WELCOME TO MY STRONGHOLD

Ian C Stewart "Welcome to my Stronghold" MP3

This drum machine/guitar/bass instrumental is the last track on my 2003 album Workweak. I almost called it a 2003 release but I don't know that it was ever 'released' in the sense of being burned onto CDs and mailed around the world as might be expected.

The drum machine is programmed to a mid period Terry Chambers (XTC) vibe. I think I did the guitar first and then tried to follow the riffs on ye olde fretless (ferrrrrrrrtless) bass. It actually comes together pretty well, all things considered. I mean, considering I'm not that big of a fan of The Police or whatever this thing sounds like. The delayed guitar effect is nice here, the whole thing is kind of hollowed out since there are no keyboards or rhythm guitars or um Chapman Sticks.

I have vague recollections of recording this thing in the basement of the condo. It was a lovely spacious finished basement and for once I had all my recording stuff out and plugged in and had more than enough room for everything. All of the guitars, which, I still had a bunch of guitars then, they were all out of their cases at the same time. And I could still stretch out on the floor and watch KISS bootlegs on the tiny TV I had down there. Nice space, nice vibe. This was I guess toward the end of me using all of my old stuff like the Dr Rhythm drum machine (circa 1991) and the Tascam 8-track (circa 1993) all the time. I sold almost everything right after that & got new stuff & sold that & got newer stuff & sold that & got old stuff that's functional but basically worthless, hence it has not been sold.

----------------
Now playing: Ian C Stewart - Welcome to my Stronghold
via FoxyTunes

Comments

Darrin said…

yeah... nice little guitar track. seems like something that would have spoken word over it. the delay helps fill out the space for sure.

October 10, 2007 at 1:57 PM

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...

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.....

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...

Ian C Stewart Archive of Sound

Search This Blog