datamusicata

A great day yesterday, we arranged and recorded basic guitars for four more songs.

We started with Touch Me, which we figured was going to be a challenge to turn into an acoustic tune, but Cliff zero’d in on a spin on it and away we went. 

It is amazing how much fun it is to rearrange these tunes.   Cliff and I start playing and then something clicks and we have an entre into the song.   We then seem to get onto some kind of telepathic thing and just go to the same place and even end the song together without even looking at each other.  Fun stuff.

With Touch Me, we wanted to begin the singing with that beautiful bridge that they wrote and we wanted to make the song less of a rocker and more of a love song—cause that’s the kind of guys we are, dammit.

We then tackled an idea of mine that had been simmering for a while.   I love Dave Brubeck (www.davebrubeck.com) and his Time Out and Time Further Out in particular.   Brubeck came to fame playing in the more rare time signatures of 5/4 and 7/4.

Most popular music is in 4/4, meaning four beats to a measure and the beats are quarter notes.    I’ll write a column about this later because it is fascinating, but in the meantime, I put Take It As It Comes in 5/4 and it grooves, let me tell you.

Then on to a slow snaky version of Moolight Drive, which was the first song that Jim Morrison sang to Ray Manzarek before the Doors were even formed.

We broke for dinner and came back to work on Crystal Ship, which is one beautiful song.   We played it as I remember the chords, but we took another break to watch the PBS special on the Doors.

That song was in the special and I realized that we were using some different chords—what are you going to do?

Amazingly enough, with one exception, every song they chose for the special is one we chose for our recording.

I think we’re plugged into something here.    Tomorrow tweaking and vocals.  Woo woo.