Here’s a bunch of tunes I wrote or covered, various genres, all to some degree with keyboards, piano, or whatever I got my grubby mitts on. I am NO keyboardist, but have always enjoyed adding keys and experimenting with sounds of all sorts on my recordings, so this is hopefully a varied summary of my songwriting, as well as fodder for potential TATANKA selections.
One track is obviously inspired by the great Philip Glass, whose work drew me away from traditional western linear composition into modalism, cyclical, organic really. Meditative, putting it mildly. So many tracks are just that – music in concentric circles, or so I planned.
Lyrically, I have a habit of writing the music first, tracking everything, then listening to the playback and mouthing a test vocal track of random syllables into an eventual melody. I walk away. Listen on headphones. Keep humming, whistling, anything to unlock the melody that’s just sitting there, elsewhere, ready for the taking. Eventually I sit down and flesh out lyrics, a story ideally, but sometimes the aleatory aspect fits, so many vocal tracks are that first test run. No need to change them on some songs. Less is more. Don’t believe me? Check out Cocteau Twins and listen closely to early R.E.M. and Michael Stipe’s vocal Dadaism.
I have played keyboards as part of multiple bands, and once played keys live with a Grateful Dead cover band in a Chicagoland biker bar. Classic rock. Major, minor, 7th stuff. Relatively easy and fun to step back and just accent what the others were doing musically, until a drunk lady “asked” the lead singer if we knew “Dead Flowers” from The Rolling Stones.
Apparently that was unacceptable as her better half soon approached us, mid-song, demanding that we play his sweet lady’s request then and there. Needless to say, that set ended abruptly. As we took a strategic break, the singer told us the guy threatened to kill us all if we didn’t come back and play her request.
Years before the Internet and mobile devices, we frantically picked each other’s brains, chose a totally random key, started hyper-jamming, and quickly realized the damn song was easy: just a Southern-fried Blues tune. Classic I, IV, V. So, we hastily concocted a ballpark chord progression, mustered up enough plausible lyrics, and went back on stage to just completely bullshit our way through our “SURPRISE!!!” request-met song.
All five of us were literally screaming the chorus into the mics, just frozen where we stood, in mortal fear. The crowd was thankfully greater than three sheets to the wind and less than wise to our subterfuge. Suddenly we were part of the good ol’ gang, sans the jumping in part. We were somehow heroes, no longer targets of murderous plotting and likely plans of dismemberment options du jour.
Music is dangerous. Stick to jousting.
We got out of there alive, but during that horrific break, we seriously considered, and even voted, on just ditching all of our gear and running out the back door. One does not normally equate keyboards with near-death experiences, but there you go.
* Recorded by @WinedUp. ** Recorded by/with @kensluiter. *** Recorded at Johnny Bravo Studios.
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