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Solo Tracks
Over the past year, I have had time to finally make a ten year old dream a reality by recording some instrumental Guitar tunes.
Seemed I was always so busy with gigs with the band that there was never the time along with probably a lack of confidence in my playing as to actually record the songs the way I heard them in my head.
One good thing to all the down time we've had over the past year as we've searched for a new singer is that I have had a lot of time to practice and Woodshed my chops.
The first instrumental track I recorded was "Walking the Blue Line" which was for a Guitar Center contest called Guitarmageddon. I ended up going to the regional finals with that piece and then figured I'd try antother one and they just kept coming from there.
As much freedom as I've always had with RadioKing / Seventh Veil, some of these tunes still wouldn't have fit into our eclectic set list so this has certainly filled a void for me and allowed me to explore the outer regions of my abilty and continue to push to new heights.
Below are some Low kb MP3's of all the tracks with some brief comments about each one.
I hope to have a complete mastered CD of these available soon.
Drop me an e mail and let me know what you think.
Aspen Sky
This one began as a vocal tune but after initially getting shot down by our then vocalist for sounding to 80's, I certainly wasn't going to let what I felt like was a great, catchy pop rock tune go to waste.
The results I am very pleased with and everything fell together really quick on this one.
The solo section at 2:25 has a bit of Eric Johnson flavor.
Walkin' the Blue Line
This is a bluesy rock jam over a Robben Ford style backing track.
This probably comes closest to summing up my primary style in one piece.
Starts out with some Clapton type blues licks into some Paul Gilbert style semi-shred with some nods to Jeff Beck and Hendrix in there too.
Blind
An instrumental version of one of our originals. All the lead guitar tracks performed with a Slide.
Blues for the Cruisers
A fun Boogie Blues number that for some reason reminds me of Eddie and the Cruisers. Hence the title.
Con-Fusion
This piece is my first true attempt at "Fusion".
A definite nod to some of my jazzier heros like Frank Gambale, Robben Ford and Mike Stern.
This type of playing is a world away from your straight up Rock approach and requires a lot of thinking as the scales and note choice options you have change with every chord and measure.
I was able to apply about 10 years worth of study into this one and was more than surprised with how it turned out.
Breaker, Breaker to the Bandit
This is a nod to all of my early country hero's I grew up listening too.
Johnny Cash, Jerry Reed, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and especially my good friend Dale Watson who is keeping real country music alive for my generation.
A real hoot to play.
As simple as this stuff sounds, it's extremly difficult to play authentically which I tried to do. No distortion or rock licks anywhere here. I even did the steel guitar licks and added the phaser effect for even more realism.
10 -4 Good Buddy!
Mo Butta' Flapjack Blues
I am very happy with this one. I tried to play as authentic Texas Style Blues in the style of the Vaughan Brothers and Chris Duarte as possible while resisting the temptation to throw in any flashy or rock type licks. I tweeked the tone for several hours trying to find that Leslie, rotating speaker sound and I used my Tele for added 'snappiness'.
Smokestack Lightnin'
My tribute to my Slide heros, Johnny Winter, Jimmy R, Joe Perry and Eric Sardinas.
Spoonfull of Blues
Another bluesy piece that I tried to work in some "outside" jazzier note chocies in.
The Pump
No secret as to who my main guitar hero is. Jeff Beck.
If you’ve seen the movie ‘Risky Buisness’, you should no doubt remember this song in the classic scene as Tom Cruise backs the Porsche out of the garage for the first time.
This is one of my favorite Beck songs. Funny how that phrase seems to precede any Beck song I am currently talking about but that’s beside the point.
When it came to thinking of covering or re-making one of his songs, it created a major dilemma for me.
In my opinion, they were already so perfect, I felt there was no way I could do it justice and how could I stay in the true spirit of his music if I just copied it note for note since he rarely plays a song the same way twice.
How could I put myself in his frame of mind since he doesn’t have many cliché licks to fall back on that sound like “Beck”?
So, after much thought on the idea, I decided that the best way to remake this song in the spirit of the author was to take it in my own direction by stretching my playing ability as far as possible and not relying on my own cliché licks to fall back on.
Down in Flames
Another instrumental re-make of one of our vocal tunes.
This is one of my favs. All the parts fell into place very easily and I even stumbled onto the cool Thin Lizzy type harmonies at the end by accident.
Held nothing back and put lots of shred in this one. Some nods to George Lynch, Eric Johnson and even Yngwie in here.
