Your Designer Music

I was reading Lloydi’s post about people’s secret pasts and musical backgrounds, where he posted some of his own stuff up. I’ve been thinking about writing a little about my music – and I’ve promised some people I would – so here goes.

I really started getting more into music when I was about 16. I took up playing the guitar – probably a result of Michael J. Fox’s playing in the Back to the Future trilogy. I’ve been in a few bands, and I’ve always found music to be a great release, but if you listen to some of these tracks, you might notice that I don’t particularly have a fixed style.

Before uni, I was in a pop-rock band called Flyby Karma with a few friends. We gigged around North Devon and got a few good reviews in the local papers. The band split when we all headed off to do degrees. Anyway, here’s a song Guy (bassist) and I wrote and pieced together in an inspired rehearsal one weekend: Satan’s Girlfriend (mp3, 4.12 MB).

I went to uni to do an engineering degree, but I really wanted to get into doing Music Technology, so I pushed to get on a combined course. I actually ended up doing better in Music than I ever did in Electronics which I was really chuffed with – I really enjoyed the music assignments we got to do. One studio recording assignment I did with my friend Nick based on some riffs that he’d come up with, which we recorded and mixed down in Cubase. The result: Dakshina (mp3, 3.57 MB) (the name means “gift given to one’s Guru” because the track was inspired by a favourite of ours – Ozric Tentacles). Check out Nick’s excellent solo towards the end!

After buying my long-awaited first acoustic guitar while I was at uni, I spent an afternoon adding new bits to an old track I’d once disgarded because I didn’t like it. That evening, Nick and I recorded it to 4-track MiniDisc using his MD4 – me playing my new acoustic in his cubicle of a bathroom as a make-shift live room. That summer, Nick wrote a solo to go over the middle section of the track. Complete with the Shadows meets Dave Gilmour, here it is: d’eau, think pink demo (mp3, 4.59 MB).

I’ve got some more dancey remixes too that we knocked together for uni assignments, but I can’t find clips to put up right now.

One more left for now. At uni I entered the Battle of the Bands with a 70s rock-infused power-trio that was minus a singer and songs. Of course, I ended up filling the gap. Too embarrassed to put up a track of us powered up, here’s an acoustic version of one of our very first songs: Curing Day (mp3, 4.44 MB).

Enjoy!

Or laugh! Cry! Whatever! But check out some of these too (I’ll add to the list if I find more):

• Lloydi’s rave fetish and now Lloydi’s slapmypitchup.com with his brilliant mixes!
• brothercake’s secret life in the British underground dance scene
• Jeffrey Zeldman Presents: waterbox
• Jeremy Keith plays bouzouki, y’know
• Bruce Lawson’s pages of auditory delights
• Matt Pennell’s slightly embarrassing musical past
• Elliot Jay Stocks’s fabulous Sourhaze with his buddy Rhys Marsh.

• Patrick H. Lauke in Modulus with live visualisations.