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Space Rock
Space Rock is one of those tracks you either really love or hate – there’s
no in-between – Julian calls it the track that just won’t go away. This
track should have been written in the 70’s because the style is completely
retro. The initial riff came about in 1987 when I was rehearsing with John
Paul Destefani and a drummer called Jason. We were trying to put a band
together and I was asked if I had any ideas to put forward. I replied
“you’ll love this” and made the riff up on the spot – I have absolutely no
idea how I managed that!!!!! Jason gave the piece the title. In the early
nineties I recorded a demo track of the piece on my 4 track unit and
developed some of the keyboard ideas I had – this track can be found on
the demo album ‘Take Me Back To The Balcony’. In 1997 I got together again
with John who had, by this time, built B# Studios and we recorded the
track on his 24-track system. I programmed a DR660 rhythm machine to take
care of the Drum track, laid down the bassline and put the keyboards down.
John added the guitar parts and Judy Marshall put the voice on the track.
The first version we tried had the bass guitar taking care of all the
melody ideas but after we’d mixed it down we decided that it didn’t really
work. We decided to try a version with John taking care of the melody
parts with the guitar rather than the bass and this seemed to work much
better. We put a four-track cd together called Space Rock and made this
track the opening tune. The one problem about this particular version was
that everything comes in with a bang – Drums, bass, keys and guitar all
launching into the riff straight away – it’s a little bit harsh!! A few
months later I gave Craig MACKMAN Mackinnon some tracks to listen to with
a view of having him put some blues harp on them. Space Rock was one of
the tracks he chose to work with. By this time another idea materialised
of having two versions of the track on my album – one called lift off
which would start with a countdown and have a large explosion to kick the
track off and another version with a count in and a big splash at the end.
Craig’s version became Space Rock Splash Down. Annerine Tomlinson came
down to the studio and put her flute on some of my tracks and Space Rock
was one of them – this version became Space Rock Lift Off. A few months
later Heinz Shrader put some Saxophone down on three of my tracks and
Space Rock, again, was one of them – we made this version another Space
Rock Splash Down. We now had two Splash Down’s and a Lift off. We decided
to make the original bass guitar version another Lift Off and put that
version and Heinz’s version on a disc called Lost In Space and put
Annerine’s & Craig’s versions on the album Bass To Bass.
Get Lost
Get Lost is the longest piece of music I’ve written and recorded – just
over 9 minutes long. It comprises of quite a lot of ideas that I and other
musos I’ve worked with over the years have come up with – in short, a real
melting pot. As is the norm with the way I work, I put down a drum track,
bass track and countless keyboard tracks on my fostex 4 track unit
sometime during the early to mid nineties to get a rough demo to build
upon at B# Studios. In 1997 I went into B# to record my Bass To Bass album
on John’s 24 track system and started working on the next stage of this
tune. I programmed my DR660 for the drum track and then laid the bassline
down before adding all the keyboard parts. We called in Judy Marshall to
put the voice down sometime towards the end of 1997. My original intention
was for John Paul Destefani to just add the guitar parts to the work that
I had done but he suggested that I should replace the programmed track
with a drummer and that Mauritz Lotz should come in to do the guitar
parts. We agreed to call in Larry Rose – Mauritz’s partner in Hotline and
he came in and laid the drum track down. Mauritz came in a few months
later and added the absolutely phenomenal guitar parts.
The Death March Boogie
The Death March Boogie is my second longest composition – lasting for 7
minutes – it’s also one of a very very few tracks I’ve composed that
doesn’t have a drum feature or two or three!!! I composed this piece for
one specific purpose – to be played at my funeral!!! I came up with the
idea one afternoon to take the Funeral March (I think it was originally
written by Chopin, but stand to be corrected) and liven it up a little. I
decided that a 12 bar format would be pretty accessible for most people to
be able to get ‘into it’. I realised that realistically, I couldn’t just
go round and round and round with the same theme so I came up with another
12 bar theme for the tune to go into every 36 bars (or every 3 times round
in layman terms). This other ‘Chorus’ part goes on for 24 bars and
originally had me doing a kind of rythmic two-hand tapping part on the
bass but eventually we (John Paul Destefani and I) decided to record that
particular part on a synth. Actually, apart from a short, two hand tapping
intro at the beginning of the tune, there’s no bass guitar on this track
at all. I called in Dave Sharp to put some piano parts on the piece and he
also added some synth bass parts to the main theme. Craig MACKMAN
Mackinnon came in to add his blues Harp and Judy Marshall put the voice
down. John added the guitar parts and I took care of all the remaining
keyboard parts. I was originally going to keep my original DR660
programmed drum part but at one session I had Vinnie Henrico come down to
do the drum part for another track called Orbit and I decided to give him
a shot at doing the drum part for this piece which worked out great.
Funnily enough, his work out on the Orbit track ended up being scrapped
but that’s another story. Just to be totally cranky, we dropped me out of
the tune for a full 12 bars towards the end and then bought me back in for
the fade out – the only tune I’ve ever done where we’ve done something
like that.
Werewolf By Night
The only song that I’ve ever written, The title of this tune has been
taken from a 70’s Marvel comic. I originally put a demo tune together on
my four track system at home and then one day some words started coming
into my head and before I knew it a complete song had been born! In 1990 I
started recording the piece on John Paul Destefani’s eight track recording
system and finished it 16 months later!! It was the very last track that
John mixed down before converting his setup into the full blown B# Studios
where I now record all of my tunes. Along the way, Garth McCleod (Sugardrive)
came in and laid down the drum track – with the obligatory drum feature!!
John laid down the guitar tracks and the closing solo, Dave Sharp did all
the keyboard parts and Peter Burger did vocal Duties. A girl called Dianne
came down to add the female voice but I couldn’t remember her surname by
the time I had finished the song so I credited her as Dianne X on the
sleeves of Space Rock (cd single) and Bass To Bass (album)
Orbit
There are three versions of this tune in existance. A flute version, a
Saxophone version and one that’s not been finished yet. The tune started
to form an existance one Saturday afternoon when I sat down with my drum
machine and started playing about with the drum patterns I’d programmed
for Space Rock. The whole tune consisted of all the same patterns – just
re-arranged slightly. I recorded the drum track into the desk, added the
bassline and then sat down with the keyboard and came up with a whole
bunch of melody ideas. In 24 hours from start to finish (with a night’s
sleep somewhere in the middle) I had a complete tune. I took the drum
machine to B# and we downloaded thetrack into the system. John came up
with this gallopy ‘Barracda’ guitar line and all of a sudden the tune
started developing in a different direction. We realised that the
programmed part needed to be replaced by a human so we called in Vinnie
Henrico. Vinnie is an incredible drummer but unfortunately he didn’t have
the power that the tune called for so we called in John’s brother-in-law
Anthony Ive to do the Job.
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