sparkspin

Beethoven:- Star performer on "Leggy Drum"

Just in case you aren't acquainted with the saving and/or playing procedure on the internet, if you want to play the selected track as a streaming file from source, just click any of the links and if your media player program is enabled the music should start to play. Better, right click and select "Save Target As" and the file will download to your choice of folder on your hard drive for playing later. Since the last update, I've reduced the files to mono - like 45 r.p.m. vynil. Enjoy.

If you've listened to a whole live-streamed track then it is already on your hard drive (in the Temporary Internet Files folder) and you can make copy of it from there and paste to any other folder on your computer.

Flying Saucer For Sale. Just my little joke (but with a semi-serious point - "they" might find little grey men but they never do find the engine, do they?). This track and others, as marked with a flashing Ankh symbol were performed by the last heavy rock band I played fretless bass and sang (?) lead vocals in:- "The Ankh". Mastered on 8-track Fostex DMT8 Hard Disk recorder - and so are all mainly to be considered as home demos. Drums sequenced herein on Yamaha QY20 - a lovely little machine (and what a shame mine's worn out). Demonic laughter created on Yamaha QY20. (Trumpet voice with step-written pitch-bend). Guitars and electric violin made by me. Song written by yours truly.

Ye Olde Abduction Rag.

A few missing hours... Mastered on 8-track Fostex DMT8 Hard Disk recorder. Drums written/sequenced herein on Yamaha QY20. Wonderful guitar played by Kevin Norris. Guitars and electric violin made by me. Song written by yours truly.

Leggy Drum (Gruffkin). Just me and my

Old English Sheepdog, Beethoven (named many years before the film). The original was performed (extemporised live) to Revox ¼" tape machine around 1980; the dog barked in perfect timing when I tapped my foot and I sampled the original woofing to spin (cut/paste) into this 8-track Fostex DMT8 version. What an amazing bear. I cried for three weeks when he went. 11 years of torn-up cardboard boxes. Everybody in the UK rock industry knew this dog. Where I buried him, the following year, blackberries of gigantic proportions grew like you never saw. Homeopathic. Something of meat but also soul.

Sarah. 12-string harp with three melody strings on fretless ebony. This was a converted £5 boot fair guitar and it lasted about six months before exploding from the tension (it held together just long enough for me to compose this piece and learn to play it). Recorded in a pro studio because I needed a good microphone for this. Several versions were made culminating in a plastic one (sold). Three solid body electric versions went out into the world. My children; my children! It's a funny thing - I never used to feel anything for even my most sophisticated creations. They just up an' left me. They never call, they don't write...

Zero G. Written for the Ankh band but here a home demo on Fostex DMT8 and Yamaha QY20. "Won't you tell me how do it; those little things we all like to do now, how do you do them in Zero G? It's getting me down"...

Planet Dance.

Adapted from a traditional Irish thing; truly wonderful to play live. The fretless bass took the part of the Bodhran. Young Barney played electric violin. Click here for image. No amount of home overdubbing could possibly replicate the excitement of doing this on stage with live musicians.

Running for Cover. Just Kevin (lead guitarist with the Ankh Band) at home getting up close and personal with (unbelieveably) an old 8-track cassette multi-tracker! Caught on (transferred to) DAT just before real ferric particle degradation set in. Play as loud as possible and be prepared to laugh. My guitar neck and set-up (obviously). Takes a few prisoners. Duck. Reasonable.

Saddam Blues (Digging A Little Hole). The first Gulf War inspired this one. News reports showed the continuous process of trench digging and moving on. Written by me for entry in a songwriting competition in which it didn't even get placed. Some tone-deaf punk selections were called for apparently. Obviously I know nothing of whit, melody construction, harmony or idiom. You may have worked that out already. Drums and bass sequenced on Roland R5 (wish I still owned that machine). Recorded at Alan Hyde's wonderful Studio 22 in Orpington, Kent, UK. If you want anything in the field of live commentary at motor racing events, studio or live mobile recording, contact this man at:- alan.hyde@studio22.co.uk. Tell him I sent you. Hiya, Big Al!

The St. George Overture. Part of an orchestral suite written entirely in step write (that means doing it by digital numbers alone - if you get to know how this works and have a working knowledge of basic harmony, you can write it without listening to it) - on Yamaha QY20 sequencer. Why, Oh Why did they decide in their infinite wisdom to change the MIDI standard of 96 clocks per crotchet to some other totally unnecessary higher thing? It works for me. Just do the maths. Pray tell me at:- sparkspin@btinternet.com. Rappers go away. Please, please just go away. Go away. Now. Please. Learn some Handel; that's an easy enough start. I dare you.

Happy Wednesday. My first brush with commercial local FM radio jingle production with Alan again at alan.hyde@studio22.co.uk. This was one of 120 we put together. Most requested thing I ever did. Ever.

Where Do The Children Play? Vocals and guitar by Malcolm Disley (Deceased). Written by Cat Stevens but I'd never heard the song before and thought it was one of Malcom's compositions. He played acoustic guitar and sang to a click track (something he'd never done before) and I added the orchestration with Yamaha QY20 and electric guitars afterwards. It wasn't until several months later, after Malcom died, that somebody told me it was a Cat Stevens' song.

Eiffel the Giraffe. This was written in 1989 for my dying Old English Sheepdog, Beethoven Bear, waiting for the vet to come with "the final shot". It was precisely this song, strangely enough, which led me to where I am today, in that it was through my recording the original version that I met Alan (of Studio 22) who at the time needed to produce some FM radio jingles and realised that I could co-write and produce the goods with him. Some years later, another similar venture in national radio went badly wrong and the term "pear-shaped" came to apply.

Out for a Duck. During one of many re-workings of the epic "Wilfred Whale" (below) and "Sarah" (above) at The Barn Studios at Hidenborough, Kent, I struck on the idea of doing a "Brian May"- type track and interrupted schedules for a day to just have some fun. All my own guitars, of course...

Wilfred Whale. Written in 1969 (immediately upon hearing the song of the Hump-back whale on the radio for the first time). Heavily influenced by John Lee Hooker and Free's "Alright Now", the song went through very many incarnations and this version, a compilation of several different major sessions, was last seriously messed about with in 2002. My "Unfinished Requiem" lasting a full eight minutes. Can you bear it?