Post by ashcatlt on Aug 12, 2013 16:53:03 GMT -5
When I moved back to the Duluth area in 2005 it was a huge shock. I had left for good in 1995 and lived south of the frostline for that entire decade. That summer was just one catastrophic disruption of my world after another. My brother died, my hometown washed away, and I ended up back in the big crater by the brutal lake.
I made the best of the situation as I always do, but it was really fricken weird. In the first couple of years I did a whole bunch of recording. I worked on a couple of different albums of "songs" with words and stuff none of which have actually found their way to finished. In between all of that "serious" work, I also managed to lay down a number of more experimental tracks. It was all just plugging things in and trying different things to see what happened. These things sat around in various stages of disrepair as I kept going off on new tangents, including putting a lot of my effort into a whole other band.
But I have finally slapped those things together and released them as an album which for me at least does a pretty good job of expressing the feeling of existential dread and confusion of that first couple of years. While it is a bit of a challenge, I've had good response so far. One reviewer (who happens to be my father) called it "another masterpiece". In fact, it's been out three days and is already my best selling album of all time. Of course, that's not saying much.
Lorenzo's Tractor - Sunless Port
It's a paid download, but you can stream the whole the for free. It flows a little better with hapless playback...
I brought it here for a number of reasons. Most of the tracking is from my early days around this place. Much of it was using my "3 Humbuckers, no Pots" strat, but there's also probably some of the LPs system series mod as well. I can't even start to tell you exactly what is what. I'm pretty proud of all the tones in there. There are some whacky effects here and there, but the bulk of it is pretty tasteful "guitar into amp" kinds of things.
It also touches some on our theoretical discussions. It's almost all about orchestration and arrangements and getting away from the traditional country/rock "block chord" mentality. Please don't ask me how I did any of it. Some of them may be exotic (or made up) scales, some of it is exploring the discord that can be found in more traditional scales. I can tell you that "When Things Go Black" was originally named "Whole Tone Grunts Blues"...
Hope you'll check it out and maybe dig some it!
I made the best of the situation as I always do, but it was really fricken weird. In the first couple of years I did a whole bunch of recording. I worked on a couple of different albums of "songs" with words and stuff none of which have actually found their way to finished. In between all of that "serious" work, I also managed to lay down a number of more experimental tracks. It was all just plugging things in and trying different things to see what happened. These things sat around in various stages of disrepair as I kept going off on new tangents, including putting a lot of my effort into a whole other band.
But I have finally slapped those things together and released them as an album which for me at least does a pretty good job of expressing the feeling of existential dread and confusion of that first couple of years. While it is a bit of a challenge, I've had good response so far. One reviewer (who happens to be my father) called it "another masterpiece". In fact, it's been out three days and is already my best selling album of all time. Of course, that's not saying much.
Lorenzo's Tractor - Sunless Port
It's a paid download, but you can stream the whole the for free. It flows a little better with hapless playback...
I brought it here for a number of reasons. Most of the tracking is from my early days around this place. Much of it was using my "3 Humbuckers, no Pots" strat, but there's also probably some of the LPs system series mod as well. I can't even start to tell you exactly what is what. I'm pretty proud of all the tones in there. There are some whacky effects here and there, but the bulk of it is pretty tasteful "guitar into amp" kinds of things.
It also touches some on our theoretical discussions. It's almost all about orchestration and arrangements and getting away from the traditional country/rock "block chord" mentality. Please don't ask me how I did any of it. Some of them may be exotic (or made up) scales, some of it is exploring the discord that can be found in more traditional scales. I can tell you that "When Things Go Black" was originally named "Whole Tone Grunts Blues"...
Hope you'll check it out and maybe dig some it!