mister ebby » songwriter

Inspiration: Brad Walsh

mister ebby — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:01:17 +0000

Brad Walsh is a multi talented creative force. A singer/songwriter, producer and photographer. I remember hearing his music quite a few years back and liking his electro influenced sound. Yet he has developed a really signature sound that is totally identifiably his own. His cover of Stacey Q’s Two Of Hearts created a major buzz online, and his remixes of Britney’s Womanizer and Ashlee Simpson’s Out Of My Head are absolutely fantastic.

Check out his new album on his website, which is hitting shops in October.

And you can listen to more of his music at his MySpace page, including his amazing cover of Two Of Hearts as well as his original songs.

Why is he an inspiration? He’s done it all himself with style and determination.

Oh, and he’s dating Christian Siriano, and together they are officially the best gay couple ever. He writes the music for Christian’s runway shows too. You can hear a clip of that music in this video (skip forward about 30seconds)

Collaborating #1: Anna Lee

mister ebby — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:33:52 +0000

I had a visitor for a few days: Anna Lee, who I used to play piano with is back in Ireland for a few weeks, and spent some time here in Galway. Had a little mini session playing songs for each other in Java’s Café, where there’s a beautiful grand piano upstairs. But we’ve not yet managed to get around to having a good music session together.

I spent about two years in total playing with her, gigging around Ireland and a little bit around the UK too, before she headed off to Spain. I’ve known her since university, and we both used to play the singer-songwriter night in uni. She’s got a fantastic voice, and has released one EP so far, but I’m hoping she’ll release a full album. Here’s one of the tracks from that EP:

The video was shot and edited really badly by myself, and I helped her put together the EP for release, including working on the cover design and getting it available for sale. It was definitely a learning experience for me.

We had some great gigs playing together as “Husband | Wife” and just with me accompanying her as a session pianist. We shared a house together for about a year, and would practice and mess around with music at home. Here’s a cover of Portishead’s “Glory Box” that was recorded in our living room one afternoon back in 2006. Just ignore us messing around at the start ;)

We never really recorded anything together, other than some random live videos that are floating around, or little demos from our living room, or little videos like that one on youtube. DIY music most definitely.

Inspiration: Gabriela Kulka

mister ebby — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:45:45 +0000

Gaba Kulka
Gabriela Kulka is a fantastic songwriter from Poland, who I describe to people as the lovechild of Kate Bush and Danny Elfman who grew up listening to jazz. She has released three albums, and has always managed to blow me away with each release. Check out the lead single from her most recent album, as well as an amazing cover she does of London Calling, which she turns into a waltz. Obviously.

Niejasności

London Calling

Kucs Kulka : “Got A Song”

The artist – technician dilemma

mister ebby — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:05:36 +0000

Recording yourself is an interesting experience. You’re basically playing two separate roles at the same time: artist and technician. I often find it difficult to switch between the two, which can be a little problematic.

When I’m recording someone else, I get into that mode and find it rather smooth sailing. Similarly, when someone is recording me, I just focus on my playing and performing. However, jumping between the artist and the technician roles us something I find difficult and I’m learning to try and merge the two so I can be better at recording myself.

I guess the two roles are opposing kinds of brain activity or something. I really have a lot of admiration for artists who can just do everything needed to record an album all by themselves. It’s certainly hard enough to be capable of doing one of the roles involved in the recording and creation of an album.