This song’s a couple of years old now, and was played frequently by my former group. When I wrote it, it was arranged for acoustic guitar, fiddle and mandolin, but I thought it was high time for it to rise phoenix-like from the ashes and change shape somewhat. So, gone are the nice lilting rhythms and vocal harmonies, to be replaced by fuzz guitars, tambourines and a bit of feedback. It’s a song of lost opportunities, of a beautiful woman disappearing just as quickly as she appears.
Download The Elf Princess (be warned, this is a big file as it’s encoded at 256kbps)
I said rather grandly in my last post that there would be an “announcement”. Well, the news, such as it is, is that there will be a new electric project very shortly once I’ve sorted out the web presence for it. I think this site probably ought to stay reasonably traditional, and the new project will probably stray into more indie-pop territory (in the C86 sense) - not to mention the fact that it won’t just be me on the recordings but some friends as well.
The group is going to go under the name of The Electric Tradition and is going to be a studio-only concern. We will not be performing live.
Sam Hall has been played on the very marvellous Dandelion Radio.
I’ll be announcing some news here shortly about future musical plans, for all half-a-dozen people who might be interested… needless to say, I have a new venture in mind…
Finally, I’ve got round to starting to record again. Out came the electric guitars, the trusty Roland synth (for drum duties only) and the terrifying Danelectro “French Toast” distortion pedal, which is an engineering marvel. It seems particularly good for producing a really rough fuzz bass sound.
So, here’s a very rough electric version of Sam Hall, a traditional song of a foul-mouthed murderer who’s about to swing for his crimes. Beware, if you’re sensitive about strong language, there is some swearing in this song. Sam isn’t a particularly nice character, after all. Damn his eyes.
I’m out of practise with mixing distorted guitars, so you’ll have to bear with me.
While I’m here updating the site… there’s an interview with me about Mother’s Thinking Bath in the current edition of Halfcut Publications’ magazine. You can get a free copy of the magazine from their website, halfcutpublications.com
There’s also a sample of the track “West Hagley” from the album on their Leper Colony page.
Things have been a bit quiet on the recording front lately, but I’ve not been sitting around doing nothing…
I’ve dug my tubas out of mothballs and have resumed playing after a 5-year break; I have a good front-action EEb instrument, and a battered 3-valve BBb, which is also front-action, and has quite variable intonation, but it cost me £150 on eBay, so I’m not complaining. It’s also my “outdoor” tuba for playing in bad weather…
I used to play a fair amount of jazz on tuba, as well as playing with a brass band but at the moment I’m simply working on the fact that my lungs and lips are in a shocking state and I can’t sustain long notes even at medium volume! My first goal is to get my lip back to a level whereby I can go and play with the Moseley Village Band - but no doubt the loud farty instruments will find their way onto recordings as well.
I’ve been working through a few ideas for the next set of recordings and I’m now pretty certain it’ll be a mostly electric set of traditional songs. There’ll undoubtedly be some acoustic material as well, but for the most part it’ll be guitars turned up to eleven, bass, and drums, probably with quite a bit of feedback and general noise.
Quite how this is going to turn out, I’m not sure - for a start I need to decide whether to use real or programmed drums, and, if the former, whether I play them myself or not… decisions, decisions…
And then I’ll probably need to buy a new fuzz-box. My much-cherished DOD Supra-distortion pedal, which I’ve had for about 15 years, has finally given up the ghost, and the cheapo nasty pedal I picked up from a bargain bin in Oxford doesn’t have the capacity for going completely out of control that the DOD had. The Danelectro “French Toast” octave/fuzz pedal seems to have a bit of a reputation for being erratic and messy, which sounds ideal for my purposes, but if anyone has any better ideas I’m all ears.
Many thanks to Pete Ashton of the Created In Birmingham blog for running an article about my version of I Can’t Find Brummagem and also for giving the album a plug - cheers Pete!
A brief update on the album, Mother’s Thinking Bath - thanks to all of you who have bought it it’s now raised in excess of £150 for Water Aid. It might not sound a lot, but given its extremely limited circulation so far, it’s not bad going. Now all I need to do is get rid of the rest of the copies!
I was reminded of this song while learning the traditional song Pretty Saro the other night, and it just goes to show that whether you’re a feedback-laden guitar group from Scotland or a singer in the Appalachian mountains, you still share the same concerns.
“Something I Can’t Have” is possibly my favourite Jesus And Mary Chain song. The original is a glorious storm of pop-noise, confrontational and touching in the way that only Jim and William Reid ever really manage to be. You just know that behind the arrogant, disinterested posturing, there have always been a couple of sentimental old fools who love a good tune.
I’ve recorded it very simply indeed - just acoustic guitar and acoustic bass. I might start playing it live - something I’ve never got round to doing, despite having learnt it (ahem) about 15 years ago when the Sound Of Speed E.P. first came out!
The ongoing search for a durable set of strings that will sound reasonable on my Taylor Big Baby without costing the earth has taken a really surprising turn.
I was putting in an order at StringsDirect.com, who, incidentally, are truly excellent and almost always have your strings with you the next day. I noticed their Legacy strings for £2.99 a set. For three pounds a go, I thought they had to be worth a punt, if only for the sake of curiosity.
And they’re amazingly good. Admittedly they do have a very “phosphor bronze” sound but they sound much better on the Taylor than Martins and various other strings have done. And they seem to be lasting longer with continual bashing from my metal fingerpicks than any other strings have done so far.
This song’s a couple of years old now, and was played frequently by my former group. When I wrote it, it was arranged for acoustic guitar, fiddle and mandolin, but I thought it was high time for it to rise phoenix-like from the ashes and change shape somewhat. So, gone are the nice lilting rhythms and vocal harmonies, to be replaced by fuzz guitars, tambourines and a bit of feedback. It’s a song of lost opportunities, of a beautiful woman disappearing just as quickly as she appears.
Finally, I’ve got round to starting to record again. Out came the electric guitars, the trusty Roland synth (for drum duties only) and the terrifying Danelectro “French Toast” distortion pedal, which is an engineering marvel. It seems particularly good for producing a really rough fuzz bass sound.
Things have been a bit quiet on the recording front lately, but I’ve not been sitting around doing nothing…
I was reminded of this song while learning the traditional song Pretty Saro the other night, and it just goes to show that whether you’re a feedback-laden guitar group from Scotland or a singer in the Appalachian mountains, you still share the same concerns.