A repository for my homespun recording projects, demos and artwork
Pearl of the Orient- Summer 2017
An early song for the unfinished concept album Ang Pipit: For the Ghosts of Bataan, recorded in 2017 & 2018. All the songs featured an emphasis on live performances, first takes and spontaneity. Pearl of the Orient was intended to be the opening track of this project. It’s a traditional power trio ensemble (guitar, bass, drums) with added Filipino kulintang gongs. Despite its rough edges, I was generally very happy with the overall vibe, individual performances and writing. Some delightful, creative drumming by my childhood brother John P. All guitars and loops by me. Mixed by Chris Schlarb in Long Beach, CA. I did the video as a sort of promo to generate interest and financing in this 22-song concept album. Sadly, my ambition far exceeded the dollars necessary to achieve liftoff and after recording 5 songs and employing a string ensemble for several, the project was quietly aborted by the end of 2018.
iPhone Demo — Pearl of the Orient 2014
This is the earliest demo of the song, recorded in my bedroom (creaking chair and all!) with only an iPhone, sometime in 2014. Written, like most things that I like, in about 5 minutes. The demo has an intrinsic quality that I’ve never been able to replicate– which is why I always return to it. The main riff was played thru a loop pedal using a technique I learned from watching Daniel Lanois years ago– which is to have the electric guitar cranked with lots of gain thru an amp, with the notes fingerpicked as gently as possible. The resulting effect is chimey and almost bell-like. Once the main riff was recorded via the looper pedal, I pulled out the iPhone and recorded the slide part on the fly.
At the Bottom/The View from Marivales — 2018
Growing up in a (mostly) rural West Kendall in the 70’s and 80’s, there was a lot of woods and open areas to explore and get in trouble. Drummer John P. and I, along with Jeff L., used to “box sled” down the grassy embankment of the 874 Don Shula Expressway extension, of off SW 112th Street. On the steepest parts it was pretty exhilarating, especially when you weighed about 75lbs. . This is a song about that experience and how it somehow related to us sliding down the sharp decline of old age, together.
John and I have probably 15 recorded versions of this tune, spanning from 2009-2018. Although originally written for our group project, I later endeavored to co-opt the tune for the Ghosts of Bataan project. This is one without vocals, just the backing tracks. At the time, I rather liked the addition of the string ensemble and the sputtering guitar noises and loops, but opinions were sharply divided. I’d still like to do the song justice one day.
The View from Marivales (aka At the Bottom)
A Ship That Never Comes – 2017-2018
A Ship That Never Comes is another tune from the Ang Pipit project, originally written by me circa 2010-2011 for an earlier collaboration with John P. called St Cloud. It got kicked around for a few years in our home studio sessions, with varying results, under the title “Trust Fund Blues”. The theme of the tune is about time running out.
It remains one of my favorite things that I’ve ever written– a joy to play on guitar, with a lilting, anthemic melody that seems to build and build before ending on a question mark and returning to the verses again.
Here is an early iPhone demo which– once again– I really like more than the later studio recording with a full band. The iPhone version is just a simple run-thru of the verse and chorus. In this recording it’s just me looping the main chords in my bedroom and then playing the melody on slide guitar over the top of it. In the true jazz ethos, sometimes the things that occur spontaneously or are captured haphazardly in a state of distraction, capture something intangible which can never be repeated.
Early iPhone demo of A Ship That Never Comes
In 2017, a studio demo was recorded with Mike Watt, of Minutemen and fIREHOSE fame, playing bass.
In November 1985 when I was 16, I saw Mike play one of his final gigs with the Minutemen– just a few short weeks before D Boon’s untimely death. That band had been an inspiration to me on so many levels over the years– their punk rock aesthetic was cranked wide, but they also really knew how to play their instruments and had no remorse about jumping into funky or jazzy excursions as a band, which was totally new ground at the time. In any case, I was ecstatic to have him play on this so many decades later.
In the Fall of 2017, the Big Ego string ensemble was added to flesh out the main melody. For all the hubbub and effort at the time, the studio performance of this song remains a failed experiment. The freeform, ambient bridge doesn’t work. If I view it for what it is– essentially a live first take performance of a simple song– I appreciate it more. A little more time and money and perhaps a more scaled-down approach, might’ve been the way to go with this tune.
Ship That Never Comes studio demo (with strings)
No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam (Hymn of the Battling Bastards)– 2017
I wrote this tune, originally titled Fong, sometime in 2013.
of No Mama, No Papa in Long Beach, CA
Once again it got kicked around in various rhythmic incarnations for a few years until I settled on this jaunty, Latin-style syncopation.
The song is a joy to play and on this demo, the string section covers the melody originally played by slide guitar.
The studio demo was the last song worked on during the Ghosts of Bataan sessions. The backing tracks were mostly a first take run-thru. As such, it’s full of technical issues– most notably drums and a guitar mic that’s way too “hot”, causing clipping– but at this point I had no money to go back and re-record. The dillemna at the time was whether to just stop working on it because of the technical problems, or to push forward with what we had and keep it for posterity’s sake– just as a document of all the work I crammed into such a short amount of studio time. I opted for the latter and I’m glad now. For all its warts, it has a nice energy.
This one also features Mike Watt on bass.
No Mama, No Papa, No Uncle Sam studio demo (with string ensemble)