I was obsessed with kd lang for a while as a teenager. I was blown away by her voice and the songwriting on Ingenue. She knocks this Roy Orbison song out of the park every time she sings. She’s one of the greatest singers ever. No contest. Brilliant control, tone, pitch, and power, all used with great musicality. She knows when to pull back, and when to let rip. I prefer the arrangement in the MTV Unplugged session she did in ’93, but her vocal from the induction of Roy Orbison into the The Songwriters Hall of Fame is stunning.
Speaking of that Unplugged session, this performance from it of the song “Barefoot”, is one of my very favourite performances of hers. The song is from the movie Salmonberries, which also kd lang also starred in, is one of those songs that will randomly pop into my head for no apparent reason. The melody of is utterly divine:
I remember completely enjoying the movie Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, but having it open with kd lang singing “Skylark”, a capella, was an absolute gem. Just her voice, unadorned.
Whether cowpunk, or pop, powerballads, or country tinged folk, her vocals are always golden. This song, from the album Invincible Summer is always one of my happy summer driving songs:
The opening chorus of “Bobby” in this clip gets stuck in my head so much. I’m not majorly well versed in Sondheim’s work, to be perfectly honest, but every time I catch something like this I feel like I should try and catch more performances of his musicals.
However, my love of musicals really began when I took a tape of the music from Cats out on loan from the city library as a child. I totally fell in love with those musical numbers as a kid, without ever seeing a production of it.
Even now, I make a living doing musical direction for amateur musical productions, or playing piano for them, and I guess it is only natural that a lifelong association with musical theatre in various ways has informed my own music as much as my classical training, or the music I listen to myself for pleasure.
As a performing art, it intrigues me as it covers so much ground musically – from jazz, to Disney, to rock, to country… you name as style of music, and there’s probably a few musicals in that style. One of my favourites of recent years are two movie musicals, with very contrasting styles:
Here’s some folky french chanson from Les Chansons d’Amour. I like that the actors sing quite naturally, and it completely surprised me when I rented it out on a whim from a local video shop a few years ago. The soundtrack is one of my favourite albums to be honest, and I need to find more of Alex Beaupain’s music. This isn’t the strongest song from the movie (that would probably be “Brooklyn Bridge” or “J’ai Cru Entendre” I think), but it’s my favourite this morning:
And this wonderful piece from Were The World Mine, which took inspiration from Shakespeare‘s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, and added gays, rugby, and musical theatre. Obviously. And it’s a must-see for any gay guy that ended up getting a lead in their school show which helped change people’s opinion of them. *ahem* I love the transitions between reality and fantasy in the musical number in this movie too.
I could go on and keep posting videos from other more well known musicals, or other favourites of mine, but I won’t. I’ll leave it with what is still perhaps my favourite number from a musical ever. The weaving of the different melodies from other parts of the musical into this one big showstopper never fails to wow me:
Which of course was parodied brilliantly by South Park, Bigger, Longer and Uncut:
The Galway Film Fleadh has agreed to donate two movie tickets to two pledgers to my fundit campaign. You can donate as little as €5 and potentially get a full album and two tickets for a movie at the Fleadh for that price!
First set of tickets will be given to Pledgers who make their pledge in the first two weeks of the campaign (i.e. before midnight on Sunday 19th).
The second set of tickets to people who pledge between Monday the 20th and Sunday 26th of June. A nice random surprise top-up to your pledge!
The Fleadh takes place in Galway between the 5th and 10th of July, and the programme hasn’t been announced just yet, but keep an eye on the website! As soon as the programme is announced I should know more specific details about the tickets.
Here are some more sneak previews of the songs I’ve been recording for my debut album. There are clips of three songs in this track, and a bit of a piano thingie at the end that is actually a part of one of the songs.
The Irish language title is a bilingual track, but it’s mostly english lyrics, and a little bit of Irish. I’m rather fond of vocal layers, as you’ll hear in two of these clips.
If you want to help me get the album finished, and get it out there for other people to listen to instead of it just playing around in my head, then consider pledging some money to my :fund:it campaign, which I’m using to crowdfund the rest of the recording.
The last two days of May were spent back up in Charthouse studios again, this time working on just three songs over the two days, as we were going to be hitting two of the more complex songs from a recording point of view. As it stands at the moment, I’ve worked on 10 songs in the studio. Two of them will need retracking, as they’re stuff I did on the very first day, and I’d not really gotten the hang of the studio just yet. The other 8 are at various stages – some just need a little bit of extra work and that’s all, and others are pretty good reference tracks that’ll need vocal retracking, and the rest fall somewhere in between. But I’m happy with the progress I’ve made so far.
I think I was overly prepared in many ways, as I have a fear of wasting time in the studio when I’m working on a tight budget, and I want to be as well rehearsed and prepared as possible going in each day. I plan out what songs I’m going to work on what days, and anything I’m unsure of musically gets plotted out on manuscript paper or using MuseScore so that I don’t get flustered or blocked in any way when I’m actually in the studio.
It was nice to hear things coming together that I’ve only done rough demos of, or hearing new vocal arrangements working out better than I imagined they would. I’ve been listening to the reference tracks here at home these last few days, and picking out what I want to do with each song, and looking at what I’m not happy with about each track so far, and trying to put together a plan for how to finish off the recording as efficiently as I can. I might dilly dally when I’m writing the music, but when it comes to the studio days, I try and be prepared and organised so that I don’t waste money or anyone’s time in the studio. I’m really liking working in the studio though – I’ve taken to it a lot easier than I thought I would, click tracks and all!
But, in between studio days, I’ve been meeting with a friend of mine who is a print artist, and we’ve been chatting and working out ideas for the visual side of the album which has been exciting, and I’ve been working on the crowdfunding project on :fund:it.
In short, the last bit of cash I’d put aside for the recording days was what funded those last day in the studio, so to help fund the rest of the studio time, mixing and mastering, and the initial batch of cds, I’m running a crowdfunding project through :Fund:it – Ireland’s version of Kickstarter and their ilk. Anyone from around the world can pledge money towards a project, and you’ll see a little slew of rewards available to you if you pledge money to help me finish off this album: :fund:it – mister ebby – wires.
Mark Willis very kindly came over and shot the promo video I’m using on the :fund:it project, and Yvonne Ryan took a few shots that day for me to use too. Check out their work!
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