Tag: Popular Music

January 2021

This Month’s Audio Uploads:

Up And At ‘Em – 2012:

A brief high energy snippet to get the New Year underway. Blink and you’ll miss it!

Twist It Off – 2009:

This bit of fun got me and my CGN Songs partner, Peter Godfrey, embroiled in a very frustrating waiting game. Having had this track selected – with great enthusiasm, it should be added- by our man in the U.S, for use in a cleaning products commercial, there followed endless in-house politics and company restructuring State-side, which left us with an interminable wait for the final sign-off on this project. These two minutes of dubiously-titled nonsense were great fun to work on though, and I think with regards to hitting the mark, this is probably one of the best things we ever did at CGN Songs. A particular shout out to Mr Justin Carroll for his help in ramping up the lyric-writing nonsense levels whilst we were out in Sweden. “Granny’s got the hang of it…” indeed!

River Of Illusion (Anlg) – Section – 1998:

A third take from the Carson/ Nick Rundall 1998 demo tapes. River of Illusion was by and large one of Nick’s tracks, though I had a strong hand in fleshing out some of Nick’s ideas, re-shaping melodies and lyrics, adding backing vocal ideas and so on. This is just a short section taken from the track’s early stages, and it builds considerably from this point on. Apologies for any hiss and occasional tape warping issues. The digital master copy of this song is sadly corrupted beyond salvation.

The Light (Anlg) – Section – 1992:

Owing to its desperately bad verse sections, one of the tracks that missed the cut from my first ‘album’ Just Enough, was The Light. Bad verses or not, I always rather liked the choruses and indeed the track’s later stages, including a rather poor impression of the kind of spoken monologue Vincent Price did so well in Michael Jackson’s classic, Thriller. Written and recorded during the days of my trusty yet rather limited little effect-less travel companion, the Yamaha QY10, the sounds and production in general is terrible, but thanks to some Korg synth overdubs and some phase-like reverb, the whole thing is made a little more presentable.

First Time Last Time – Sketch – 2012:

The early working stages of a little up-beat country number that I was working on. Though intended for a sassy female lead vocal, you’ll have to endure my ‘place-holding’ falsetto offering in this version. I like to think that this track has some legs though, were I ever to turn my attentions to it properly in the future.

End in Sight (Anlg) – Rough Demo – 1996:

One of the many short instrumental track demos I did in the mid-nineties. Incomplete, but some nice ideas to work with here.

Because Of You – SKETCH – 2012:

Another track in its early working stages, and another track with my vocals purely as a guide. Nothing more. Because of You is a song intended for either a female lead voice or perhaps a kind of soulful El DeBarge style vocal. You’ll note a general lack of lyrics. Just one of the many elements of this track that was never completed. It is just a sketch of an idea, after all.

Mellow Guitar Track – Full Version – 2010:

A sparsely produced, thoughtful instrumental intended for use as library music. NB: No actual guitars were used or indeed harmed in the making of this track.

Death To The Pop World (Anlg) – Section – 1992:

This song was taken from my 1992 ‘Festive E.P’ and features the guitar work of Jim Thomas. One of a number of ‘albums’ we messed about on back in the early ’90s. Not so much me wishing death on the pop world, more a lament that pop music was not now (in 1992) what it once had been. Christ, if the pop world was indeed experiencing a crisis of identity and quality back then, what the hell kind of barrel-scraped diseased entity would I be bemoaning nowadays in 2020! The mind boggles.

In Honour (Anlg) – SKETCH – 1996:

I rediscovered this orchestral number recently on an old analogue cassette. Some nice ideas scattered around in here, but I have little to no recollection of ever having written it.