I whipped this little instrumental up one day in early 2000. In my head I thought I came up with a masterpiece like Eddie Van Halen’s “Respect The Wind”, but it didn’t quite come out that way. Instead, it’s a spacey sounding piece that I find quite soothing.
I used my Kramer Pacer Deluxe American, Zoom effects processor, Ovation electric/acoustic, and Marshall VS265 amp.
Here is an original song that I wrote in 1995. Having been influenced by Dream Theater for 3 years at this point, my own music started to take on a more progressive feel… more complicated chord progressions, more intricate drum tracks, and I was breaking away from the old “verse, chorus, verse chorus, solo, chorus, fade out” paradigm of songs I grew up with.
While the guitars and vocals were performed by myself, my friend Mike Fermer played the keyboards and programmed the drum tracks. Yes, that is a drum machine. Mike is amazing at programming drum tracks!
Another thing to note: I was much more of a guitarist at this time of my life than a vocalist, so… 😛
Vocals recorded with my Shure SM-58 mic. I was playing my 1988 Charvel Model 3 strat guitar through a portable Zoom effects processor. The keyboard is an Ensoniq SQ-1.
I wrote this song for my uncle Wayne in 1995 after hearing that he had taken his own life. The words and music flowed through me that night, as if he was telling me to sing this song to let everyone know he was in a better place now and at peace.
That’s me at age 2 in the photo above, with my first guitar.
Sometimes I write sad songs when I’m thinking about a lost loved one. This song, “Lately” was written and recorded in 1999 about a girl (of course).
Writing out and singing my emotions is incredibly therapeutic.
Vocals recorded with my Shure SM-58 mic, played with my Ovation acoustic that had a very “thin” sound.
I recorded this in 2 tracks: 1st take was playing the rhythm guitar and singing simultaneously; 2nd take was the added guitar licks/lead.
I got a wild hair up my butt one night in 2003 and actually thought that if I found a midi track of the drums, bass, and keyboards for “Tom Sawyer” by Rush, that I could do a decent cover of it with my guitar and vocals.
Well, I found the midi file I needed. My guitars were very raw and my tone sounded like I was plugged directly into a mixing board, but I think I did a decent job on the vocals. I mean, how close can YOU get to sounding like Geddy Lee?? 😉
Vocals recorded with my Shure SM-58 mic, I used my 1998 Jackson Dinky Reverse strat guitar through my Digitech GNX4 effects board.