The Roo Story...continued. From nowhere to now-here.
The ‘lost’ Demos
Now….really new stuff that never saw the light of day. I continued recording for a bit. Got a new Roland Keyboard also, thinking I’d need something else. But then I felt it was too complicated to use, and also I started going out and live life a bit more again and gradually stopped trying to make music. Some of the demos were nearly proper songs, with bits of lyrics as well. Unfortunately, as my 4-track portasound is no longer able to play these, eventually I was only able to get a regular tape player to re-listen to stuff last year, so that’s only hearing 2 tracks out of 4, and some stuff is missing. Also I used this rather shitty player to transfer from tape to USB. That’s why the demos below sometime have a dubious playing speed. I cut a few of the demos as I feel they are not worth anyone’s ears and so below are essentially the ones I think may be worth revisiting and finalising if I have the patience and know-how. These all date back from I don’t know when actually, thought late 2003 but it’s more likely to be later? Can’t remember when that second trip to Bergamo was, might have been some 2004 tracks at least? No idea to be honest.
Small update 3/5/2023. I found back a lot of old notes on these demos, etc. So they were less ‘just recorded music’ than I thought and I also I wrote plenty of lyrics, just not so happy with them (‘and now you are leaving and my Mum is dying’…, so definitely 2004 not 2003) and unlike what I wrote below, Girl from Bergamo was actually titled ‘My Lovely Girl of Bergamo’ and had full lyrics…although, I ‘m not sure I ever matched the lyrics with the music (‘Hair of coal, face like snow, gliding in the night’…’I said ‘Ciao!’, you said ‘Goodbye’). As I am trying to get in the mood for more music now, more settled and after more tidying up while on holidays (but travelling away for a week), I still don’t know about trying brand new stuff or revisiting these demos, but while the notes are a mess, I may have actual technical clues rather than just trying to replicate. In fact it was all quite advanced, considering which guitar to use, plenty of notes of stuff still to do on each song, including ‘invite John for a sesh’…. Also some WERE called New Song 1 New Song 2, etc, but I’m pretty sure the numbers don’t match what’s below as I reorganised things a bit after listening to the tapes. I also see now that I had written down the content of the tapes on the sleeves, so all the listening I did to try and sort out last year/early this year was a bit redundant….On a side note, my Zoom 606 effects pedal has packed it in so I just bought a new one (I had tried and thought it was not the power supply but when using the new one on the old one, it worked, so have two multi-effects now…), more stuff to get familiar with (though I think I’ll might end up giving away the new Korg as the old ER-1 works and should be enough).
Anyway, here they are:
New Song 1, take 1. This song must have been close to finalised. Maybe there were even lyrics, would need to work the Tascam for it. I do like this song though.New Song 1, take 2 (similar). The problem is listening to all these, some versions had some instrument on track 3 or 4 of the multitrack, and others seem to have different bits on these numbers. Never mind the fact that I did copy 4 into 2 to add more tracks as sometimes four seemed insufficient. So the instrumentation is a bit different on that.New Song 1, take 3, with a slight twist. I seem to have so many versions of this song. I had various ideas, and in the end, couldn’t decide with which one to go, probably one of the factors that made me never finalise this one and others. Sometimes you DO need someone’s advice, and I’m my worst enemy when I have too many ideas. So the wah is back (this doesn’t have the acoustics, as I said above, different tracks…), and a different rhythm pattern at some point.
While the ER-1 helped avoiding the rhythm being all over the place, I started experimenting a bit more, and while interesting, I’m not sure it’s giving good results with my music.
Girl From Bergamo (yes this had a title, I didn’t remember it was kind of nearly fully formed though I never truly got anywhere near putting lyrics to that one I think), piano-based due to getting that new keyboard. Title inspired by some girl randomly met on the funicular down from Bergamo Citta Alta after dinner when I was on my way to the hotel. There were only two of us in there, so we naturally struck a conversation (when I think of it now, means I must have been in a pretty happy not too introverted phase!). I remember she wasn’t happy because stuff shut early there and she wanted to be in Spain where everything happens late. We walked all the way to near my hotel before parting ways, felt just like a pleasant if furtive encounter. I find it’s quite expressive without lyrics to be honest, there’s really something expressive about the slowing down and restarting.New Song 7, take 1. The problem on some of these, is the tape player thing distorts the rhythm, this feels too slow compared to the intentions, and it may just be due to that. Some ideas there, definitely one where the singing would have a lot of work to do because the basic music is just pretty simple and repetitive. But I could see this working, as I like the bits with the chords changes.New Song 7, take 2. Think I had a few takes on that one too. Though I’m not sure of the main differences between these two takes, I think the sound is slightly better here?New Song 8. Another one that came from some idea of doing something a bit different, using the ER-1 as catalyst. Very much in demo form, I can’t even play the piano bits properly on that, but the idea really was about the change of rhythm, a quiet verse and mad chorus, probably imagined with brass. I’m sure I got the inspiration from somewhere, and I could imagine also some crazy fast words on the chorus (also the little subtle use of the pitch bend on the keyboard post-chorus first time around to do a little bird song is a nice touch, I thought).New Song 10, another one that’s mostly piano-based at the start, then I just randomly strum the guitar. Fairly symptomatic of me not being focused on doing something coherent with music anymore. I think this one has got legs. I sure do like my piano songs as a pianist originally, and the guitar playing along with it works well I think. Also the rhythm. It’s got something to it. See, there were plenty of ideas to work on, shame I stopped, and now I will have to decide what I feel able to re-use/recreate.New Song 12, this just about may be something to build on, but it’s not that much better than the fully discarded ones. Back to the shit keyboards songs, maybe that was a much older demo actually., that would make sense, my tape labels were not all clear. Very unlikely to re-use that one.Spaced Out. This was just me using a weird pattern on the ER-1 and following a keyboard sound with, no idea how…. A bit of a departure but the kind of creativity that seemed possible. Now you see how I lost focus: two many possibilities, I’ve always been good at seeing them, not so good at choosing.
