"Thank you Stan Laurel, I think I see your point!"/SONAR/Original/Alternative

Started by shawnb-fgn, October 10, 2009, 10:04:23 AM

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shawnb-fgn

I wrote & recorded Stan Laurel about 15 years ago after a very bad day at the office...  It was the first song I ever wrote & produced.   

You know, it always bugs me when folks classify their music as 'alternative', since the very name 'alternative' simply meant it made a different set of charts, e.g., college radio, as opposed to the pop music chart.    So you'd get bands like the Cocteau Twins & This Mortal Coil alongside Pearl Jam and REM.  Is that really a music genre?   

The reason I chose Alternative is that I know darned well, this ain't makin' no pop charts!   

I exclusively used my Epiphone Sheraton, using a Digitech RP1 effects box, straight into SONAR (which, 15 years ago, was probably still called Cakewalk...).   No amp.   

All drums & bass are MIDI, played by my buddy Fitz on a keyboard, as we didn't have drums & bass at the time.  Rendered using a Roland SC-880.   Fitz does an amazing job, I think...   

The other thing Fitz did, is that he felt my rhythm was too dissonant & avant-garde, & had no blues/rock feel, so he recorded a rhythm guitar track in PERFECT sync with my track.  The rhythm almost sounds like one guitar, but it's actually two, my jangly ugly chord doubled with his simple bluesy bend.   

The background...

I had way too much on my plate at work.  I had a particularly bad day, in which I was ambushed at a meeting by a bunch of senior management asking when the work would be done (no project management whatsoever, I was all on my own, migrating a major corporation's AP & AR processing & historical records to a new mainframe app literally by myself...).  I pulled a 'Stan Laurel', you know that move where his voice cracks & he acts all whiny & scratches the very top of his head?   This song was extremely theraputic.   When I was done with it, I changed my game, & told myself it would never happen again.  I walked into the CIO's office, demanded a mangement job, & almost immediately jumped a couple of pay grades, & did, in fact, ultimately manage those very folks who started it all.

Music can, in fact, change your life.

You poor folks, if you're brave enough to listen to this, you must listen to me sing...

<<A correction...   As this is a fairly recent remix, I no longer used the outboard Roland hardware.  In this version, the drums were rendered using SONAR's Session Drummer, and the bass was rendered using Roland's Groove Synth.   These are two of many soft synths included with SONAR.  I never use my old hardware synths anymore...>>

Dogmatic attachment to the supposed merits of a particular structure hinders the search for an appropriate structure.
- Fripp

The_Fuzz22

I'm not sure if anybody would agree but I think this has elements of Beck to it. I'm a big fan so even if you don't like him you should take that as a compliment!

I really love the style and the lyrical range. I really wish there was more I could say, quite simply I really enjoy listening to this track.
You've captured a lot of the feelings you describe here in the post and that really adds to the overall tone.
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MCK-fgn

Quote from:  shawnb on October 10, 2009, 10:04:23 AM

The background...

I had way too much on my plate at work.  I had a particularly bad day, in which I was ambushed at a meeting by a bunch of senior management asking when the work would be done (no project management whatsoever, I was all on my own, migrating a major corporation's AP & AR processing & historical records to a new mainframe app literally by myself...).  I pulled a 'Stan Laurel', you know that move where his voice cracks & he acts all whiny & scratches the very top of his head?   This song was extremely theraputic.   When I was done with it, I changed my game, & told myself it would never happen again.  I walked into the CIO's office, demanded a mangement job, & almost immediately jumped a couple of pay grades, & did, in fact, ultimately manage those very folks who started it all.

Music can, in fact, change your life.

Shawn, sounds like you and I could have been working for the same company! I really really love the song. I will be keeping it on my desktop and play back on such frustrating days (yesterday was one...).

Michael Douglas had a movie many years ago. Can't recall the name. He was a busy frustrated white-collar worker and he flipped out at a fast food checkout counter or something and went on a rampage. Do you recall? Listening to your track reminded me of that movie and how I felt for the guy. This could make a great sound-track for such a movie.

Well done! I hope it doesn't take such bad days in the office for you to spin out such gems. Hope to hear more from you. All the best.
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RPM-fgn

Quote from:  MCK on October 13, 2009, 09:26:42 PM
Quote from:  shawnb on October 10, 2009, 10:04:23 AM



Michael Douglas had a movie many years ago. Can't recall the name. He was a busy frustrated white-collar worker and he flipped out at a fast food checkout counter or something and went on a rampage. Do you recall? Listening to your track reminded me of that movie and how I felt for the guy. This could make a great sound-track for such a movie.



"Falling Down" from 1993.   Robert Duvall also starred in the movie.

MCK-fgn

Quote from:  RPM on October 13, 2009, 10:00:56 PM
"Falling Down" from 1993.   Robert Duvall also starred in the movie.

That's it!!! Thanks for digging that up.
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Caig DeOxit - Buy now before you need it !!!
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shawnb-fgn


Thanks, fuzz & MCK, for the compliments & feedback!  Beck?  If nothing else, we share similar vocal range?    ::)

Looking back on it, there are a bunch of things I'd do differently.  Too much copying & pasting, I'm more of a purist now & would rather play thru as much as posible.   I had other plans for the 'blank' passage, it didn't work out, so I just turned up the drums as a temporary measure - but I then noticed that that's where folks do the big head-bob when listening to it, so I left it that way... 
Dogmatic attachment to the supposed merits of a particular structure hinders the search for an appropriate structure.
- Fripp

Germanicus-fgn

Cool song. Maybe add a very pissed off/ dissonant solo around 1:50-2:10 ala adrian belew.  ;D
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Sympodius

That's really well produced. And an enjoyable song on top of it. Well done.
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