Year in Review!

Alright, another year of still doing what I was doing before!
Although true, it's not the whole story.
There was a lot of recording, but for a variety of projects, which means a variety of projects are moving towards the finish line, but won't be completed till 2019. That isn't a bad thing in that it means there will be moments to treasure and new music to hear as we roll along into the new year.

But there's time for that later.
This year, 2018, had some firsts:

Nancy and I started hosting an open mic up in Mill Creek which has been a lot of fun with the great songwriting talent we have here in our part of the world. It allows me to use that PA I bought a few years back, rather than it collecting dust in the closet.

I did get the last of the band albums out. Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch

was released in November to thunderous applause. I can believe that if I want!

I also recorded 3 new versions of songs for the Desperate Mothers album,

which will be released on January 25th, 2019. We'll be having a party to celebrate on the 27th. I'll have more on that album in the coming weeks.

I've also been working on an album called Winter, recording new versions from the demos I first recorded in 1984.

With 6 of 10 complete, it should be finished by Spring. More later on that too.

Then there are the brand new songs, versus those that are new to everyone other than me, for an album to be called Primitive Desires.

Other accomplishments and firsts: I co-wrote a song, something I've never done before; yes, the hermetic seal has been broken. Jinah and I wrote a song for an upcoming benefit for the homeless titled, Forgotten. I'll be performing it at:

I'm also going to begin recording videos, now that I have a decent camera with a decent mic, so those of you who aren't in our neck of the woods can check them out.
I'm looking into hosting house concerts as well. Should be interesting.

That's probably enough for now.

Song of the Week: This week's song, The Sailor, from Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch, is one of my early forays into dealing with big subjects, in this case Imperialism and Paternalism, using small characters. In this case it's a sailor telling his tall tales to a listener aware of his darker side. You can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com.

Have a wonderful New Year!

©2018 David William Pearce

You Should Write a Christmas Song

Yes, I should. Will I? Probably not.
Mostly because there's more than enough christmas songs out there. One more isn't going to make Christmas better or more enjoyable. It might even make it worse if I feel obligated to bug people to listen to a great new Christmas tune! 
I wouldn't like that either.
Besides, even the best young artists of today still record their own versions of Christmas classics so you won't have to forever listen to Dean Martin or Tony Bennett or Andy Williams or someone you consider old and so yesterday.
Been there, done that.
There's also the problem of mis-interpretation; the present example being Frank Loesser's Baby It's Cold Outside.
I don't need that.

The other thing is my propensity to write oblique emotionally driven songs. I don't see that as being terribly festive. I could challenge myself to write a festive upbeat holiday song that will be loved through the ages...but that sounds like a lot of work.

Maybe next year.

In the meantime I can always pull up my iPod Xmas list and go from there. With 311 songs, it'll keep me occupied for a while.

***

Speaking of lists and trying to be hit to what's popular, I've been listening, or trying, to the various songlists that Spotify puts together. The pop stuff is such that I'd need a separate blog post to adequately note my concerns, but I would, for those who like instrumental music, or need a break from the thumpy dystopia that is popular music, I recommend the Tastemakers list.
It's quite good and varied.

Album of the Week: 

Yes, I'm still hyping this because I think it's fun and I should give it more than a week before I move on. You can hear it on spotify.com, Apple Music, and of course, at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce

Why Bother!

Today, right now, as we speak, or read, my latest release is out there just waiting for you to go gaga over. Desperate Mothers and the Fabulous Perch, is now officially released and available, in both physical, and not so physical, mediums for the world to enjoy.

The question a few may ask, is why. Given how much music is put out there and the finite amount of time people have to listen, much less new stuff from someone they've never heard of, that's a perfect acceptable question.
I could be glib and say, "It's because I can," which is true, but beyond that it's also the nature of existence. Think of the metaphysical tree in the forest question, then put it in the real world and the answer is: if you have no presence where you can be found, then you do not exist. It doesn't matter how good or how bad your songs may be if no one can hear them.

For someone like me, who has dwelt in the house of anonymity, the desire to be heard is profound. It doesn't matter, as a philosophical proposition, how many people hear what I written and recorded; I do care and like any artist would like many to hear and enjoy what I do, but even if it's only a few, it is still verification of existence, of being an artist in this world.

It also means that all that work, even from long ago, still has value and still has a place.

That might seem an odd thing to say, but for a long time having any means to distribute your work outside of a label contract was high-near impossible. Recording was expensive and distribution out of reach for any regular musician. Even those of us who found our way into DIY production and were able to make high-quality recordings, it was still prohibitive to have them manufactured in a way that people would see as legitimate; think, vinyl, cassettes, CDs with actual artwork, etc. Any idea of what a run of 100 albums would have cost in 1985? Today, it's $1500-2000. That's not chump change. CD's are less expensive, about $300 or so, but CD's are uncool now whereas vinyl records have that cool factor, but getting someone to fork over 15+ dollars for a 40 minute record may not be as easy as you think.
Streaming may not pay much, assuming you have enough listeners and play to cross the magic threshold where you'll actually get paid, but you can be heard.

And that is the heart of the matter.

If you so desire, you can hear the album on Spotify, Apple Music or at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce

Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch

Here now is the official unvarnished truth behind Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch, which will be released on Friday, Nov. 30th.

The album has taken a somewhat circuitous path to release for a variety of reasons, the formost being that at the time it was recorded, minus certain technical problems, it was prohibitively expensive to do so. But that was the nature of the business in the early 80's. The only people putting out proper releases were those who had a contract with a record label. I did not.

What I did have was a friend, Brian Waters, who liked my music, could play bass, and, most importantly, could get us into for real recording studios.

PearceArrow,

which we had recorded in 1980, while Brian was going to school at Auraria College in Denver, had been, for the most part successful: it had been recorded, mixed, copied to cassette, and one of its songs, You're Fine, was selected to be on a local album of up and comers. By 1982, buoyed by the idea that we could do this, Brian and I decided to record another album. I had written a number of songs and Brian had lined up studio time by hook and crook-mostly providing repair work on the studio's gear in exchange for recording time. I took a month's worth of leave-I was in the Navy at the time-and Brian gathered some musicians he knew to play on the record.

They were Brian,

Mark McCoin,

Howard Cano and Mr. Jones,

And yours truly,

We got together at Mark's house to rehearse: Brian on bass, Mark on drums, Mr. Jones on lead guitar, Howard on keys, and me on guitar. We then made our merry way to the studio to record. 

While writing, I had been focusing on the electric guitar mainly because I was tired of the acoustic and wanted to record a more rocking album. PearceArrow, I felt, was more folk-rock and I wanted to move on. The recording sessions were a touch frenetic due to the limited time available to us, but we got it all done in the 2 or 3 sessions we had. Brian was to then mix the songs down, add Howard's parts-he had to work when we were recording-and then we'd have a big party to celebrate.

Which we did.

And that was that.

There were a few problems, though. The biggest, was the Dolby on the masters was messed up, so that when you engaged the Dolby function, you got what is lovingly described as flutter and a disconcerting muddying of the tracks. They sounded great with the Dolby off so long as you didn't mind the tape hiss.

Major bummer and at the time there was nothing we could do about it.

I had a high-quality cassette version and that was that.

We talked about doing another album, but that never came to fruition, and the masters were lost after Brian died in 1991.

In 2016, I had by that point gotten back into writing and recording and I pulled out my cassette of Broken Hearts and wondered if there was anything there. I hadn't listed to it much in the intervening 34 years, but I still like the energy and I though the recordings were, for he most part, really good. I felt they weren't quite complete and there was the tape hiss problem. Fortunately, there were solutions now that weren't available in 1982, namely noise-cancelation programs. 

I decided to make digital copies of the songs and I added what I thought the songs lacked, whether it was an additional guitar, keyboard part, or vocals. I then ran the songs through a noise cancelation program and mastered the songs.

They still have a DIY quality, and the mistakes made when originally recorded are there if you listen for them, but all in all, I think it sounds good and is a fun album.

Song of the Week: Movie is basically a lyrically impressionistic song. My take on film noir, which I love and continue to watch to this day. You can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com along with the other songs from the album.

©2018 David William Pearce

The Kids Are Alright...Or Are They?

Much is made over how easy it is to get your music out, to be your own man or woman or neither, and how you can do it because...because.
Never mind that it's not actually easy, doable certainly, well if all you want to do is sing into your phone and put it on FB or Instagram or YouTube, then yeah, it's easy.
The bigger problem is then what?
Mind you, there are many many people singing into their phones, or tablets, or laptops, assuming anybody under the age of 18 uses a laptop other than for school. You still have to have something that pops, and if you want to be something beyond the modern equivalent of a one hit wonder, more "content" and a verifiable fanbase that moves beyond "likes" and "emojis". Which isn't as easy as you might think.
That isn't necessarily a deterrent to creative types; as one, it's what you do, independent of anything else, but if you want more you have to feed the voracious "content" machine. It's how you make money these days. More content, more views, more ads, more money, more work, all the time.

Unsurprisingly, a number of "content" providers have found themselves the victims-I don't know if that's the right word as they chose to do this-of burnout, depression, and sadly, even suicide.

The truth, as some would say, is that until you reach a certain point in the hierarchy of fame, something few do, it's work, work, and more work. Putting out an album, touring, and then taking a break to decompress and create the next album, is no longer an option unless you're already very well known, think Taylor Swift, or someone like me who is happy to do his thing and there's no pressure to do anything more than that.

And I don't tour. I go out and sing for people locally, engage with like-minded songwriters, and am happy with that. I did that when I was younger, but that was in the misty past when you had no choice because without a label, making records or getting any real exposure was impossible.
Now, if you're Social Media savvy, you can get that exposure; sometimes very quickly, but that's only the beginning. I find it fascinating to read of artists signed to labels that have to go to performing school because they've never really performed in front of people and don'r know how to put on a show or how to engage with the audience.
Wow.
That's not actually surprising, but...

But being an artist, a creative type is never easy; never has been. It's always been a hustle and probably always will be. For all the sheen and hype being thrown at someone like Greta Van Fleet as the new saviors of Rock, they're still going to have to prove they more than a regurgitation of the classics, that they can be their own identifiable voice within a genre with many well known voices.

So do the kids have it easy, have it better than those of us who came up during the golden age of recorded music? No. It's still a hard road, but the twists and turns have changed.

Song of the Week: 

This week's song is Being Modern/Mad from Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch. It started out as 2 songs that we decided after recording them, that they should go together. I got the idea from bands like the Beatles and ZZ Top, where songs segued into one another without a break. The first part is about the imagery of love versus how it actually works, and the second part is about the ying/yang of longing for love after being burned by love.
You can hear it here at mrprimitivemusic.com.
Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch will be release on 11/30/18.

©2018 David William Pearce

There's Always Music

There are times, like now for instance, where it can feel like too much- too much anger, too much conflict, too much separation between us. Times when I put on the headphones and turn up the tunes. Music is my dope of choice when the world gets to be too much.
I've been doing this for most of my life. It's also why I make music. Believe or not, I don't find composition, recording, working out parts troublesome or problematic; to me, it's for the most part soothing, other than those times when I can't nail that guitar solo and it pisses me off!
But that doesn't happen very often.
It's also why I make the music I want, so that at times like these I got my own thing to sooth my troubled soul.
I also have my many, many lists of all the artists I've come to love and enjoy over the years, which are an off-shoot from all the cassettes I made in yon olden days to listen to in whatever vehicle I had at the time so as not to have to listen to the same sorry crap over and over on the radio.
That lists are de rigueur now on streaming services such as Spotify-where you can stream all released Mr Primitive albums😎-makes me smile.
The primal nature of music and rhythms do much to re-align my chi, even if I don't know what that means, remind me that we all dig our own thing but often enjoy the same things musically, be it Rock, Jazz, Rap, classical, or good old standards. It's also a way to make raking leaves and mowing grass more tolerable, and can make sports on TV far more palatable than many hours listening to the same turgid commentary from the same talking heads.
It's also a great place to retreat to when the inevitable talk of 2020 gets to be too much!

Song of the Week:

The Screamer from Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch, is a song about losing your mooring, even in a paradise such as Hawaii where it was written. It's drifting and wandering, searching for something that you can't really make out, and the reality of knowing that, but not being able to change it. As like a lot of the album, there were problems, later revealed, during the recording process, namely that some of the scratch vocal had bled through. To fix this, I added other background speaking voices to cover for this little mistake. The other part that I like to point to is Mark McCoin's percussion at the end of the song. He brought in a number of unusual items, a jack-in-the-box, for instance, and I think it adds very much to the tone of the track.
You can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce

Is Anything Worse Than "It's Ok"?

For those who create, be it music, art, writing, criticism is always something keenly attuned to, no matter what the artist may say.
That said, the nature of criticism is always a point of acute self-flagellation.
Mostly, what we want is to be loved, not judged, but if we must be judged, then it should be with unadorned appreciation for the magnitude and glory of the work. Surely, everyone sees it for how wonderful it is.
At the other end of the spectrum is, quelle horreur, that your hard work is reduced to..."it's terrible, crumby, awful, the worst, crap, unlistenable, garbage, s**t..." You get the idea. For most of us sensitive types, this is a grave attack upon our person, which we either lash out at, "these people wouldn't know art if it bit them in the ass," to internalizing that they're right, it's terrible, and I'm wasting my time.
Some of these criticisms thoughtfully go on, ad nauseum, as to why the work in question is so bad, while others do not, but, as the artist-creator, we can often dismiss these criticisms as the moronic warblings of unsound and uncouth minds.
What do they know!
However, the most profound and perplexing comments are, "It's ok, I guess," "I didn't really listen that close," and "Meh".
Argh!
This is most unfortunate because there is little to nothing you can do other than whine about how unfair life is.
"How can you not see how absolutely wonderful this is?" we exclaim!
"It just doesn't do anything for me," they respond.
Gloom and depression follow.
After a period of being truly bummed out, we convince ourselves that this was an aberration and that that person is on the list that we keep in our febrile little minds.
HA!

Months later, we revisit the object of their lack of interest and decide it's not too bad and move on to our next masterpiece.

Speaking of masterpieces:
This weeks song, from the soon to be released, 11/30/18, album, Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch, 

is, Reading.
The song is another of my wanderings into the miasma of broken hearts, hence the album title, and the foolish things we tell ourselves after it's all said and done-which it never is.
You can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce

Words and Music; Music and Words

It's the chicken and egg thing, except it's music and lyrics and what comes first and why the other part seems to take so long!
This is a personal mental defect that I will explain momentarily.
People are curious, other songwriters are curious, and it's a question often asked:
"What come first, the music or the lyrics?"
For me, the music has always come first in the generally organic way I write songs. I can only think of one occasion where I put music to words and that was in high school.
I'm far more fascinated by the sounds, the chords, and the emotion they elicit. From there, the structure of the music, and by that I mean does it follow a relatable musical pattern amiable to lyrics or is it free form or here and there, which lends itself more to being an instrumental, will be the push to put words to the music.
Seems pretty simple.
I've got music for 3 verses, a chorus, and a bridge; now it just needs some words to go along with it.
At one time, and that time was back in the go-go 80's, I would methodically works through songs: Come up with the music, record the music leaving an open track for the vocals, and then figure out something to say. Sometimes the words would come straight away, sometime it too a few days or maybe even a month if I decided to go outside, to work, or spend time with my girlfriend/wife, which I liked to do.

I don't do that now.

Some of that is because I have other things to do related to writing and music, like getting all these unreleased songs and records released. But mostly, it's because I don't do what I did back in the go-go 80's. I tend now to come up with blocks of music, anywhere from 8 to 16 musical ideas and from there I think about what kind of album they might become. This takes months; it just does.
I'm in the middle of that now. I have a bunch of songs for an album to be called either Primitive Desires or simply, Primitives. The main theme is community, the idea that humans have always progressed and succeeded when they work together, that they find more satisfaction with their lives when they're part of something greater than themselves.
Which isn't always so easy in our self-centric society these days.
And, you would think, the lyrics would be pouring out...
But I'm also recording final tracks for the Winter album, and there were a few tracks from Desperate Mothers, another legacy album I'll be releasing early next year that needed to be redone...
Someday.
Like right after I get the other legacy album released, Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch, which comes out 11/30/18.

Speaking of which...
This Weeks Song, from the above album, is called Broken Hearts and Confusion, it's a straight up rock song with heavy guitars, drums, and an anguished lyric about trying and failing to let a past love go. It's possible it's autobiographical, but I won't cop to that. Broken Hearts was the last group album I did with Brian Waters on bass-Brian also engineered an produced the original recording, Mark McCoin on drums, Mr. Jones on lead guitar, and Howard Cano on keyboards. I'm the singer and I did the other guitar tracks.
You can hear it here at mrprimitivemusic.com.

Next time we'll have fun talking about getting out an album of which the only reference material is a cassette tape.
From the go-go 80's.

©2018 David William Pearce

How Come It Sounds Different?

Good question.
This was asked of me by a good friend, Al, who wondered why the new songs, say from We Three and Whispers (From a Forgotten Memory) sound different from those on Apologia and Life Without Chickens.
The difference is 25 years and the recording equipment.
Here's a shot from the good old days, when Apologia was recorded:

As you can see, I had more hair. Beyond that, I had a 4-track cassette deck, an Effectron II effects rack, a Drumulator, and a Korg synthesizer. There was also the guitar.
Here's what I have now:

As you can see, I have a bit more stuff.
I had to replace the 4-track because the heads and motors were worn and the not so insignificant fact that Tascam doesn't support the 4-track cassette machines anymore. Haven't for some time. So I moved up to a 24-track digital Portastudio. It does fun things like mix and master, and it has built in effects, which the original did not have, but I don't actually use those much because I still have the outboard gear which continues to works after all these years.
The Drumulator died, or I should say it kept losing sounds until it was pointless to hold onto other than as a paperweight. I now have an Alesis drum machine and a Roland digital drum kit. They do the trick. There are also drum sounds on the big keyboard, which also has piano, organ, and strings. I have a lot of choices that I didn't have before, which allows me to fatten, thicken, enlarge the sound if I choose to. I also have more stuff, period. A GR-55 guitar synthesizer. Percussion.
Plus, I no longer have to record on the floor.
And some of it is the songs themselves. However hard you try, it's nearly impossible to recreate the music you made as a 25-year old when you're 30 years beyond that.

This Weeks Song, 

No Wonder from the album, Winter. The song is basically a laconic response to questions about the status of a relationship. At the time I was fascinated by how we were trying to redefine or re-imagine our relationships with one another as if we were any different from the generations before us. Musically, it's basically a jazz-rock kind of thing with a laid-back groove.
Some of you will note I put this up a while ago. After some thought and consideration, I decided it needed work. I redid the opening solo and cleaned up some of the groove.
As always you can hear it here at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce

The World Is Full Of Advice

As anyone with a pulse and a few tunes out there will confirm, there are any number of folks who hold the key to success, if only you'll take their advice and subscribe to their program.
It's very tempting.
Follow these steps to build your fan base, your email newsletter, your visibility, etc.
Now I could be the fly in the ointment and note that, musically, I've never heard of these people. This isn't Paul McCartney or Taylor Swift talking and maybe that's unfair. The music business is laden with those who, for one reason or another, never made it as artists or performers. The sad truth is unless you fall within a very small category in looks and talent, you won't be a mega-selling pop star.
That doesn't mean you can't make money or even have a decent career, but when you hear that the Captain and Tennille, who, trust me, were big in the 70's, are divorcing because they can't afford to pay their healthcare bills without going bankrupt, then you see the problem: can you earn enough to survive old age?
For most, the answer, sadly, is no.
We have regular jobs; sad, but true. ( I was an engineer.)
But that doesn't mean there aren't those who believe you can.
Unfortunately, I have a rather jaundiced view of such things, probably the result of seeing many artists and musicians either seduced by promises or ground down by a machine in a state of constant churn that never produce results.
But wait! Rather than trying to be the next Bieber, why not get into the sync licensing business! Yes, your music can now be heard in movies, TV, games, and commercials! It's the new rage!
It also suffers from the same problems that just getting people to listen to your songs suffers from: lots and lots of music and no so many music supervisors looking for what they want or need. It still boils down to who you know and whether your stuff is both good and appropriate to their specific projects.
I know, I'm a total downer.
I'm an artist, man!
Of course, it's one thing if you're creating background music for the specific purpose of supporting a scene- that's what it is, straight up. If, however, you are creating songs and performances that you want people to listen to as a stand-alone experience, then you have to be wide-eyed about the fact that your song in any sync is there to support the product and the product isn't the song.
Yes, there are those who have had success by having their song picked up for a show or game. Just remember that the song wasn't the main attraction and if you're good with that, then good.
Now some will take umbrage at my negative waves; after all, any notice is good notice they will say and maybe that's true.
Just saying...

Song of the Week:
This week's song is Dance (LA Stew) from the Apologia Album.

This song is my take on the LA scene of the mid-80's and the new hedonism, which may not have been any different from the hedonism of the past. I found it all to be terribly superficial, all flash and bang. Musically, the song came from a drum track I created and then I added the synth, the bass and the guitar. Raves were picking up steam and it's my take on  early Electronica.
You can listen to it here at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce

I Want You (She's So Heavy)

The title refers to the divisive Lennon song on the Beatles Abbey Road album. People either love it-I'm one of them-or hate it. Lyrically, there's not much to it; it being another paean to Yoko, and the three plus coda did not endear itself to many critics, but I digress.

I bring this up mostly because albums like Abbey Road were instrumental in how I learned to hear music and why I record and arrange my songs the way I do. The Beatles are acknowledged innovators in how they approached recording and arranging. You can hear their influence throughout the music of the 60's and 70's. Everyone who gushes about the sound of records from that era-I'm talking the vinyl crowd here-owe a debt of gratitude to George Martin and the Beatles!
When I listen to a song, I listen to more than the melody and lyrics. I listen to what instruments are used, how they're set up, how the signal is modified, where they are in the mix, how their panned-where you hear them left to right-and the dynamics of the production.
Abbey Road, the last Beatle album, is a recording artist's dream.
Whatever you think of the songs themselves, whether you like or dislike Maxwell's Silver Hammer, Octopus' Garden, or I want You (She's So Heavy), even Here Comes the Sun-yes, there were critics who didn't like that song, they were evocative of music the individual Beatles would produce over the course of the next two decades and yet have that Beatles sound, something that is found more on Paul's records, which point to his influence when the Beatles were in the studio.
Many people have written about the songs and arrangements so I'll leave it up to you to check that out; what I would ask is the next time you have a chance, listen to what's going on in the songs themselves. Listen for the amp hum during the breaks between the two segments of I Want You (She's So Heavy), the way the voices and guitars are continually panned back and for in Here Comes the Sun, the Moog synthesizers played throughout the record, and how prominent the drum sounds are, echoing the biggest change in rock music at the time. And listen to how all the song fragments are put together on side two and how well the medley works.

Song of the week:

No Wonder is from the Winter album, the record I'm making from a series of demos from way back (the 80's). At the time I decided that intimate love songs weren't working for me, but love and relationships are nearly impossible to ignore in this day and age, so I wanted to write about attitudes and perceptions that forever play into how we see or think relationships ought to be. The lyrics play with the idea that the singer is well aware of what everyone thinks they know about this relationship, but believes they're looking for the wrong things in it. Musically, it something of a jazzy tune based off the bass line. I wanted the song to give the impression of floating, of gliding on air.
You can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce

Sources of Inspiration-Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel has had the greatest influence on me when it comes to recording. His 4th solo album, nicknamed Security, hit like a hammer; I couldn't listen to it enough. It was nothing like all the other records I'd heard at that time, that time being 1982. I found it mesmerizing, the textures, the timbre all through the songs; it was both very different and yet very familiar. Pop music/Rock done in a distinct voice.
I found you could make music that didn't have to sound like what was on the radio yet be accessible. Some of it was that I didn't have the tools or access to studios or the equipment and instruments that I would have liked and had to do with what I had, which at the time was a few guitars, a bass, a synth, and a drum machine. The biggest issue for me was the drum machine-a Drumulator-which had good drum sounds, but sounded like a machine playing drums using patterns mimicking real drummers. But, if like Gabriel, I could instead use rhythm patterns allowing space and beat, then the music took on its own character. It could be simple and effective.
As an example, listen to the opening track of Peter Gabriel 4/Security, The Rhythm Of The Heat. Note that the drums aren't what is typically used, not cymbals or straight ahead drumbeat, instead, percussion patterns common to African drumming that Gabriel often used during this period. Note the dynamics, the power of the drums, the insinuation of the synths, the spare guitar-unusual for the time in Pop/Rock. Finally, the quiet before the crescendo of the drums to end the song. This is how compression is used to its best effect.
The entire album is, to me, how to make a recording that pulls you in and surrounds you with sound. It's also an excellent album to use when buying speakers; if they can handle this album with clarity and dynamic, then they're excellent speakers!
Listen at Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/track/1SqdCJsKsRgQ8qEzjLtmPm

This Week's Song: Forgotten from the Apologia album. The song is a about coming to terms with the understanding that in time we become irrelevant as a relationship slips further into the past. However strongly we may have felt at the time, and my still feel now, for the other it is only a memory rarely revisited. Their life has moved on to more immediate and important matters. Musically, it's fairly simple, two synth lines, chords and bass, with a guitar and vocals. Listen on Spotify or at mrprimitivemusic.com.
©2018 David William Pearce

Wow, That Sounds Really Good!

Often times when I hear from people who have graciously taken a little time to listen to my recordings, they remark on how good the recordings sound. Some of that is based on the fact that I do this at home versus in a recording studio, but mostly, it's because I'm stuck in the 60's and 70's recording-wise.

The bands and artists I like and admire the most, from the Beatles to Steely Dan to Peter Gabriel were, and are, big proponents of timbre, which is a term used for musical diversity within a song. I like using different sounds and styles within my recordings, always have. Even within the same instrument class; guitars for example, I like variety, which is why my guitar collection isn't simply different versions of the same guitar; for instance a Gibson Les Paul, of which there are many kinds.

It's also important to give those instruments room to breathe so they can be heard. That can be a challenge, but I find that part of the fun. Where is the instrument in the spectrum from left to right? Where it is panned to-the recording term. Is it close or in the distance? Reverb is what gets us there. Dry is close, right in your face; wet is deep, in the back.

Finally, easy on the compression; use just what you need and maintain the space. It matters because that's what give a recording it richness and it's depth. It's also what makes it interesting and gives the listener a reason to go back again and again.

If you wonder why you don't hear more interesting music within Pop music, I recommend you check it out here.

This Weeks Song is The Fall From Grace from Winter. It's a simple song about a disintegrating relationship that was built on the premise that you could change someone with a song. The beginning of the track is from the original demo for 2 reasons, one, I liked the way it turned out, and 2, the rawness of the recording; it sounds like someone playing for another. It also provides a stunning intro as the full sound follows. Hear it here at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce

To Play or to Program

Recently, in Guitar Player magazine, Jack White clarified his supposed antipathy to Pro Tools and other software used in the recording industry. His objection is that too often the computer does the work through programing rather than the artist/musicians, and that the music loses something because of it. 

I thought of this as I was recording an album called Winter. Originally, the songs were recorded on my Tascam Portastudio 244, a 4-track cassette machine and these were the first songs I recorded using it. It has the usual tape hiss and noise one might associate with home recording, although most of the noise came from running the track recordings through a Fender deluxe reverb amp because portastudios didn't come with built-in effects in those days and quality reverb units were pricey. 

The tracks were demos for a band album that never was and although I promised to re-record the songs, it's only now that I've gotten around to it.

As with all my recordings, I play all the instruments, with the noted exception that in some cases I use drum patterns, either because I like the rhythm or because at the time of the recording I didn't have an actual drum kit.

Nor are the tracks composites of many recordings, say of a solo; what you hear is what was laid down in that take. That can make recording tedious if you are trying for the right series of notes or groove, etc. and not having a lot of success. Having a home studio, if nothing else, gives me the option of giving up till tomorrow what I can't find today; if you're paying for studio time, having an mixer splice something together might be the more affordable option if you're paying by the hour.

I do think by working out and playing the various parts, be it bass or percussion or keys, gives the song it's human element; I suppose you can use the correction tools to fix glitches or odd moments, but unless it seriously detracts from the song or is glaringly obvious, sometimes a supposed mistake give the song its quirk.

And I think that's what Mr. White is alluding to, the human quirkiness in doing the work, in giving the song its character, and that doesn't necessarily mean flaws or errors. It's what makes it interesting.

This week's song: As noted above, I'm working on an album called Winter,

Back in 1984 I wrote a bunch of songs that were meant to be a new band album after we'd recorded Broken Hearts and the Fabulous Perch in 1982. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens, we never found the time and other projects and bands took precedence. This year I decided to finally re-record the songs into more finalized versions. So for this week's song we have both the original demo and the finished song. The song is Wind. You'll note I shorted it and changed the solo. The other most notable thing is the difference in the sound depth of the new version.

You can hear them at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce

Thoughts on Songwriters-Paul Simon

A few weeks ago I went with Nancy to see Paul Simon on his This is My Last Big Tour tour. It was a fine show as these elegiac events tend to be. I've made it a kind of bucket list to see as many of the performers and songwriters that informed my musical sensibilities as I can before they or I fade from view. Certain shows were somewhat prophetic; the Eagles before Glenn Frey died, Neil Diamond before Parkinson's, Fleetwood Mac with all its members together. Others never were; we had tickets to see Al Jarreau, but he died before the show could take place.

As a songwriter and recording artist with a fair sized catalog-though I don't pretend to be in their league-I tend to see them over the length of their careers and note the changes along the way. I also wonder if, as has been wondered after the end of the gloried Tin Pan days, if, like then, we aren't reaching the end of a particular period of musical creativity that permeated the greater public consciousness.

The 60's, 70's, and 80's were a prolific period for singer-songwriters across all genres of which Paul Simon is a shining example. From the folk inflected songs he wrote in the 60's for Simon and Garfunkel, through the R&B, gospel and soul sounds of his  70's solo records to the world music inflections of his albums of the 80's, Simon mined the sounds he heard over his life and produced a treasure trove of songs that are now part of the American songbook. The irony with Simon is the wake that followed him through these permutations of songcraft, whether is was grousing about his being a faux folkie or an appropriator of black music styles, whether American or World based. There is the counter argument about how he brought otherwise obscure, at least to the broader public, voices to greater acclaim.

As I said above, I wonder if there are any Simons in our future. Songs today that are as popular as his were in his day are the product of collaboration between many writers and tend to be emblematic of the particular sonic qualities inherent in modern computer based production. How many of these songs will be sung by many for many years to come? Will they be sung to old folks by old folks in forty or fifty years? Will Kanye or Kendrick Lamar be someday as Simon is today? Is Rap something others cover? I assume so; why wouldn't they?

It makes me wonder.

This Week's Song. For fun, this week's songs isn't from any album, but is a short song I wrote for a dance solo Nancy and I did late last summer called With a Man (Who Loves to Dance). It's written for a Foxtrot and I was inspired by Peggy Lee when I wrote it. Nancy sings lead. You can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com

©2018 David William Pearce

They Gave a Pulitzer to Hip-Hop: OMG or AFT?

I don't normally pay attention to who win the Pulitzer prize in music; I don't even know what the criteria might be, eligibility; anything like that. Some of the winners I know of, some I have no idea, but this year they gave it to the Rap/Hip-Hop artist, Kendrick Lamar for his album, Damn. 
It's caused quite a bit of talk, controversy; which I guess should be expected.
Traditionally, the Pulitzer has gone to Classical or Jazz artists, those who have, for the most part, defined musical educations. The assumption is that Kendrick Lamar does not, that he comes to his musical understanding by other means; I doubt Hip-Hop songs are charted out, however in this day and age of Pro Tools and plug-ins, beats, etc, it may simply be the creative melding of existing sounds and sampling, and I assume some performance, into something unique.
Now, I'm not ordinarily an aficionado of Hip-Hop, but I figured the smart thing to do would be to listen to the album, and I did, and it's very good. It grooves, it's got things to say, messages; all the things us oldsters remember the social critique albums of yore having.
Whether adding popular music to the mix in awarding Pulitzers is a good or bad thing I don't know. Does it diminish those who spend years learning and perfecting the classical canon of musical composition and theory and then trying to create and then compete against the titans of those genres for ear time? It might, but that's been a concern for some time.
The other comment made on this asks whether there is a racial component here because classically trained and educated musicians tend to be white, predominantly due to accessibility and wealth; music school ain't cheap!
To me the question inevitably goes to the value of a fine arts education, whether it's music, writing, or the visual arts. When everything is judged based on "Market Value" or what's popular at any given moment, its value will always be subjective even as debt is not. Whether the debt is worth the personal subjectivity is an individual conundrum.



This week's song is from Apologia,

Imperfect Touch. It's about love as a concept versus love as it really exists. The point that compromise and concession are inevitably the only way that love can work between two people no matter how they may wish it could be. Musically, the song came about from the drum track and the synth pattern derived from playing with it. The guitars are mildly distorted through the Effectron, and I pushed to vocals a bit.
Yo can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com.
©2018 David William Pearce

Which is Better, New Stuff or Old Stuff?

A question for my many fans: Is Apologia better than We Three?

I ask the question because I was listening to a podcast recently and the woman interviewed, the writer Lorrie Moore, stated that she didn't read her writings from days past. I found that odd but not particularly surprising; it is an affliction many artists suffer from.
But not me.
My affliction is that I am quite critical of my craft as I work on it and spent many hours wasting much needed effort-that should be directed to other pressing affairs-believing it's all for naught. It's my own personal defect.
Time, however, suppresses this foolishness. There was a time when I did not think particularly well of Apologia, or the other albums I made in the 80's. Most of the criticism revolved around the fact that I was limited in what I could do and therefore would not create a masterpiece, or something resembling the noise on the radio.
I now think the albums are pretty f**king good all things considered.
Now I have all the processing power I longed for in ye good old days and am occasionally perplexed that I'm not creating masterpieces with my recent albums. On the plus side I don't care if they don't sound like what's on the radio. That's not necessarily a diss; I just know better.
So, is Apologia better than We Three or vice versa?
They are different, but that could be credited to the fact that they were made 30 years apart; perspectives change, musical direction changes, abilities and desires change.
And unlike Ms. Moore, I do listen to what I've recorded and as I made it primarily for me-that way if it's disappointing to others I have an out. So I listen to the differencesand marvel that it did turn out as good as it has given the limitations of my abilities and the equipment at my disposal.

If you wish to judge for yourself, the albums can be heard at mrprimitivemusic.com. Just go to the albums section.

Speaking of mrprimitive.com,
This week's song is from Apologia, Man On The Box. The song deals with pedophiles and the lengths they go to to excuse their actions while knowing it's wrong. I don't remember exactly what made me write this, but it was probably on one of those talk shows where people were rationalizing their addictions and their inability to stop even when confronted with being ostracized and jailed. It is also a meditation on how society sees runaways, street kids as afterthoughts and the detritus of broken families. The music, which like almost all of my songs came first and started with the drum pattern. The solo is my favorite part- I like the guttural tone that came from the Rat distortion box and the Effectron II delay.

©2018 David William Pearce

Ah, the Playlist is Back in Vogue

I am a long time playlister. Back at the dawn of time, I began making cassette tapes filled with my favorite songs from my vaunted LP collection. One reason was simple, mostly; there was not and there is still not, any phonograph that will work in a motor vehicle. Plus, I got to put on what I liked and not be subjected to the stuff I did not like. I grew up with radio, but inevitably grew tired of the following: the same rotation every day for commercial radio or hearing a great song that wasn't popular enough to be played more than once or twice a day and not being around when they played it, or I'd hear a great song on college/alternative radio and might never hear it again. Then there was all the music I'd read about that never got played on any station I'd ever listened to.
I also got heavy into Walkman's and you gotta have tapes for your Walkman.
and I made a bunch,

These are but a few.
I also created lists for the many iPods I've owned over the years; some habits die hard.
It is for this reason that I find the list-mania so interesting. I f you haven't heard, lists on streaming sites such as Spotify are the big thing and in order to be anybody you've got to get on the lists generating the most streams. Never mind the noise about labels and other big players buying spots or creating lists and then creatively covering their tracks, although I don't know why, being a corporate giant doesn't quite have the villainy it once did.

so for fun here's the latest playlist I put together (I set 20 as the song limit per list):
1. Free as a Bird, Lennon and the three other fabs; I know, I know...
2. Let Love Rule, Ledisi, R&B, totally grooves.
3. The Air That I Breathe, The Hollies, greta harmonies.
4. Rock Candy, Montrose, classic 70's rock.
5. My Baby Left Me, Elvis when he was a punk, love it.
6. Looking Forward to the Past, Tommy Immanuel with Rodney Crowell, the kinda country I love-greta tune, great guitar work.
7. Somebody's Baby, Jackson Browne, love it because it's not your typical JB tune.
8. Nobody, Doobie Brothers, first hit, classic Doobie's sound.
9. Candy, Nat King Cole, love that voice!
10. Highway Tune, Greta Van Fleet, the new alternate Zeps.
11. Seven Bridges Road, Eagles, yes, I'm trapped in the 70's, plus I love the harmonies.
12. Hey! Ya You, The Elwins, heard the band a few years ago at the ASCAP confab, quality Canadian pop.
13. You Oughta Know, Alanis Morissette, pissed at an old flame? This is your song.
14. When Will I Be Loved, Everly Brothers, classic plain and simple.
15. Mother Freedom, Bread, their only rock hit.
16. Lady D'Arbanville, Cat Stevens, I've always liked his early stuff.
17. Big Noise, Kyle Eastwood, thumping jazz.
18. Working Class Hero, Jon Lennon at his most acerbic.
19. Solitary Man, Neil Diamond, one of my favorites.
20. Muzika Dyla Fil'ma, Persephone's Bees, rocking indie band from Oakland, sung in Russian.

This sort of list is common for me and you'd never hear it on the radio or I wager on Spotify.
©2018 David William Pearce

So Close

I am, occasionally, asked if I ever think of selling my songs or I'm told that a particular song would be great for such and such a performer. I'm flattered, but I'm less inclined for a number of reasons, but mostly because I've found that a certain rigidity exists in those who pitch, or are pitched to, when it comes to song structures, lyrical content, and the like.

But I'm not one to completely disown any idea, so as an opportunity to expose my pre-existing biases, I submitted one of my songs in a contest recently. The songs was Do You Still Love Me Now from the We Three album I released a couple years ago.

You can here it at mrprimitivemusic.com; go to Albums and Music, click on We Three, and scroll down to the song. You can also hear it on Spotify or Apple Music, if you prefer.

The Music City SongStar Awards was the event and I am sad to say I did not win, or the song was not chosen. I was informed that a critique would be sent to me in the coming weeks and I received it a week or so ago.

I was so close!

I had to laugh at that, but I was not surprised. Here are their categories and comments:

Clear theme or cohesive idea; I scored well on this.

Clearly identifiable sections (verse/chorus,etc.); good job.

Lyrics evoke emotional response; another good job (I've had people tell me the song makes them cry!)

Lyrics are singable and memorable; good work.

Music/melody adds to the theme or emotional impact of the song; they reiterated the category and said to keep it up.

Music keeps listeners engaged; well done.

From here it gets more to the heart of the matter.

The dynamics take the listener to a satisfactory climax or conclusion; they felt I had but I should play with it a little more.

The song expresses the theme in a new or fresh way; they felt I was successful, but added I should go further with lyrical pictures that might capture the meaning of my idea. I thought this ironic in that there's no way you could misunderstand what the song was about.

*The song has commercial potential*; here they stated I should be lyrically precise, keep the intro short, play up the dynamic changes, and have hooks o' plenty.

Some final comments reiterated keeping the intro short-country especially, but they liked the song-good melody, lyrics worked well with the song; it comes across as heartfelt. 

They had category levels as follows: "less than good", "on the right path", "so close", and "nailed it". In every category listed the song was ranked "so close". Now I could be snarky and snide, but in truth, given the market-country especially, it would be better to argue that rather than so close, the problem with the song is that it's 30 to 40 years too late. I wrote it as I remembered country songs from my youth when those songs appealed to a much wider age demographic that they do now. People in their 20's and early 30's aren't going to get the song and classic country is content with hits of the past. 

Still, it's nice to know they liked the song.

This week's song, is Life Without Chickens, from the album of the same name:

It is, on the one hand, the oddball of the album, a long, 15 minutes, instrumental in 3 parts, each with a nonsensical title, while on the other, it sets the tone for the rest of the songs.

The 3 parts are:

A. A Ticket in Bill's Shirt,

B. Martians With Guns,

C. A Hymm to Life Without Chickens.

The inspiration came from too many hours listening to Miles Davis' work from the 60's and 70's; he had long pieces that moved from theme to theme. In the case of Life Without Chickens,  the connector is the bass track and the idea was to move from different rhythms within the framework of a simple drum pattern for each section, the bass, 2 guitars, and the synth. Simple as that. It has a lot of open space that allows the different instruments to be heard, which is a theme throughout the album and its successor, Apologia.

It can be heard at the same places as the about noted song.

©2018 David William Pearce

The Album is Dead...Nonsense!

As a reader of most things musical, insofar as music creation and production goes, nothing makes me either smile or roll my eyes like the now frequent declarations that the "album" as a musical construct is dead, done in by the nefarious forces of glassy-eyed internet streaming junkies for whom listening to more than one song by a particular band or performer is like so yesterday.

To this I say: uh-huh, sure.

My apathy is not merely based on my own predilection towards theme based albums, to which my recent releases will attest, but to the overwhelming fact that along with this proclamation of era in finem, are articles of bands and artists discussing their latest releases which invariably are albums! This is not surprising for most artists are thematic, whether rock, Jazz, or Metal.

So what is going on?

Everybody talk about Pop Muzak!

Pop music has always been about singles stretching back to the days of 45's, 78's, and further back if you include that period a hundred plus years ago when sheet music and player pianos were in vogue. Most of us have fond memories of one hit wonders and those bands or groups that were created in our formative years, whatever period that may mean to you-whether it was Bobby Sherman, Kajagoogoo, the Spice Girls, or the latest K-Pop-they were not created for the purposes of thematic music; they were created for mass consumption and as such are best represented by a series of singles, assuming the first gets any traction.

I won't get into the fine art of Pop sensation creation; that in itself would take up an entire column, but will say that, much like the death of Rock-which is somewhat precarious-talk of the death of the album, and certainly the disingenuous posturing that doing one is a waste of time and resources, is total bunk.

Not everyone wants to be the next teen sensation, most musicians and songwriters have stories to tell, loves to extoll or commiserate, and injustices to decry, and even if they are released separately, their songs inevitably build upon a theme; that's how we identify with them; that is their legacy. So just keep truckin' and do your thing.

The Past Never Goes Away

In my never-ending quest for everything to be just so, I was cleaning out the crawlspace and came across a box of textbooks from college and lodged in there with them were these old Musician magazines I'd held onto.

It was beyond interesting to re-read them. They range from the early 80's to the early 90's. I began reading and then subscribing to the magazine in the early 80's and read it religiously till it stopped being published. I didn't save very many, but the ones I did tended to reflect my interests or shocking events; the ones above covering Steely Dan 12 years apart (1981,1993), and the deaths of Zappa and Kurt Cobain not long after this edition came out.
Perhaps more interesting is the world of music at those times. In the early 80's I was getting more and more immersed in writing and recording, buying my Tascam 244 and figuring out how to use it. Unlike today, where just about everything and everybody has a website or Facebook or Soundcloud page, finding new music or what people were doing was generally the domain of magazines, fanzines, and industry newsletters. I'd forgotten how much was jammed into an issue. As an example, the March '81 magazine had interviews with Steve Winwood, coming out of a self imposed retirement, Steely Dan, finally releasing Gaucho after years of legal fighting with their label, John Lennon, this was two moths after his murder and people were still trying to understand why, record business news, Jazz news, up and coming bands U2 and the Psychedelic Furs, a look at the music scene in Austin before SXSW took it over, think eclectic country and what we now call Americana,  music reviews, gear reviews, critical snark; it had it all.
The other trend, if it is that, is the new found love of the old, in this case cassette tapes of which I have a few.

Like many a poor fool I had a record collection and a tape machine and so, as was the custom, I made tapes for the car and my Walkman. That this would be making a comeback is amusing to say the least, but maybe it's not that far-fetched. Obviously, making lists of songs to share is the happening thing, but often, as one should expect, on many sites it's more and more lists created to push a particular artist or label. And there is the old school notion of actually getting together to listen to each others tapes, or playing them for one another; that human touch thing rearing its head.

As I said, interesting.

This Week's Song: The Concerns of the Holy, is from Life Without Chickens, is something of an elegy to being a holy-man in this day and age; is it for real or is it just a racket to take advantage of a bunch of rubes. Lyrically I tried to play on that ambivalence. Musically, the song is fairly simple, 2 guitars, a synth, and a drum pattern with my usual desire to have them interweave like smoke rising from a flame. 
You can hear it at mrprimitivemusic.com

More of the Same or Something Totally Different?

A common refrain one hears when an established band is putting out a new song or album; this is especially true if there has been a hiatus or a period of separation, is whether it's in line with what they've put out previously. For established groups or individuals who have a easily identifiable sound, think AC/DC, changing direction midstream tends to cause all kinds of backlash and complaining, and many bands after a few tries at something different go back to the tried and true. That brings its own set of problems especially if the past is where their glory lay. This is why the Police did not put out an album during their reunion tour because whatever you do is going to be compared to the golden oldies.
And God forbid if they are pale reflections (or sound like Sting's latest album).
The other problem is familiarity.
I'm a big fan of Joe Satriani; I have all of his studio work, I've seen him in concert, etc., and, if I'm honest, I tend to greet his latest offering, What Happens Next, with a tad bit of trepidation. It's not that the songs are bad, and the playing certainly isn't; I am not anywhere near the player he is, it's that I feel I've heard it all before. And as someone who writes and records, I know how it is to try and come up with new interesting stuff each time out. I'm not saying that to rag on Joe, and I do like the new album, it rocks and grooves and illustrates that if you know what the hell you're doing, a bass and drums are all you need for accompaniment.
It's just...that each song sends me back to other songs on other albums and that leaves me conflicted, mostly as a composer and recording artist because my biggest fear is rolling in the same over and over; having nothing new or different to say. I tend to project that on the players and performers I admire the most.
On the plus side, I'm hardly well-known and can therefore go in all kinds of directions, but you are what you are and it takes a lot of work and a willingness to be critical enough to admit that the new happening tune is a glorified rehash of something you did 30 years ago. It's one of the reasons why I think it's a good idea to learn multiple instruments; a piano plays different from a guitar which is different from percussion. I find they lead in different directions which is what I like.
Plus it teaches you new tricks,
I like that.
*
This week's song is from Life Without Chickens,

Near Kiss/Another Street Prophet, is my one foray into a Reggae beat. The song was created of a series of drum patterns I created using a Drumulator.

It is the drums and percussion you hear on all the albums from what I call the Seattle period, 1985-1991, and it had a great sound as well as individual outs for each sound, bass, snare, etc. This allowed a lot of creativity and it made recording just that more fun. The song is 2 parts, the instrumental to start and then the song proper. Along with the drum patterns, I used two guitars run through a Rat fuzz box and the Effectron II for the echo, and the Korg Poly-800 synth for bass and atmospherics. The lyrical subject was the conflict in our consumer driven-business driven society between self interest and the welfare of others. I posed this by having each verse be in a different position; the first is the street prophet lamenting for those struggling and a desire for us to come together; the second is the indignant response, partly of disdain for not working and for the suggestion that he isn't compassionate enough.
You can listen to it at www.mrprimitivemusic.com and click on this week's song.

©2018 David William Pearce