Skip to main content

FOR FREE






Ian C Stewart "For Free" MP3

This is from the last regularly-scheduled mixdown tape of my career. July/August 1995. So late in the game that the tape doesn't even have a title. The songs would've gone on to comprise the follow-up to Samarkand In Bursts, which was apparently abandoned in the face of audience apathy! You punks!!

There wasn't really an emo option at the time, but that's basically where I was with music. I was too heavily invested, emotionally. The only difference between my lyrics and diaries at the time was that one of them rhymed & was funny. The other, not so much.

But, in 1995, it made no difference. I thought I was doing good work, musically, and no one was taking notice. It was pissing me off & the fact that I was working nights & probably could've used some perspective was lost on me. So I ran my music thang into the ground & started a zine pretty much at the same time.

Ironically perhaps (after how many bad reviews I/we wrote in said zine), I couldn't handle negative criticism of my tapes. Because I knew they weren't perfect & I didn't feel like I could defend them, or myself. It felt like I was too vulnerable, in all aspects.

It's a bit much for a bunch of f'ing songs, y'know?

So, anyway. "For Free" was written while watching Ashley Judd's early film "Ruby In Paradise." She was hotttt hottt hot hotttt hotttttt. The song probably could've gone on the Star*Pillow pile, but the music was just a tiny bit too serious for that. I still like the song, though & regret not doing more in that style.

Whatever 'that style' is.

It was recorded on thee Tascam 488 with theeee Dr Rhythm on drums. Zoom 9002 effects for everything. Phased guitar, chorused bass, distorted organ patch on the keyboard. Two tracks of vocals that don't make me claw my eyes out when I hear them now. Very not bad.
Labels:

Comments

Darrin said…
Nice tune. I dig it.

And yes, Ashley Judd is a hotttteeeeeeeee!
July 2, 2007 at 12:54 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THESE CHORDS ARE LIKE FAMILY TO ME

Ian C Stewart "These Chords are like Family to Me" MP3 From the 2003 made-to-be-made-not-made-to-be-heard album I Don't Know Why You Think I Won't Kill You .... this is the last song. This was the beginning of my dabbling with intentional randomness in songwriting. The lyrics for the whole album were compiled from albums by other artists that I enjoyed a lot, such as Adrian Belew's Twang Bar King , The Cure's Pornography , Voivod Nothingface , Mercyful Fate Melissa etc. I wrote out entire lines of their phrases and chopped them together. I think at the time I described it as 'sad psychedelic love songs about satan' overall, which is really being too generous. The music was also randomly chosen from tablature found on t'interwebs for favorite songs of mine. In general I played the chords in reverse order to the original songs but I can still kind of tell in a couple of places what the songs were. The titles were my own, obviously. Although I did cho...
3 comments
Read more

EXGIRLFRIEND

SAMARKAND FRENZY WEEK, DAY THREE Samarkand "Exgirlfriend" MP3 This song is from the limited release cassette Sensitive , which was issued in a handpainted edition of 10 in January 1993. Naturally. Sensitive was 60 minutes of almost entirely brand new material, only one or two songs were recycled. It was recorded during what I thought would be my winter break from Berklee in 1992. Of course that turned out to be my permanent break from Berklee in 1992 since the cash had completely run out for my tuition. All the songs were recorded on a borrowed 4-track, possibly Ray's Porta 05. I also had my uncle's massive Carvin PA, Sennheiser mics & Ludwig drums in my basement. All of which feature prominently on this here release, along with the brand new Zoom 9002 effects. Which was an amazing combination at the time, I really felt like the boundaries were down on the equipment end of things for the first time. "Exgirlfriend" is a riff recycled from Domestik Quarrel...
2 comments
Read more

ORACLE JAM

Oracle "Jam" MP3 Skipping ahead to March 1987, probably my next experience jamming with other guys. This time with several chaps who I didn't normally hang out with. We all seemed to like aspects of the same music but our playing styles were pretty far off from each other. Let's see, we played in this guy Dave M.'s basement. Even though we weren't bestest buds or anything, Dave M. was the guy I knew the best out of this session. I don't remember if we even had any classes together, we just both loved talking about playing the guitar. Which was certainly not uncommon at the time. He seemed to be a George Lynch acolyte whereas I still had yet to declare a style of my own. So, to confuse things further, there was a third guy, named Matt, I don't remember his last name. But he was there with his drums. He played drums fairly well though none of us were virtuosos. Matt also played guitar decently. Dave, who primarily played guitar, could hold his own on the...
1 comment
Read more