Music #6. Making music during the Pandemic. The Red Ramblers, The Big Sky & The Tape Recordings.

Three New Releases - April 24th, 2020

California. 4 Apr 2020. 0128 Hrs.

As I contemplate telling the story of making music during the pandemic, I can't help but think about the recent news from New York City. Heartbreaking news online tonight.

Lately I'm staying home. Haven't started my car in over two weeks. I've decided to take social distancing pretty darn seriously. It is having it's effect on the music.

"I wish the words were here...".

The task at hand, writing for this blog, seems trite in the context of current world events. To say he least. And I'm not sure I can find the words. Then again, I may have already written them.

The Red Ramblers

As February turned to March, Terry and I were feverishly working on The Red Ramblers. We'd just finished The Old Family Home. I was ready for a little break from recording, when I found out Tex Burbank was to be in town in mid March. Hoping to get him back in the studio, I wanted to have a serious rocker ready to go. Wanted to watch him launch that guitar, like a rocket. Like he did on The Last Song. How else can you describe it? I feel like I'm soaring when I watch him play guitar.

So, The Red Ramblers was taking shape lyrically, and it seemed like the perfect vehicle. We got the bass, guitar, some vocals and drums laid down. I wanted to get the song finished before everything came to a screeching halt. So the last night, when we tracked guitars, I laid down some solos. Just to make sure we got it done, in the event Tex couldn't make it. I was getting anxious about the daily, worsening, news. Then I got the call. Tex couldn't get a flight. My dreams of guitar rocketry would have to wait for another day. I did rather enjoy rocking some lead guitar on that track myself, though. ;)

Terry, Lacey, and I, ended up doing the final sessions to finish the song remotely. Lacey was tracking some amazing backing vocals. I was attending the session via facetime call. Terry coordinated this, in addition to the usual engineering he does. I don't know if it was the anxious energy that seemed to be permeating everything, or what. But everything fell into place. We got the track done. Lacey gets a special mention. Her vocals take this song to a another time, and another place... Straight back to New York City circa 1962, and cruise night with The Red Ramblers car club.

Before all that happened, you might be wondering how this little ditty came about. This fun little rock 'n' roll song, born during these 'interesting' times, had it's origins in the late fifties or early sixties. Think jukeboxes', rock 'n' roll, hot-rods, saddle shoes and bobby sox. Well, I don't really know anything about that stuff, except for maybe rock 'n' roll. But anyways, this song seemed to come thru the mists of time, out of an old coat closet. Thru a personal loss, somehow maybe representing the 'circle of life', in an odd, hot-rod-greaser, kind of way.

Blue Eyes' Dad had left her the old red jacket. He wore it as a member of the Road Amblers. In his car club days, back in New York City. Truth is, I never got to meet him. I met her, the same week he passed. Only thing I know for sure, is her Mom sewed the letters on the back of that red cotton Boy Scout jacket long before she was a Mom. The instant I saw that beautiful red tattered old jacket, I blurted out, "There's a song there!". I knew there was. I could feel it. I never met the man, but that family heirloom spoke to me. That old cotton relic spoke volumes. It radiated something. There was a story there. It became my mission. I had to figure out a way to tell it. I told Terry about it months ago, that there was this song, waiting for me. I just had to roll up my sleeves, grab my guitar and get to it. In the process of doing this, somehow the Road Amblers became The Red Ramblers (I don't think they mind, heck, they ride again!). The release set drop to online streaming sites at the end of April. Check out the studio preview from these sessions. It's done, and I can't wait for you to hear it!!

May it brighten somebody's day. Especially right now.

The Red Ramblers are now on Spotify
Featuring Lacey and Terry Watkin, with Salty Rose.

And on YouTube:

The Studio Preview

The New Single!

The Super Lead Amp. A riff is born.

The Big Sky

I wish I didn't have to tell you that The Red Ramblers sessions went off like that, with our world caving in around us. I am happy though, that we got it done at Perks Place, before the lockout. Well, while we were finishing that up, and waiting for the mixing and mastering to be finished... Another song beckoned.

I actually wrote The Big Sky riff, that last day in the studio, on The Red Ramblers sessions. I was there to do the last bit of work on the lead vocals. I brought along my Marshall Super Lead Amplifier, just to play around with it. I wanted to blast it in the studio. Where I could really turn it up. So while Terry was getting the track ready for vocals, I went into the big room and opened that beast of an amplifier up. Low and behold, just a minute into my Marshall Amp Mayhem, here comes a little guitar-riff. Like a stray dog or an alley cat. Trying to jump into your lap. I could tell it was itching to grow up, and become a full grown song. So I whipped out my iPhone and made a note of it. So I could work on it later at home. Kind of like sneaking a puppy into the house.

Fast forward (hey, there's a little tape recorder reference for ya) to the first couple nights of the 'stay at home' orders. Fooling around with that riff. Playing with that puppy. Asking it, "What are you trying to tell me?". All of a sudden I could hear it. The Big Sky. The Ballad of William Patrick. The Cowboy from County Waterford. One of my storied ancestors. It happened pretty fast.

William Patrick's story. I knew some of it. He was my Great Grandfather. I heard talk of him as a child. And my uncle wrote for us kids, a family history that captured some of the details. I knew W.P. lost a wife and five children in an epidemic. He started life in Ireland, and ended up in the Rocky Mountains. Where he started a new family, in his forties, after surviving said 'epidemic.. He started over with a widow who was similarly situated, having lost her husband in a mining accident in 1889. My Grandpa, was one of the children of these survivors. I always wondered what that must have been like, making these huge geographical changes, and going thru these catastrophic life events, to boot. And not just living thru it. But living on, to leave a legacy.

On the evening of March 23rd I was reeling from the news as the coronavirus pandemic was unfolding here in California. Looking at the looming lockdown. Thinking about how to get thru it. In the short term, and hopefully, the long term. My thoughts turned to William Patrick, and the things he must have endured. That riff, that riff that I stumbled across the last night in the studio, was tugging at my leg like a dog the whole time. It let me know... "Yes, this is what I'm trying to tell you!".

"He sailed out of Boston...".

Like Blue Eyes, with her Dad's 'Road Amblers' jacket, I was hanging on to an heirloom... An old letter, written by Grandmother back in the 1970's. Stories of Great Grandparents and the unimaginable struggles they faced. Unimaginable till now. But I digress, I know W.P. came from County Waterford in Ireland because Grandma documented it for me. And I know about some of the tragedy's they weathered thru the oral histories I'd heard growing up. But I wasn't sure I had enough details to put the story into song... So I did what any self respecting artist would do in my position... I made the details up. ;)

"Ended up in Texas, joined a cattle drive...".

That riff was itchin' to become a song. And I was itchin' to record it. But by this time, going to the studio was out of the question. Like Tex Burbank, I was now staying put. Now, a lot of songwriters have pretty elaborate home recording set-ups. Yours truly, ain't one of them. Out came my Martin D-18 guitar, my iPhone video camera recorder, and my cowboy hat. Coronavirus be damned. I got a song to put out. Now, I would have preferred to put out a nice glossy professionally produced studio recording of The Big Sky. But, like my musical rocket ride, it's gonna have to wait. It seemed important though, to tell this story, right now.

The result is The Big Sky video. And an audio-track mastered from the video. The story of love, loss, and renewal, after an epidemic in the 1890's. Recorded at home during the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020.

May this song, give anyone who needs it, some hope. And help keep our world turning.

The Big Sky is now on Spotify
The new single of the live-video performance, edited and enhanced for streaming radio, at Perks Place Studio.

And on YouTube:

Performed at home during the coronavirus pandemic. With Lyrics.

The Tape Recordings

Ok, now what? Time for the Ultra Lo-fi Experience!

The Tape Recordings. Adding them to the legacy, such as they are... Cassette four-track madness. Digital Audio Tape VCR cassette recording mayhem. Artistic abandon. Throwing paint on the proverbial wall. This is where it all started. This album serves as the eternal 'circle of life', for these recordings. Let's see where it goes.

Admittedly what we have here is a songwriter 'working from home'. Dusting off old recordings. Something to do anyways. But these songs were already done. And I didn't want to re-record them. That never seems to work for me. Dwelling on old songs too much can distract an artist, from picking up the scent of a new song. Distract the artist from following it's trail and ultimately capturing it. Like the new songs we just captured, The Big Sky & Red Ramblers. And The Old Family Home, for that matter. All brand new songs. But anyways, yes, the songs on The Tape Recordings, are from the archives. Songs which were never really fully developed. Never fully developed to the degree, that we can develop songs, these days. But I like them. And I'm not actually spending any time in further developing them. They're done. For now. Let's put 'em out. But never say never, right?

Terry and I were actually working on a new version of Staring At The Ceiling for the I Can Shine album. It's really the first song I ever wrote. But I couldn't quite get the vibe right in the studio. The version on The Tape Recordings was done on four-track cassette tape in a room in the back of a garage. A half speed recording. That was a thing at the time. There's a little bit of magic in that rough old tape. And I'm not sure I could ever really deliver it with the feeling it had, back when it was originally conceived, if I tried to re-cut it. So here it is in all it's lo-fi glory.

With a computer Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), the possibilities for editing, auto tuning, beat detecting, etc... are endless. It's great. A good engineer can literally do magic. But recording to tape was a different animal. Nowhere near the capability to 'fix' things. You had to play a 'whole take' and a 'good take', every time that tape rolled. And roll it would. There were processes for fixing a mistake here or there, but the 'composite tracks' in common usage today, were unheard of.

Two of these songs were recorded on a DAT machine. Digital Audio Tape. Literally a VCR cassette which is used to record digital audio. That was a thing for a time, too. It's digital, but the actual recording was done old school. All live takes, basically no editing. The DAT era seemed to be pretty short lived though, and they were replaced by the DAWs. Tape became a thing of the past.

The drummer on the song You Know (on DAT), Tony Marinelli, was actually the inspiration for the song. Or at least his situation inspired me to write it. He'd gone thru a tough period, experiencing a loss. I wished I could have said something at the time to assuage his grief. But I didn't have the words. So I wrote a song, because he was my friend, and I felt I needed to do something. It seems to fit in here now. In this time we are living in. As I culled thru the tracks, to put this record together, I decided to have this track as the opener.

"I wish the words were here..."

I sent the tracks to Terry to have him convert them to .wav files, and hopefully clean them up a little. He did leave a few artifacts on the beginnings and endings. Barking dogs and such. He transformed this ultra low budget, lo-fi experience into something ready... ready to stream!

There is one song on this record that's not done on tape. TheSunsGoingDown. It's digital. Done on a DAW in Greg Martin's artist loft studio, in the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles. It was done spur of the moment. I was there to check out some of his painting, sculptures, and video work. Without any forethought on my part, Greg fired up a drum machine handed me a guitar, and said, "Play something". He started recording on his computer. One track after another. I wrote the lyrics and came up with all the parts on the spot. A little rhythm, a little lead, a little slide, and a real raspy vocal recorded into a handheld '57 mic. That song certainly has a rough hewn quality. That although yes, it is rough sounding, you can hear the heart of the song. It's there, beating. A song that reflects the heartbeat of a motorcycle ride. Thru the gritty and grimier parts of Los Angeles, which was part of the song's journey into the world. I rode back to Ventura, with a CD in my pocket, of this tune we just created. By throwing notes on the wall. Like throwing paint on the wall. In what I can only imagine is some sort of time-honored artistic ritual. It's included with The Tape Recordings, because, well, it fits.

Released April 24th to your favorite streaming sites. Ten ultra low-fi works of art. Songs that tell a story of a simpler time. Not necessarily an easier time, but a time when instead of streaming or downloading, you just popped in a cassette and pushed 'Play'. The 'CD style' recorded song is a nod to another genre disappearing in this day and age. This album does serve as a symbol of the eternal 'circle of life' for these recordings. Well, until streaming is replaced by some other new fangled technology, that is...

So in the midst of these trying times, lets have a toast to simpler times. Be safe. Be well. And until we meet again, may the Good Lord hold you in the hollow of his hand.

Salty Rose, April 2020

The Tape Recordings are now on Spotify
The full album ready to stream and playlist now!

/album/1536811/the-tape-recordings

You Know (on DAT)

(from The Tape Recordings)

I wish the words were here
I’d tell you what it’s like
Your finding out the hard way
What it’s like to cry

I can’t tell what your feeling
You know You know
I can’t tell you what to believe in
I hope You know

You’ll never be the same
You’ll see ‘em out of the corner of your eye
No good trying to explain
What it’s like to cry

We travel the same road
Under the same blue sky
Wonder, don’t you ever stop to wonder?
Wipe the tear from your eye

I can’t tell what your feeling
You know You know
I can’t tell you what to believe in
I hope You’ll grow...

Driving on Califonia Route 101, and The Sun's Going Down on my town.
on YouTube

These old towns
rustin' and going down
No, I mean, really
Everything is burning down

When the sun, the sun's going down on my town
When the sun, the sun's going down on my town
When the sun's going down
When the sun's going down
That's when you come around

Mean time
Once upon a time
This time
Everything is yours and mine

Visit Two KInds Of Light YouTube Channel for more videos from The Tape Recordings!

Far away mountains
Behind the hills
Sunshine is setting
The air is still
Smoke is rising
In the dark
Every creature
Has to do his part

Day comes
Night falls
It’s alright
It’s in the rhythm of the

Trees on the hillside
Grass in the fields
Clouds mixed with sunshine
The air is still
Snow on the mountains
Melts to the sea
Everyone watches
Knowing what they see