LOOSIES
Named after the loose cigarettes that one can purchase at certain bodegas, these are just random tracks that never turned into any bands or projects.
These are the rough drafts... that sound in your head that you're trying to get on tape. It's not pro. It's not polished. It's sketches on a notepad. You tweak them later.
But, there's some interesting stuff here...
These are the rough drafts... that sound in your head that you're trying to get on tape. It's not pro. It's not polished. It's sketches on a notepad. You tweak them later.
But, there's some interesting stuff here...
Feels Like Love
I always loved this song. It eventually ended up in THE RONDOS's setlist. Such a catchy, fun song. I would love a good recording of this one. This is me doing all the tracks, but I think Dave Scott (from AOD and THE RONDOS) is playing drums here.
Broken
I wrote this one as The Lechers were ending and The Rondos were starting up, but it ended up in my Solo Projects stuff on the Perfect, Do It Again! album as an acoustic version of this poppy punky fave of mine. This is the raw demo with me doing all the tracks with a drum machine.
Simple
I wrote this as I was finishing up my "Chaos In Season" album (you can listen to it on my Solo Projects page), so I was in full songwriter mode here. It's just piano and vocals, and I don't know how to play piano. But it's a super catchy tune. I'm always happy when I nail a good bridge, and I did that here. I'd love to give this one the full treatment someday...
Here's an updated version I did in Garageband. Not the same as with a full band and real instruments, but for a computer drummer and midi horns, not bad...
DEMONS
This is a vid I made right after I wrote this song so I wouldn't forget it. I haven't recorded this one in the studio yet. I don't know why the video is mirrored...
Easier
This is a video of a song I wrote. I like to video songs right after I write them to help me remember them, since I can't read or write sheet music. I wrote this just before I moved to New York. I wrote it on the piano, and I'm not a piano player, so bear with my clumsy plunking.
THAT OLD FORD PICK UP TRUCK
I nearly forgot about this song. I found it buried in my files the other day. It's a love song to my old '66 Ford F100 pickup (I loved that truck!). It sounds like I'm trying to show it to someone else in a practice situation or something. I don't remember recording it, and there's a couple of weird beeps in it, but it sure is a catchy little number....
I nearly forgot about this song. I found it buried in my files the other day. It's a love song to my old '66 Ford F100 pickup (I loved that truck!). It sounds like I'm trying to show it to someone else in a practice situation or something. I don't remember recording it, and there's a couple of weird beeps in it, but it sure is a catchy little number....
PARKED IN STILLORGAN
This is the first song I've written in a long time. It was cathartic to feel the inspiration again. When I first moved to Dublin, I took what I could get for work and ended up working in a parking lot at a mall in a suburb called Stillorgan. It was truly soul crushing work, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta to do. I was on the bus to work one morning, and it was still kinda dark and I just felt defeated. And I thought, I can't believe I'm on this bus again. Then this song popped in my head. If you think of a parking lot (or, as they call it here, a car park) in an analogous sense, as a purgatorial situation, or just going through a rough time in life, it makes perfect fodder for a song.
I've since quit. This was written the night before my last day.
Rainy Afternoon
This was an experiment to see what would happen if each section of a chord progression was played with a different sounding guitar every time the chord changed. This is just me with my multitrack and a drum machine.
Walking Away
I'm not sure what I was thinking with this track. But the harmonica is great, and I gotta say I hit a pretty smokin' lead guitar track on this one. This is just me with my multitrack and a drum machine.
No Way To Get Along
I was trying to see what would happen if I tried to fuze blues and punk on this one.
This is just me with my multitrack and a drum machine.
Meh....
Sizzle Reel
This is a strange one. A friend of mine is a video graphic artist, and asked me to make a soundtrack to a portfolio type video for him, to showcase his work for clients. I sampled some cool stuff, added drum machine stuff, guitars, bass, etc. Did a lot of editing. It's a side of me never seen before or since. Me doing my best attempt at techno, or EDM, or whatever the kids call it these days...
Blue Flowers
This a track from the band I was in during the year and a half I spent in Milwaukee. The band was called BRANDED RAMBLERS. We recorded 2 demos, and played a lot, but this is the only track I have. I wrote the music and arrangement to this one, and the singer wrote the words and melody. What I love about this track is the lead. I was just doing a practice run thru, just to get levels, but it was so good, we kept it, even though I made it up on the spot. A great one take track lead, and a catchy tune.