Tuesday 11 February 2014

What's happening February 2014

Merry happy new year...hmm, okay that's all over and done with, I'm a bit late, apologies. Feels like I haven't said anything for a while. I had nearly 5 weeks off over the Chrissy holidays, did a lot around the house, and "general stuff". Not so much guitar. But that can only happen for so long... m u s t. . . p l a y. . .

In a completely out of character move (and dropping what I was working on) I have been arranging a brand spanking now song. As in, it was only aired for the first time LESS THAN SIX MONTHS AGO! In fact, when I started it, it had only been out THREE MONTHS! I know, I know, where is Jawmunji and what have you done with him!?

Sadly for 95% percent of my audience you will never have heard of Eskimo Joe, a band formed just down the road from me in Fremantle Western Australia. Quite a number of hits in the past decade, alternative rock style. In September 2013 they put out a new single "Got What You Need", a well crafted pop song, nearly synth pop but I'll give them a break. Singer Kavyen smashes it out in falsetto which is good fun and not normally their style. It got a bit of airplay around November and they were playing it as an acoustic number at seemingly every morning show/muso show that screens in Australia. Considering how hard it was pushed (as part of their new album) and that it is indeed a fine pop song, I'm surprised it didn't make much of a dent on the charts. Perhaps because it was crowd sourced and self-labeled...conspiracy detection!

Anyway, it jumped out of the radio and into my brain and onto the guitar. The falsetto fits nice and high above what is essentially just an E-A chord progression, so it made me do new interesting things. I kept to a fairly standard pattern, bass/flick, you've heard it all before. But flying up to the high notes off beat and returning to low E and A bass notes has proven challenging.  I like challenging

It's tabbed out, and mostly ready to record but it might be another month or two. So I just sat out the back then "in the cool of the evening time" (song lyrics :)) and played it nice'n'slow to the backdrop of crickets and occasional rumble of the wind in the mic (sorry).

Other stuff still happening, but for now let me leave you with the recording, go look for the official video clip on youtube if you are so inclined. My playing is mediocre, quite a few mistakes, but I think you'll get where I'm coming from. Must perfect my slides up to high notes! :)