Flash! A-aaaah! (Flash Gordon part three)

Did you miss part 1 or part 2?

The next day, Monday, I did the vocals in the afternoon. The evolving rough, literally caffeine-fueled, punk feel of the recording was too fast for me to get all the words in. Also, the notes of the melody are way out of what I might conservatively think of as "my vocal range." As I am sometimes able to do, I put all these limitations out of my mind and just did it and it's fine. It was super fun.

I have been thinking about Alex Chilton's death. When I heard about it, I immediately had the idea to record one of his songs and maybe even make a video of myself playing it and post it online. Then I thought about how very, very many people very much like myself will do that very thing. Alex Chilton was a master at confounding expectations, mixing genres, and doing exactly what he wanted to do in music without any consideration for commercial success or even, you know, logic.

I began to think of my Beatles/Punk version of Queen's "Flash (A.K.A. Flash's Theme)" as a spiritual tribute to Alex Chilton and so it is.

Finally, has anyone listened to "Chimes of Freedom" from Another Side of Bob Dylan lately? I mean really listened, not just let the recording you've heard a hundred times wash through your ears. I actually listened to that the other day and it was shocking how compassionate, wise, and moving it was. How many songs anywhere near the rock genre actually celebrate "the gentle" and "the kind"? I just sat on the couch and cried and loved everything and everyone. Okay, that's where I'm at with the whole thing.

Flash! A-aaaah! (Flash Gordon part two)

Did you miss part 1?

So now we are in 2010. As part of my anthologizing project of putting everything I ever recorded on my cassette four track onto my computer for potential remixing, I recently came across "Marriage of Dale and Ming (And Flash Approaching)". It was every bit as hilarious as I'd remembered and also strangely moving. I'd still only ever recorded the two songs, and that was in 1996 and 1997. At this pace, two songs in fourteen years, I would finish the 18 song album in 2066, at 94 years of age, three years after Zefram Cochrane invents warp drive and the Vulcans make contact with Earth. To pick up the pace, I decided to record a third song from the soundtrack, using a fun, simple beat that had been going on in my mind on and off for a few weeks.

At first I could not find the music. I had to give the original book back about thirteen years ago but I had the good sense to make copies of all the Flash Gordon songs. I had put them in a pristine white folder I found in a dumpster (not that I was looking there, you understand. It practically jumped out at me. Originally it contained information about a hospital's taxes or some such thing.) along the river in Northfield behind Division Street. Can you believe the things people just throw out? Anyway, I searched my archives but it still took me a few days to find it, and I only found it while I was looking for something else.

I have been listening to a ton of Beatles lately and have had this cheerful beat going through my mind a lot. I thought it was the beat to "She Loves You" but a quick look at my Beatles Complete Scores revealed that it's not quite. Nevertheless, I used the half measure intro to "She Loves You" and the beat I had in my mind as a starting point for my new recording, which I decided would be "Flash (A.K.A. Flash's Theme)" That was the song that most intimidated me in terms of actually finishing the album, so I decided to tackle it head on. I had it in mind to use a typical Beatles/Ringo tom-heavy "bridge section" beat for the bridge section but couldn't really find one in Complete Scores, so I just used a dramatically slowed down version of the lopsided "Ticket To Ride" beat for the bridge.

I set up my drum kit last Sunday. That in itself was an adventure, as I haven't had it set up for a while. I had to take the heads off, clean it, remove the sponges the previous owner had put in for no reason I can discern and I never got around to removing all of until now, reassemble, and tune it. I recorded the drums first and they were a little too fast. Take four was good enough that I thought I would continue with it. Next was acoustic guitar, then bass, then electric guitar.

For the electric, I used a Chandler mother-of-pearl "Serious About Tone" pick because I've heard Brian May is nuts about picks and sometimes uses English coins to get the most powerful sound. They don't make those picks anymore but I have a stash. I knew I wouldn't get the Queen guitar sound, so I went for The Carpenters instead. On "Goodbye To Love" Richard C. plugged his electric directly into the recording sound board and turned it up until the VU meters were deep in the red. It's awesome. I did a similar thing and it sounded very raucous and inspiring. I ended up taking an impromptu solo during one of the spoken sections. It ended up sounding like a surf instrumental.

If you really want to know the kind of thing that is almost always going on in my actual mind, sometimes even while I am talking to people in person, you will continue bravely on and

Go to part 3.

What Am I Going To Do? This.

Here is the plan. There are these two or three or nine songs eating my brain constantly. Tonight, possibly late tonight, I will create drum machine tracks for them and possibly bass, electric guitar and (very quiet) guide vocals. (The kids will be asleep upstairs after all.) I am hopeful that my recording computer will not have problems, yet I am dreading that it will, which will be all I need after a day of near constant WPP. (White People's Problems - e.g. they wouldn't give me a free permanent locker at the health club even though the guy who signed us up for the platinum membership told us we would get them. Dammit! See what I mean?)

Anyway, I'll do that, hold me to it. If I don't do it the songs will continue to eat at my brain, causing unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

Now for the bigger plan! In November, I will not use the internet. Let me say that again. (Ha, ha. See how I'm like Joe Biden? And just parroting whatever the candidates say with someone who looks like them? That's funny, right? No SNL, no it isn't.) In November, I will not use the internet.

Okay, I'll use it for a few, few essentials. But blogging? Not essential. E-mail? Probably not, no. YouTube? Wikipedia? Ha. Right. I just don't have time for you anymore, internet. Monday nights are now yoga class, not public library. That day at Grandma and Grandpa's (who have high speed wireless at home, unlike me) are probably better spent interacting with the two generations on either side of mine. I'll find out, anyway. I've got to finish "The Shapely Bottles" too. Shoot, Bride wrote an entire novel last November. Why can't I wrap up a few things that have been plaguing me?

I just drank a 20 oz. coffee so I'm full of ideas. And jittery. And inspired.

(Okay, I just spell checked for "plaguing" and found that the internet spellchecker feels that the word "internet" should always be capitalized. Kind of self-important and out of touch, internet based spellchecker.)

MS7 Studio Session A Success

I hear from my friend Karl that the tracks recorded at his house sound really good. I think we got the definitive "Farmer Song" at the very least. Did I already write about how successful and fun those sessions were to play at? Hang on, let me check. No?! How could this have happened? Okay, short version:

Shotgun Johnson and the Mississippi Seven convened in its entirety in Karl's garage with the goal of recording four songs. We ended up making our stretch goal of eight songs. They were:

Prayer Breakfast
Theme From Honigman
Total Peace
Illusions of Banjeur

then, missing Scuffy, who had to leave and will probably overdub his banjo and/or accordion later:

Ghost Train
Kansas City, Nebraska
Don't Be Dumb
Farmer Song

Evan was out to engineer and Karl had his garage very clean and well set up for the recording. Both did a lot of hard work and I appreciate it. Showing up and playing drums, singing backup, and making a few small arrangement suggestions was really fun. I am working on scheduling the next session, at which I hope to have similar success with these songs:

Gone To Stay
Boxcar
Run Come See
California
C'mon Lizzie
Into The West

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On a completely different note, can anyone tell me why on Earth the original Al Jarreau version of the Theme From Moonlighting is not at iTunes? There are 385 songs there by the man but not the one song I've heard him sing hundreds of times and wanted to hear him sing whenever I wanted. Seriously. 385 songs and no "Moonlighting" from Al Jarreau? WTF?