Progressive Rock Artist seeks Audience

Author: colin (Page 35 of 39)

Erase, and start again

In the process of mixing and remixing “Listen” I think I have figured out what is wrong. The crunchy guitar isn’t letting the other instruments breath, and what’s more, it obnoxiously interrupts the vocals. It’s gotta change, duh. As a result, I’ve been re-doing the guitar part and I think it is somewhat cooler than it was. Downside: I’m still not done with this behemoth.

Editor’s Note, August 2020: Curious about where this track ended up? It was finally completed in 2019 and is included on The Inevitable Obscenity of Autonomous Weaponry, our second album:

http://www.prodigalsounds.com/inevitable/listen.html

https://theprodigalsounds.bandcamp.com/track/listen

Bastille Day

I haven’t felt like dumping my thoughts into the public arena for a month or so. Working two jobs is using up most of my creative energy, and what’s left is going into trying to complete the Piece Of Music That Just Won’t Die, titled “Listen” but might be more accurately be called “Please Finish”.

I just want to make it perfect. Is that so wrong?

This weekend we are going to see Rush at the MGM Grand Arena. Ho ho. The title of this entry seems extra appropriate.

Crosby Speaks

When was the last time you went to the record store? Ah-hah! That’s, that’s how it works, buddy. It’s the kids go to the record store, and the kids are — I was going to say “stupid,” but they’re not. They’re just ignorant. And many of them will evolve, you know, from really dumb stuff, because the dumb music is sort of like a joke that’s only funny once. And you can only go to a Justin Timberlake concert once. You go a second time, you see the same thing — maybe they got new fireworks, but Justin ain’t got nothing new to say, okay?

And, so, then you start to evolve up. And maybe you wind up at Bruce Hornsby, maybe you wind up at Willie Nelson, maybe you wind up at Randy Newman, maybe you wind up at Joni Mitchell, maybe wind up at James Taylor for God’s sake. But somewhere in there, you wind up loving music, and you evolve up to a level where you go after somebody who can really do it — Shawn Colvin, Mark Cohn, people who can really do it. And some of those kids are going to evolve to there, and that’ll be great. But I don’t see success for singer-songwriters. I don’t see it.

Source: A PBS interview with David Crosby

Ow goes the drum

My hands hurt. But there is nothing like a little real percussion to liven up a track. A couple of months ago Guitar Center had a sale and I picked up a tamborine, a shaker, and a doumbek. Well, they’ve been sitting around looking pretty but not actually producing sound. However, this weekend I experimented with adding percussion to the track I’ve been working on for the last six months, and boy, does it make a difference. The MIDI-sequenced drum samples sound much better when mixed with a little analog zing, splash and poum.

The downside is that my hands hurt. I’ll give serious props to percussion players from now on. It’s tricky to keep a steady beat, and even more tricky to do it when you’ve got a blister on the inside of your thumb caused by casual tamborine use.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2026 The Prodigal Sounds

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑