Prime Mover and Shaker

Sounds great.Right off the bat - Looking Glass is an exceptional song. It's a really great composition, R.E.M..totally stand out track. Melody and conviction. :o Wow! with that one. That's a special song.

 

Only thing I would say mix wise, is the kick drum (+kit) sounds out of place on some tracks. Suits some but not others.

 

The whole album reminds me of Husker Du (Warehouse). Not musically but in its searching nature...if that makes sense. Other tracks that stand out are; Swing It Over, How Do You Like it? Vile And Splendid. It's a cohesive album with many melodic vocal hooks/guit solos(that I like) and no track seems out of place. All have attractive qualities in varying degrees.

 

I do think its the best entry so far. :D

 

Fantastic work guys! :haz:

 

Thanks!

 

The original version of what would become Looking Glass was very different, including lyrics and vocal melody, and goes back to the mid-90s.

 

Several years ago I had submitted a skeletal arrangement of the song where I used synth piano as a placeholder for guitar parts that would come later, with new lyrics being provided by PM&S, but at the time of that submission, SFC didn't exist, so it really just going to be a "JARG song". Other musical projects/songs came along and this never got out of the "what do you think?" stage, and to be honest, I kinda' forgot about the song.

 

Then a few months ago PM&S approached me about resurrecting the song and including it on the album, keeping the piano-to-become-guitar parts as piano (PM&S has a friend who's quite a good pianist), so I changed up the arrangement a bit to better accommodate a dedicated piano part and rewrote the piano part to be, well more of an actual piano part. The pianist took what I wrote and made it better. Far better. (Not that hard to do since I'm just a lowly guitarist!). I personally don't get an R.E.M. vibe from it (I usually only hear Rush influences in my songs), but I think it's cool that you do.

 

Here's how the song originally sounded. Yeah, I think we improved the hell out of it.

 

http://youtu.be/NaCB3uaSoHg

Do we know anyone playing with you on this?

Sounds great.Right off the bat - Looking Glass is an exceptional song. It's a really great composition, R.E.M..totally stand out track. Melody and conviction. :o Wow! with that one. That's a special song.

 

Only thing I would say mix wise, is the kick drum (+kit) sounds out of place on some tracks. Suits some but not others.

 

The whole album reminds me of Husker Du (Warehouse). Not musically but in its searching nature...if that makes sense. Other tracks that stand out are; Swing It Over, How Do You Like it? Vile And Splendid. It's a cohesive album with many melodic vocal hooks/guit solos(that I like) and no track seems out of place. All have attractive qualities in varying degrees.

 

I do think its the best entry so far. :D

 

Fantastic work guys! :haz:

Thanks much!!!

Oh, cool - I forgot that 3 of us are TRFers!

 

Yes, but only one of us prides himself on "holding down the bottom". :)

:laughing guy:

OK, I am months late to the party - thanks for checking this out!!!

Oh, cool - I forgot that 3 of us are TRFers!

Gut punch. :(

(there is more in work - I'd say we have 3/4 of the second album done)...

John - do you have a link to the 70s funk/metal song we worked on last year?

I can speak to Kevin's (Stopid's) style - he has a very good feel for the pocket. Lots of pocket pool experience. ;) He and I have played bass on the same project, even taking turns in differing parts of the same song, and while I think my instincts drive me more to the mid and high stuff, sometimes at the expense of groove... I also think Kevin is drawn more to the style you are after here. By the way... for what my opinion is worth.... knowing that you want this type of style ahead of time and saying so is a smart move on your part; it helps everyone be on a similar page regarding expectations.

Part of it is indeed in 7. Here's just the click.

 

https://soundcloud.c...t-click/s-4PXsK

 

There's an 8 count lead-in, so counting from when the drums start, it's a measure of 8/8, a measure of 7/8, a measure of 1/16, and then it settles into the 7/8 figure.

 

And here's the same thing with the click and the guitar part I came up with.

 

https://soundcloud.c...s-click/s-4yHvF

 

Your buddy is a whack job - who the hell would write a song like that!!?!?!?

$20 for mastering is cheap. Too cheap to be credible.

 

 

http://jimdiazaudio.com/

 

That's not what your mom said.

 

;)

Thanks, guys!!!! :)

By the way, I meant to say: cool job. I couldn't listen to it at work, but I checked it out when I got home!

 

Do you ever try to collaborate on original stuff?

 

Someone sends a bass riff or two?

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6wyCjRCLts&sns=em

 

I still am quite fond of how this one turned out. :)

I still like to "keep it real", though... or try to. I'm much more on the Rush side of things than Dream Theater, in that I prefer melody over wankery.

 

But I do really like odd time signatures! ;)

Usually I only have to listen to an album 4-5 times before, when perusing the track list, I can recall at least one part from just about every song that stands out.

 

Not so much for this one, and I've listened to it probably 10 times.

 

From memory:

 

If Eternity Should Fail - pretty decent. The chorus is a bit repetitive, but that's not atypical with Maiden. I really like how it starts and ends.

 

Speed of Light - fun & cool, typical lead single from 21st century Maiden. I think this one should have switched places with Eldorado from the previous album; both fit better with the themes of the other album.

 

The Great Unknown - I can't tell you anything about this song. I don't remember any of it.

 

The Red and the Black - sticks out as a cool epic, with a great chorus.

 

When the River Runs Deep - good enough; I remember it, at least.

 

The Book of Souls - I can't tell you anything about this song. I don't remember any of it.

 

Death or Glory - not a great song, but at least I remember it.

 

Shadows of the Valley - I can't tell you anything about this song. I don't remember any of it.

 

Tears of a Clown - probably my favorite on the album. Slight prog feel, and deep subject matter.

 

Empire of the Clouds - even though it's their longest song, it doesn't feel like it. Very well written. Instant classic.

 

 

None of it is terrible, although Death or Glory comes close at times. So much of it is just kind of "there".

 

 

HOWEVER - I had a similar reaction to Dance of Death, but over time, it grew on me quite a bit.

 

So, we shall see.

Yeah, this is blues rock you can feel. Great delivery!

Nice!

Holy.

 

Crap.

 

WOW!!!!

Cool - I really like how "For a Friend" starts with that awesome chord progression. Lots of great energy in this song. Cool stuff in the middle there - but it might be cool to bring in the start of the lead at 3:11 to break it up a bit. Double kick at 4:00 is VERY nice!

Hey guys - new song. Just a quirky little instrumental.

 

I like some parts better than others. I was going for a bit of chaos in the middle, but after a while I think it just sounds lost, so I may need to sharpen the pencil there.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with my work, and working style.... I've been posting rough demos for years, gathering folks' feedback in the hopes of better polishing these songs when the time comes to record the real deal. I'll be playing bass and keys on most songs, that's probably it.

 

I will neither be singing nor playing guitar on the final product; what you hear here is merely an attempt at these trades in order to give someone who knows what they are doing an idea of what I'm thinking.

 

So, click below for "The Scut Farkus Affair", and let me know what you think of the composition.

 

Thanks! http://rushmessageboard.com/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png

 

http://jaypsi.com/Featured_Song.html

 

 

 

Feel free to poke around the site & check out the other demos as well.

Bigger question is how many people listen to ALBUMS anymore. I know most of my non-musician friends have their MP3s on shuffle. :-/

 

Very true. I'm quite stuck in the album paradigm, though.... it may just be that hard to teach an old dog new tricks!

Thanks guys - this is the mirror I can't give to myself... you know what I mean! :P

Do folks even listen to CDs anymore? :P

I used to be of the opinion that, once I put out a CD, I wanted to cram as much stuff onto it as I could. The idea being that, assuming I'm convinced it is quality material, I'd want to give folks the biggest bang for their investment.

 

However, when we split the M.O.T.H. project into two CDs, we had a discussion about the advantages of shorter CDs, and I think these albums work well at their current lengths (maybe 45-50 minutes each)? I don't have the numbers in front of me.

 

Heck, look at Hemispheres or Permanent Waves. Not exactly long albums, and they might have suffered had much more been piled on.

 

I realize this subjective, but I'm curious about opinions on this. What is an ideal CD length to you, if such a thing exists?

 

Do you feel cheated if you only get 40 minutes?

 

Is 70 minutes just too frikkin' long?

 

???

Hey guys - new song. It's a bit darker than most of my songs, and a bit less definite in theme. Lyrically, it was a bit of a stream-of-consciousness approach.

 

The vocal melody in the verses is a tip of the hat to some Tool approaches to vocal rhythm. It hoping it will work better with a more talented vocalist.

 

The energy goes up and down a bit; I was going for a dynamic approach given that there are really only a couple of chords that dominate the whole song.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with my work, and working style.... I've been posting rough demos for years, gathering folks' feedback in the hopes of better polishing these songs when the time comes to record the real deal. I'll be playing bass and keys on most songs, that's probably it.

 

I will neither be singing nor playing guitar on the final product; what you hear here is merely an attempt at these trades in order to give someone who knows what they are doing an idea of what I'm thinking.

 

So, click below for "I Don't Want to Me", and let me know what you think of the composition.

 

Thanks! http://rushmessageboard.com/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.png

 

http://jaypsi.com/Featured_Song.html

 

 

 

Feel free to poke around the site & check out the other demos as well.