Common Sense Dancing: A Breakthrough In Sound

I had a gig at Cafe#9 in Sheffield a couple of years ago, and, looking for things to talk about between songs, looked up what had happened in history that day, and chanced upon a bizarre event from 1977 - The Southern Television Broadcast Interruption.

Strange things happen in Hampshire..

I was fascinated. This was clearly an inside job by someone who knew what they were doing - but what of those who witnessed it in their living room? So I wrote what could loosely be described as a song about it from the point of view of one such viewer, and played it at that gig. A Breakthrough In Sound is that song.

Arguably, it's recalling documents of interplanetary laughs.

<rollseyes>Sigh</rollseyes>

Other than the guitar and my voice, all the sounds on the track are Mellotron - the tape-based instrument mentioned in previous posts - including all sound effects (and static!), and sometimes heavily processed.

Whilst it has quasi-science-fiction overtones, the message of the song is a simple one of love, peace, scones and jam.

See you tomorrow for a bit of exercise!

Common Sense Dancing: Ladybird

Ladybird Books are a feature of many a childhood for children in the UK, and indeed, around the world. While the Ladybird name was first used by Leicester based printers Wills And Hepworth shortly before the First World War, the books as we know them were devised by Douglas Keen and appeared in shops in 1948. This song gives a potted history of the books between 1948 and 1971 (when they ceased to be part of Wills And Hepworth, and became a company in their own right.

There were many folk involved in the making of the books over the years - artists, researchers, story tellers, academics, etc - and I felt I could only highlight certain key points and people. Even then, in trying to be brief and non-didactic, it still ended up with eight verses, three versions of the chorus, and the middle eight appearing twice..!

The piece is intended as a celebration of the books, some of the people behind them, the 2oz tome's place in the shared history of many lives, and the joy that they represent.

If any relatives of people who worked on the books hear the song and feel I ought to have included their mother/brother/auntie/uncle/etc, I'm so sorry.. Omission wasn't personal!

Backing vocals ably supplied again by Kim Eames and Jeremy Richardson

See you tomorrow!

Common Sense Dancing: Mellotron Suite: Main Theme

I had a bunch of short ideas that I never thought I would never make in to full guitar pieces, but when the notion of making Where Shall We Go appeared, I felt I could use those ideas as the basis for the music through the play. During the writing stage I new I was going to be arranging for flute and violin so set up those sounds on virtual Mellotrons (using GForce's excellent M-Tron Pro). And got rather used to the sounds!

Once the real instruments had been recorded I felt it would be a shame to have the Mellotron versions of the music lost, and that it would be nice to have some of the music separated off from the play to be pieces in their own right - thus the Mellotron Suite was born.

This piece, however, never appears in the play in this form. The chord structure appears at the start and end of the play, along with a couple of other arrangements popping up here and there, but without these flute/ violin parts. The melodies appear without the context of the guitar (I'll let you work out where, should you wish to know!), but here everything is presented together, united at last..

See you tomorrow :-)

Common Sense Dancing: Cupboard Luv

In the 90s I worked with a chap Marc Catley. We made four albums together and contributed tracks to a variety of compilation albums between 1992 and 1996. Some of the work was released under a bandname Paley's Watch. Only one album was released, November. There was to have been a follow-up, a concept album about Art and The Arts, but it was never made, sadly. Arguably, Common Sense Dancing is now that album.

In preparation for the second Paley's Watch album I asked a friend for a suggestion for 'arty subject matter,' and she suggested sitcom. Much as I liked the idea, I couldn't find a way in to make it work; but with so much sitcom humour relying on farce, I felt I could more easily tackle a song about that - and Cupboard Luv is the result!

It tells the story of some self-aggrandised old ham at a local dramatic society getting his comeuppance during a performance.

Muted trumpet by Hester Russell and female BVs by Kim Eames.

See you tomorrow!

Common Sense Dancing: Family Entertainment

Family Entertainment started with the humming of a riff and singing the title while walking home from work as I'd missed the bus..

It was a number of years later before I revisited the idea, when I was getting this album together. Once I'd decided how the song was going to work, writing the lyrics came fairly quickly - singing them didn't! Rather than completely empty my lungs, the verses are sung in different overlapping takes so I wasn't blue-faced, gasping on the floor by the chorus..

"Is that a.."
Yes! Rather than guitar or synth solo, that's a.. listen and find out!

Backing vocals by Kim Eames and Jeremy Richardson

See you tomorrow <3

Common Sense Dancing: Antasia

Like yesterday's My Island, Antasia also started life as a short piece for a KvR monthly competition.

I had had the opening guitar part knocking around as an idea since the mid 90s, I liked it as it was reminiscent of the work of Genesis co-founder, Anthony Phillips. The atmospheric opening section gives way to a more rock tinged second half, which again drew on my love for Ant's work; I had elements of arrangements from the Private Parts And Pieces Vols II and VIII albums in mind with this section. NB 'Antasia' is, of course, a fantasia for.. well, you can work it out ;-)

The violin is by Sarah Sharp, who often performs under the name 'Tsarzi,' and I was thrilled to have Mick Somerset play saxello.
I had hoped to get Ant himself to play harmonium, but sadly that wasn't to be, and is now played on a Mellotron.

See you tomorrow :-)

Common Sense Dancing: My Island

My Island is just a silly song written as part of an island-themed monthly competition on a music website, KvR, in 2003.

It was, so far as I know, the first full, properly mixed piece of music recorded using Zynewave Podium while it was still in beta. This re-recorded version, as with the whole album, was made using the same software (just a few versions later!).

I'm not certain of many songs that include the word 'compunction.' Only other one I knowingly know is an old Stackridge tune - Marigold Conjunction. Any one know of any others..?

Thank you John Hackett for your fluting, and Kim Eames for your backing vocals!

See you tomorrow!