COVINGTUNES

Thanks for listening,

Eric.

• Curious Yellow (2004) (Hi-Fi) (300K Teaser) Named for Vilgot Sjoman's "I Am Curious-Yellow," one of the most controversial films of all time, this tune has little to do with the movie other than a period feel.  Listen and you'll understand.  Uses period instruments, or emulations of them: 67 Gibson Melody Maker, 60's Eko Electric 12 (both through AdrenaLinn), 74 Fender J-Bass, and Kurzweil PC2 percussion, organ, and piano.  A companion tune "Curious Blue" is planned.
• Bug Music (2004) - someone on the Analog Heaven list sponsored a "Bug Music" contest a while back - these are my two entries.  They are exclusively Arp 2600.  Their best attribute is that they're short:
• Contraption (Hi-Fi) - the first of the two pieces, it is edited down from about 7 minutes of improvisation on the 2600, using only sliders - no patchcords, no keyboard, no midi
• Grone (Hi-Fi) - my second "bug music" piece, done a little more deliberately than the first.  Patchcords and sliders on this one.  One neat discovery - the mic preamp on the 2600 is AC coupled, so if you use it in a control or feedback path, anything that is fed through it washes back to zero over time.  Neat effect.
• Cue 21 (2004) (Hi-Fi) Minimalist.  Ambient.  The minimalist part is PC2X piano.  The ambient part is a tape of rain and road noise made on my cassette 4-track in 1986 or so.  It was mono, so I ran it through a stereo reverb to fatten it up.  There was also some piano picked up by the microphone - someone was playing, but it might not be me.
• Elements (2004) (Hi-Fi) (500K Teaser) Getting back to my roots, or something like that.  This had several working titles, like "Spark It Up" and "Triboelectric" - but "Elements" occurred to me as I was doing the first mix, and it stuck.  I think that's because this has the fundamental elements of a lot my influences - the cheesy Ray Manzerek 60's organ, fuzzy Les Paul guitar, very basic shuffle percussion, and round-sounding J-bass.  Guitar is Les Paul through the AdrenaLinn, bass is Jazz Bass direct in to the Mackie, piano is Kurzweil PC2x, vibs and the "tooby" sound are VS, and the organ patch is the same Xpander patch that I used on "Dar-Es-Salaam."  Percussion is PC2x, except kick drum, which is D4.  As Bruce Campbell's character said in Evil Dead II - Groovy.
• Dar-Es-Salaam (2004) (Hi-Fi) One of the happy accidents that I like to believe in.  In elementary school we seemed to spend a lot of our afternoons watching films in the auditorium.  I remember such classics as "Just Joking," "Are You Popular," and countless episodes of "Inside Out."  Most of the films were made in the 1960s, and the boys all had very short hair, which seemed strange in 1978.  To this day I remember the soundtrack of a film on Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania.  While working on another tune, I created this nifty electronic organ patch on the Xpander, which sounded exactly like my old Yamaha YC-20 organ run though a small-stone phase shifter and reverb.  I fooled around with it a bit, and ended up a doing this excerpt.  The organ patch seemed appropriate because I've heard lots of Middle Eastern music that used the cheesey 60s electronic organs, though the music in this particular film did not.  No idea who wrote the music.  By the way, there's a great archive of all these old films here .
• It Can't Be Undone (2004) (Hi-Fi) (Small Teaser) Finally starting to merge synthesizers and guitars.  My shiney new Adrenalinn II provides the basic drum beat, with Alesis D-4 doing fast hi-hats and random percussion.  The ever-beefy Oberheim Xpander holds up the bottom, which is mostly trippled with additional bits on top.  The lead parts are various combinations of ARP 2600, Moog Source (mournful quasi-bassoon sound), Prophet VS and ESQ-M, though the finale is guitars with VS pads peeking at you from around a corner.  Fuzzy guitar bits are Les Paul, clean guitar bits are Ovation Acoustic, and all were processed through the Adrenalinn.
• Hope (2004) (Hi-Fi) (Lo-Fi) Synths are Xpander & VS (pads and basses), ESQ-M (bellsound, which is probably a lazy-assed factory patch), and 2600 (mournful, psychotic cat sound).  The recitations are all from the same text, some whispered, some spoken. The distinct reading is Leslee, the rest are me.  All manipulation is digital.  While doing this, the thought crossed my mind how difficult it would have been to have done this on tape, with the equipment I had access to anyway.  It was at least possible, if not pleasant, on the computer.  Extra points for figuring out what the reading is from (its public domain, at least).
• Mess (2001) (Hi-Fi) (Lo-Fi) Randomness galore, plus a visit from one of your favorite movie stars. Compared (unfavorably?) with Zappa's "Jazz from Hell." This tune kicked off a brief spell of creativity in 2001, which yielded two and a half tunes before it was over. One of these days I'll finish the last half of the third tune. At least I finished two, which is good for me. For you gear nerds - Oberheim Xpander, Prophet VS, ARP 2600, Moog Source, Alesis D4, Simmons SDS-400 tom brain, and ESQ-M (current setup). All sequenced, with the Source, 2600, and Simmons brain controlled via two PAIA 9700 Series MIDI to CV converters. Mixed & recorded direct to digital through a Mackie 1604 into a Voyetra Turtle-Beach Montego II Quadzilla (since replaced by an Aardvark LX6), using Cakewalk. The key reason for switching out A/D converters? Bit depth? No! S/N ratio? No! Consumer audio equipment sets 0 dB as -10 dBv, while pro audio sets 0dB to +4 dBu (huh?). So you get things all tweaked, then fire up your sound card. It's mayhem - you have to tweak almost everything to get the same mix. Being lazy I just bought something that'd handle the levels. Seems to work.
• Puppet Dance (2001) (Hi-Fi) (Lo-Fi) Leslee's favorite, featuring "bopledee noises." The second of two and a half tunes from 2001. Same setup as Mess. Anyone know morse code? Seriously - I don't remember what all the snippets are, except Moog Source.
• Fish (1996) My favorite, at least if the recording were better. Just begs to be arranged for Junior High band - you can almost hear the clarinets squeak. VS, Prophet T8, D4. Mixed direct to cassette (Denon DRM-740) through the Mackie, then digitized in 2001. The T8 eventually went here.
• London (1995) Written in 1994 near a Navy base in Maryland about a woman at work. No, I didn't date her. Yes, I didn't even ask her out. By the time I got back to Texas and recorded it the name, tempo, and arrangement had changed completely and the words went away. All for the better. VS, T8, D4, and Prophet 2000 (sold to someone on the analogue heaven list). Sequenced and mixed direct to cassette, same as above.
• Gumwood Park (1986) Named for a street over by where Paul Schreiber of Synthesis Technology lives. Pro-One, Yamaha YC-20 combo organ, and a Radio Shack electronic reverb (Paul designed the "Project Board" reverb *kit*. It was a pc board with the SAD1024 and a parts list. Close cousin to the "off-the-shelf" Radio Shack reverb. Never even heard of Paul until years later. Weird. Also kind of weird - turns out that I work right down the road from Synthesizers.com. Neato). Recorded on my beloved Tascam Porta One 4 track cassette deck, in the front room of my parent's house in Hurst, Texas. Remixed from the original cassette in 2001 through the Mackie (a 15 year old original cassette sounds amazingly good when compared to 15 year-old mixes that have been dubbed and played a few dozen times).

Over the years I've played and recorded music with a number of people.  G. K. Wicker is probably the most talented and prolific of all of them.  He's also done more music (and more with music) than anyone I know personally - check out his web site here.  In a brief period around 1986, we recorded a number of tunes together, each one more experimental and goofier than the next.  Music was new and fun and exciting and everything was an experiment - we'd both been in band all through school, I'd been playing guitar and bass for about three years, and he had gotten his first synthesizer about a year before.  We made a lot of trips together to music stores to drool on equipment (the Ensoniq Mirage and the $10,000 Yamaha DX-1 come to mind).  Wicker bought his first drum machine earlier in the year, and was recording solo stuff by ping-ponging on cassettes.  Shortly thereafter I bought a Tascam four track cassette recorder ($600 - youch!) and we were in heaven.  A typical GWEC recording session went like this: we'd set up all of our stuff at one or the other's parent's house (still living at home, mind you), start working on stuff pretty late in the day, work as late as we could stand, then wrap up with an overdub or two and the final mix the next day.  The most fun I've ever writing and recording music - since this was all pre-sequencer (at least for us), we had to actually play everything, and there we no endless hours of editing stuff to make it sound right.  Also, since we weren't particularly picky, everything was recorded in a couple of takes.  Over the next couple of years we recorded a few more tunes together, but only finished a couple of them.  Here are the best ones:

• Friend (1989) The last GWEC tune completed, it was written and recorded much the same as the earlier ones.  Recorded in the "great room" of my parent's house, after I'd spent a grueling six hour band practicing with my band, Kangaroo Court. Everyone else had gone home, but had left their stuff for pratice the next day. Wicker happened to stop by, and Friend happened - the result of some jamming with bass, digital delay, and drums. Wicker plays drums, synths (Prophet 5 and Moog Source), and sings. I play guitar, bass, flute, and sing lead. Incidentally, Kangaroo Court never sounded anything like this good. Must be that special "Wicker" sparkle. Four track casette mixed to digital through the Mackie in 2001.
• Island of Remorse (1987) Trying to sound "large." Features Moog Source, with a host of other stuff - 2000, OB-8, Yamaha CP-70 (there was one in the room anyway - maybe all the other stuff was stacked on it), Drumtracks. Real 12-string and bass (my contribution - "Welcome to the Machine"). Sampled lawn equipment and power tools. I seem to remember we put up blue spotlights for atmosphere - you can really hear them in the mix. Four track casette mixed to digital through the Mackie in 2001.
• Nordic Adventure (1986) The last of the GWEC tunes recorded in the summer of 1986.  Wicker recalls that I invented the "omnious" chord progression, but he gets the credit for the overall flavor of the tune.  Features the venerable OB-8 and Prophet 2000, with effects like sampled Wicker screams and bathtub.  The vocals were processed through an effects pedal or two, then fed into the same Gorilla guitar amp as on "Thunderhead," only this time it was sitting in about two inches of water in the bathtub.  The bathroom was then mic'd and fed through a Telefunken Echomixer.  Four track cassette, remixed digitally via the Aardvark LX6 in 2003.  I succumbed to a little revisionism, and dubbed in some guitar via my new AdrinaLinn II (the fuzz parts are factory preset 0, and the rhythm parts are factory preset 30 - this box kicks major ass!).  I did however resist adding choral sounds from the VS.
• Ector Gober (1986) Trying not to be pretentious, and failing. Miserably. Named for Ector and Gober streets in Denton, Texas (home of one of my favorite bands), and Ector street in Euless, Texas. Features the then new Prophet 2000 (tablas, harpsichords), flute, recorders, big-muff-pi-guitar, and real groans. I seem to remember somebody who was pretty green at the time saying something about King Crimson, but I don't remember what. Four track cassette, remixed digitally via the Aardvark LX6 in 2002.
• Thunderhead! (1986) Music for shot-on-video porn. Feaures more Prophet 2000 tablas, OB-8 B-3 cranked through a Gorilla Guitar amp (painted green), and fat, nasty, Gorilla-fuzz guitar. Probably my most inspired guitar solo - I think I was pretending to be Adrian Belew. Except at the time I was recovering from back surgery, and wearing a plastic "bug shell" - some of the guitar sounds are from banging it against my body. Oh - the joy of having an exoskeleton. My main ax at the time was a Tiesco Del Rey modified with two humbucking pickups, a pickup mounted behind the bridge, and a Bigsby tremolo.  Four track cassette, remixed digitally via the Aardvark LX6 in 2002.
• Yeradedman (1986) It was 1986, and samplers were all the rage. Be the first kid on your block with the nifty new Ensoniq Mirage DSK. But wait - for an extra grand, you can get this new board from Sequential, and its 12 bit, and you don't have to load its operating system off a floppy! Cool! Let's make a tune! Let's see how much like Lorenzo Music Eric can sound. Whee! Still - I think the only thing I've ever done that got airplay. Honest. KNON counts - doesn't it? Four track cassette, remixed digitally via the Aardvark LX6 in 2002.
• Neutron Dawn (1986) Recorded the morning after a lot of drinking. Early 4-track stuff, featuring every goofy effect we could think of. Completely improvised too. Vocals are Wicker through about 900 effects pedals and a PA system. Ah, youth. We recorded another tune the "night before" but I only have a crappy cassette mix of it, not the (slightly less) crappy master recording, so its not here. We do have standards, you know.

 

• Dream (1990) The first guitar lick wrote the song. Everybody bends up. I decided to write a part that started by "unbending" the first note. The rest of the song wrote itself from that (maybe it shows). I think Wicker helped with some of the words, or at least he said that some of them were stupid so I changed them. Recorded in a 500 square foot apartment that I lived in for three months in Dallas, corner of Belt Line and Preston (they're behind the nice ones that are there now). It had two windows, and they were both below ground level. They looked out onto a retaining wall and on to everyone's air conditioners. I had a bed, a coffee table, a desk, and a couch that my sister gave me. It turned out that the couch was full of fleas. Nice. About the only people that ever visited were Mormon missionaries. Elder Roundeye and Elder Wait I think. Wonder what ever happened to them. Recorded on 4 track cassette, and remixed to digital through the Mackie in 2001.
• Eleanor Rigby (1999) It was 1999. My father had died about three weeks before. I was on a hot project at work and working my ass off. My music gear was sitting in a dark corner of my loft and mocking me (I've since learned to ignore it). One night, while diddling with the computer or some such waste of time, I fired up my rig and started fooling around. When I was in the 4th grade, our music teacher made us learn a couple of Beatles tunes - "When I'm 64," and "Eleanor Rigby." The only instruments they let us play were vibraphones, and not all the kids got to play those. Somehow I got to play one of the really fat ones (fat kid?), so I learned all the chords, et cetera, to both tunes. Anyway - so the rig is fired up and I get to fooling around. So I sequence the chords to Elenor Rigby. Then I slow it down, and add some goofy percussion (think "Second Home by the Sea"). Once I had it all sequenced, I ran it direct to cassette, and sang along with it. To get the vocals to sound right, I thought really hard about Marilyn Manson (who I know nothing about), and did about 100 takes. Digitized from the cassette master in 1999.

• Carnival Dogs (1986)
• The Call (1986)
• Carnival Dogs (Reprise)(1986)