Often I sit down at the computer in the evenings after the kids have gone to bed, with the best intentions of doing something productive, and yet somehow before long I find myself watching YouTube videos of people playing “Watcher of the Skies” on their home Mellotrons. (Who even has a Mellotron at home? Someone, I guess.)
Anyway… in the midst of that extremely productive use of my time, I found this rare gem: it’s the original lineup of Yes performing “Beyond and Before” live in France in 1969. Worth seeing if for no other reason than to laugh at Bill Bruford’s t-shirt.
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My new 3-song EP, Mellotronic: Far Out Sounds! (And Other Space-Age Hyperbole) is finished and streaming now!
The official release date for the CD and MP3 downloads is July 20, 2008 in honor of the 39th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
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Tonight I proudly finished up the mastering of my new EP, and along the way I spent some more time exploring the blog where I found the great Mellotron promo film I grabbed some found speech from for one of my tracks.
Sadly for my sense of musical self-worth, I also discovered this video, which just makes me wonder why I am even bothering, when I’m so far behind this guy:
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I’ve just finished designing the cover art for my new EP, Mellotronic: Far Out Sounds! (And Other Space-Age Hyperbole), and I just wanted to share it.
The EP is a tribute to the Mellotron, and features extensive use of the instrument. (OK, it’s really a software instrument with meticulous digital samples of real Mellotrons, but take the Pepsi Challenge if you care.) You can learn more, and listen once the tracks are completed, on the dedicated page.
Also… I’m looking for a high-quality scan of one of those old 45 RPM adapters, the kind that sticks right into the big hole in the record. I haven’t found any online yet, and darned if I can scrounge up an actual one in the basement to scan myself. I can live without it, but I would really like to have one to incorporate into the package art if possible. Anyone?
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My loyal reader(s) may recall that back in May I posted a couple of new music tracks I was working on. One of them was a little too… meh… so I probably won’t be doing anything more with it, but I was really pleased with the early results of my work on a track I was tentatively calling “Mellotronic.”
Last night I put some more work into the track and I think it’s nearly complete. I just want to tweak some of the Mellotron parts a bit, and I am also thinking of re-recording the synth solo near the end. (It’s just a little too modulation and pitch bend heavy for the style of the track.)
I currently have 4 tracks I’ve been playing around with since the RPM Challenge that are complete or nearly complete, and they’re all drenched in Mellotron. (OK, I don’t own an actual Mellotron, but I do own the next best thing.) As a result, I am planning to go with Mellotronic as the name of a 4-song EP that I hope to release before the end of July.
This, of course, is the title track, which I am now calling “Mellotronic, Mk. II: Jazz Odyssey.” I hope the reference is obvious. Please enjoy this early rough mix of the nearly-finalized arrangement.
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Pay attention to the sustained note at the end. That’s one of the classic traits of the Mellotron, faithfully reproduced by the M-Tron virtual instrument: Mellotron tapes were 8 seconds long, so if you held a note for longer than that, it would stop. But some of the notes are not quite the full length, and since they’re actual recordings of real people playing the real instruments, sometimes they falter a bit. So I held the final chords on the flute and violin settings until they stopped. I’ve noticed in the past that the flute recordings seem a lot more… let’s say “variable”… than some of the other instruments, and that observation certainly bears out here!
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Last Friday night I spent a few hours playing around with some new musical ideas. I worked on some acoustic guitar parts for some earlier songs (including a possible re-recording of my 2003 track “Tai Chi for Oafs”), and I also worked on a couple of brand new ideas.
These may never see any further attention than what they got that night, and they’re presently fairly repetitive, but that’s why they fade out mercifully quickly. Enjoy! (Or not.)
Don’t Limit Me, Steve!
The working title of this track is aimed squarely at Mr. Jobs. As much as I love all things Apple, especially GarageBand, I do find it aggravating at times that the software makes you select a time signature, tempo and key before you can create a new song project. It makes it difficult to just play around with ideas because if you want to change any of these attributes, it permanently alters the playback of any tracks you’ve already recorded. I’ve retaliated by creating this song with an unnatural 11-bar chord progression and a bass riff that strangely hits a major 6th where the listener (myself included) would normally expect to hear a minor 7th.
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Mellotronic
Just a mellow electronic thing. And of course, given the name, I had to put some Mellotron in it.
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I’m on a roll with the new music; after producing two new albums for the RPM Challenge, I’ve already started on another new project. Drenched in vintage ’60s and ’70s keyboard sounds (electric piano, organ, and the beloved Mellotron — no, I don’t really have a Mellotron, just this, which, come to think of it, is actually better, or at least more practical, than the original in almost every conceivable way), the album is going to be a tribute to the music of the Apollo years: 1961-1975. Heavy emphasis will be placed on 1969-1972, which also happen to be probably my favorite 4 years in music history. I’ve already got a couple of minutes of a first track (just backing tracks, with a scratch MIDI bass track, and a rough mix) laid down (which you can listen to below), and visual inspiration for the cover. Man, that old Apollo logo is sweet!
“Lunar Landing” version 0.1 • February 21, 2008 • 2:07
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