This one’s for Stan.

Audio file: (Wish-You-Were-Here.mp3)

I got a bit carried away with the overdubs but it was fun. I got most of the parts in a couple of takes – except the last two lines of the second verse. I sang the second verse about 20 times before I realized that I had played the wrong chord at the end. After I re-recorded the guitar part, it was easy.

I didn’t know the solo part in the middle so I made shit up. I fired the drummer.

I have a very special memory. One that I have not thought about for years but it came to me today in the middle of Saving Private Ryan. I don’t think I’ve shared it before.

In my solitude, you haunt me

A long time ago, I had a girlfriend and I used to sing to her. At that period of my life, I was entirely entranced by Billie Holiday and my most favourite song was Solitude and my girlfriend used to ask me to sing it to her. I sang it over and over.

With reveries of days gone by.

Eventually we broke up and she moved out and went her own way but a few months later she called me out of the blue and said she was afraid and asked if she could come stay with me for a few days.

In my solitude, you taunt me

She was having headaches and problems with her memory. We took her to the doctor who sent her to the hospital where they told us she had a brain tumour. It was inoperable but they might be able to treat it with radio-therapy.

With memories that never die.

The treatment didn’t work out and her memory and her headaches got worse and eventually she slipped into unconsciousness.

I sit in my chair

And, filled with despair,

Her parents flew over from Malta and came to stay with me in my little apartment and, one by one, her friends and relatives from all over the world came to join us sitting by Rita’s bedside.

There’s no one can be so sad.

We sat by her bed for days and weeks and months and, every now and again, she would drift back into our life and say a few words before drifting back into the twilight. One day she slept and didn’t wake up again.

With gloom everywhere,

I sit and I stare.

I used to sing to her while she slept her deep sleep – especially when we were alone, just Rita and I. One day, one last time, she spoke to me.

“What’s that song? I know that song.”

“It’s Solitude by Billie Holiday.”

“It’s a beautiful song. My boyfriend used to sing it to me.”

Then she went back to sleep. She didn’t wake up any more.

I know that I’ll soon go mad.

In my Solitude.

I promised that I’d never forget you, Rita. I kept my promise.

I’m praying,

Dear Lord above,

Send back my love.

I’m not really sure why they call him Slowhand. My hands were much slower than his. I gave up trying to copy the last two measures of the solo and just made something up.

Audio file: (sunshine-of-your-love.mp3)

I thought it’d be at least easy to sing. Turns out… not so much.

Well, I made it through the first 100 and the most striking thing about the list is that they sure like those greatest hits albums at Rolling Stone… and the Beatles. Although, oddly, they didn’t include any Beatles Greatest Hits albums.

By including a greatest hits album, they are basically saying – well, this guy didn’t really have any good albums but we like him…so…here are his greatest hits anyway.

Get rid of all the greatest hits, about half of The Beatles’ albums and all the oddball ones (I am looking at you Captain Beefheart) that they threw in to see if we were paying attention and you’d have a good list of about 40 albums that you really should go back and listen to someday. Maybe tomorrow.

Only four hundred to go.

UPDATE

I pruned the list down for you. I nuked all the greatest hits and oddballs and got rid of some Beatles. 40 fantastic albums remain and here they are. I left them in the original order that Rolling Stone had them.

1. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
4. Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan
6. What’s Going On, Marvin Gaye
9. Blonde on Blonde, Bob Dylan
10. The Beatles (“The White Album”), The Beatles
11. The Sun Sessions, Elvis Presley
12. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis
15. Are You Experienced?, The Jimi Hendrix Experience
17. Nevermind, Nirvana
18. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
22. Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon
23. Innervisions, Stevie Wonder
25. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac
26. The Joshua Tree, U2
28. Who’s Next, The Who
29. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin
32. Let It Bleed, The Rolling Stones
37. Hotel California, The Eagles
41. Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, The Sex Pistols
42. The Doors, The Doors
43. The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd
51. Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon and Garfunkel
57. Beggars Banquet, The Rolling Stones
65. Moondance, Van Morrison
66. Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin
68. Off the Wall, Michael Jackson
71. After the Gold Rush, Neil Young
72. Purple Rain, Prince
73. Back in Black, AC/DC
74. Otis Blue, Otis Redding
79. Star Time, James Brown
83. I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You, Aretha Franklin
87. The Wall, Pink Floyd
88. At Folsom Prison, Johnny Cash
91. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Elton John
93. Sign ‘o’ the Times, Prince
97. The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan
98. This Year’s Model, Elvis Costello
99. There’s a Riot Goin’ On, Sly and the Family Stone
100. In the Wee Small Hours, Frank Sinatra

Audio file: (albatross.mp3)

It still needs some work but it’s a pretty good first try even if I say so myself.

It cost me an E string and the skin off the top off my ring finger but I am done.

Audio file: (while-my-guitar-gently-weeps.mp3)

Recording Notes

Making music is hard.

I started with the drum track this time and it made everything so much easier. The rhythm guitar was fun even though you can’t really hear it over all the other tracks. I finished everything except the guitar solo in one day but it was another week before I could get back to it. Most of the drumming is me but I threw in a drum loop for the first verse just to see how it sounds. If I had picked a slightly faster tempo, I would have had a ton more loops to choose from. Oh well.

I played the piano part on the mac keyboard. I could’ve re-recorded it on a real piano when my midi cable arrived but I was too lazy. I did record the bass on the piano though. Can you believe I had my piano for 20 years before I got a midi cable? I thought so.

In that extra week, I had got much, much better at the lead and could play it through in one take and it was tempting to go back and re-record it but I was impatient to get to the solo.

Man, was that solo hard! I had to cheat a little. I recorded most of it in one go but had to go back and overdub the last bit because my fingers are too slow.

I got bored following the tab for the final solo so I ad-libbed a bit. I broke a string string bending to get that top A which is why it sounds a bit flat at the end – I was scared I would break it again!

I re-recorded the vocals too and was joined in a duet by guest vocalist, Mrs Clown. She was the photographer for the album art too!

Most fun song yet! On to the next one! It will involve dark desert highways.

Hmmm. This one needs more work…

Audio file: (guitar-weeps.mp3)

UPDATE

Some recording notes.

As always, I did not set out to record a track. I was trying to work on the guitar lead but it’s hard to play the lead without backing. It’s handy to lay down the rhythm Garage Band and then play the lead over it. It took me a few takes to get the lead right.

I played as far as I know – just the first verse – and then decided to try singing the vocals using the mic from Guitar Hero. The first time I started out too high and it sounded crap so I tried again singing low. That sounded even worse, so I tried high again.

I always end up doing the drums last – which is stupid because by then I have already messed up the timing. If I ever set out actually record something, remind me to do the drums first. I tried doing Ringo’s dun-ker-chhhhhhhh-tuk rhythm but the drum kit did not have a chhhhhh sound so I did the best I could with the tools available.

Four tracks so far.

At this point,I was gonna call it done and upload it to my blog but it sounded really stupid with no intro so I started a new track to play McCartney’s piano intro. I haven’t hooked my midi keyboard up to the Mac yet (no cable) so I tried to play it on the screen keyboard. I couldn’t figure out how to make it play an octave so I decided to play it on guitar instead. My poor little fingers can’t quite stretch to an octave which is why the intro sounds so tinny.

You can’t have just guitar-playing-a-piano-solo so I added drums and rhythm guitar and played Clapton’s little intro lick. So that’s an extra four tracks for the intro.

I couldn’t make up my mind whether to junk the whole thing or finish it. But, since all I really set out to do was learn to play Clapton’s lead for the first verse (which I did), I decided I was content with that even though I came in a little late on that first lick.

I figure a couple more weeks and I’ll be able to play the whole thing.

Garage Band is great when you have no one to practice with but it’s easy to get distracted and start adding all the extra tracks.

One problem I have is that when I export the track to MP3 all the levels get messed up and it sounds kinda hollow. Anyone know what’s up with that?

The third post in which I blog my reactions as I plough through Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

This was the first section where I was listening to most of the albums for the first time and I had an intense reaction to every one of them.

OK. Except Robert Johnson. I mean, I love the blues. The blues wouldn’t have been possible without Robert Johnson. And then we wouldn’t have had Clapton or Page or The Rolling Stones. But it’s like looking at a Daguerreotype. OK. It’s really cool to see what Paris looked like in 1838, but people take much better pictures these days. Just take a look at one of Roongko’s.

I always liked Chuck Berry – even after My Ding a-Ling – and I am happy to concede that he – not Elvis or Bill Haley – invented Rock ‘n’ Roll. But he never really grabbed me the way some of the other pioneers did. He did write some good music though. Why a greatest hits album? Did he not release any decent albums? *shrug*

Rolling Stone says

In the latter half of the fifties, guitarist, singer and songwriter extraordinaire Berry released a string of singles that defined the sound and spirit of rock & roll. “Maybellene,” a fast, countryish rocker about a race between a Ford and a Cadillac, kicked it all off in 1955, and one classic hit followed another…

How did this one escape me? I guess I had my John Lennon’s Greatest Hits and I thought I was done. Didn’t need to hear any more.

But this one is greater.

I remember coming across Working Class Hero in the soundtrack of the monumental The Leaving of Liverpool and rushing to the internet to find out who it was by. But then I remembered that the internet had not been *invented yet so I rushed back in time to catch the credits and saw that Holy Crap! It’s John Lennon. It has been my favourite John Lennon song ever since. Imagine.

My much younger step-sister was really into U2 when they first made their appearance and she used to play them all the time but this was the first time I sat down and listened to The Joshua Tree. I have other U2 albums but not this one. Odd. Because this is certainly the best.

Rolling Stone says

On U2′s fifth full album, the band immerses itself in the mythology of the United States, particularly the wide-open spaces and possibilities of the Western frontier, while guitarist the Edge exploits the poetic echo of digital delay, drowning his trademark arpeggios in rippling tremolo.

I am ashamed to say that I had never heard Led Zeppelin I either. I know all the songs of course but the actual album managed to avoid me for all these years. I’m wondering now whether this album should actually be up there at the top instead of Sgt Pepper. It’s crazy good – and I’m not even a Led Zep fan.

Rolling Stone says

On their first album, Led Zeppelin were still in the process of inventing their own sound, moving on from the heavy rave-up blueprint of guitarist Jimmy Page’s previous band, the Yardbirds. But from the very beginning, Zeppelin had the astonishing fusion of Page’s lyrical guitar playing and Robert Plant’s paint-peeling love-hound yowl.

Wait! Blue?… Not Clouds?

I have Clouds. It’s quite marvellous but Blue? Isn’t that the one she made when she was already a has-been?

OK. OK. I’ll listen…

…OMG! That is the most incredible album I have heard in years and years. It won’t be to everyone’s taste – maybe not even to mine (and certainly not to my wife’s). But at least give it a listen and marvel at what Joni has created.

Rolling Stone says

With song after song of regrets and sorrow and a smoky-blue cover shot of Mitchell on the edge of tears, this may be the ultimate breakup album. Its whispery minimalism is also Mitchell’s greatest musical achievement.

Expeditions like this are what music subscriptions are for and what you people who still buy their music don’t seem to get. You probably wouldn’t want to run out and buy Blue and, if you did, you’d probably only listen to it once. But with Rhapsody or Napster – for five bucks a month – you can listen to any crazy album that takes your fancy [as long as it is not by the Beatles or Led Zep or the Eagles or AC/DC -ed].

All in all, this has been the most exciting section of the journey so far. Who knew that Stevie Wonder was this good? Or James Brown? Amazing stuff. I am looking forward to the next section.

21. The Great Twenty-Eight, Chuck Berry

22. Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon

23. Innervisions, Stevie Wonder

24. Live at the Apollo (1963), James Brown

25. Rumours, Fleetwood Mac

26. The Joshua Tree, U2

27. King of the Delta Blues Singers, Vol. 1, Robert Johnson

28. Who’s Next, The Who

29. Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin

30. Blue, Joni Mitchell

* Yeah, yeah. I know the difference between the internet and the world wide web but that wouldn’t have been so funny, would it?

The next ten albums in my quest to listen to 500 Greatest – according to Rolling Stone – Albums of All Time. It’s handy, on a quest like this, to have access to all the music in the world. Imagine if you had to buy them all on iTunes at 99c a track. It’d be even handier if The Beatles albums were available on Rhapsody which is kind of important when THERE ARE 5 BEATLES ALBUMS in the top 14!

OMG Elvis at #11.

Elvis is kind of unfashionable right now – especially in America. People still have this image of a fat greaser in a sequined jumpsuit but that is totally unfair. It’s like remembering Frank Sinatra as an old man or Marlon Brando as an obnoxious tub of lard.

Frank Sinatra will always be a super-cool young crooner with a voice from heaven. Marlon Brando will always be Fletcher Christian casting Captain Bligh into the long boat and Elvis will always be the nineteen year old trucker who walked into Sam Phillips’s studio and changed music forever.

I got my first Elvis album for Christmas in 1972 and hearing his voice still gives me chills.

Rolling Stone says:

Many believe Rock & Roll was born on July 5th, 1954, at Sun Studios in Memphis. Elvis Presley, guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black were horsing around with “That’s All Right,” a tune by bluesman Arthur Crudup, when producer Sam Phillips stopped them and asked, “What are you doing?” “We don’t know,” they said. Phillips told them to “back up and do it again.”

I came to Miles Davis late in life. I always liked jazz but Miles Davis never grabbed me – until I sat down and listened to A Kind of Blue. I could put this on a loop and never get bored with it.

I used to think that Hendrix was the greatest guitar player ever, But, now that I am learning to play the guitar, I am starting to doubt that he was a guitar player at all because there is no way that those sounds could come out of the same instrument that I strum away at every night. I think he was some kind of magician.

Rolling Stone says

This is what Britain sounded like in late 1966 and early 1967: ablaze with rainbow blues, orchestral guitar feedback and the highly personal cosmic vision of black American emigre Jimi Hendrix.

I bought Nevermind a long time ago but, after one listen, decided it was too heavy for my taste and didn’t play it for another ten years. Now I can’t get enough of it. I blame Guitar Hero.

Rolling Stone says

his slashing riffs, corrosive singing and deviously oblique writing, rammed home by the Pixies-via-Zeppelin might of bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl, put the warrior purity back in rock & roll. Lyrically, Cobain raged in code — shorthand grenades of inner tumult and self-loathing. His genius, though, in songs such as “Lithium,” “Breed” and “Teen Spirit” was the soft-loud tension he created between verse and chorus, restraint and assault.

I hated Michael Jackson in 1983 but my girlfriend of the time couldn’t get enough of him. She played Thriller back to back, hour after hour, over and over, every night of every weekend for nearly three years. When I listen to it now, the only song that strikes me as really great is Billie Jean but, like it or not, it’s a part of my life.

Rolling Stone says

It is hard now to separate the wonder of Thriller from its commercial stature (Number One for thirty-seven weeks, seven Top Ten singles, eight Grammys) and Jackson’s current nightmare of tabloid celebrity and self-destructive egomania. But there was a time when he was truly the King of Pop. This is it.

Except for The Velvet Underground (did they throw these outliers in to see if we are paying attention?), the rest of the top 20 is kind of obvious although I might’ve picked a different Van Morrison album.

11. The Sun Sessions, Elvis Presley

12. Kind of Blue, Miles Davis

13. Velvet Underground and Nico, The Velvet Underground

14. Abbey Road, The Beatles

15. Are You Experienced?, The Jimi Hendrix Experience

16. Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan

17. Nevermind, Nirvana

18. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen

19. Astral Weeks, Van Morrison

20. Thriller, Michael Jackson