
Christina has turned into a parody of herself. She's singing the chart equivalent of 'tune a day book 1, The little F and G march' and she's singing it like her life depends on it. Oversinging the entire seven notes, trying to infuse each one with the depths of every emotion she's ever felt. It's embarrassing.
Anyhoo - I've been writing a song this morning called 'The dreamers' and it just ended up sounding like a Gary Numan out-take mixed with that Visage song 'Fade to gray'. The difference is, I'm not fleecing people out of money and parading my music as high-end Radio 1 song of the week - I'm just arsing about in my studio doing what makes me happy and hoping if you listen, it'll cheer you up too. The music industry needs to get a grip honestly.
Having said that, I recently heard one of the greatest songs of the last ten years in 'Duet' by Everything Everything and that band 'Lawson' aren't half bad, even though they sound a little like Louis Walsh told them they'd never make it unless they learned guitar and came back next week.
That's all.
I once posted on a forum about a song that sounded like something else and everyone went ballistic saying it wasn't stolen, it was a 'homage' to the original. I have a huge bugbear(?!) with that Christina Agui-lost-it song she does with Pitbull (Don't get done, get Dom) which has a sample (I say sample, it's actually played by a 9 year old on a broken bontempi) of the intro to A-Ha's timeless classic 'Take on me'. Not only does it destroy any affection I had for the original, it does nothing for the pathetic attempt at a GCSE music project that these two 'great artists' are vomiting into my living room.
Christina has turned into a parody of herself. She's singing the chart equivalent of 'tune a day book 1, The little F and G march' and she's singing it like her life depends on it. Oversinging the entire seven notes, trying to infuse each one with the depths of every emotion she's ever felt. It's embarrassing.
Anyhoo - I've been writing a song this morning called 'The dreamers' and it just ended up sounding like a Gary Numan out-take mixed with that Visage song 'Fade to gray'. The difference is, I'm not fleecing people out of money and parading my music as high-end Radio 1 song of the week - I'm just arsing about in my studio doing what makes me happy and hoping if you listen, it'll cheer you up too. The music industry needs to get a grip honestly.
Having said that, I recently heard one of the greatest songs of the last ten years in 'Duet' by Everything Everything and that band 'Lawson' aren't half bad, even though they sound a little like Louis Walsh told them they'd never make it unless they learned guitar and came back next week.
That's all.
Friday 24 May 2013
Broken Bottle
Her relationship was a sham - she didn't get on with her boyfriend, they had very little in common and she put everything else in her life before him. She didn't seem to be that bothered. She was sitting talking to her friend. Her friend was concerned that her relationship didn't have that 'spark' - that maybe they didn't get on, maybe they weren't suited, maybe they should call it a day - maybe being single is better than being with the wrong person? She listened, gave advice and not once realised that she was in the exact same situation - unable to listen to herself, listen to what she should do to resolve her own situation. The bottle wasn't half full - it wasn't half empty - it was broken.
Lyrics, intro, chords and tune for verse 1 and 2 and a tentative slightly catchy chorus written. The album is taking shape, even if, as it looks at the minute, it is just going to be a solo project in the end - I'm pressing on. When the inspiration and drive to write is there, you have to do it because when you step in the studio and there's nothing going on upstairs, that's an awful feeling.
It'll not be long before I've got about fifteen demos to choose the final tracks from.
All will be posted on soundcloud http://soundcloud.com/urbanfox93 in due course (there's about 12 snips of music on there already!)
Lyrics, intro, chords and tune for verse 1 and 2 and a tentative slightly catchy chorus written. The album is taking shape, even if, as it looks at the minute, it is just going to be a solo project in the end - I'm pressing on. When the inspiration and drive to write is there, you have to do it because when you step in the studio and there's nothing going on upstairs, that's an awful feeling.
It'll not be long before I've got about fifteen demos to choose the final tracks from.
All will be posted on soundcloud http://soundcloud.com/urbanfox93 in due course (there's about 12 snips of music on there already!)
Thursday 23 May 2013
Hope (part 2)
It felt like September 1995 - when Douglas gave me a pile of lyrics he'd written whilst exiled in Ilkley. 'Strength to Strength', 'Demons and Angels', 'Minneapolis Blue', 'Dance on', 'Dream a little dream', 'Easy Money' - they all combined to make the album 'Intermezzo' which was finished by November that year. Simple pop songs with heartfelt lyrics, telling stories which on the surface seemed quite simple but had a depth to them that made you think Douglas had actually lived through these himself. Not that Ilkley was much like Minneapolis, he still managed to paint a picture of heartbreak with a snowy metropolis backdrop, leaving the huge cold city on Christmas day having planned to spend it with that one special person. It's lyrics like that which make the music appear without much effort (Douglas actually wrote the chords and structure for that particular song but you get what I mean).
And so, this morning it felt like it did on that day in September 1995 when I was looking through that pile of lyrics. I have a set of about twenty gems which I'm gathering ideas and sparks from but the one that screamed at me this morning was from a word processed and printed sheet, without a date and this time without the usual comment on the bottom of how Douglas sees the song being represented - it's called 'Hope'. A couple of years ago I was comissioned to write a song for a local healthcare company's annual conference - something for them to walk in to that represented the company's vision. 'Hope - we're holding on to what we've got, can't make the dream something it's not' - not my best attempt at lyrics - but I'm assuming this Douglas lyric came from the conversation I had with him about writing said song - I remember they needed it quite urgently so I 'knocked it up' in about an hour and didn't have time to get Douglas' lyrics - I'm wondering now if this printed sheet that's been wedged among the other is that very lyric.
However, it's a simple, short, punchy, to-the-point piece that fits a tune I've been working on extremely well. It feels like September 1995 - it really does.
And so, this morning it felt like it did on that day in September 1995 when I was looking through that pile of lyrics. I have a set of about twenty gems which I'm gathering ideas and sparks from but the one that screamed at me this morning was from a word processed and printed sheet, without a date and this time without the usual comment on the bottom of how Douglas sees the song being represented - it's called 'Hope'. A couple of years ago I was comissioned to write a song for a local healthcare company's annual conference - something for them to walk in to that represented the company's vision. 'Hope - we're holding on to what we've got, can't make the dream something it's not' - not my best attempt at lyrics - but I'm assuming this Douglas lyric came from the conversation I had with him about writing said song - I remember they needed it quite urgently so I 'knocked it up' in about an hour and didn't have time to get Douglas' lyrics - I'm wondering now if this printed sheet that's been wedged among the other is that very lyric.
However, it's a simple, short, punchy, to-the-point piece that fits a tune I've been working on extremely well. It feels like September 1995 - it really does.
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Love's last victim
Rather sharp but it's something we've all felt at some time - without meaning to make the lyric sound like the singer is wallowing in self-pity for too long, it's more about moving on and escaping that hollow feeling that exists after a break-up. It's not love that's attacking, it's your failure to understand that where you were was not where you should have been.
Here's the instrumental demo and a vocal line will be added shortly...
http://soundcloud.com/urbanfox93/loves-last-victim-demo
Here's the instrumental demo and a vocal line will be added shortly...
http://soundcloud.com/urbanfox93/loves-last-victim-demo
Monday 20 May 2013
Chapter 5
Well, it's a little bit Chapter 4 - a little bit 'Gone (to end with you)' and a tiny bit 'Poison Moon' but it's much more 'Storm' and new melancholy.
I've got a need to tell you what I don't feel
And if we don't talk
Well, I'll lose everything
I just turned up at your door
Try to hold on to what's gone
And the light fades as I take every word you say
There's no future and there's no past
If we don't talk, there's no reason to feel that
And I'm happy that you're happy with that
I brought you here and now you're looking at me
Wondering why the silence
Well it's the silence that made me bring you here
And now we're sitting in silence
I can't speak - can't bring myself to say
What I feel and what I need
Now I can't leave and I can't stay
I've got a need to tell you what I don't feel
And if we don't talk
Well, I'll lose everything
I just turned up at your door
Try to hold on to what's gone
And the light fades as I take every word you say
There's no future and there's no past
If we don't talk, there's no reason to feel that
And I'm happy that you're happy with that
I brought you here and now you're looking at me
Wondering why the silence
Well it's the silence that made me bring you here
And now we're sitting in silence
I can't speak - can't bring myself to say
What I feel and what I need
Now I can't leave and I can't stay
Friday 17 May 2013
The Storm before the calm
You start with an idea - either a tune or a rhythm. This time, I started with a concept. A collection of ideas forming in clouds ready to rain their inspiration down into the collecting rivers of creation. If I was to be slightly less pretentious for a moment though, I'd say 'The Storm' was more about that electricity between two people firing off at the wrong times and both suffering that heavy claustrophobia you get before a lightning strike - a theme which will run through the final album.
And so, after writing about 12-15 bits and peices, recording 3 snips of demos - the first of this album with vocals (including a very boy-band sounding 'Whatever' and the one that really reflects where I'm trying to push (or pull) this album in 'Destiny of Truth' which has heavy Depeche Mode influences) - I'm back to the title track, 'The Storm'. Guitar heavy with plenty of twinkling synth and not in a 'Europe' or 'Whitesnake' way neither.
It all begins here - the snips will all be revisited, expanded, recorded with guide vocals, melodies tweaked, lyrics swapped and edited and eventually, twenty or so demos ready to be produced properly.
And so, after writing about 12-15 bits and peices, recording 3 snips of demos - the first of this album with vocals (including a very boy-band sounding 'Whatever' and the one that really reflects where I'm trying to push (or pull) this album in 'Destiny of Truth' which has heavy Depeche Mode influences) - I'm back to the title track, 'The Storm'. Guitar heavy with plenty of twinkling synth and not in a 'Europe' or 'Whitesnake' way neither.
It all begins here - the snips will all be revisited, expanded, recorded with guide vocals, melodies tweaked, lyrics swapped and edited and eventually, twenty or so demos ready to be produced properly.
Sunday 12 May 2013
Spring Clean
Found a pile of lyrics after cleaning out an old cupboard and arranging my recording studio into a more organised arrangement. Some stunning stuff and some memory churning stuff too. Took me all of an hour and a half to get a drum track, bass line and melody together - the new song is called 'Love's last victim'. Very electro pop. Why fight what comes natural?
Tuesday 9 April 2013
Lyrics for Untitled idea 8
No cogent tune yet but these words have been floating around - they tell the story of a man who used to have all he needed until he turned his back...
Had it all
I was the reason
Now it's gone
I'm barely breathing
Feeling change
And I stopped feeling
Stand alone
And stop believing
Something's happening
And I want more
There's no chorus yet.
Should be back on the trail soon as my side project 'The Working Man' is a guide vocal away from being finished.
Had it all
I was the reason
Now it's gone
I'm barely breathing
Feeling change
And I stopped feeling
Stand alone
And stop believing
Something's happening
And I want more
There's no chorus yet.
Should be back on the trail soon as my side project 'The Working Man' is a guide vocal away from being finished.
Friday 15 March 2013
Sabbatical
When you're writing, it consumes you. It becomes the world you live in day to day. In a corner shop buying a twix, you're thinking about that tricky bridge which doesn't seem to bring the chorus in properly - waiting for the microwave to ping, you're wondering if you should add a sweeping pad under the accapella intro. However, these last few weeks I've been working on (whilst being hit over the head by my co-writer with a pointy twig) the music for 'The Working Man' - a stage show based on the paintings of Alexander Millar. I've got the intro, first song 'Lewance of beer' and 'Sandhills' done and dusted but it's taken about six weeks so far to get the third song 'Roll up, Roll up' finished. The script is finished now thank goodness but without the music, it's going to be hard to convince both the artist and my publisher that it's a potential success - so I've been concentrating on getting that finished.
Song 4 is 'The Caulkers Song' which features a lot of industrial sounds such as hammers hitting rivets (a common melody heard around the Newcastle Upon Tyne shipyards in the early 1900s) and the fifth song, 'Build a ship' - an eight part choir peice, reminiscent of the kind you'd expect to hear Welsh miners singing - though there was a tradition in the North East at the turn of the 20th century of brass bands - so that's all going to come together in the final overture - a massive orchestral blast and crescendo.
So, that's why the new Urban Fox album is on hold. Just in case you wondered.
We'll probably pick back up again in May.
Song 4 is 'The Caulkers Song' which features a lot of industrial sounds such as hammers hitting rivets (a common melody heard around the Newcastle Upon Tyne shipyards in the early 1900s) and the fifth song, 'Build a ship' - an eight part choir peice, reminiscent of the kind you'd expect to hear Welsh miners singing - though there was a tradition in the North East at the turn of the 20th century of brass bands - so that's all going to come together in the final overture - a massive orchestral blast and crescendo.
So, that's why the new Urban Fox album is on hold. Just in case you wondered.
We'll probably pick back up again in May.
Wednesday 20 February 2013
Giving up ghosts
So during the first mix of the first full demo - the audio equipment decides it's had enough. Bad craic that - when even your speakers don't want to hear the song for the thirteenth time, getting the levels right. Straight on Amazon - hopefully I'll be able to hear what I'm doing again by tonight.
It did give me an idea for a song though - or at least a title for a song :
Hiding in corners,
The silence breathes,
Waiting for someday,
And some day I'll leave,
But todayI'm holding onto
Those things I love most,
And you'll never find me
Giving up ghosts.
Needs work. Where's Doug...
It did give me an idea for a song though - or at least a title for a song :
Hiding in corners,
The silence breathes,
Waiting for someday,
And some day I'll leave,
But todayI'm holding onto
Those things I love most,
And you'll never find me
Giving up ghosts.
Needs work. Where's Doug...
Saturday 16 February 2013
The Destiny of Truth
I've recorded a little two and a half minute demo (music only) which you can hear at soundcloud at https://soundcloud.com/#urbanfox93/1-the-destiny-of-truth
Scribbled lyrics so far :
When darkness takes me down
Where I hide it finds me
Finding out my reasons
So I look inside myself and find - a loaded gun
Something is breathing
Cold, hard like thunder
Trying to escape the destiny of truth
Chorus
Here I stand in darkest night
Holding on to you
With a smile of hope and we know it now
Used up all my chances nothing left to lose
Faith is where it's always been
And we're not alone
When daytime ends
Don't say goodnight
Scribbled lyrics so far :
When darkness takes me down
Where I hide it finds me
Finding out my reasons
So I look inside myself and find - a loaded gun
Something is breathing
Cold, hard like thunder
Trying to escape the destiny of truth
Chorus
Here I stand in darkest night
Holding on to you
With a smile of hope and we know it now
Used up all my chances nothing left to lose
Faith is where it's always been
And we're not alone
When daytime ends
Don't say goodnight
Friday 15 February 2013
Song Titles
Over the course of the last two or three weeks, Doug has supplied around twenty sets of lyrics and I've been scribbling ideas down - there's plenty to work with.
Titles include :
The Storm
Whatever
For every Demon there's an Angel
The destiny of truth
Promises are snowflakes
And the world still turns
Keep it inside
Book of songs
Where are the angels now?
Bits of melody and chord structure will lead to a few demos being hashed next week hopefully.
Titles include :
The Storm
Whatever
For every Demon there's an Angel
The destiny of truth
Promises are snowflakes
And the world still turns
Keep it inside
Book of songs
Where are the angels now?
Bits of melody and chord structure will lead to a few demos being hashed next week hopefully.
Thursday 14 February 2013
The Beginning
Starting an album always happens by accident. Recording a few melodies that float round my head when I'm doing other things, something happening when I'm sitting at the piano messing about or an idea for a lyric written on a scrap of paper - they grow, they develop and before you know it you've got ten song embryos that you go back to and start to develop.
A friend of mine is going through a tough time with his relationship and it got me thinking - instead of running away from these problems, maybe he should be trying to find out the real reasons behind why they're arguing all the time. It became the basis of the song 'The Storm' which, only because it is the first song I've written a full intro, verse and chorus for, is also the working title of the album.
I'll be recording a few rough demos in the next few weeks so I'll get them uploaded as soon as they're done.
Listening back to the 15 - 20 'ideas' I've got down for songs so far over the last few weeks, they're all very electronic, very 1980s but also quite catchy. If I write something, leave it a few weeks and then listen back (kinda hearing it for the first time) I get a good indication if I should run with the idea or not.
A friend of mine is going through a tough time with his relationship and it got me thinking - instead of running away from these problems, maybe he should be trying to find out the real reasons behind why they're arguing all the time. It became the basis of the song 'The Storm' which, only because it is the first song I've written a full intro, verse and chorus for, is also the working title of the album.
I'll be recording a few rough demos in the next few weeks so I'll get them uploaded as soon as they're done.
Listening back to the 15 - 20 'ideas' I've got down for songs so far over the last few weeks, they're all very electronic, very 1980s but also quite catchy. If I write something, leave it a few weeks and then listen back (kinda hearing it for the first time) I get a good indication if I should run with the idea or not.
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