I recently purchased Guitar Rig, and want to try it out on a lot of my songs... unfortunately, I recorded many of my guitar parts using a hardware effects box, so I don't have a clean signal with which to work with. Thankfully, Synchronize has a clean guitar track, and so, here's a variation for your enjoyment.

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Here's a version of Goddess of Pleasure with a subtle layer in the high range.

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I was poking around this song a bit, trying to find a new sound for the guitar. I started stripping out various tracks, when I realized that I had a pretty good snapshot of what I've been playing acoustically around town. I'd like to clean up the abrupt panning of the guitar, and put some reverb on the horns... I'd like to find another singer/musician to reproduce these harmonies live.

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After regularly playing this song for about six months at the Sacred Grounds Open Mic, I came back to the recording feeling like it lacked something. I decided to add an acoustic guitar track to match what I play live, and I completely redid the vocals. The coda still needs a lot of work, and the break still needs some solo-like texture... perhaps I can expand on the horns to give them a larger role in the song. (I've included two older versions of this song, at about six month intervals, for your comparison. I'm sure there'll be newer versions, too!) (I tried to use Feeder's enclosure upload feature, but it didn't work the firs time, and I've been struggling to get the feed file to appear new to my aggregator... :-(

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In this second version of this song (from earlier this year) I worked out a set of verses that spoke to growing up, becoming a parent, and growing old. And I started playing this song at a regular open mic event at Sacred Grounds Cafe in San Francisco. The song itself is really working for me, and this recording was good for a while... (I've included at least two other versions of this song, at about six month intervals, for your comparison.)

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I found a chord one day, a funky A where I bar the 5th fret, and only put down my middle finger on the seventh fret. I'm so unschooled I can't even tell you the name of that chord... but I'd strum it with my thumb and clamp and release my fret fingers to create IMHO an interesting rhythm. I started to build a song around this chord as well as an irregular chord progression that leads up to it. In this first version of the song from last year, you can hear that I didn't have any verses, but had a good idea of how the melody should go. The chorus was fairly clear in my mind. I played the same chord progression with a strongly distorted guitar, which produced an even stranger texture... I like it! (I've included at least two other versions of this song, at about six month intervals, for your comparison.)

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Here's the third of three versions of a song called Synchronize. Generally, I'm very happy with the song structure and the verses. I've been playing this song at various open mics around San Francisco. For this version, I tried to re-use the end vocals to smooth the chorus parts. Still, I should just re-recorded the chorus'. Thoughts?

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Here's the second of three versions of a song called Synchronize. Generally, I'm very happy with the song structure and the verses. I've been playing this song at various open mics around San Francisco. For this particular version, I added a break in the rhythm during the third verse, which I think makes the song more interesting. Still want to redo the chorus'.

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Today I offer three versions of a song called Synchronize. This version is from last October. Generally, I'm very happy with the song structure and the verses. I've been playing this song at various open mics around San Francisco, and because of that, i think the song is getting tighter. For this particular version, I really wanted to redo the chorus, and I think I need something in the middle to break the rhythm up a bit.

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This week I'm posting two songs that are based on the same theme. Goddess of Glory is a slower jam, with what Chris Denend calls a "Rocky" vibe. The other song is Goddess of Pleasure, which is much more up-tempo.

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This is the second of two related postings. Goddess of Pleasure is a much more up-tempo version of a theme I've been working on for a while. The other variation, Goddess of Glory, is a much slower groove.

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I had a bad cold back in June of 2004, so I threw a bunch of distortion effects on my mic and recorded the first verse and chorus of this song. When I went back a month later, I loved the texture so much that I had to reproduce it for the rest of the lyrics. Again, the mic was a bit hot, and this song definitely needs some mastering to bring it level, but I'm liking the vibe. This felt more timely last Fall...

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This is a guitar lick I've been working on for years now, and finally cut a recording that captures my goal with it. The line from the guitar is a bit hot, which you can hear in the second verse, but otherwise I like the dynamics. Still trying to figure out some lyrics for it.

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This is my first post to my new studio podcast. I'll be podcasting my music as I make it, so you'll get a chance to hear all the variations and permutations of my songs. Interesting? Probably not for most people. But imagine if artists like U2 or Lenny Kravitz podcasted their studio work... would you pay to hear early versions of their songs? Then again, would artists want to show their work before its ready? So many questions... So, to get things started, I've enclosed an old track called "Powder Cruise". If you already have this song, nothing is new. This just lets me test the enclosure field of the RSS feed, and the auto-download capabilities of various podcast clients.

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