Bad planning. Here we are, two days left to the Song Fu deadline, and I’m away all week with work. South of the border with half a song. Over the weekend I worked out the music and lyrics, ably assisted by my lovely wife. I laid down drum, bass and guitar tracks, but a...
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I’ve just finished off the first of the three songs that have been worked on for the last week or so, ‘The Winning Smile’. I ended up taking out all the midi tracks and keeping everything analogue – vocals, guitar, ukulele and the Crumar Performer string section – it sounds totally different to the...
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In preparation for finally getting this album out, I’ve given The Lunacy Board website a bit of a makeover. It’s not quite as haphazard as it once was, and should be a bit easier to find your way about. No update on finished base tracks, as I ended up working on three at once,...
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Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, those of you too tight to buy tickets, those too distant to travel, those too drunk to care and everybody else can now see The Lunacy Board’s performance last week from the comfort of home.
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It was a night of mixed emotions, stress, compromises and arguments, but above all a night of music in various guises… It’s been a while since I last drove around Glasgow and numerous new one way streets (as well as unexpected roadworks en route) meant that I didn’t arrive as early at the Classic...
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This gig forms the grande finale of the theremin shindig I mentioned a while ago. I’ll be part of the ‘UK League of Thereminists’ playing a few structured improvised pieces as part of a ‘theremin orchestra’. There are a number of very good thereminists going to be attending, so well worth the money if...
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Something I’ve never come across before for some reason is Captain Beefheart’s “10 Commandments for Guitarists”. I found this at the ever-informative Music Thing, though it appears on a few sites around the web. The annotations in italics are mine. LISTEN TO THE BIRDS That’s where all the music comes from. Birds know everything...
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At last, I finally got around to finishing the new yobstick. It’s quite a departure from previous efforts – lots of natural wood and more emphasis on playability instead of durability. I’ve only played it for a short time tonight, but it feels great and sounds lovely (far better than a stick with a...
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One of Zappa’s favourite tricks around the “Joe’s Garage” era and beyond was the practice he called “xenochrony” or “strange synchronisation”. This involved him taking a piece of music (often a studio backing track) and overdubbing it with a totally unrelated (usually a live guitar solo) track from a completely different song. After some...
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Happy New Year! The Lunacy Board have now officially launched, with our first track “The Unofficial National Anthem” being available for download from our website at www.lunacyboard.com. The song is an unusually upbeat number featuring a fairly standard rock base (drums, bass, guitars), layered vocals, a little theremin and a spot of organ. It...
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