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Bright Ideas - Volume 1 cover Bright Ideas - Vol 1
Released December 2014

Tracks:
Get What You Pay For
Closure
Bright Idea
Suspicious Package

Availabe at CD Baby; iTunes

This started out with all intentions of being the next full CD, Dutch Oven, but with all the busyness going on through out the second part of the year, I managed to finish up only 4 songs. 

I did get all my lyrics though, so it's not like I set out to put out only 4 new songs.  This was my first EP, and first mixed and editted on the PC (using Samplitude).  The results are better than anything I could have ridden the faders for.  Everything's so nice and clean.  I like that.

In June, I started making new stuff. July, I had my 9 songs to work with and even finished guitar tracks. The guide slide guitar on what became Closure was a keeper. August, I finsihed my first set of new lyrics (it's been over a year since I made up any new lyrics) for a song called Overnight which didn't make the EP. At the beginning of September, I finished all the lyrics. At the beginning of November I actually got the vocals for 3 songs recorded and the rest of November was spent mixing.

Mixing takes a lot of time on the DP32 because it forces you to dump the tracks on a PC and mix from there. Very time consuming. Thanks, Tascam. Anyways, it's bitter sweet because mixing on the PC is a lot of fun.

Once the ball got rolling at the end of the year, after deciding I was only doing 4 songs, things got fun. The first song that was done was Bright Idea but that's only because I didn't have to make words for it. All the vocals were done on the same day. Vocals were approched a bit differently this time: I did three takes of each song knowing I would be comping a vocal track. I can do that because I'm not a singer. I'd never do that to guitars though. Comping a guitar part, solo or rhythm....if you say you're a guitar player and you can't play a whole song all the way through...especially you're own song...then you're a shit player.  End of story.

Speaking of not a guitar, I ended up getting an Electro Harmonix B9 pedal. That thing is an absolute treat. EH should be given some kind of medal. After using it on Get What You Pay For, I started to run it through the Line6 Roto Machine pedal. Sounds authentic. That'll be on the next CD somewhere. For the song, it's pretty close to the organ sound on Deep Purple's Black Night.

December 9, I made the cover, came up with a title and then called the instrumental Bright Idea. On the 11th, I uploaded the tracks to CDBaby. And here we are.

  

Songs:

Get What You Pay For
May as well start with something upbeat. The song, at least the lyrics, were inspired by my purchase of a Les Paul Traditional earlier in 2014. I felt pretty jipped for what I pay for, and the guitar's not the only thing being made poorly these days. I think anything that says Made In USA should be a red flag anymore.

I'm happy to say, there's only one electric guitar track on this song (not counting the "organ solo"). It sounds like many thanks to the BOSS CE-20 Chorus Ensemble twin pedal. As I mentioned, the organ solo is my latest, and most impressive pedal, the Electro Harmonix B9. It's pretty authentic sounding. The acoustics are both my Takamine and Epiphone MD-100. The bass on all of these songs is the Fender Jazz Bass.

 

Closure
Based on a true story. Get in your jeep and play softball.

This turned out to be pretty fun. The slide guitar is one of the SG Specials. Rhythm guitar is the Les Paul Traditional.

 

Bright Idea
The title came the day I uploaded the EP.  Not much to say about this pieced-together-drum track instrumental. I'm doing my best Peter Green doing Underway. The bass line did come first, and yes, it's James Brown's Lickin' Stick.

All three guitars were the Traditional, 2 through the BOSS Phase Shifter pedal.  Bubbly.

 

Suspicious Package
I wanted to use the title for a couple of years so it was finally nice to make a song out of it. Well, a one chord jam. And I think it has the world's longest Talkbox solo. It's mine anyways: a complete one take solo, from the top, and over 8 minutes straight. No bloopers either. Careful what you're signing for. Recording this was different.

The basses (Viola and Jazz Bass) were done first and a guide drum track. I did a few regular guitar solos after but then it dawned on me that I should have a talkbox solo since I haven't used it in a long time. After I got the take, I redid the dums to play off the solo and then the rhythm guitar (Nighthawk) was last to be recorded. A weird way of doing it but it sounds like a band playing live.

 

So overall, pretty happy with this. I called it Volume 1 because, since this was so easy to setup (being download only), I'll be doing plenty more volumes.

 

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