In addition to being my second most frequent collaborator, Bill has always been one of the biggest cheerleaders for everyone in Theme Music, and me in particular. He is both a genuine and generous individual who I am pleased to call my friend and band mate. But perhaps more on that later.
Hi Bill!
Hi Bob, thanks for the interview! I’ve been wanting to share my thoughts about my last album and my work in Theme Music, and this is the perfect opportunity.
In addition to playing piano, you ever so occasionally are seen to be playing an acoustic guitar or bass. When did you first start playing a musical instrument? Was it piano?
I took piano lessons when I was seven years old, but only lasted a few months out of lack of interest. I switched to trombone, playing in my school orchestra. Then in my pre-teens, Elton John rekindled my interest in piano. I picked up a chord book, then learned how to play from his songbook by following the chords therein. From there I played in rock bands in my teens and beyond, and yes, in some of those bands I learned and played bass and guitar.
Your first album I Called I was recorded under the artist name Desmond Drive prior to Theme Music and featured a couple of Themesters like Paul Melançon and Sheila Doyle. Did you know them prior to the recording (or did you meet them through Rob Gal, your producer)?
I met them through Rob Gal, who brought them in to the studio because I needed backing musicians. I wasn’t very well-networked at the time because I wasn’t active in the Atlanta music community, having moved in from out of state. And wow, they both sounded amazing! We wound up bringing in Paul a lot, and would have done the same with Sheila had we had more string arrangements. Were these connections your entry into Theme Music?
Yes! I was an admirer of Paul’s music and followed his exploits on Facebook. He had posted a couple of his Theme Music videos and I got curious about the group. I joined and lurked for a few months. Then one week he encouraged me to post, and I’ve been participating ever since.
How do you feel about that album today? Did you know that the lead track on Amazon’s site is “Happy Tollbooth Guy?”
I’m half-happy with it. For a first album it was a good effort, and I learned a lot about the recording process when making it. Plus, Rob’s production and engineering on it was astoundingly good. I made it during a period in my life when my attention was divided, and it shows in how some of the songs were written. They were rushed. "Happy Tollbooth Guy" was one such song, and I’m surprised it’s the most popular one. This may be a case of being too close to one’s own song to see it objectively.
You completed your second album, The Other Town, while in Theme Music with an array of Themesters on all the tracks. As a person working on album #2, can you tell me how satisfying it was to complete a second album, being able to learn from whatever mistakes you feel you may have made with the first?
Indeed, I learned to let go of songs that weren’t working for me. For the first album I included every song as it was written, and in hindsight some of them weren’t strong enough to have been included.
Ha! That sounds awfully familiar.
I suppose it’s a common mistake, yes? This time around I included only the ones I felt good about over time, and that has made a big difference. The album has another advantage, and that’s the community behind it. As a member of Theme Music, I had the luxury of being able to draw from a large pool of musicians to get the right players for each song.
That said, I wanted a core band for continuity between songs. Lee Flier anchored everything with tracking, engineering, and sometimes playing. I recruited Peter McDade on drums, Thom Bowers on bass, and Jonny Daly on guitar. Peter has that rare combination of rock stable timing plus musicality. He’s also very communicative. It was always easy for us to reach consensus on drum parts. Thom has that same restlessly melodic quality that my favorite bassists, Paul McCartney and Colin Moulding, have. I love it when those guys surprise the listener with a melodic fill that you’d expect from another instrument, and Thom has innovated some doozies for the album. Jonny’s guitar playing reminds me a little of David Gilmour’s. It provides a sense of lushness and, for lack of a better word, class to each song. Beyond the album-making experience, working with Jonny inspires me to continually improve as a musician. You’d think a person of his skills and accomplishments would rest on his laurels and phone everything in, but he remains curious and fearless in exploring new forms of music. That, my friend, is mastery.
Elvis Costello
Kid About It 16 December 2012
You recorded this collaboration with Jimmy Ether and Bassy Galore, and Jimmy did the video. Did you film your parts with a green screen? The vocal profile is particularly striking.
That backdrop was simply my beige wall -- no green screen. The lighting, framing, color treatment etc. was all directed by Jimmy. Impressive guy, yes?
He is, but I’ll never admit that publicly. Imperial Bedroom seems like the ultimate Elvis Costello album for your sensibility. Is it your favorite?
Yes. Matt Brown knew this too, and as my Secret Santa that year, he gifted me this song knowing that it was special to me.
The closest I ever came to that experience was when someone gave me Elvis’s “Our Little Angel” from my favorite EC album, but at the time it was a bit out of my comfort zone. Can we talk about how you became an Elvis fan?
I actually wasn’t crazy about his music until Imperial Bedroom came along. I had only known his hits before then. They were good, but they just didn’t resonate with me. My college roommate had bought Imperial Bedroom, though, and everything changed. Certainly the production was more elaborate than his previous offerings, but what really struck me was how musical the guy was. The songs hopped genres so effortlessly, his vocals were more dynamic, and the melodies were more appealing than anything he had done before. His subsequent albums range from good to brilliant, and I’m very happy he continues to take artistic risks by exploring new genres, even if it means sacrificing a larger fan base.
The original featured organ and multi-tracked vocals. What was your thinking about changing it? Were you going for more of a Bacharach vibe?
I wanted to see if Bassy, Jimmy, and I could pull it off as a trio with bass, drums, piano, and a single vocal track. It’s such a well-written song that it indeed worked with the simpler arrangement; just a more active piano part was enough to make up for the missing organ track. The Bacharach vibe wasn’t something we forced. It was built in to the song.
Joe Jackson
Be My Number Two 17 December 2012
Productive week for you, eh?
It was a Secret Santa week, and I was on a staycation. Free time plus cold weather plus great songs equals a recording frenzy.
As mentioned in the intro -- here’s a rare sighting of you playing a 12-string. Did you leave that up to other people in future Shaouy-led collabs in the spirit of inclusiveness?
To borrow a lyric from Imperial Bedroom, many hands make light work. Not only are collaborations easier for everyone, but I always get a kick of the band bonding that occurs in the band chat threads.
This one was co-arranged by Kyle Gray Young. How did that happen, especially since he didn’t play on it?
We brainstormed the arrangement together. It was a Secret Santa song gifted to me by Paul Melançon. The original arrangement was solemn and piano-driven and we wanted to try something different. We wound up with a poppy, guitar-driven arrangement. I forget why he didn’t play, but it may have been the week he injured his hand. I miss the guy. We brought in Jonny Daly to do the guitar parts, and he intuitively understood what we were going for right off the bat. So did Peter McDade on drums and Thom Bowers on bass. We gelled so well that the team was to become the core band for my album.
The video is a cheeky combination of performance footage and Sesame Street. Do you remember if that was your idea? I guess in 12/12 you were already looking for something different than pure performance video?
It was my idea. I did indeed want to do something more than performance video. I read the song lyrics without listening to the music, and the whole thing just screamed Sesame Street to me. I found whatever footage from the show I could about the number two, and even filmed some Sesame Street-style footage of my own.
Original
Candy in Line
26 June 2013
There aren’t words enough to describe how much I love this song and video. Jon Brion wishes he wrote this. I contend as a package it’s never been equaled in Theme Music. Take a bow, maestro.
Thanks Bob, we’re all proud of that one!
First let’s talk about the video: how did you get this professionally done video by Jared Caldwell and Eythan Holladay done?
Jared and Eythan were coworkers of mine, and filmmakers during off hours. For a time Eythan was a full-time filmmaker. They had the gear and knowhow to make a good film. I had approached them about doing a video for the song, and they graciously agreed.
Can you talk about the concept, how the three of you put that together?
Early in the week I had shared my lyrics with them, which really were nothing more than a rephrasing of Dear Prudence, imploring the subject to get off the straight-and-narrow. They developed the story for the video based on this idea, adding a magical, Twilight Zone twist element at the end. I had little to do with the video. While they were developing it over the week, Lee Flier (producer/engineer/guitarist) and I focused on making the music. We brought in Peter on drums, Jonny on banjo, and Nancy Gardos on backing vocals. The song had a lot of tracks and it took the full week to put it together. By the time we were done with the music, Jared and Eythan were done with the video. We were able to put the two together and post on time.
Writing process -- lyrics or music first, or some combination?
Neither. I don’t necessarily recommend this as a way to write a song, but I wrote this around a vowel sound. Seriously. When I started writing the song I had no lyrical subject and no melody in mind. All I had in my head was the vowel sound of a long “I”. It’s an aesthetically-pleasing sound when elongated, made up of a few different vowel sounds -- “AAAAIIIIIIEEE”. I chose the word “line” to contain that vowel sound and put “candy” in front of it to fit the week’s theme (sweetness/candy). The phrase “Candy In Line” makes no sense by itself, so I wrote the verses to explain it.
Musically, I knew I wanted the chorus to be in a different key than the verses. I do that sometimes because I like musical surprises. Most of the chorus is just two chords, C resolving to G. To add spice I added some complexity to the chords, changing the C to a C6 and the G to a Gmaj9. The verse pattern is that of the Beatles’ Michelle, only done in a different time signature. The bridge is two chords in a different key again, with tubular bells clanging in the background, an idea I stole from a Bach piece I had heard on the radio a few years back.
Do you consciously pick a musical style (e.g., waltz) when writing or do you come up with chords or melody first?
Usually a mini-melody first. Often a melody fragment pops in my head of just a few notes, and almost always it doesn’t work as the beginning of a song. So I build the melody backwards from there. If the original fragment comes from inspiration or my unconscious mind, the rest of it certainly gets built out with my conscious mind, like solving a puzzle. Often, but not always, lyrics come after that to fit the melody, and I typically struggle with that.
Arrangement -- I’ve heard that you work VERY differently than me in fleshing out your originals. Whereas I have no clue what I’m doing with the overall production and hope lightning strikes through ordered improvisation, you tend to know precisely what you want and tend to give musicians very specific instructions. Do your overall arrangement and production ideas come to you as you write or is there a second iteration of the process prior to band recording?
Usually the latter. When I’m writing it’s usually just me and the piano, and the arrangement ideas come later. For many songs I do ultimately have an arrangement worked out. This has the advantage of getting everyone on the same page and recording the song more efficiently, but has the disadvantage of being overly restricting to the musicians sometimes. In this regard I don’t consider myself a good bandleader. An area I can improve upon is to give musicians more space to improvise and put more of their signature in the songs. More magic can happen that way.
Original
Another God
10 November 2013
Here’s another song that you debuted in Theme Music that ended up on The Other Town. The video is your live to camera take, in sad portrait mode due to your wanting to capture keys and vocals. This seems like a good opportunity to talk about your set-up. What do you use to record? For the tech nerds, please be specific about your computer, keyboard, and so forth.
The portrait mode came from a request from a comment in one of my early live songs to switch from landscape to portrait, because the commenter wanted to see what I was playing on the piano as I was singing. For recording gear I use a Kawai stage piano (an MP6 at the time, now an MP11SE) MIDI’d in to an iMac running Logic Pro X. My piano sounds are usually from a physically-modeled piano VST called Pianoteq. Vocals and instruments go in to an LA-610 preamp, which in turn go through an Apogee Ensemble A/D converter into the iMac.
Songwriting question -- when you write in the first or second person, how often are you writing autobiographically?
Not a whole lot. These days my songs originate from a melody fragment or even a vowel or consonant sound. I build backwards from there and usually I write lyrics to fit the mood of whatever chords and melody I’ve written. In other words, I rarely start writing a song by saying “Ok, I’m going to write a song about me”. I did more of that in the past, but I’m in a place right now where the melodies, the album motif, or even the theme of the week, tell me what lyrics to write.
How does music contribute to the central metaphor of this song? Or put another way -- music: great god or greatest god? But seriously, “you’re the muse if you choose” is a wonderful turn of phrase that seems to be at the core of the song. You do you, Shaouy.
Haha -- Another God is a good example of not being autobiographically-driven right now. The title was driven by the theme, and the germ of the idea started with a busy, rapid melodic phrase that became “Never never say that he didn’t offer heaven in a day or much faster”. It was driven, again, phonetically. The only way I could pull that rapid melody off vocally was to fill it with easy-to-sing consonant sounds -- “n”, “v”, “th”, “f” and so on. From there, again, I built backwards and the song’s topic revealed itself -- the music business serving double duty as an archetype business, offering its musicians as more than players, but as gods every bit as culturally influential as Zeus, Osiris, Odin, etc. The lyrics implore the listener to be their own, more authentic, god.
I hear a considerable amount of Bacharach influence in the rhythm and lyrical cadence -- and that God Give Me Strength dramatic moment. Is that a fair comparison, and regardless of the answer, how has his work as a songwriter and arranger impacted you?
It’s a totally fair comparison. The song was largely stolen from Anyone Who Had a Heart, maybe my favorite song of his overall. The dramatic moment also was a straight tribute to Bacharach. More generally, Bacharach, Todd Rundgren, and Carole King all use a chord structure that I like to use a lot, taking a straight, vanilla major chord and putting an unusual bass note under it. For example, putting an F bass under a vanilla C chord turns the easy-to-play chord into something richer (an Fmaj9 for those keeping score at home). If you listen through the new album, you’ll hear that kind of structure all over it.
Nat King Cole
Straighten Up & Fly Right
24 December 2013
This couldn’t have been much more charming. I’m curious whether this genre of music was important to you in childhood.
No, I was an AM radio kid, growing up on 60s and 70s pop. I hadn’t had much exposure to anything older than that. Patrick Clark gifted this song to me during a Secret Santa theme. He’s a very tasteful fellow in everything he chooses for himself and others. That's hard to believe consider how comfortable you seemed with it! The song’s arrangement gave each of the musicians room to shine -- Lee Wiggins’ lovely brush work, the firm grounding of Scott Morris’s upright bass, Kyle Gray Young’s tasteful guitar solo, and your featured piano and vocal. You must have been super pleased with how it came out.
Indeed yes. None of us knew how it would turn out when we were recording it. The original was hard to follow by ear, and the sheet music had chords that we knew were incorrect. So each of us did the best we could with what we had, and the most important thing was that our parts didn’t clash. Everybody played well on this one, and I’m so glad Scott was able to get in on this one particularly.
Although there isn’t your beloved acting exactly in this video, you’ve got costuming and the old-timey TV filter to make provide a distinctive look.
I got a cheap pair of glasses from Amazon.com just for the occasion! They were too big, but I wore them anyway. Lee Wiggins did an amazing job antiquing the video -- it really does look of its time!
The inaugural interview of Theme Music: A Deep Dive is of Owen Hodgson, whose epic audio and video productions helped bring Theme Music to a new level. The focus of TM:ADD will vary from subject to subject, but each will be centered around a look back at key productions in the artist's TM career. Prior to Theme Music, you concentrated (almost?) entirely on original music. How did you find transitioning to doing as many cover tunes as you did? Was it the challenge of trying to reproduce the original instrumentation that intrigued you?
Funnily enough, when I initially heard about Theme Music in 2014, I wasn't interested. I'd only done maybe three covers in my life at that point, and just didn't think it would be my sort of thing. A little while later, I was introduced to Matt Brown online – a mutual friend had suggested he contact me about some non-musical issue he was having trouble with, so we ended up chatting. Naturally he mentioned TM, and invited me to check it out. It would have been rude to say no, so I joined and listened to a few things. I was impressed by the quality of music being created, but covers weren't my thing, really. After a couple of weeks, though, two things happened. During the “New & Old” theme, Mark McCrite had recorded a beautiful solo version of “New Horizons” by the Moody Blues – one of my favourites – and I kept going back to listen, and found myself itching to add the string parts. Secondly, a new theme of “Sworn To Secrecy” came in – and I had a new-ish original song that fit the bill. So I went out and filmed some appropriate scenes for that around my local area, and made a video for it, and then took Mark's cover and threw some Chamberlin sounds onto it. My first post and first hijack in the space of four days in May 2014!
So my introduction to doing covers was kinda slow. Many of my early posts were originals, plus coincidentally some of the themes that came up around then matched the covers I'd done prior to TM, so I had some ready-made posts that I just made videos for. My first actually-recorded-for-TM cover came in June 2014 (“Who Are You Now?”), and for that I did a simplified arrangement which echoed the original's sounds.
Certainly the challenge of reproducing existing sounds and arrangements has been a big driver for me, when covering certain artists. I get a perverse pleasure out of listening in detail to a recording, figuring out what's doing what, and then trying to match it as closely as possible. I'm very arrangement-oriented in my musical interests, so, if you like, the atmosphere of a recorded song can be as important as the lyrics and melody for me. So yes, I often try to capture that same feel – or exactly the same sounds – in covers. Or sometimes even exaggerate that.
So to answer the question more succinctly: transitioning was very gradual, not to mention unexpected, and the challenges developed along with that transition.
You worked primarily as a solo artist, but of course, had a long-distance musical partnership with Steve Jones as well. I imagine that was somewhat beneficial in preparing you for international, online collaborations. Did you find it challenging to manage the dynamics of collaborations that were more than duos?
Ha! Strangely it was my hijacking of some of Steve Jones's acoustic recordings that set me off on that path. Certainly I had no problems with the idea of international collaborations – it wasn't daunting, other than having to learn songs I didn't previously know and record within a short timescale. It took me a little while to get a handle on exactly what was expected for a TM collaboration. So, for instance, the first few times I was invited to collaborate, I worried that I wasn't note- or sound- perfect, or that I wasn't up to the standard of everyone else. Typical new guy fears!
When did you first start making videos for your music? Please talk a bit about your initial forays, hardware/software, and so forth. When did Final Cut Pro X become the editor of choice?
Prior to TM I'd made exactly two “music videos.” They comprised odd bits of footage of nature that I had lying around, or still photos of birds and things. I didn't like making them for my songs at all, as I didn't want to fix the imagery for listeners. I'm one of those who prefers to be able to create my own pictures as I listen to a song. But it turns out that the first one I made “properly” was for my first TM post - “Whispers To The Wind” - another original. For that I went out, filmed some bits and pieces locally that vaguely matched the lyrics, then realised I probably ought to be in it myself. Which was a terrifying prospect. I filmed myself walking and miming, and also kneeling on the floor in front of the top panel of my piano for a headshot. And then used FCP X to hide as much of my features as possible, by blending layers and so on. I really didn't like the idea of being on camera, and it was an uncomfortable experience both filming and editing, let along posting!
I was already using FCP X for other video projects prior to TM, and I'd upgraded from FCP 7 a few years earlier. I'd also played with iMovie a little, but found it wanting in terms of running multiple clips simultaneously. It took a little while to get used to the iMovie-like interface of FCP X, but once into it, found it pretty easy to operate.
What song for Theme Music was the most challenging to record?
Hard one to answer, as most things I've done have been a challenge in one way or another, but one that stands out just for its insanity was the stay-at-home Themesters' hijack of Rocket Man for Themestock III. I think it was probably on the Thursday before Themestock that I finally accepted that I was not going to magically jump on a plane and somehow get to Atlanta for the show! I knew that the show was going to close with Rocket Man, and figured that the stay-at-home people could probably do as good a job – so I put out a call for anyone and everyone who wanted to be involved. I threw together an extended version of Elton John's original song, with a few extra repeats at the end, and just asked everyone to play and/or sing to it, and make video.
Somehow, between Friday and Sunday, vocals, instrumentation and video from I think 20 Themesters turned up. So it was a pretty tight turnaround for getting all that mixed, and the video made. I think I was still up after midnight, UK time, on Sunday, mixing and video editing. However, for it to be a proper hijack, I wanted to include a clip of the actual Themestock Rocket Man performance. So I was up again at 5 am, running a video-capture of the end of the show from the live-stream, while making adjustments to the mix and arrangement. Incredibly, it was all done and posted by 8 am, ready for the Atlanta crowd to see when they woke up.
Which video was the most challenging to make?
Oh there have been lots! Some were complicated from an ideas point of view, for example the “walking” segments in the “Walk This Way / Stayin' Alive” mash up. Others have been challenging from a looks / dynamics point of view. “Closer” (Nine Inch Nails) was an example of that – trying to capture some of the creepy vibe of the original video, create consistent looks for the two voices in it, and also provide a visual progression in keeping with the audio. Storyboard videos like “Thrillseeker” offer continuity and visual challenges, such as the “hanging over a canyon” shot, while for things like “Let Me Entertain You” or “I'm Just A Singer In A Rock & Roll Band” the challenge is to create a stage feel for something that was actually filmed in one's living room.
With as many grand productions that you’ve spearheaded and been a part of, are you able to play favorites? If so, whaddaya got?
I think “Rocket Man” will remain a favourite – I think it was the point where I felt like I was part of Theme Music. Living far far away, and out of sync with the majority of group members, means that being a foreign member can be quite isolating. And around Themestock that year, it felt even more so. So doing that stay-at-home hijack seemed to bring people together a little. “Tell Me” (by Larry Cox, for Larry Cox!) is another – turning that from an idea into the thing it became was a lot of fun. Wrangling 47 contributors into a hopefully nicely balanced mix … yeah, I like doing that.
Also I have to mention Mull Of Kintyre - a certain Bob Fenster put it together in memory of the late Scott Morris. It was the song that launched me on the road to learning to play piano, aged 4, so I shoehorned my way on board and ended up mixing, and doing a couple of vocal spots. Not as big a collaboration as some of the others I could name, but one that has a special place for me, and I was very happy to be involved.
Of course, I do have some favourites among the collaborations I initiated for my own purposes too, but we're gonna come to them below.
For a couple of years the giant “all hands on deck” song was in vogue and you did videos and/or mixes for several. Can you talk about the challenges of those productions?
When fabled Themester Jonathan Aronson was about to turn 50, his partner Velvet got in touch asking if I could put together something for his birthday – I was still relatively new to Theme Music and didn't feel terribly confident assembling bands. So I called upon the help of that same Fenster guy, who took charge of the music side of things, while I manhandled the video.
Back in the day, it was very common for video to be submitted in all possible formats. I had mp4, mov, avi, wmv, mpeg2, and probably a handful of others too. Not only were all these formats entertaining to extract, but the aspect ratio tended to vary – some were 4:3, some 16:9, some vertical, some horizontal... And then the variety of frame-rates would add additional interest. Final Cut Pro is pretty good at interpreting frame-rates into the master project, however it doesn't always do it perfectly. For example, a 24fps video will often be “conformed” to 25fps, which means that a second's worth of frames (at 24fps) will only occupy 24/25ths of a second at 25fps. This slightly shortens the clip over time and means that it will drift out of sync through its length. And if there's one thing I can't stand, it's anything being out of sync. So one of the tedious jobs in video editing is stretching / contracting clips and making sure they're in perfect sync from start to finish. This is often a process of trial and error – and when you have something like 50 different clips to synchronise, quite time consuming.
In addition, some members film directly to their cameras or phones. So there was the added task of extracting audio and sending that back to the audio project for inclusion in the mix – occasionally the format led to all kinds of audio problems, on top of video issues. In particular those times when the video format was something ancient, and needed conversion through some esoteric software, which wasn't good at handling audio, leading to clipping and other weird and wonderful artefacts. On more than one occasion, I've had to extract audio by playing the original format video through a recorder! Likewise creating a video from screen capture.
The Aronson 50 video itself created some challenges. With 57 people, some sending complete videos, some sending snippets, and many sending messages for the end of the song, it was one heck of a pile to dig through. The choruses each featured a different massed vocal choir, who all needed to match, visual for audio; there were featured soloists who came in and out of prominence; Velvet had sent a series of photos to include; and somehow I wanted it to look visually appealing, and not just a bunch of boxes on a black background. Fortunately, Velvet had also sent a clip from a beach walk, and I was able to use the sand as a backdrop, and then softened the edges of all the clips with a feathered border. The positioning of the many clips was determined by aspect ratio for the most part – I tried to balance left and right sides as closely as possible. It was almost perfect! As I'm sure you'll attest, with huge productions, something almost always goes wrong. In this case, if I recall, one contributor's video never got to me, and I also failed to add a title with a special message to Jonathan from Velvet at the end of the song. Red faced.
One drawback to lots of video is that even the most powerful computers eventually start to lag, when trying to run 15 or 20 clips in parallel. This means that synchronisation becomes a massive problem, if the computer simply can't display the clip in real time. It's not safe to use the clip's own audio waveform to try to match with the song, as often incoming video is ever so slightly out of sync with its own audio. To work around this, I usually deactivate all but one clip at a time, make sure it's fully in sync, then move on to another, only reactivating all of them for a full render at the end.
It was a great learning exercise – both in the techniques department, but finding out about the characters of many Themesters from their contributed messages for the end of the video!
Tech talk!
You use a Mac for recording and mixing audio and editing video? Any interesting specs (model, OS, memory)? What software do you use other than FCP X for video making?
For a few years I used a G5 iMac to run Cubase, but in 2010 I got hold of a Mac Pro (mid-2010, 2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Xeon; 24GB RAM; OSX 10.7.5). Of course, I discovered that none of my 2006-2007 software worked on the new operating system that shipped with the Mac Pro, so I had to upgrade, which cost me a bunch more than I'd anticipated. For that reason, I've “frozen” my system and am not upgrading anything again until someone pays me to do so! I use FCP X (again, an old version so as to stay compatible, which means I'm missing out on the latest plug-ins!) for general editing, Motion for things like 3D movement and plug-in creation, and occasionally Compressor to convert file formats. I render out from FCP X to a MOV file, but then use MPEG Streamclip to convert to mp4s of various resolutions and file sizes, for uploading to YouTube, etc.
What DAW do you use? Any extra software for audio?
Cubase 6 is 99% of my DAW software, though I've occasionally used GarageBand on the laptop when away from home. Running within Cubase I have a lot of virtual instrument software: Kontakt, Battery, M-Tron, Play, etc. And within those a whole bunch of sample libraries, such as pianos, orchestral sounds, synths, drums, you name it. When I went digital, I got hold of good quality versions of the sounds I wanted most, and then a decent selection of everything else.
Can you give an overview of your recording set-up? What kind of keyboards, microphone(s), recording interface?
My current set up mostly dates from late 2006, with a handful of upgrades and additions in the meantime. I have an Edirol UA-25 audio interface, which gives me two audio inputs plus MIDI handling. For a long time I used a pair of instrument mics as my main audio input, but got hold of a CAD M179 in 2015 for vocals. My main keyboard input is a Fatar Studiologic VMK-188, a full-size, 88-note, piano-weighted keyboard, which is plugged straight into the interface. As this has aged, it has begun sending out spurious MIDI data (such as pitch-bend commands) which can be entertaining while recording, and also require some clean up in the recorded data! I also have a two-octave, play-it-on-your-knee MIDI keyboard (Samson Graphite 25) for those times when leaping back and forth across the room is a nuisance. I actually bought this for Themestock IV, so that I could play samples back through my laptop during my spot in the show. But aside from a number of the keys working loose, it's proved useful at home too.
I also have my old keyboards from the 1980s, which are more or less on display. They are occasionally powered up if I need particular sounds: a Logan String-Orchestra string synth, probably dating from around 1980; a Roland Juno-2 synth from 1986; a Mirage Ensoniq sampler of similar age; and finally a Casio HT-700 home keyboard for all the cheesy sounds of the 1980s!
Original The Edge of Nowhere 11 July 2014
First of all, fuck you, you wrote this thing at 17? I’d be impressed by just the overt homages, but there’s tons of other things going on here that go past tribute. Returning to a song you wrote 25 years previously, you must have a fondness for the song. Does that go beyond nostalgia for you?
My relationship with this song is an odd one. I think the TM-era recording counts as my fourth attempt at it, yet I've never really quite liked it. Perhaps because it's an overt homage. I don't think nostalgia comes into it – just a long-frustrated sense that I never recorded it to my satisfaction. Nevertheless, its 25th anniversary provided a prod to get on with it.
Although the experimentation of The Beatles was its inspiration, writing and recording this song certainly pushed my attempts to incorporate various soundscapes and styles within a single song. Especially back in 4-track days! And if you've heard other solo stuff of mine, you'll know it's a thing that happens fairly regularly. It's probably safe to say that many of my most significant musical influences were those that taught me, “yes, you can do that” when it came to throwing all manner of sounds and ideas at a song.
Anything else in the archive you might resurrect at some point?
I've got maybe 20 songs that I wrote back in the 1980s/90s (some recorded back in 4-track days, some not) that might be worth revisiting one day. Actually, a handful of that ilk made it onto my 2017 album “Erratic”, including The Edge of Nowhere, along with some more recent compositions. Whether I'll ever get around to the others remains to be seen. I'm no longer the angsty teen I was!
The Divine Comedy
Our Mutual Friend
12 November 2014
You went with the literal interpretation of the song on this one. I imagine that was somewhat daunting. Have you done it with any other videos?
Many songs by The Divine Comedy lend themselves to storyteller videos, though I think this may have been my first. Yes, it was a little daunting, because I was committing to a lot of filming, and a lot of being on screen – a thing that I was still getting used to at the time. I've since done storytelling videos for a handful of other songs – mostly Divine Comedy, unsurprisingly! “Come Home Billy Bird” and “Thrillseeker” are the most recent.
You did a lot of shots in blur-o-vision -- was that to mask the settings that had to pass for particular locations, a stylistic choice connected to memories, something else?
Several reasons, and you've hit on a couple above. First of all, I wanted to convey a sense of memory for the scenes prior to the narrator waking up – whereupon things come into focus in the cold light of day. So pre-waking, things are blurry, warm and cosy, and maybe slightly drunken. Afterwards, things are sharp, cold and sober, if a little unreal in a different way. (And yes, I really did run about a mile from the middle of town to the river for the final sequence – with pauses for breath – though the version posted to TM was shortened, musically, by about 50%.)
Secondly, the “she” in the video was played by my better half, Linda, but I didn't want to imply any autobiographical storyline with her in real life! So the blurring served to anonymise anyone specific. Thirdly, yes, the locations would not pass without some filtering. Although we did visit a local pub for various shots, it was not a nightclub, and I had to add flashing lights courtesy of an overlay of one of the kids' flashy LED toys. Likewise, another of the nightclub scenes was filmed in our bathroom, with a barstool, at night, to take advantage of lots of reflections from the same LED toys! Blur-o-vision helpfully hid the fact there was a shower cubicle, mirror and sink in shot!
My favorite two shots -- the back seat of the car (I assume that was stock footage, but beautifully executed) and the silhouettes. No question, but feel free to comment. :)
The car footage is real. Linda and I drove the same route through town twice, each taking turns to drive, with the other sitting in the back seat, pretending to converse across the car, and the camera mounted precariously in between. The two halves of the footage were fortunately similar enough in timing to blend down the middle, and the resulting composite had the anonymising blur added, which helped conceal the join. So yes, you're looking at West High Street in Inverurie. Twice.
The silhouettes for the “privately we danced” lyrics were again Linda and I in our spare bedroom with a bedside lamp shining up at us from the bed. The failing-to-keep-our-balance bit was done by rotating the footage in FCP, probably because falling over onto a Lego-covered floor was not on the agenda! Ah the reality of behind the scenes!
The list of instrument credits at the end is pretty staggering. Was that an unusual number even for you?
Actually … heh. I don't normally list all the sounds I use in a production, preferring “Other Stuff” to cover all my noises and doings. But on that occasion I figured why not? This was one of those songs where I tried a note-for-note replication of the original arrangement. A little unusual, but less so than you might think, is the use of chamber strings (a string quintet in this case) plus a five-part orchestral string section (that's ten separate parts just for starters!). But yes, that's a typical list of voicings for an orchestral track – they're all created as separate tracks, so why not list them out every so often? I often joke that in Theme Music I'll be asked to “just add orchestra” to a song, as if I have a keyboard that just plays back a full, 36-part arrangement if I sit at it for five minutes. The majority of my orchestral arrangements are actually created the Beethoven way – by sitting down and writing out the notes in the sequencer by hand, one part at a time. And if I'm replicating an existing arrangement, that also entails listening over and over to each phrase, trying to pick out each and every note for every instrument in the original.
Jeff Wayne
Forever Autumn
21 December 2014
I was unfamiliar with this project until you posted this video. Pretty epic. ONLY 12:44, eh?
I think this might still be the longest one-song, solo post in TM... maybe? ;) Though I think Mr. Brogan gave me a run for my money in 2017.
Was this (original) project popular in the UK? If not I’m guessing that your in road was Justin Hayward’s participation. What have the Moody Blues meant to you as an artist?
Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds was very popular over here. It came at the end of the prog/concept album period, and might actually have been a little anachronistic in that regard. It was a double album based, of course, on the novel by H. G. Wells, narrated by Richard Burton, and featuring many popular musicians of the day, including Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy), David Essex, Julie Covington and others. I think I became vaguely aware of it in the early 1980s, before my interest in The Moody Blues was sparked. The orchestral-plus-rock sound was automatically epic and powerful, and later when I rediscovered it, it was very “me”!
I think I discovered The Moody Blues when I was around 13. 1985 or so. In the early 80s, I'd been drawn by pop – The Police, Adam & The Ants, etc., and a little later, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, etc. Then, one day, I heard some weird stuff going on downstairs at home. Two things struck me about the sounds coming from the hi-fi. One was that some bits sounded like a bunch of guys pretending to be choirboys (turns out that was “The Question”), but the other … A thing was going on – it was organic sounding, kinda like cellos or violins, but not quite – it was sliding from note to note in a surreal way (“Legend Of A Mind”). That sound, which I later discovered was a Mellotron Mk II, and the very natural collection of acoustic instrumentation and vocal variety in the band, hooked me. I think that balance of sounds in their early 1967-72 work was a huge inspiration – they played everything themselves, didn't rely on session musicians, weren't guitar-driven all the time, and had four lead singers, none of whom made it “all about them”. That's probably why the Moodies always had an esoteric following – they were a band first and foremost, were not a vehicle for any one individual, and guitar was not the main feature – it was an instrument among many.
How do you decide when to use emulations and when to do the real instrument (assuming you have it, like the cello)?
Depends what I'm looking for, and whether I can play the real thing sufficiently well not to embarrass myself. In Forever Autumn, the original song uses real cellos as part of the string section, but they also feature quite up front in various parts. In this instance, I used my sample library strings for the bulk of the sounds, but in those up-front cello parts, with lots of tremolo, staccato and gritty bow-sounds, I scraped along with them, for a bit of added texture.
I also used cello in lieu of electric guitar in this recording. There are some very coarse and loud lead guitar solo phrases in the original, and of course, not being a guitarist, I had a choice of sampled guitar (rarely satisfying) or making something up to take its place. So I ended up playing the parts on cello, fixing my duff-notes and pitching the whole lot up an octave digitally, and running through a distortion effect. Not-very-insta-loud-guitary-sounding-thing. Likewise, I ran my flute through a distortion to similar effect.
Although some members of TM say that they don’t care about how much attention their songs get, I find that hard to believe (why post anything then?). But when you do something this long, how much of it is a personal challenge as opposed to for the audience?
That question!
Actually I think this was more of a personal challenge to the audience than to me – I mean, who's gonna wilfully give up 13 minutes of their life for this?! ;)
Seriously, though, it was one of those “can't miss” moments. A song I liked, from an album I loved, and one week to do it in. The question was, should I just play it on piano, or do the single version (4 minutes), or do the album version (9 minutes), do the album version and insert tons of extra bits from War Of The Worlds into it? You know me.
But here's the thing. As I said earlier, covers were not my thing at all. It was a combination of the elements of Theme Music that drew me in – posting originals, hijacking and adding bits to others, but mostly the positive atmosphere and the feedback and obvious enjoyment people were getting from each others' music. When I started doing covers properly myself, it was partly because people genuinely seemed to enjoy them, and the feedback was encouraging. Looking at it from an investment model, if I put a lot of time and effort into something, and a lot of people get something out of it, that makes me feel good, and it feels like it's worth it. Conversely, if I put five minutes into something, I'm not going to worry too much if no-one cares. So certainly the feedback is important for me personally, because it drives the desire to do more.
With that in mind, approaching a song like this one was a calculated risk. I had a feeling that not many people would know it; I knew I was going to be self-indulgent and do something stupidly long; it was coming up to Christmas... But I think the momentum was there that I could be realistic in my expectations about it – so I didn't care too much whether it was passed over or not.
Part of the joy of covers in TM for me has been seeing how well I can do something in as short a time as possible. That has played out in various ways – either having a fully-fledged song up for a new theme within 24 hours, or packing a dozen full productions into a theme, or, like this one, waiting until half way through the theme and then panicking!
I started recording on the Wednesday evening – and believe me when I say that it takes quite a while just to get the drum track done on a 13 minute long song – I don't use loops, but did use a little copy/paste on this one. On more than one occasion I decided to give up. And my parents were visiting... But somehow, by the middle of Friday, the music and vocals were done, and all I had left to do was a quarter hour of video. The sung sections were relatively easy – I took my camera out to the riverside near my house, and did some lip-sync. But I was stuck with how to fill the long instrumental and narrated segments. Naturally, the only option available was to illustrate the story by having Martians invade London.
Out came Photoshop, some family holiday photos, and some judicious editing. I drew up a couple of tripod fighting machines, and placed them into the family photos, adding smoke, building damage, etc. Then these went into the video, with camera shake, overlays and so on, to try to make things visually interesting. But who wanted to watch 10 minutes of static Martians trashing London? I needed a reward for those brave folks who'd made it through the whole video. So yes, that 10 second long segment where a fighting machine walks into view down a street and turns and rises up … took the whole of Saturday! My poor laptop was straining at the seams, coping with the resulting 50-odd layer Photoshop file. (Before-and-after Photoshop images are on my page on Facebook!) Never did I imagine that joining an online music group would result in me figuring out the mechanics of how a three-legged machine with no knees can turn a corner. Posted it on Saturday evening. So not too bad – it even had a few listens!
The Divine Comedy
Sweden
30 April 2015
At what point in the process do you start thinking about the video?
Well it varies. Usually I don't think much about it while doing the music, but sometimes I'll get a visual idea as I'm going, and maybe adapt that afterwards. This song is a good example of not having a clue what to do at the outset.
I'd considered recording it for the “Countries” theme, but decided against it because a) the vocals were too high and powerful for me, and b) the arrangement in the original was so over the top that I'd never be able to reproduce it. And there's no point doing a song like this in any less epic way than the original. So I did “A New England” instead. And then I played “Sweden” again, and yelled the high vocal line along with it. Then, being moderately surprised that I a) hit the note, and b) hit the note without ripping my vocal cords out of my throat, I failed to remember to be daunted by the arrangement and – you know how that goes.
So suddenly I had a recording of Sweden in a variation of its epic eccentricity, and not the foggiest idea what to do for video. Nipping over to Sweden was not an option (though easier for me than for many other Themesters) – maybe I should have called Tobbe and asked him to lip-sync on location. Stock footage is always avoided whenever possible... Huge mad orchestra. Crazy lyrics about a country I've never been to... I took a shower, and while in there, realised that all orchestras have conductors… Maybe I could pretend to conduct, and … dunno. Photoshop? I … uh.
I was towelling my hair dry when I looked in the mirror. My hair was stuck up all over the place, in a mad-scientist / mad-conductor sort of way, and the video idea was born.
The Conductor makes an appearance! What kind of lighting do you use for your impressively lit shots in this?
So the set-up here was in my bedroom. I hung a black sheet over the wardrobe doors behind me, set the camera up on a tripod across the room, with a moderate zoom to head-and-shoulders. Behind my head I had a second tripod, onto which I'd sorta-hung a portable security light assembly that I use for extra illumination when needed. This second tripod was actually lower than my head at its fullest extent, so I had to sort of crouch down a little to get the light right behind my head. So for the pure conductor scenes, that's all the lighting used, with some editing of contrast in FCP. For the verses, a bedside lamp is on at the side, as is my laptop screen, to give some front lighting. In fact, you can tell where the laptop is, because I keep casually glancing at it to remind myself of the lyrics. The piano shot works in a similar way, though obviously not in the bedroom! ;)
The composition of the overlays is lovely in this (e.g., 1:07 to 1:10). How does the arrangement of the music influence your visual choices?
In most videos, I try to emphasise the audio with visual cues that match in intensity and structure. So the opening blasts are accompanied by dramatic visuals that change on each beat – the piano chord-hits, the conductor flailing in various orientations, etc. Into the verses, things calm down and the visuals follow suit. So there's one long shot of the lip-sync vocals, with slow gesticulations to match. Into the chorus, things ramp up again into the fast cuts for background, with overlays on top, to emphasise the various vocals in the audio. The middle section has a different feel again, as it drops off tempo and becomes more flowing – spontaneous choice of wing-like arm movements while filming and a more expressive piano-mime accentuate that feel. And then the addition of vertical blur effects on the insane vocal segments help to give the visual a distinctive edge during those bits.
Pet Shop Boys
Opportunities
4 December 2015
How long did it take you to design that awesome book cover?
Hahaha! A couple of hours, I think. I don't normally have that much cash lying around, so the video and book necessitated a trip to the bank. I actually made a mess of the cover – I'd measured everything very precisely, then got it completely wrong. If you look carefully, the front cover sticks out beyond the pages of the book by about a centimetre! For anyone curious, the book is actually “A Practical Introduction To Optical Mineralogy” by Gribble & Hall.
Normally when you do a solo production you don’t bring in the hired guns for backing vocals? Do you remember why you did that here? Trying to be inclusive/fun?
Normally I'm very private and secretive about songs, yes. In part it's because I like to get things done quickly, and opening a production up will usually mean it won't be posted until the last day of the theme. I've never been keen on dump-day posts, so I try to avoid. But this song is so very tongue in cheek, and really needed a proper massed vocal sound for the final choruses and to enliven the video. And yes, I was feeling all cheerful and stuff.
Interestingly, only a third of my vocalists could make video in the time available... but I managed to include everyone visually by scouring the others' past contributions and finding a snippet each where they were singing “oooh” or “make” (or something visually similar) and inserting those in the appropriate spots.
Loved the glimpse of British Monopoly (assuming it’s called Monopoly!) as well as the infomercial bits. Did you have to practice that creepy smile?
Imagine how weird it felt to discover that Monopoly originated in the States! How can anyone have not had the joy of buying St. Pancras station? The creepy smile is totally natural, and how I normally smile at people. Wait! Don't leave!! I have more things to say!
Big PSB fan or just recognize that Neil Tennant is a perfect choice for you?
I've pretty much been a PSB fan since “West End Girls” - though I wasn't sure about that one at the start. I never really considered myself a match for Tennant, as he's a generally higher range to me, but the rough-edged, slightly bleak sound of 1980s/1990s Pet Shop Boys always appealed.
Strangely, though you'd probably expect The Moody Blues to have been my route to orchestral music, it was actually the Pet Shop Boys. Their 1988 song “Left To My Own Devices” was a mostly-spoken-word, electronic dance song, but with an orchestra doing stupid, totally over the top things in the middle. One of those “yes, you can do that” moments.
