Songcrafters.org

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A while back I posted an instrumental song for a vocal collaboration. Greeny (Tim) jumped on it and added some amazing vocals, resulting in "20 Golden Singalong Greats". I was so delighted by the result I wanted to do more of the same, so used CollabFest to reach out to Tim and see if he wanted to do a sequel. Fortunately he did, and this is the result, "Back To The Drawing Board".

One thing I have realised being on this site is that there are some very talented and creative people here, and particularly vocalists and lyricists that are much better than me. Tim has taken my musical idea and taken it much further than I could. His lyrics and vocals added more "edge" to what is already a pretty "in your face" track and resulted in something far better than I ever envisaged. The power of collaborations!

All music and production is by me, vocals and lyrics are by Tim. All the musical noises come from my Bass VI and a bunch of pedals, all recorded direct into the BR-800 and then individual tracks transferred to the PC as .wav files. The only addition is drums from my Sdrum pedal. All mixed in my DAW and mastered in Izotope Ozone.

And sadly many unicorns were massacred in the making of this track. Sorry 'bout that.


   

Yeah baby, that bass is thumping,  the whole song is post punk/prog goodness, you to make a match made in heaven.

totally brawtastic.

Love the final mix! More collabs please Nigel. The energy of your tracks gets my juices going! Lol. Like being 18 again. Such fun to work on, and completely effortless. Instant lyrical and vocal inspiration.

Some crazy noises coming from that Bass... really beautiful. This is such a fresh track, but also a slightly cool retro feel too. A little bit of a punkish attitude, but then little proggy twists too.... touches of Muse or even Supergrass?? This is just great lads, a great listen.

Mike

Quote from: Greeny on June 06, 2020, 05:24:29 AMLove the final mix! More collabs please Nigel. The energy of your tracks gets my juices going! Lol. Like being 18 again.

Thanks Tim. I was going to add a comment in my post that this is probably not appropriate music for a 63 year old to be posting! I still seem to be in my late teens and early 20s musically........

Quote from: Mike_S on June 06, 2020, 07:42:13 AMSome crazy noises coming from that Bass... really beautiful. This is such a fresh track, but also a slightly cool retro feel too. A little bit of a punkish attitude, but then little proggy twists too.... touches of Muse or even Supergrass?? This is just great lads, a great listen.

Thanks Mike, my starting point was bands like Starcrawler who are currently retreading the Stooges and similar. But I can't hide my prog roots, and the Muse comparison is very kind, I love their stuff up to the Black Holes album. I was even going to use Knights of Cydonia as my reference track for mastering but I couldn't find the CD!

Hey Ferryman, you are getting some really cool and wild sounds out of your bass and pedal board! Tim added a super vocal and lyric to it. Another fine collab!

Farrell

This includes everything what a good rock song needs; killer riffs, captivating vocals (I'm gonna sing "I had a false start.." the rest of day!), excellent tones and even tempo change!

Superb job by both of you. This really works!

WoooF!!!

What a track. The groove, the bassing, and Tim's vox (cool lyrics too).

Loving the sound of those crushed unicorns.

This is stellar guys, what a fucking groove you got going on Ferryman, infectious. I know StarCrawler, I lean more to Skating Polly, check them out:you'll love them. Great job with this greeny, love the vocal.
Rock on!

It's got a very young, fresh feel to it - you are paired very well together.

Encore!

This is WICKED, baby. What a driving instrumental, and then the vocal takes it to another level. Very well produced. It sounds like you guys broke quarantine to put this together in a studio. The sounds: melodic rocking!

I will not be playing this for my daughter. She would be traumatized by the imagery of the dead bodies in the rain. She was wearing her unicorn shirt just the other day. It also had rainbows. I'm okay with it, but I'm also a very bad man.

The Not-So-Angelic-Upstarts


Floats my boat.

and all this out of one guitar?

WOW!!! Where did this come from.

Who could not like this its got everything. A real toe tapper this one and so catchy. I love that dip towards the end and what could be described as a "false start" before you came back in again. Very clever  8)

Great collaboration

Back at this...I have listened to this several times, today. A bit punk vibe and powerpop from the 90's. Supergrass vibe perhaps...

Thanks for the kind comments all, apologies to unicorn-loving children everywhere. There's definitely big chunks of punk, powerpop and some prog in here. Maybe Tim's vox are reminiscent of Gaz Coombes as well... This is the kind of music I would love to play live and just go mental to. But as a 63 year old that's probably not a thing anyone would want to see...... ;D

Quote from: Flash Harry on June 06, 2020, 07:01:43 PMand all this out of one guitar?

Yup, everything from the Bass VI and never more than two strings played together at any one time. It makes a pretty immense sound from no more than 2 or 3 strings played together. This thing really impresses me as a flexible music-making tool. Bung it on the middle pickup through the clean channel of my Orange amp and it's a great bass sound. Change to the neck pickup, play the top three strings with distortion above the octave and it's a big lead sound. And play lower down with a bit of crunch and it's a riff-making monster.

You can't really play lead solos on it (well I can't) so it forces you to think about how simpler lines will work and also I use the pedals to create different sounds and effects. It's really helped me cope with losing flexibility in my fingers while at the same time taking me in a slightly different creative direction.

This is really awesome! So powerful, rhythmical tune with so fascinating melodies. I love that prog-vibe. Wonderful tune and Tim made great vocals to it!So catchy and pithy. I dont know if it´s a right word but fantastic job, both of you and yes! More collabs please! Definitely I would come to see you live!

Killer Track! Ditto all the other great comments!

I made a point to sit down and force myself to carve out some time to listen tonight, and I am gobsmacked at the quality of stuff on which I have commented.

What a cracker of a tune. Love, love, love that main bass riff and that monster tone. Great performances by both of you.  I appreciate a couple subtle runs that were incorporated in there as well as that chordal climb. Some really great stuff.  Jeez Louise.

Blooby

geez louise is right....to quote Blooby.... I would call this grouping Monsters of Rock.... lol... I know lots of people like to put a genre to songs....and i kind of see why...but for me there is just music... and yes I like certain songs more than others...but in almsot any "genre" I can find stuff I love... you guys rock, individually, and collectively....period....Nigel is right though...and it is pretty obvious I think.... often you get better results when people colaborate.... not just as musicians but as producers, engineers, promoters etc.... (That Designer V song a prime example)...

This is really lyrically and musically great.  It makes me want to play bass into an amp turned way up. Shake the furniture.

Love the lyrics.   I have a friend for whom these lyrics would wholly apply. The idea of a false start has so many applications in life. I love the part about massacring unicorns and rainbows.

Everything said, I  echo.
Fantastic job , both of you.  This is the first I've listened to in a while, as I've been on a 6 month "quiet the soul" timeout!
I'm sincerely blown away, I  mean that.

What a great song and great collaboration..but I'm not forgiving you both for massacring unicorns lol. Love the punk rock kind of vibe in this, bass and guitars  sound brill. And love the vocals  :)