skip to main |
skip to sidebar
I am now consistently going to the End cafe twice a week. On thursdays I go there with Stella, and on fridays I meet Fab. Fab and I then proceed back to Stella's to write, record, jam, listen, and then we go to O'Brien's for 'cartoon land'. Anyways.. We wrote for a while yesterday. So far the composition consists of just guitar and forte. It will show up on the glissando blog when it's finished and recorded. In the meantime I'll soon be posting a sax-forte jam.
Last St. Patrick's day, I had Fab and Sylvia over to record on the good old portastudio. It was my first portastudio recording. The song was 'Polly' by Nirvana, and I had previously laid down the ukulele (yes) track, along with bass and my own vocal track. I wanted, however, to have a take with Fab on vocals. It actually never got mixed down. Anyhow, this year I had them over to do another cover of the same song on the day after St. Patrick's. I went to work a couple of days early using my limited knowledge of chord substitution.
The original progression goes Em, G, C, D in the verse. I changed this to Em add9, G6, C, D. The top note in a chord progression conveys melodic transitions. Thus, if you'll take a look at the top note in this progression(see chord chart below), you'll see it forms a primitive melody that goes F#, E, F#, E. I made a note of this, thinking a brief interlude could be added featuring this melody. I also constructed a bassline based on the chords that I immediately knew was superior to the original bassline, which was obviously slapped together in an offhand manner.
We wound up working on it for about six hours. It is now mixed and still needs to be digitised before it can appear on glissando. Hearing it will be more informative than me describing the recording process.
More dreams! Two nights ago, I dreamt endlessly, but unfortunately I can only recall the last one I had. I was at a very loud and screamy concert reminiscent of the Blood Brothers concert I attended in december. The singer was the only band member visible, and she was in the front of the crowd instead of on stage. They launched into what was obviously their big hit, featuring the singer counting the time signature. "1-2-3-4-123456-1-2-3-4-123456", screaming the 6/8 bar.
Last night I dreamt about having these massive bruises on my legs. I went to see a doctor about it. I think he seemed sort of impressed. Anyways, I wound up going into a packed auditorium for the Windsor House presentation of The Wizard of Oz. Before the show, I saw these two little kids from Windsor House dancing together. They looked amorously at each other. The play began, and it actually had nothing to do with The Wizard of Oz. There were mysterious singing voices coming from backstage and some disgruntled guy dressed as a tree or something on stage. The audience took up the singing while clapping. Some people continued to clap a bit too long, and the tree guy went, "Stop that, and let me clap to show what that sounds like" in a very pissed off voice.
Pixie has reappeared and begun a new blog which is located here. It's highly enjoyable.
Sorr-ry I haven't written in a while.
Mel (my sax teacher), whose real name is actually Colin, invited me to see him play a set at a Greek restaurant last Friday. He said they were a trio "with an incredible bassist and an incredible drummer". I brought a truckload of people with me. Fab, both his parents, Cosmic clock, Sylvia and Wallis. He played tenor throughout both their sets. I recognised only one song they played, but I don't know the name.
During his solos, he never played any light-speed passages or anything. He always took his time, and his thoughts and ideas were extremely clear. I forget the bassist's name, but as Sylvia remarked as soon as she sat down, "They have an excellent bass player". Whenever we applauded at the end of one of his solos, he would nod at us.
The drummer's name was Joe, and he was very young. He had guitar face: drummer's edition. But he was entitled to it. I recall the first time I saw a live jazz band at an opening at the art gallery. The guitarist had an expression that is probably exclusive to jazz players. Kind of like he was high on his music, or as Jimmy Ricardo once put it, "He is having an inner communion with his God, the musical note". And that is how Joe looked, but much more over-the-top. Everyone in the place obviously loved him. His solos were almost like their own pieces of music. My new favourite living drummer (my favourite dead one being Shelly Manne, who played on Sonny Rollins's Way out west).
Everyone talked about it the whole ride home. I think everyone had an excellent time. When I asked Cosmic, so did you enjoy yourself this evening, she said she was surprised how good they were. I said yes, he said they had an incredible bassist and an incredible drummer. She said, "And he wasn't lying. But what he failed to mention is that he was good at playing, too".
On the drive, there is a corner where no business can succeed. There have been about three restaurants in the last three years. About a month ago, a new cafe opened there called The End. Stella and I went there to see if it was frequent-worthy. There are no coffee shops in our neighbourhood (no good ones anyway). It was clean, you could order just a coffee or a whole meal, the waitress had a lovely accent, there were a googolplex different places to sit (leather furniture, even), and the food was cheap but perfectly good. Five out of five fish on the Bishop scale!
Fab and I met at said cafe on Sunday and had dinner. We then proceeded back to Stella's to jam, the outcome of which can be heard on our blog. Glissando isn't a band name, it's just a cool word. Stella has forbidden us from discussing a band name until we have recorded at least six compositions. We will continue tomorrow before Eureka Seven, which unfortunately has been moved to eleven o'clock.
