This started life as a vey simple 'disco' bass riff over which I then brought in the chords. Its got a sort of 80s pop/prog thing going on - not surprising as I'd been listening to a lot of Nik Kershaw when I recorded it!
This started life as a vey simple 'disco' bass riff over which I then brought in the chords. Its got a sort of 80s pop/prog thing going on - not surprising as I'd been listening to a lot of Nik Kershaw when I recorded it!
This started life as a vey simple 'disco' bass riff over which I then brought in the chords. Its got a sort of 80s pop/prog thing going on - not surprising as I'd been listening to a lot of Nik Kershaw when I recorded it!
It started off as a shimmery, summery canvas in my head but morphed into something very different from the middle 8 onwards. It was originally done at 100BPM but sounded a bit 'ploddy' and pedestrian so I beefed it up
Thanks @andrew! It took a long time (by my standards) to complete this and I think musically it tracks where my head was at various points in its development!
It started off as a shimmery, summery canvas in my head but morphed into something very different from the middle 8 onwards. It was originally done at 100BPM but sounded a bit 'ploddy' and pedestrian so I beefed it up
Listened to this yesterday, but forgot to comment... working at home, eh?! ... anyways, I was listening to a track on another site just now, and it gave me the same open and fresh air feeling I thought remembered from this. Yep, as I remembered, but then this has some complex emotions too... Cool track.
A straight-ahead rock song with a quirky arrangement change on the second verse. Includes a trippy Pink Floyd-esque middle 8 and a Boyzone rousing key change at the end... You're welcome! 😆
A straight-ahead rock song with a quirky arrangement change on the second verse. Includes a trippy Pink Floyd-esque middle 8 and a Boyzone rousing key change at the end... You're welcome! 😆
A straight-ahead rock song with a quirky arrangement change on the second verse. Includes a trippy Pink Floyd-esque middle 8 and a Boyzone rousing key change at the end... You're welcome! 😆
A straight-ahead rock song with a quirky arrangement change on the second verse. Includes a trippy Pink Floyd-esque middle 8 and a Boyzone rousing key change at the end... You're welcome! 😆
A straight-ahead rock song with a quirky arrangement change on the second verse. Includes a trippy Pink Floyd-esque middle 8 and a Boyzone rousing key change at the end... You're welcome! 😆
Vocals please, coz I know you've got vocals!
Not sure how you're managing to produce so much shininess so consistently - it's bad enough that you made RPM look so easy. Keep them coming!
A straight-ahead rock song with a quirky arrangement change on the second verse. Includes a trippy Pink Floyd-esque middle 8 and a Boyzone rousing key change at the end... You're welcome! 😆
A straight-ahead rock song with a quirky arrangement change on the second verse. Includes a trippy Pink Floyd-esque middle 8 and a Boyzone rousing key change at the end... You're welcome! 😆
Your stuff is making me re-evaluate 70-80s keyboard sounds. At the time I loathed what I regarded as "keyboard heavy" bands. I liked piano and organ, and I was a huge fan of Queen and their earlier "no synthesizers" approach. You're making some cool sounds, though, pleasantly reminding me of stuff that must have seeped into my subconscious like it or not! :)
A straight-ahead rock song with a quirky arrangement change on the second verse. Includes a trippy Pink Floyd-esque middle 8 and a Boyzone rousing key change at the end... You're welcome! 😆
A straight-ahead rock song with a quirky arrangement change on the second verse. Includes a trippy Pink Floyd-esque middle 8 and a Boyzone rousing key change at the end... You're welcome! 😆
The Last Resort would have been too long if this had been included so I did a fade-in to create Part 2... The chords in the verse have a passing resemblance to 'A Few Words For The Dead' by Marillion... I found that out afterwards!
There's…
I hadn't heard the Rainbow connection but on listening again, you're right! As a guitarist, you'd love modern-day Marillion (Steve Rothery is just a master of less is more). Try 'Neverland' from the album 'Marbles'.... sublime playing
The Last Resort would have been too long if this had been included so I did a fade-in to create Part 2... The chords in the verse have a passing resemblance to 'A Few Words For The Dead' by Marillion... I found that out afterwards!
There's…
Yep. Follows on nicely from the first part. And although I disliked the "wall of keyboards" sounds in the 70s (I'm a guitarist after all!), I'm digging those 70s keyboards now. I was never that into Marillion - saw them a couple of times, and they did help eventually open my ears to Genesis etc... On a second listen, the sounds are reminding me of Rainbow from around the same time.
I wrote this last year after an enforced absence from work. I discovered a really nice piano loop that I then chopped around by changing the key and adding some different melodies. This in turn sparked a chord sequence for the chorus and the…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
I've been missing in action for ages - apologies to all, I'm about to start listening again too.
For ages, I'd been considering a move away from my trusty Boss BR1600 on which I've recorded and mixed nearly everything…
With lovely Keith Landry. Unfortunately, the studio I had at the time was on its last legs and the recording is a terrible quality, but I've never been able to get the vocal to sound better. Probably because I'm now over the awful thing* I did…
Written and recorded as part of our family RPM project this year. :-D
13 year old Jasmine on vocals and ukulele.
We wrote and recorded 10 songs under the name Cattica. It was just the best month of lockdown imaginable.
I've disappeared into a total rabbit hole with these 70s/80s synths. This one features the ARP2600 (in several guises), the Jupiter 8, Prophet 5 and the Fairlight (what a machine that was back in the day!)
This started in my head as another…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
I found this one while I was digging through the shoe-box for the 1994 songs. Apparently I wrote it on 10th November 1995.
Foolishly, I thought it would only take a week or so to record... I was originally expecting…
Well... this took a left turn at Odd Street. The main melody started off as riff written and played on bass guitar and the early version had guitars, and real drums etc.... Then I got introduced to a suite of 80s synth plugins and it all went…
Music written and performed by Mike Smith, also known as Dragonsong.
When Mike first asked me to read this poem, he believed it was written around the time of the Spanish Flu...but, our sources say no. It was most likely written by Kitty O…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
And here's another song from 1994, with a sparkling new "Andrew Russe Band" arrangement fresh from the broom-cupboard.
Like most of my songs, it was written with an acoustic guitar, a pen, and an A4 pad. The ones…
Another tune exhumed from the past... 1984 to be precise. A 15 year-old angst-ridden vocalist wrote some words that went something like "Late at night... the shadows... creep across my wall". Happily, the song is musically much stronger than the…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
And this is the last of the little threesome of In Your Hands, Little Thing, and this one, When I Try To Be Me.
It's in the key of 4th fret and was written just over a month later than the other two, on 19th March…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
Now here's a bit of an oldie - the second song I ever wrote. In... 1978!
I think I played it once, or maybe twice, at school assemblies. My musical peers and colleagues back then dismissed it as corny/rancid pop music…
I LOVE this!! It's got everything - super-catchy, some lovely chord changes, great middle eight and a key change at the end. This would have been a huge hit in the 60s!
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
And here is the first reply to In Your Hands.
I say "first" because I've found another one, When I Try To Be Me, that Mrs R says I have to do too... but that's unlikely to be the next one I post because I'm working…
This didn't go as planned... I wrote this song for my wife Nicola while I was away in the UK working in March 2020... I excitedly played it to her from 3,500 miles away over the ether and.... I think she was expecting a ballad rather than a rather…
@andrew - this is pretty much the original but with some radical mixing. The drums sounded like Spector's Wall of Sound' on the original and the balance was all wrong - The piano on the middle 8 now has the dreamy, ethereal feel I wanted too. I would need to write an entirely new song to give her what she expected!!
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
OK, let's delve once more into the magical shoebox of unused songs...
I've already recorded several that were written in 1994 (Sleeping with the Ghost, Elizabeth's Room, With Mum Again, If You Knew, A Hundred and…
(Remastered 22/10/2021)
And here we go - Edith FINALLY gets it...
Actually, she's been getting it ever since I wrote it on the 29th May. I thought it would take a week or so, but it proved to be more of a fight than I was expecting.
On…
My latest composition - It was the first song I worked on in Dubai after curfew was imposed in April but it started life in January in the UK and was called 'Abundance Of Time' and has taken me until now to finish. It's a bit unusual as it has…
And now for something completely different... Right now it's hot.. and I mean 50 degree hot. So I had in my mind's eye a summery, trippy 'under a palm tree' kind of vibe. And I got that... but I got more... much more...
Millions of years ago... Before the dawn of history... I was a in a school band. I couldn't play an instrument then so I was the vocalist. This tune was one of the band's originals.
Now, bear in mind this was the 'Ay-deees' so it was mullets…
Comments on Shed Sounds's stuff
The rollerskating sequence from an 80s movie!
Thanks @Andrew!
Cool track
Thanks @andrew! It took a long time (by my standards) to complete this and I think musically it tracks where my head was at various points in its development!
Listened to this yesterday, but forgot to comment... working at home, eh?! ... anyways, I was listening to a track on another site just now, and it gave me the same open and fresh air feeling I thought remembered from this. Yep, as I remembered, but then this has some complex emotions too... Cool track.
Thanks @Andrew!
Nice one.
Thank you @slkrell!
You did it you grabbed me , oh look who else likes this I am in good company
@Colleen - thank you for your kind words 😊
Thanks @sister! Sadly the amps, mics and the good bass guitars are 3,500 miles away - so the vocals will have to be added when/if I get home!
Awesome!
(Trippy bit is my fave - gorgeous!)
Vocals please, coz I know you've got vocals! Not sure how you're managing to produce so much shininess so consistently - it's bad enough that you made RPM look so easy. Keep them coming!
That’s so kind @andrew! I’m not a keyboard player (Bass is the instrument I started to learn 9 years ago) but synths are so cool to experiment with!
Your stuff is making me re-evaluate 70-80s keyboard sounds. At the time I loathed what I regarded as "keyboard heavy" bands. I liked piano and organ, and I was a huge fan of Queen and their earlier "no synthesizers" approach. You're making some cool sounds, though, pleasantly reminding me of stuff that must have seeped into my subconscious like it or not! :)
@AMUC - thank you! a nod towards the 70s keyboard maestros like Tony Banks and Keith Emerson
I like the synthesizer passages starting right around the 1:30 minute mark. Brings a smile to my face.
I hadn't heard the Rainbow connection but on listening again, you're right! As a guitarist, you'd love modern-day Marillion (Steve Rothery is just a master of less is more). Try 'Neverland' from the album 'Marbles'.... sublime playing
Yep. Follows on nicely from the first part. And although I disliked the "wall of keyboards" sounds in the 70s (I'm a guitarist after all!), I'm digging those 70s keyboards now. I was never that into Marillion - saw them a couple of times, and they did help eventually open my ears to Genesis etc... On a second listen, the sounds are reminding me of Rainbow from around the same time.
Comments made by Shed Sounds
Thank you for you kind comment @tonycee
You've been gone too long! This sounds rich - love the stereo duelling guitars. Great tune and lyrics too
I think the recording has a haunting authenticity to it - it wouldn't sound the same with crispy production. Gorgeous song 🤗
Great job Jasmine! 👏
Absolutely gorgeous!
Thanks @Andrew - Flatwound strings and very meaty Precision pickups of unknown origin!
Oh yes! from the composition, sonic quality, standard of playing and lyrics to the overall positive and catchy tune this one kicks arse!
Thanks @Anton!
This is lovely - echoes of 'Perfect Life' by Steven Wilson 😃
Absolutely top-drawer in terms of composition, performance and sonically 👏
Thanks @Andrew... To be fair, they're probably the highlight of it, lyrically speaking!
Love that unexpected chord change in the middle eight - Great work!
I LOVE this!! It's got everything - super-catchy, some lovely chord changes, great middle eight and a key change at the end. This would have been a huge hit in the 60s!
Great work! I can hear the Tull influence but also reminiscent of Gordon Lightfoot... If you remember him?!
@andrew - this is pretty much the original but with some radical mixing. The drums sounded like Spector's Wall of Sound' on the original and the balance was all wrong - The piano on the middle 8 now has the dreamy, ethereal feel I wanted too. I would need to write an entirely new song to give her what she expected!!
It was definitely worth perservering with - love the melancholic vibe
Wow! Fantastic work - Loving the bass work 👏
Thanks @andrew! The first sign of it is at 21 seconds... and again at 1.45
@andrew - Can I raise a practical question? Are we playing Stonehenge tomorrow?
Thanks @AMUC 🤗