Category: Rock and/or Roll

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Half the Man Rock and/or Roll

Who wants to make a CD?

Who wants to make a CD?

I do. I’ve been sitting on an album worth of rock songs for far too long, and this summer I’m going to finish it. I’ve got draft recordings of every song, and I’m going to finish a song a week until it’s complete.

And you’re going to help. Yes, that’s right. This is going to be something of an open source project. Here’s how you can take part:

  • Listen to each recording I post this summer and give me feedback on what you hear. At the end of the summer I’ll let all of you vote on which songs will be included on the CD and which song should be the “single.”
  • I could really use some help with graphic design, packaging and marketing. Anyone willing to help out?
  • I could use some additional tracks: backing vocals, some solo work (e gtr, dobro, piano, sax, etc), and especially a rock solid drummer.

Check out the current Half the Man page, which has the current song list and latest recordings.

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Demos Rock and/or Roll

Come, Sweet Muse

A few weeks ago, Colin Gordon-Farleigh sent me an email asking if I had anything for a New Zealand singer with whom he had been communicating. Toni Gibson is a “classical crossover” artist similar to Australian Grace Bawden, who sang Colin and my song “If Only I Had Wings.” Toni was looking for something edgy to fill out the rest of her upcoming album. She put it this way:

The ‘edge’ that we are looking for is something more classical mixed with rock style. Like possibly a melody line that is operatic and the music which has a slightly dark feel and has a healthy dose of electric guitars to rock it up, but also still balances well with the classical feel of the melody line.

That one paragraph set the course of the rest of my week. I made a quick mock up of an idea to see if I was headed in the right direction. I knew she liked Evanescence, so I combined heavy guitars with strings and piano. Lots of drama. She loved it.

Next I got to the real work of actually writing the song. Toni’s byline at her website is “Angel of Music,” so I decided to write an ode to the Muse. My first draft went well beyond epic, tipping the scales somewhere around immense and gargantuan. It was almost ten minutes long and included an aria-like bridge with a Latin text by Ovid (supplied by Latin guru Nancy Van Baak). Clearly I needed to do some trimming.

During my jog on Saturday morning I edited mercilessly in my head and wrote down the cuts when I got home. (That’s right, I even take my Muse when I exercise.) Next came a few days of recording. (Mostly long and tedious, but lightened somewhat by the joy of using my new mic and homemade shock mount.) Then a few days of mixing, fretting, remixing, re-recording, more mixing, cutting, and polishing. (Amy says I’ve seemed “distracted.”)

At the end of the day yesterday I had the mix to a point that I wanted feedback from my most honest critics: Simon and Theo. (When I played the long version for them a week earlier they told me it was really long and asked if this was still one song.) When I played this latest mix for them, Theo got really excited, did some air guitar, and told me, “This is great, Dad. I wouldn’t change a thing!” So I knew I was on the right track.

The end result rolls together Evanescence and early Heart, and adds a pinch of Metallica, Rammstein, and Hollywood Philharmonic for good measure. Too epic to fail? You be the judge.

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Quirky Rock and/or Roll

Spring Cleaning: Swimming

When I was an undergrad at URI I had access to a small recording studio with an 8 track reel-to-reel machine. On reflection, it was probably some seriously sweet equipment, but at the time I had no idea what was going on. I would just hole myself up with the instruments I had available, stick a mic in front things, and hit record. In this case, the instrument I had available was my electric bass, so I recorded track after track of the bass–sometimes slowed down, sometimes sped up–and then layered a fledging Choir of Greg on top of it, singing the hypnotic and groovy “Swimming.”

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Demos Quirky Rock and/or Roll

Spring Cleaning: Who Can Know What Will Be?

No one said this was going to be pretty…

In this demo of “Who Can Know What Will Be,” you will find Greg at his most navel-gazing of musical moments. And “pitchy,” as Randy Jackson would say. I doubt I’ll ever do anything with this song again, but if I did, I could imagine it morphing into an extended tabla and sitar improvisation at the end.

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Quirky Rock and/or Roll

Spring Cleaning: Dancing in the Sand

I’m a little reluctant to even include this song in my Spring Cleaning series. On the other hand, if you’ve stayed with me so far, you won’t be too surprised that some of this music is, indeed, dirty laundry. So let me air it and be done with it.

During the Gulf War, I was sickened to see a seemingly endless stream of young people heading off to fight a war that appeared to have no noble cause. Back in the day, the people making the decisions rode out on the front line into battle. That would make you seriously consider what you have to gain and lose when declaring war. But in this war, the decisions were being made by people who had nothing to lose, and the price was being paid by young and generally poor people who were moved into harm’s way like plastic chess pieces. But now I’m unveiling my pacifist leanings…

In response to all these frustrated thoughts I wrote a musical satire called “Dancing in the Sand.”

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Rock and/or Roll

Spring Cleaning: Oh No!

“Oh No!” is another one of my early hits. (For a definition of “hit” as it relates to my music, see here.) If you’re looking for a song of full of youthful angst, especially one that begins in Eb minor, shifting to a chorus that cycles through the circle of fifths starting on E major, this is the song for you.

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Rock and/or Roll

Spring Cleaning: Halls of the Heart

I used to listen to a lot of great folk and Celtic shows on the incredible WRIU. Come to think of it, many of my most memorable and formative music listening experiences centered around this station–post-punk under my pillow, afternoons getting schooled in the hip hop that was at that point completely under the radar, and eventually doing a little DJing at the station.

But I digress.

“The Halls of the Heart” is a traditional ballad–a story of love and loss in a village by the sea. Not my typical style at the time–or even now–but it has a certain charm, don’t you think? By the way, the chorus is taken from Phantastes by George MacDonald. If you haven’t read it and Lillith, do yourself a favor and read them.

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Rock and/or Roll

Spring Cleaning: Trying to Get Back to You

I’ve already told you about my brush with fame via a big city (Boston) concert promoter, and my complete miscalculation of what he would want to hear. Here’s the other demo I made at that time: Trying to Get Back to You.

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Rock and/or Roll

Spring Cleaning: Don’t Go Away

Even though it’s a frigid, blustery evening in Grand Rapids, I hereby declare it Spring. So let the spring cleaning commence! Over the next month I will clean out my musical cupboards–perhaps even air some dirty audio laundry–in order to make room for exciting new projects that are currently in the works. You will hear recordings that span some 25 years, in styles ranging from high brow art music to juvenile rock and roll.

Let’s begin with the juvenile rock and roll. “Don’t Go Away” was written my sophomore year of college, and remained one of my hits for another decade. (By “hit,” I mean I played it multiple times, once or twice at people’s request.) People are often surprised when I tell them that rap has had a huge influence on me, but this is proof positive that it’s in my blood. Then hacks like Jason Mraz come along 2 decades later and act like they invented acoustic rock rap. Listen and weep, Jason.

Categories
Rock and/or Roll

Starting Fires

20 years ago I wrote a song about a girl I really liked. She was pretty, smart and talented, all rolled into one. 18 years ago I married her, which was the best thing I ever did. In 2 days it will be Valentine’s Day, so I thought I’d finish recording a song I wrote when we were dating. Back then I didn’t know much about love, and to tell you the truth I still don’t get it right most of the time. But even though it’s hard sometimes, I’d do it all over again.

Starting Fires, mp3