In 2011, Peter Falconer - musician, songwriter and lazy bastard - will be writing and recording a song a week for the whole year to raise money for Parkinson's UK!
The song's about a dame who ain't no good, no-how, and I was hoping to put together some sort of femme fatale montage, but I don't have time - so instead you've got a photo of Kim Novak. That'll do, right?
Second song to be recorded today, and I'm shattered. Just need to get as many done as I can before succumbing to this cold and/or going up North. No more time today, and tomorrow's stuffed, but hopefully I'll get one one more done by Friday night.
Tick tock tick tock tick tock...
In the meantime, enjoy this one - and don't forget to donate at either http://www.justgiving.com/songaweek or by texting "SONG52" plus "£amount" to 70070!
Here's Light To Darkness, a song which has proven an absolute nightmare to record - like so many other tracks this year, I had the song ready to go for what seemed like ages but couldn't get ten minutes together to record the vocals! And when I finally did, my computer had a hissy fit and recorded the whole lot with all sorts of digital glitches, so I had to re-do the lot today. But it's done!
Most songs you'll hear on the wireless can be split into three components - the verse; the chorus; and another bit. Here I've done two different bits, and tried to create a third by sticking the two together. Does it work? Or is it a mess? Who cares - it's another song down. Nine to go, and there's something else as well:
WE'VE DONE IT! Yes, folks, we've passed the £1,000 mark!
AAAADRIAAAAAANNNN!!!
I'm over the moon, particularly considering the original target was £250! Thanks to everybody who's donated, and everybody who's helped me out by telling your friends and colleagues, Tweeting and Facebooking. The people at Parkinson's UK are delighted, and on a personal level I can't quite belive I'm still going!
Now I know I've had a panic on lately over getting the songs finished, but you've kept your end of the bargain, so I'm now doubly determined to get the last nine done. Song 52 will be online on New Year's Eve!
Great fun at the Guildford Tup last night, listening to some cracking performers and meeting some lovely people. The set included plenty from the Song A Week repertoire, as well as a dust-off of Work To Do and a totally off-the-cuff rendering (if that's the word) of Bohemian Rhapsody!
What's wrong with Brian's face?!
Particular thanks to John Siely, who has challenged me to write a song with a particular title - come down to the open mic at the same place on 21st September to hear the result!
Also, hallo to Michael the Magpie from Apex Corner McDonald's!
Plenty of parking at the Sainsbury's across the road (at least there was last time), and the station (National Rail and Northern Line Tube) is just around the corner.
The night also features Big Mamma's Door (excellent blues band) and Anna Phoebe (classic rock electric violinist. Yes!)
This is my favourite venue in the capital, with the best sound and a great atmosphere. The gig will also be streamed live on the internet at http://www.justin.tv/thebedfordlive
We'll be on pretty late (somewhere between half nine and ten, I reckon), but get down early to see the rest of the acts, too.
And in the meantime, I've got the next three songs all on the boil at the moment. It's a busy few days/weeks/months ahead, but I'm confident about catching up and getting these songs done and dusted.
If you're new to the site, check out the "Why Parkinson's" page, and have a flick through the songs (the "Just The Songs" page might be most useful there), and please, please, please donate some money to Parkinson's UK. I'm not doing this for the good of my health, you know!
It'sParkinson's Awareness Week! Every hour, somebody in the UK is diagnosed with this condition, which can affect anybody - regardless of their race, gender, income, education, sexual preference, dietary habits or musical taste. Parkinson's UK is working towards finding cures and prophylactic measures, as well as improving the lives of people currently suffering with the condition.
There are loads of people up and down the country doing things this week to raise money for Parkinson's UK, so if you know someone who's running a marathon, holding a fête, or shaving their head, please get along and show them some support. And if you don't know anybody, there's always me! Please please please, donate by clicking on the JustGiving widget in the top right there, or visiting justgiving.com/songaweek.
Thanks to all of you for your support so far! Stay tuned for Song 14!
That's right, folks - simply enter your email address in that box on the right, and blog updates will be sent straight to your inbox!
If you haven't already seen, all the songs are posted just by themselves on the "Just The Songs" page, so you don't have to wade through all the blog posts to listen to them. Thinking about doing a one-off fundraising gig at the beginning of 2012, playing the most popular 20 (or thereabouts) tracks from the SAW2011 project, so I'm keeping tabs on which ones are going down well, and your feedback on the tracks is much needed.
Remember - all of this is in aid of Parkinson's UK, and if we're going to hit that target, I need you to help me spread the word about this site!
To help you, here's a bit of html for you - just copy and paste the following into an email or a blog post, and send it to as many people as you can!
<a href="songaweek2011.blogspot.com">Writing A Song A Week in 2011 for Parkinson's UK!</a>
Thanks for your help, folks! And if any of you are around tonight (Thursday 31st March), some of the band and I are playing an impromptu set at the Slug & Lettuce, Guildford.
Just in the nick of, once again, here's the latest:
YOU KNOW THE DRILL! Give a few pence to Parkinson's UK at justgiving.com/songaweek or by clicking on the widget on the top right!
I always tell my students, if they need to make excuses for why a particular recording was below par, they shouldn't publish it- they should keep working at it until it's right and then publish. Unfortunately, the weekly deadline has forced my hand, and so I've had to put this up despite my snot-infused sinuses! Not that I'm making excuses or anything...!
This song started with the title, Let Me In. Then the four main clav chords, which were originally in C, but then I realised that Song 10 was also in C, so I dropped it down to B flat. Next came the second set of chords and the melody line for the title. After that were the drums (wanted a breakbeat type affair, and I ended up stripping a lot of the original beats out to thin the sound out at the beginning and give the track more dynamic), and the bass.
Had fun with the production on this. The slide down on the bass is actually me making that noise and recording it with an SM58 stuck up hard against my throat! The string sound's been put through noise gates and limiters, then time stretched and compressed to break the sound up a bit. The sampled beat at the beginning was a lot mushier, so I attacked that with a noise gate and limiter. Put the clav through a pitch-shifter, tremolo and bit crusher in the "up" sections and the outro, too. What I'm trying to say is I wanted to mess the sounds up a bit to try and make them sound a little less like off-the-hook sounds, even if that meant they didn't sound particularly pretty! Check out some of Dave Stewart's productions for this. The sax sound in Thorn In My Side, for example - horrible, but it doesn't sound like any other sax that's ever been recorded, either; so it sticks in your head. And it's in addition to a great song, rather than just an annoying noise that's been put in to detract from weak songwriting.
I find starting with a title helps, sometimes, to give my songwriting - and especially the lyric - some structure, rather than just aimlessly shouting words at the monitor in the hope that somehow they'll fit. It doesn't matter if the title means anything or has any particular connotations - it's just a hook to hang things on. I've written a lot of songs like this, and the practice came from the need to save new songs with a name when opening them in Cubase (I now use Logic). I'd give the new, unstarted song an arbitraryname, and then when it came to writing the lyric, sometimes that title word/phrase would find its way into the song; sometimes it wouldn't.
I'll write more about this sort of thing another time. Right now, I want you all to donate, pass the link to the blog around to your friends, re-tweet this post, and do everything you can to help me generate interest in Song A Week 2011 so we can hit this £1,000 target!
And now, PLEASE donate a few bob to Parkinson's UK by clicking on the widget in the top right, or visiting justgiving.com/songaweek.
BEFORE I TALK ABOUT THE SONG, I'd like to say a massive thank you to everybody who came along to the Water Rats gig on the 9th. It was a great success on the night, but I need you all to do me a favour and, as Batman once said, TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT ME! If we're going to reach this £1,000 target, we're going to need all hands on deck.
Now, the song. This one was written and largely recorded in the early hours of this morning after eating a large takeaway in front of a documentary about Harry Nilsson.
Nilsson is one of my biggest influences as a singer and songwriter. When he was in his prime, his voice was just beyond compare; and his best songs wouldn't have disgraced Lennon & McCartney. Even if you've not heard of him, you'll have heard him - "Can't live, if living is without you..."; "Everybody's talkin' at me. I don't hear a word they're sayin..."; "One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do..."; "You put de lime in de coconut you drink em both up..." and so on and on. For the uninitiated, I recommend you check out the albums Nilsson Schmilsson and Harry. The former was the biggie that made him a star, beautifully produced by Richard Perry; the latter is a slightly earlier album that sounds like what music might have sounded like had Rock n Roll not come along - it's one of my 5 favourite records, and if you don't absolutely adore at least one track on there, you simply have no heart.
He was a flawed man, bent for whatever reason on sabotaging his own career, and could be a bit of a bastard when he wanted to be... but he was also capable of this.
Just had the last rehearsal with the band before Wednesday's gig, and I'm over the moon. Final details are as follows:
Monto Water Rats
328 Gray's Inn Rd (2 mins' walk from King's Cross Station) MAP
Get your name to me, and arrive at the venue before 7.45, and it's £6 entry
£8 for the rest of you
We'll be on at 8.15, all being well!
Other acts: Anita Maj - feisty rock minx Decline and Fall - edgy Stooges-type rock Gecko - they do a song called Pigeon, so they're alright in my book The Red Suns - epic; a bit like Joy Division with a big reverb unit
and the headline act, The Rock Of Travolta - Radiohead/Muse fans walk this way...
I've also been working on Song Number 9, which should hit the internet tomorrow or Tuesday. Harmonica debut on this one, too.
AS EVER, please spread this site around. Something like this would do:
"Dear BFF - there's this bloke, right, and he's writing a song a week every week for the whole of 2011, and it's for Parkinson's UK and the songs are, like, totally amazing - CHECK IT OUT!"
For those of you about to drill, here's a song about Bruce Willis in Outer Space;
Special thanks to Alex Creese for providing the solo.
You like it? You don't like it? Either way, thanks for listening - but please drop a couple of quid in the Parkinson's UK tin, either by clicking on the widget on the top right, or by visiting Justgiving.com/songaweek.
Local stoner rock band Earthtide are well worth a look. A trio of excellent musicians, playing music somewhere between Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, in amongst the set is a song about Jaws called Bigger Boat. Superb song, and it was suggested by some fool that they do a song about Armageddon next. Despite never having seen the damn film, I volunteered to write it for them. This meant watching it. Hell's teeth. I'm a fan of Bruce Willis, and Steve Buscemi's never played a bad role as far as I know... but this ye-har, gung-ho, slack-jawed, GO AMERICA! nonsense peddled by Jerry Bruckheimer gets right on my tit ends. I really am suffering for my art here, guys. Just hope nobody asks me to write a song about Gigli or Catwoman. Still, it passed a couple of hours.
In writing the song itself, I had to come up with a riff that sounded Earthtide-ish, but at the same time different enough to warrant a place in their set. If it sounded exactly like another one of their songs, why would they bother playing it? I think the verse and solo riffs sound pretty authentic, but the change comes in the chorus, which is much more American and Foo Fightersy than the rest of their set - which kind of fits in with the All American Action Movie premise, I guess. The words are made up almost entirely from lines in the film, though I couldn't quite get the line "I have repeatedly asked you to call me dad" in there. And the line "My daughter can't act" might have been my own...
Anyways, the band themselves seem to be pleased with it - let me know what youse think, and SPREAD THE WORD! The donations have stalled again, and we need to get this site passed around widely as possible if we're going to meet this target.
I'll be shouting it from the rooftops at the gig on Weds 9th March at The Water Rats, King's Cross (get there for 7.45!)
Just been interviewed by Rob Romans for Radio Jackie(Surrey & SW London) - they'll be broadcasting the interview on their news bulletins, and I'm really pleased about the exposure songaweek2011 is starting to get. How pleased? Well, pleased enough to get pretty cocky - I've upped the donation target to £1,000! I have every confidence we can hit this target and beyond - please help me to spread the word about the project so we can really make a difference.
I notice from the "what week is it" site that I'm a couple behind on the songs, but I'm hoping to have another two songs up by the beginning of next week. Keep checking back!
First of all, thank you for your continued support, kind words and donations - the JustGiving box up there is doing well - so much so I think I might actually up the target amount in a couple of months' time - but we mustn't get complacent! PLEASE keep passing this blog around to people. I'm working on getting some radio interviews, so I'll keep you posted about that.
Thanks go to live music champion and open mic legend Vic Cracknell of www.vicsbuskers.co.uk and also Red Admiral Recordsfor their support, and for helping to publicise the blog - help me pay them back by visiting their websites!
And last but not least, I'm happy to announce Two New Live Showswith the big bandfor 2011!
First, I'm playing with the band atMonto Water Ratsin King's Cross on Wednesday 9th March, supporting a grown-up band with a tremendous name, The Rock Of Travolta. They've previously supported Radiohead, Snow Patrol, Doves and other bands of that nature, and are now striking out to make their own not inconsiderable mark on the world.
Second gig is atThe Bedford, Balham on Thursday 12th May.
More details on both of these gigs to follow as they come in, but put them in your diary now and get yourselves along!
It's finally here! Please lend your ears to Marty & Me!
I've done my bit - now it's time to do yours! Click on the JustGiving widget up there on the right, and pledge some pennies to Parkinson's UK!
It's one of the most ridiculous things I've written in a while, but I rather like the music. If this is what nonsense I come out with when I try to write the lyric before the music, I may try this again!
Got to dash now, but there'll be another update soon. Please leave your comments, share the post, and Tweet like it's going out of fashion!
I've done my bit - now it's time to do yours! Click on the JustGiving widget up there on the right, and pledge some pennies to Parkinson's UK!
What an absolute nightmare I've had with this third song. I work on one idea, get nowhere, and move onto another idea. Then I get hacked off with that one and move on to another. I realised today that if I was going to get anything done at all, I was going to have to pick one idea and stick with it until the whole thing was written.
With time getting on, it made sense to go with the song that would take the least production time, hence the one-man-and-his-piano arrangement this time around. No banjos here.
So what have I learnt this week? Well, if I'm faced with several song ideas, none of which inspire me, it's best to pick one and hammer it out. As much as it hurts a songwriter's pretentious artistic pride to say it, a mediocre song is worth more than a great idea that never gets realised.
OH - while I'm here...
... donations have stalled somewhat, so I need you guys to help me spread the word! Pass the link around; Tweet, re-Tweet, and Thrice Tweet using the button on the top right or by following my Twitter feed; add a link to your own blog if you have one (I'll happily link yer back). And on a personal level, please leave your comments on the songs, either here, on the YouTube page, or the Facebook page - it means a lot to hear your thoughts on the tracks.
Does quarter to one on Wednesday morning still count as Tuesday evening? Come on - be nice!
In any case, I'm proud to present the second song of the year, "Long Long Way". Amongst the instruments used was my cigar box guitar (also featured on Country Life), and Jess added some BVs too.
I've done my bit - now do yours: click on the widget in the top right there to donate a few bob to Parkinson's UK! THANK YOU to everybody who's donated so far.
I had great fun recording this. The initial banjo riff and the line "Long way to go before I lose my soul" came first more or less simultaneously, and the rest of the song grew from there. It took a few attempts to get it right - at first It was basically the same thirty-odd seconds of music repeated over and over again, but I forced myself to do something slightly more interesting with the "Citadel" sections until it became a whole song rather than just a riff endlessly repeated with no direction.
I had a spot of bother with the last line. I wanted to say "You will never take my tea," but felt like I had to say something a bit more sensible than that. However, nothing else seemed to fit, and so I said bollocks to being sensible and put the original line back in - and let me tell you, folks: it's sung from the heart.
My wife and I have our birthdays this week and we're disappearing for the weekend, which means song 2 won't be posted online until Monday evening, folks. However, I can reveal it's a White Stripes-esque swamp stomper on which I'm tempted to play the flute.
Thanks for your comments on Wears The Soap - keep 'em coming - and for your donations to Parkinson's UK. Remember, you can donate in bulk, or just pledge a few bob after every song.
I've also had a few requests for songs already - if you want me to write about a specific subject, drop me a line and I'll try to get them written.
Click on the widget on the top right there and donate some cash for this ridiculous endeavour of mine!
The charity is Parkinson's UK. I have friends and family who have been affected by this terrible disease, which can hit anybody regardless of their race, background, income or lifestyle. You can donate a certain amount every time I complete a song, or you can just give a big wadge at the end of the year - your choice!
