Finally got down to some recording today after a busy weekend. Laid down bass parts for the new song and got halfway through putting down the final vocal before realizing that it wasn’t quite sitting right so it’s back to the coalface tomorrow to start the vocal from scratch again. I think I need to look at plan B just in case these two songs aren’t done in time and I also need to start looking filling in he application form. Not sure plan B is yet, but I’ll use my ‘Spidey sense’ and come up with something. PS I would just like it is noted for the record, that I resisted the urge to get out into the garden today, even though it was probably the last warm day for many months. As most of you know I’m a mad keen gardener and while this self denial is nowhere near the equivalent of Van Gogh cutting off an ear (artistic suffering), it did drive me quietly around the bend. (OK I did get out for an hour or so, but that was purely therapeutic and doesn’t count)
RJ
My mission: to write, arrange and demo two new songs and finish my application for the Woodford Folk Festival which needs to be in by 22 May.
Day 3
I woke up this morning and I wrote myself a lyric
I woke up this morning and I wrote myself a lyric YEAAAAAA
If the the lyrics not right, the end is never near..(sung to the tune of the first verse of roadhouse blues)
You know, I’m finding that it takes a lot of time and commitment to fritter ones life away…
I’m happy with the new lyric as it’s got a bit of sass about it and it’s a bit funny, but still dark as is my wont.
I’ve had some time out this afternoon to catch up with my good friend Gwen who I haven’t seen in ages. After coffee, cake and goss I ducked into Gills place (Woods Sherbrooke Restaurant) to drop off a couple things and ended up having a cup of tea there too. I arrived home, only to find Christie ringing to say that she was in the area and droping in for a visit. She had in her hot little hand, the finished mix of a couple of songs that Cres and I had worked on and they sounded great. My one-hour break turned into about 5 hours of socializing. What’s a girl to do? After bit of dinner I was back in the studio till about two in the morning before crashing into bed for a few well-deserved zzzzzzzzs.
Riley and Gwen
The upshot of all this is that I’ve done a fair bit of arrangement on the first tune and am pretty happy with it, which is a shock even to me. I still think it’s going to take a fair bit of work to finish it and with the other bits and bobs I’ve got to do around the place, it’s going to be a tight finish.
Day 4
Woke up this morning feeling like I’m coming down with a bit of a lurgy. Can’t afford to lose too much time so I decide on a quick visit to the doctor.
Back at home it into bedby-by for a nap. Haven’t listened to yesterdays mix is yet. I’ve learned from experience that it’s better to nip a lurgy in the bud (with rest) rather than trying to work through it.
There is also the small issue of laundry building up, food needing to be cooked and a bit of a tidy up wouldn’t hurt either.
That doesn’t worry me as much as I’ve had to miss my friends party. She and others are celebrating the opening of Digital Eyes art studio – in Dandenong. It’s a groovy little art studio/shared space where you can watch artists work as well as a gallery for viewing their art. Still, now that it’s open I guess I can go anytime…hate to miss party time though….
My mission: to write, arrange and demo two new songs and finish my application for the Woodford folk Festival which needs to be in by 22 May.
For someone like myself who has never written and arranged a song in less than three months, this is a pretty scary scenario. It’s not so much that I’m a prima donna, it’s just that after so many years of songwriting, I’ve got a really narrow band of what I feel works for me as a live act and as an artist.
For instance, day two of the challenge and am already thinking I’d be happy to finish one song let alone two.
I’ve got the new song up and running but it is really tricky to arrange it in such a way that I can still play it live. It needs more than I can give it. Now I’m thinking of pulling out the electric guitar and billing myself as an electric female solo act rather than an acoustic solo act.
See? I told you wouldn’t would get tricky. It’s not panic stations yet, but I do know where the button is….
Laying down a little vocal percussion....
My mission: to write, arrange and demo two new songs and finish my application for the Woodford Folk Festival which needs to be in by 22 May.
After missing the application dates for the Woodford Folk Festival for two years in a row I have decided to make it public and make myself accountable. Yes folks I’ve decided to make a ‘core’ promise, which is politician talk for ‘something I hope like hell I can do’. So here’s the poop, the scoop, the plan the ‘don’t have a cow man’. The idea is that I chronicle each day, with what I’ve done towards completing the application. I’d like to have two new songs written and demo-ed as well as some snippets of recent releases for the application. I’ll also need some photos, a compelling description of what it is that I actually do and some kind of workshop idea that I can offer to make them pick me from the literally thousands of solo singer songwriters who apply.
Day 1
- The Ritual Known as ‘Reading the Manual’
The first step is to start songwriting again. I’ve spent the past couple of years getting myself into a position where I might have some time to return to the craft and here I am starting over…again…. I’m using a boss RC 50 digital loop machine as I want to be able to recreate rhythms and harmonies on stage. I’ve had a little play with this beast but there’s a lot more to learn so I started with the ritual known as ‘reading the manual’. The other benefit of this little black box is that it’s a good rough sketch songwriting tool. After a bit of a play, I laid down a couple of wicked loops and Voila – a new song idea. Unfortunately it’s not quite as simple as that. Now I have to record the song properly in the studio and see if it gets past the inner ‘door bitch critic’. I’ll know when you do..in a couple of days.
In all my years of doing gigs there is one bit of kit that is always in my bag. Gaffa Tape. It’s the equivalent of a musicians med kit in a roll and it has more uses than the latest gizmo from Danoz Direct. This long black luscious cloth tape, fixes loose electrical connections, tapes down unruly leads, holds up blacks, stops lights from falling of the rigg, holds together failing road cases, makes a temporary guitar strap, blacks out the light from windows and it will slice and dice if you can get up enough force behind it.
So it is with great sentimentality that I have written an ode to my love of ‘the tape’:
(Sung to the tune of Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree).
.
Gaffa Tape Oh Gaffa Tape
By Riley Jordan
.
Gaffa Tape Oh Gaffa Tape
The roadies all adore ya,
Gaffa Tape Oh Gaffa Tape,
From Sydney to California,
.
Gaffa Tape Oh Gaffa Tape,
You fixed all the amps,
Gaffa Tape Oh Gaffa Tape,
You held up my pants,
.
Gaffa Tape Oh Gaffa Tape,
Audio Black Gold
Gaffa Tape Oh Gaffa Tape
My Friend on the road.
The thing about Gaffa Tape is that it is eternal, Rock Stars will come and go, technology will rise and fall, but Gaffa Tape will never die.
Roll up roll up folks for the best musician jokes ever! I say I say I say…
You’ll laugh (maybe), you’ll cry (sorry) and you’ll be amazed (at the audacity of the author to post these jokes)
- Q : What do you throw a drowning guitarist?
- A : His Amp
- Q : What is a phrase you never heard anyone say?
- A : Is that the banjo player’s Porsche in front of the concert hall?
- Q : What is the similarity between a Zen monk and a drummer?
- A : Both have an abstract sense of time.
- Q : What is perfect pitch?
- A : The angle at which the concertina is thrown into the toilet.
I love this one even though it is such an oldie
- Did you hear the drummer locked his keys in his car?
- Took him two hours to get the bass player out. (Boom Boom)
Yes Yes I know, stick to music….have you any good musician joke (singer jokes not accepted).
Putting together my first digital music studio was a nightmare that could not have been more real than if there was a zombie on a killing spree with blood and guts everywhere. Although my computer music story starts in 1986, it is the period from 1996 to 2000 that triggers the Alfred Hitchcock stabbing music in my mind.
Once upon a time on a beautiful sunny day in 1996, my new Pentium 166 computer arrived, all big and shiney and angelic. I danced with joy in gardens of fragrant flowers for what seemed an eternity of bliss…until I switched it on.
It seemed like the sky darkened for about 5 years, there was famine and plague and pestilence everywhere. Was it something that I said??
In the 1990′s, digital recording was a bit of a holy grail for home based musicians who wanted to record their pearls of creativity at the drop of a hat and for next to nothing. I too wished for creative freedom and this is where my sorry tale begins.
Everybody sold the stuff – but no one knew how to get it to work. It took me months to find out about duplex sound cards and that I needed one, but no…..no-one knew the what, where and how of it. Duplex enables you to hear the track as you are recording a new one. It’s like a two way street as opposed to one way.
Later, when professional sound cards came onto the market, it was just as bad. I remember there was one guy from Yamaha who was the only guy who knew what was going on with the $3500 sound card that I brought and do you think anyone could get through.
Then there were the endless blue screens of death and trying to get windows stable let alone get all the required bits to talk to each other.
Eventually, the magic formula appeared and was whispered in hushed tones amongst the music community. The only version of Windows that worked for music was 98SE and there was a list as long as your arm for tweeks to printer ports, enable direct memory access and on and on and on and on. The funny thing is all this would be done but the stupid thing would still crash and send a squeal through the monitors while loosing you data.
Don’t mention the war…..
It’s a strange coincidence that so many great musicians have died at the age of 27. Jimi Hendrix , Brian Jones , Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Curt Cobain to name some of the more famous ones.
Last September (2008) I was lying in bed at 6am, wide awake. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I turned on the radio, I always do this when I can’t get back to sleep. Anyway this particular morning, I chanced to turn it on and catch the news.
Apparently the road was closed at Tecoma due to a bad accident. A motor cyclist and his pillion passenger had hit a car. The motor cyclist had died at the scene and the passenger was not expected to live. The driver of the car was also in a serious condition.
The thought did cross my mind that it might be someone I know but I brushed it off. Eventually I went back to sleep.
Later in the day, I head that Heath King was the driver of the motor cycle. I had known Heath from when he was 12 and he and his sister used to come around to be a part of my singing group.
I know that when people talk about their deceased friends it is not unusual to talk about how talented they were but in Heath’s case it would not be an understatement to say that he was phenomenally talented. He had regular gigs locally and he had his band together and I’m sure he would have taken on the world.
I can still remember him, at the age of 14, singing at a local festival, belting his heart out and absolutely blowing the crowd away.
Yes, Heath King passed away, September 2008, aged 27.
When Big Brother burst onto my TV screen I was hooked, but not for the same reasons most fans were. While most people were glued to the set with voyaristic expectation, I was relating to what was going on in the house in a deja-vu kind of way.
It was the TV show that most resembled life in a rock band. Let me set the scene.
“Hi my name is Riley and I’m just calling about the ad in the paper for lead singer” (This is the equivalent of applying for Big Brother) “Great Riley, we’re getting together for reheasals tomorrow night, can you make it?” (This is like attending the Audition for Big Brother) “No worries, what songs should I bring?” “Do you know Mustang Sally?” (This is the equivalent to pretending that you love doing daggy things to get a spot on the show) “Yea, Great. See you then.”
Then you get the gig and all of a sudden your in a rehersal room with people who have been chosen for their looks and/or skill and possibly with little else in common. Then you start to rehearse 4 times a week. Then it turns into the Big Brother house.
- Aliances are formed and sides lobby for musical directions.
- The drummer thinks he can boss around the lead singer because he’s an accountant by day and he doesn’t answer to chicks.
- The guitarist cannot stop playing too loud even between songs.
- The bass player is winging about geting publishing points for the originals even though he’s never written a song in his life.
- The keyboard player is picking songs that he personally likes and no-one else does and he’s digging his heels in unless he gets his way.
- The singer who is also the songwriter sees everyone elses song ideas as inferior.
- The accountant doesn’t want to spend money on posters because he just wants to pull a bird after the show (even though he’s married) and doesn’t want to spend money.
- The bass player doesn’t want to do country gigs.
- The keyboard player knows the booking agent personally so he has all the power.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I think Big Brother was a very watered down version of this but the dynamic of putting people in a situation with no clear leadership from totally diverse backgrounds is pretty evident. The main differences between being in a band and Big Brother are twofold. Firstly, as a band you are not together 24 hours per day (although you are if you are on the road). Secondly, there is no ‘Big Brother’ to save you. © 2009 Riley Jordan All Rights Reserved
Have you got a band story that curls the toes?? Please feel free to leave a comment.
The Rock and Roll Uniform has nothing to do with stylists. The true ‘rock look’ is a constant in the universe, much like hydrogen or beer. The ‘fancy nancy’ rock stylist look has more to do with cabaret than the true rock essence and bum crack is strictly the domain of roadies.
In ‘rock circles’, black is always the new black, and every other color as a matter of fact. If there is a formal occasion then the ‘suit’ is made up of black suit jacket, white t shirt and blue jeans – shoes are optional.
T shirts need to be edgy, tight fitting with leather related jewellery for adornment. For the women, the mini skirt is timeless as are fishnet stockings. Of course in these times of equal opportunity, jeans and t shirt are sufficient, as long as they are sexy and slightly punk. High heels are optional and can be worn as an accessory slung over the left shoulder.
The real truth that no one wants to admit to is that the true ‘rock and roll look’ can only be achieved by a slim, firm body. It is only then that creations from the local op shop (David Jones for muso’s) take on their rock and roll persona. © 2009 Riley Jordan All Rights Reserved