Music Weeklies / Monthly have something of a monopoly on the Because It Was There series currently and continuing that trend is this ditty in answer to their prompt to write something your teenage self would like. As luck would have it at that age I liked simple tracks that were little more than a riff and some noodlin’.
Noise
Sounds that I make
Man Of Arun – Winning (Isn’t Everything) (BIWT No.8)
Continuing the relentless pace of releases here’s one for the Cosmic Bos Monthly Music Challenge on the theme of Winning – though I have of course reversed the polarity of the neutron flow.
I dragged some chords down from the ideas mountain for the main part of the track whilst the initial ‘Winning is Everything’ section came about by chance from coming across the brass sound whilst mucking around on guitar synth.
The melody for this largely made up playing guitar with a violin bow but it would have taken practising ’til a week next Tuesday to get it to sound how I wanted so I went with the inductive string driver feedback circuit instead, aka. Ebow..
Man Of Arun – Man Of Culture (2023)
Late again and unfinished Music Weeklies challenge had the theme of ‘My Culture’.
I of course went for a laboratory virus culture but also incorporated elements from the folk music of the area my family originated and ultimately ended up – Salford and Northern Sussex.
The Universal Vibe – Groovy Come Crazy (1990)
Video made using the ProjectM visualizer by combining a few presets.
The only complete track by short lived 1990 band as committed to four track cassette. Also known as Everything for their one gig supporting Starfish at the Apple Tree pub in Crawley.
There was a cover of Lou Reed’s ‘There Is No Time’ in the set – largely because I liked the line, ‘This is no time for circumlocution’.
Man Of Arun – Sing The Body Electric (BIWT No.7)
Down to the wire in the nick of time by the skin of my teeth here’s my go at this week’s Music Weeklies Challenge ‘Body Work’.
It had to be based on sounds produced or emanating from the human body. I blew. And then used the resulting recordings as samples to replace waveforms in presets from the Arturia synth Pigments.
All the melodic parts were played on a guitar fitted with a Fishman TriplePlay to convert the signals from each string to MIDI.
Voice Of The Rain – The Drug
And the working out of old numbers and recording for posterity keeps right on coming. From the Pokeweed Wormfence cassette album which saw the regrouping of VTOR after four years this demonstrates the ease with which backwards effects could be done on a four track cassette recorder by just flipping over the tape.
I have a number of other tapes that also demonstrate how easy it is to record on the wrong tracks having flipped the cassette and getting confused about which track is which.
Just 32 years old at the time of posting.
Man Of Arun – Something To Do With Spring (BIWT No.6)
The journey was more important than the destination on this one where I used both chords for this track prompted by the Music Weeklies Challenge which started very much in the organised sound vein but then took an unexpected turn. Some of the ideas and techniques used will certainly show up elsewhere.
The task was to transcribe a drawing by Stephanie Merchak to sound and it’s just possible something was lost in translation.
As the idea was to do a tune based on a picture I saw an opportunity to draw on my stock of software bought in sales that seemed a really good idea at the time but I haven’t got round to using much – in this case Photosounder
With that I produced a number of basic tracks across the range from tonal to noise which were then effected to an inch of their lives. The only things played were the aforementioned two chords for arpeggio duties and the very irritating bass synth riff.
Extra marks for naming the 1986 tune where I first used the effect on the end? This competition limited to the 9 people still living who heard it in the first place.
By Special Request
Whilst engrossed in recording I missed further progress in my plan for internet radio domination with an appearance on the Cosmic Bos podcast of unusual size with Der Anfang vom Ende.
Ostensibly themed it has the sort of variety missing from much modern algorithmic and targeted programming.
Man Of Arun – Dramatic (Cover Version)
Mass of the Fermenting Dregs are first up in series of cover versions that may not extend any further, ‘Man Of Arun Plays The Hip Hits’.
I wound up the Fender Stratocaster I bought in the early 1980s for this one which I’ve recently added some Porter Pickups in a pre-wired scratch plate from Six String Supplies. Of course I immediately modded it by making the tone pots treble and bass cuts operating on all pickups.
The Fender Cyclone II with its unusual choice of three Jaguar pickups handles slide which as mentioned in the video runs through the Origin Effects Slide Rig II pedal – the compressor for those who don’t like compression.
Caveat emptor: the Cyclone reissue with Stratocaster pickups doesn’t sound the same. And who would want one without the go faster stripes anyway.
Scuffham Amps S-Gear is the virtual amplifier choice – including on the bass, a Sire Marcus Miller V7, which can only be described as solid in terms of build, weight and sound.
What have I learnt on this journey? That YouTube video compression doesn’t like red – whether alone or mixed in purple.
Man Of Arun – Joanna (BIWT No.5)
Piano is not my forte but nevertheless I’ve tickled the nickel plated steel to have a bash at the Music Weeklies Piano Solo theme.
Solo in this instance meaning alone.
So terribly alone.