July 6th, 2008 @ 7:54AM
I have a song from the "50 Songs In 90 Days" contest up on my music page - it's called
Life In Flux. Click here to listen! My main page for the contest (where you can hear my other stuff) is:
http://5090.fawm.org/writers.php?id=362
Shadowmom has also kindly set up a page for DM participants in the contest here:
http://fawmfun.dmusic.com
There's already good stuff by Steve Davies, Mojosnake and Elektronz there, so go check it out please
I've also put up a new version of
Live In the Past featuring
Martin (LQM) on bass, percussion and keyboards. He also produced it and, as always, he has done an absolutely beautiful job.
June 29th, 2008 @ 5:19AM
Okay, new stuff coming soon, I promise. I haven't done the remix of
Dark Bloom yet but I'll get on it when I have a chance. I'm also taking part in a competition called 50/90 - in which you have to record 50 songs in 90 days. Consequently, then, I'm going to be doing a
lot of recording! Here's a link to the contest:
http://5090.fawm.org
I'm also doing some more work on the album in August. I'm looking at a October or November release date now.
Love to you all.
Don't stop indie pop!
Si
June 20th, 2008 @ 11:38PM
Thanks to those of you who have left constructive criticism on
Dark Bloom. I agree with what's been said and I will put up a remixed version next week
Also up next week: a new remix of
Elements and a demo of one of my new songs (don't know which one yet, there quite a few of them).
Si
May 9th, 2008 @ 10:25AM
May 6th, 2008 @ 7:23AM
I don't pay that much attention to the charts here, but I had a look at them today and found that today the top 8 songs in alternative chart are all mine, and I also have 5 songs in the main chart. So to those people who are still listening to my stuff: Thanks! And new songs will be up in the next week or so.
Si
April 23rd, 2008 @ 10:21AM
So with one EP ready to go I have the next 7 days on my own to record my
Conchology album and finsh another EP for the Internet Archive. I'm going to keep a diary here for the next week to write about how it's going. This will help keep focused, I think. So if I don't write in here every day please leave a comment to tell me to get working and stop being lazy!
So today is
Wednesday 23rd of April. The first day. I have recorded new versions of
The Archerfish, Chance Meeting and
Peggy Kennedy and also recorded a short instrumental on my ukelele.
I don't think I'm ever completely happy with anything I record. I always think something could be better. The versions of
The Archerfish and
Chance Meeting and probably keepers, but
Peggy didn't turn out as good as the version I did a few weeks ago. Still, a decent first day, and I plan to get much more done tomorrow
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Thursday 24th April
I got another 3 songs done today. After a lazy morning I started recorded around 2pm. I decided to work on
Girl with the Clipboard first, which I am doing for the ‘Family Album’ EP. I first wrote the music to this song 4 years ago (a friend wrote the lyrics), so I figured it was time to finally put on something. To my own surprise I managed to come up with some really nice lead guitar and keyboard lines to flesh out the song. It took me a little while to get them down right but I still managed to do the whole song in about 3 hours. After slogging away at that one I wanted one I knew I could do quicker next, so I knocked out a version of
Revolution Summer that walks all over the one I currently have up on my DM page. I mean, the 70's soft rock comparisons people have made over the old version where quite nice, but this is a song inspired by the mid-80's Washington DC punk scene, so I knew I had to do a version with a bit more energy to it. It's not dramatically different or anything, though. Just a bit more streamlined.
So then I took a break and ate veggie burgers and watched some of Howard the Duck on DVD. Have you seen it? Oh, God, it's awesome! I hadn't seen it since I was about 10 years old, but I could still remember every scene in all it's ridiculous glory. Oh, and Lea Thompson...oh my goodness. Howard was a very lucky duck indeed...
Anyway, I'm digressing. After dinner I decided to have a crack at
It Wasn't Meant. I thought I might have difficulties with this one, and I wasn't far wrong. I thought it would be best to record it in two parts and with the guitar and vocals separately. Firstly, something strange started happening with my best guitar. I noticed it was making this strange high pitched tone whenever I played an A minor chord - but only when the capo was on the 2nd fret. I've never heard it do that before. So I used my old guitar. I played the first section over and over again trying to get the right feel. At one point the light in my room started flickering. That song always has quite a dark aura to it (must be Jessy's lyrics) and I started to get quite an uneasy feeling. Maybe there were spirits in the room…sick of hearing me playing the same guitar part over and over and over…
After I'd finally got that part down I moved on to the 2nd section (the "you were not, you were never" coda) and did the guitar and vocals. Then I went back to do the guitar for the first part and realised I'd played one part too many times! By now it was 10pm. I thought about leaving it there and coming back tomorrow, but this is my only week to get this album done and I'm determined not to blow it, so I re-did the guitar and added the vocals and harmonies. There are still a few overdubs to add, but bulk of the track is done and it sounds pretty damn good, I think
Until tomorrow. Si
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Friday 25th April
It was a bit of a frustrating day today. I didn't feel too good this morning so I found it hard to get going. When I did start recording I found I had a few sound problems with both my acoustic guitars. I managed to get my older guitar sounding okay and worked my way through a version of
What Were You Thinking? My voice was starting to go while I was doing the vocal so I double tracked it and - what do you know - the song sounds pretty good done that way. That was the only keeper I got today, though. I spend tonight doing take after take of both
Losing Myself and
Family Album, but I didn't come up with anything I thought was good enough. Here's hoping Saturday's a little more productive.
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Saturday 26th April
I got 4 songs recorded today. First I did a new version of
Live In the Past. I would have really liked to have used the version I did in Australia but it don't really think it does the song justice. I think this new one captures it a little better. I also did a new version of
Madeline and a catchy pop song I've never recorded before called
Oh Enid (I really like that one!) Then late tonight I recorded a new version of
'Til I Met You, but I don't think it's as good as the old version I have on my DM page, so I might use that one instead. I'm still thinking about re-recording
Family Album. I do love the old version, but I'm not 100% sure about the sound quality of it, especially as I only have a 256kbps MP3 copy of it now. We'll see.
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Tuesday 29th April
After not doing anything at all on Sunday I tried to get back into recording on Monday. I did a version of
Treehouse, which is a song I've never recorded before except for a really rough demo (I wrote it two years ago). I added a really nice keyboard line to it which helps to give it a feel that quite unlike anything else on the record. I wasn't 100% happy with the finished track, though, so I am going to re-record it today. Also yesterday I finally realised that I really can't bear to play or hear
The Archerfish anymore so I've scrapped it from the album. I came up with a short fingerpicking instrumental to fill it's place, but I'm not sure I'll actually include that either. I made a number of attempts at
The Way To Penny's House too, but didn't feel that I was doing it justice. I've actually already got a decent version of that one from last month, I just wanted to see if I can improve on it. Last day tomorrow and still quite a lot to do. I'm definately getting there though.
Si
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Wednesday 30th April
Okay, so my week of recording is over and I'm about 90% there. Today I did re-recordings of
'Til I Met You and
Blue and Grey and I'm pretty happy with them (there's always something I feel could have been better). So the only tracks not done are
Treehouse (I'm not totally happy with Monday's version) and
Losing Myself - which I haven't recorded at all yet. There's the odd overdub to do as well, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel! Hallelujah! I first concieved this album 3 years ago and it's finally getting done. Of course a lot has changed since then, but a lot these tracks are pretty old now. I remember writing
I'm In Love with the Girl From That Film and
Blue and Grey while in my last year at uni in 2004 and
The Way to Penny's House and
Live In the Past were written in the summer of 2005 after I came back from the Cambridge Folk Festival. God, how time flies! This CD will be out in September, by the way. Where...I don't know. I still have to figure that out. It's going to be good, though!
Thanks for reading. Si
April 12th, 2008 @ 12:44PM
Pretty soon I will be releasing an EP on a rather cool netlabel. It will be available for free download. The tracklisting is:
1. On the Moon
(new version)
2. Blue Sapphire
3. Mystery Train Departure
4. Elegy
5. A Restless Sleep
6. The Bird That Flew Halfway Across the Ocean
Here is some of the artwork (click for a larger view):
More info soon. Thanks for reading!
Si
April 3rd, 2008 @ 3:20AM
Coming Soon
Stuff
March 24th, 2008 @ 7:44AM
I have a YouTube channel now. Currently there are three videos up:
Chance Meeting performed live at the Harp in Sydney
Family Album filmed in a Sydney hotel room
...and a video for
Elements made by Gurdonark
They'll be a video up for a new song called
Losing Myself sometime this week.
http://www.youtube.com/user/SimonWaldramMusic
Si
February 28th, 2008 @ 9:36AM
My new tracks aren't quite ready yet, but I have uploaded a few pieces I've done over the past few months:
Brushfield Spots - recorded in a studio in Sydney, Australia
On the Moon additional instrumentation by the brilliant Martin Brown
New York Woman - a Yoko Ono cover
Si
shutyatrap:
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