From Crimes Against Humanity, the aptly named greatest hits (hah hah) compilation by my old garage band chums (from Teaneck NJ) The Weasels, please enjoy your humble scribe playing both acoustic guitars (left and right channel) on the all-instrumental "Steve's Song." A title I cribbed, obviously, from The Blues Project, but given that I also composed the music, I think I can be forgiven for my youthful lack of literary originality.
Whew. I'm glad we got THAT over with.
The backstory (you knew there'd be one):
I originally wrote that in my bedroom in Roslyn, Long Island, while attending C.W.Post College in 1969-70; as you can plainly hear, I had been overdosing on various then current Stephen Stills records. (I was also particularly fond of the sound of a guitar with the bottom E-string tuned down to D, this two decades before Pearl Jam thought it was such a big idea). It was at the time the only song I had ever written, and (mercifully) it remains so.
The recording here was done in 1973 on a home portable reel-to-reel stereo 2-track tape machine with detatchable speakers (one of which was used for the playback of the first guitar track while I essayed the second part of the duet). Nobody involved seems to remember exactly what brand of machine it was -- let's just say it was distinctly mid-fi, although pretty good for a home deck of the day in its pre-Dolby way -- but this is probably pretty close.
I should add that the recording was done using the microphones (not pictured, which weren't pro quality either) that came with the machine.
I should also add that the version in the clip above was transferred from the original reel-to-reel to cassette sometime in the 80s, and then re-transferred to digital (at a well-equipped studio) sometime in the 'teens (the cassette had been stashed in the back of a poorly ventilated clothes closet all that time). All things considered it's kinda amazing how almost pro and unravaged the whole thing sounds.
Coming tomorrow: actual music by real musicians I don't know personally.
3 comments:
Steve:
Sorry to rain on your parade (and cool story) but you also wrote the music (not the lyrics) to 'Prisoners Get Out of Your Homemade Beds'.
Post it, it rocks!
Captain Al
I’d forgotten that. It’s a good story, too. I’ll have to do the research.😎
Big yay. Remembering your first drop-D excursion is a bit like remembering your first beer. Mine was quite a few beers ago; and, if over the years I have ditched every other open tuning/cocktail I've ever used/drunk, beer remains.
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