May 1st, 2010 · life
i travel
all around the city
go in and out of
locomotives
all alone
there’s no-one here
and people everywhere
only if a ship would sail in
or just someone came
and knocked at my door
or just (or just)
SOMETHING
Parts of Björk’s Crying rather aptly describes my days lately. It’s been weird. I have to travel to Dublin to spend any time with people it seems. I don’t think I like that. I’m spending way too much time alone I think – so much so that I don’t even realise how much time I’m spending in just my own company. Most days I’ll say maybe three or four sentences to someone who’s not serving me in a shop or café or something. I guess I make up for it when I do go to Dublin and hang out with people there, but it just makes the return to Galway each time more frustrating. But I guess that’s what happens when there’s a big exodus of people from a town.
I do like my own company, and I’m very used to it, and it is making me write so much more. I wrote lyrics for a whole new song today that was sparked off by two short lines I’d noted down in my phone a few days ago. I even have a rough idea of how the melody should go. I’m at a point where I have way too many songs not recorded even in demo form – more than half of them aren’t recorded in any way at all. I need to get more on top of that.
I spent this evening post-Doctor-Who looking at tweaking little tiny things on my website, which just drives home the fact that I need a proper, better design for it, which is something I’m not able to do. Then I was doing re-takes of the demo vocals for “friday night friendships” which I’d sketched out quickly a while back with terribly off guide vocals. I’m getting more used to recording myself, but it’s still not ideal, and I’m finding it a bit of a pain sometimes when a good take is messed up by shitty recording, or whatever.
The thing I wrote today I’ll take a look at again tomorrow and see what I think of it. I’ve another two half-written lyrics sheets in a notebook, and a few more songs kinda half sketched out. I really have been on a big writing spate over the last year or so. I think I’ve written more in the last year than in the last 20! I’m not all of it is any good, but I’m gonna try at least demo everything so that I can listen to them from outside of the performer space, and see what I think.
Anyways, while I was in Dublin recently, I got to enjoy the beautiful tulips that are in the park in Merrion Sq. Dublin City Council were taking submissions to rename that park, which is currently named after Archbishiop Ryan. I don’t think I ever called it that in the first place – it was always just Merrion Sq to me. Or the park with the Oscar Wilde statue and beautiful tulips:
Tags:flowers·hipstamatic·personal·photography·photos
April 16th, 2010 · life, music
Nina Simone was studying to be a classical pianist, but got sidetracked by her evening job playing jazz to help support her studies in classical piano at Juilliard School of Music. I can relate, on a much smaller, less talented kinda scale. While studying for a degree in music I became as much interested in jazz and other forms of music, as I was in my primary area of study – classical music, and classical piano more specifically.
I remember spazzing out over her version of Love Me or Leave Me with a fellow piano student, and drawing comparisons with Bach’s Inventions. She was one of the first artists I was introduced to musically, who seemed to cover a lot of the same musical interests as myself.
It was one of my best friends in Secondary school who first introduced me to Nina Simone. We would listen to her albums while getting ready in her room to go out to town or somewhere. I have a strong memory of her dancing around her room to I Put A Spell On You.
Over the years, my love of Nina’s music has grown, and one of her own songs that speaks to me a lot lately is Mississippi Goddam (live!). She was passionate, political, intelligent, and very talented.
“Keep on sayin’ ‘go slow’…
to do things gradually would bring more tragedy.
Why don’t you see it? Why don’t you feel it?
I don’t know, I don’t know.
You don’t have to live next to me, just give me my equality!”
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April 6th, 2010 · music
I’ve had the house to myself again today, so after spending a while in town being sociable I came home and spent the evening playing with the cat, cooking dinner, and demoing a song.
This song is one that popped up in the video clips from a gig I did in January, so I’ve been wanting to start recording it in some way. I never really get to hear the songs until I hear a recording of them, as when you’re playing them it’s hard to be an outside listener too.
Regardless, this demo is scrappy: bum notes on the piano; bum notes in the vocals; rough sketch of the middle bit with the layers. Just generally a bit scrappy all round, but it gives a good idea of the whole song.
I’m not 100% sure of about this song yet – it feels too long, and I’m pondering whether I should cut a section, or merge some parts or something. As it stands, the lyrics were mostly written when I lived in the UK in 2005 or so, and the music was written when I was living in Galway a year ago at this stage. It’s a song that has kinda hung around for a while without really becoming anything until it just popped out while I was playing around with a piano idea one day.
Anyways, here’s the demo I put together this evening.
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Galway Rain (demo) (right-click and save to download)
Lyrics [Read more →]
Tags:demo·download·mp3·music·piano·songwriting
April 5th, 2010 · life
I took photos of my Easter chocolate this year, just for the hell of it. I was home alone on Easter morning, before going off to spend time with my brother and his family for dinner that evening. I wasn’t feeling well, so eating loads of chocolate perhaps wasn’t the best idea to be honest. Nevertheless, nothing could possibly stand in the way of me and a Ben 10 easter egg:
The kids from a show I was playing piano for bought it for me, as a thank you present. It’s possibly the greatest thing I’ve been given ever (well, in the last week anyways). But I have a feeling that the flask will go to my Ben 10 obsessed nephew instead. The chocolate in the egg itself was a bit gross, but who cares! It was a Ben 10 egg!
My sister was home for the weekend, and gave me a beautiful little Lindt chocolate bunny, which I just can’t bring myself to take out of the gold foil. It has a bell! It’s just too damn cute! So it’s still sitting on my desk beside my computer.
Lastly, my folks gave me this big dark chocolate bunny, which was absolutely gorgeous. Just delicious. I started into it at lunchtime yesterday, and finished most of it today. I’m not sure it’ll last much longer. It wasn’t the prettiest bunny to look at, but that doesn’t matter so much because it was just so damn tasty.
The other thing that arrived this past week was my prize from a random Marina & The Diamonds competition on Twitter run by Heineken Music. I rather casually answered the three questions, and didn’t expect much more from it, but it turns out that I won! And a copy of Marina & The Diamond’s wonderful debut album, The Family Jewels winged its way to me along with a lovely tshirt and tote bag. Happy out. :) So here’s a photo of the shirt: (yep, it’s backwards as I took it with photobooth on my iMac, and couldn’t be arsed switching around the image.)
So, if I’m being really honest, I guess the Marina package was the best thing I got in the last week or so.
Tags:animals·chocolate·personal·photos
April 5th, 2010 · life, music
It’s been raining so much this week. I’m typing this to avoid actually having to go outside and head to town to meet some friends. But honestly, I’m just gonna let the rain ease off a little.
However, the rain is good for forcing me to stay indoors and work on some music for a while, so today I ended up reworking one of the demos I’d recorded. I moved one of the sections around, and re-recorded piano and vocal parts for it. I’m gonna take a break and listen to it later tonight or tomorrow and see if I like what I’ve done to that particular song. If I do, then I’ll probably upload that rough version here.
Additionally, I did a really rough take of “Galway Rain” too, which I’ve never recorded. There’s a live cut of it, and a live video, but that’s about it. It’s rather apt to be doing a take of that song today.
Tags:demo·music·piano·songs
