Skip to main content

GARDEN SCENE





Ian C Stewart "Garden Scene" MP3

It seems like all I do here is bellyache and berate myself for all the missed opportunities and lapses in quality control I've slackered myself into.. I guess there are very few things I've ever recorded that I consider unqualified successes. "Garden Scene" is one of them.

This piece was recorded in 1995, one of the last things I did before firing up the AUTOreverse mechanism. I was in the zone just before I packed up the studio stuff for good. It wasn't for good, obviously, but that's sort of the effect it had on me at the time.

The song is a total, unashamed ripoff of all things Cocteau Twins and 1980s. Everything is reverbed to helen back. The drum machine is dialed in on that 4AD setting. The keyboard was probably my big Casio which was my workhorse for this song and most of the of the stuff on the Samarkand 'smooth jazz' (not really) album Pitch Wheel.

I don't need to make excuses for any aspect of this song, one of the very few I can say that about. Now it just needs some sexy female singing and it'll be complete.

This CD dates back to the early days of burning your own discs and printing your own labels. Back when I could still get excited about making unique things for other people to hopefully enjoy. This particular disc was made for a bro in England who claimed that he'd put vocals to anything I sent him. So I excitedly sent him a big batch of my beloved instrumentals and promptly never heard back from him.
Labels:

Comments

Darrin said…
yeah... this song is sweet. reminds me of something you would see some 80's movie of some love sick kids walking on the beach or... erm.. through a garden. :-P

Vinnie Vincent rules!!! Bring back the pink double V!!!
September 26, 2007 at 7:15 AM
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

Until 91

Ian C Stewart "Until 91" MP3 Even though I had a girlfriend, I wrote the occasional song about other girls. "Until 91" was one such thing. It was recorded on my brand new Tascam Porta 05 4-track. That thing was my pride & joy. I used it more or less constantly until it gave up the ghost in 1992. "Until 91" adheres to the strict 4 tracks/no overdubs idea, maybe I hadn't learned how to overdub by that point. My first Casio keyboard supplied the drums. It was a PT-something. Uhhhh, clean guitar = Jaguar. Fretless bass = Michael's black Ibanez, last seen onstage with Raymond & Devilcake in 1992. I'm not sure where the funky folky vibe comes from. Satan? You came into my life bringing mucho confusion I didn't know if you were real or just an illusion I thought I was happy as I screamed in pain You turned around and left as you came me drumming with XYCHQ!?, January 1989 This was my first gig playing drums. It was horrible, I was horrible...
2 comments
Read more

ACCOUNTABILITY

Ian C Stewart "Accountability" MP3 Hah, remember those Maxell Capsule tapes? Nice. This mixdown album.... laughingly titled Mama .... which came from one of the XTC live-on-radio 1989 acoustic recordings. At the very very end of one of the songs, Andy Partridge sang "mama," for no apparent reason. Maybe he was trying to tack on a Led Zeppelin-esque effect. Whatever, it was funny as hell at the time & I made it my goal to finish every song on this tape the same way.... anyway, this album features an early appearance by the Boss DR-550 drum machine that I got in August 1991. Mama was the first or second batch of recordings. That's also the time just after Evil Bread disbanded. I answered a Drummer Wanted flier & jammed a few times with a nice but directionless trio of older musicians. The guitarist left all his gear at my place, as was the custom at the time. So between jam sessions I spent hours (no, really) upon hours experimenting with his e-bow (well.....
1 comment
Read more