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Driftwood

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Driftwood last won the day on January 23 2019

Driftwood had the most liked content!

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About Driftwood

  • Birthday March 18

Contact Methods

  • Website URL
    https://www.reverbnation.com/thefineprintdisclaimers
  • Yahoo
    jimcanrock@yahoo.com

Critique Preferences

  • Getting Critique
    Lightweight

Music Background

  • Songwriting Collaboration
    Maybe
  • Band / Artist Name
    The Fine Print Disclaimers
  • Musical / Songwriting / Music Biz Skills
    songwriter/arranger/recording/ occasionally performing.
  • Musical Influences
    British invasion, retro indie pop/rock

Profile Information

  • Interests
    Enjoying port wines on the porch and dark beers in the pub.
  • Location
    United States of America
  • Gender
    Male

Music Pages

  • SoundCloud
    https://soundcloud.com/tad-strange

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  1. Hi J Liked the sound of the guitar. The song maybe too long for it's own good, but it is likable. I had bronchitis in February of 2020 that lasted for a couple weeks. Even broke down and got some anti-biotics for it. I wonder now if it was covid, but the symptoms didnt feel like anything out of the ordinary since my sinus infection was the precursor to this happening. It took 6 months before I could even sound back to normal. Honestly I almost could have sung for a Rod Stewart tribute band as my vocals would just shred as stuff was still coming up from the lungs (yuck). I used to keep a small plastic tube of honey before gigs if my vocals were going dry(with my pint on stage). Plus chewing gum tucked back by the molars worked too (You'd see John Lennon doing this occasionally in his later snippets of singing). My latest find was by accident actually, I was looking for a cough drop that was less harsh on the menthol end and found the regular Ricola cough drops to have just the right measure of relief and coating without making the throat feeling a sudden rush to the lungs that Halls menthol cough drops does. So I use the Ricolas now in practice and before recording. Anyways..for a phone recording, it sounded good. DW
  2. It's simple Peggy, good music never dies and the newer stuff has been so generically processed in the last 30 years that the chord progressions mirror each other almost to a fault. It's not called industry standard for nothing anymore. The boy band boom of the 90s only cemented the clone idealism of that music was no longer important to sell the product anymore. Plus, "old music" hasnt totally disappeared from the market with Sirius and cable music services still providing a vast variety of music genres to listen to. Younger ears have probably been exposed to their mom&pops record or CD collection or dare say grandpa and grandmas since 50s60s. This music still holds it's musical roots in Elvis and the Beatles whose names still pop up in younger artists as far as influencing them from music to image. Although sadly, those influences rarely show up in their music. (sigh) Let's face it, the older stuff is more creative in chord structures and style then the generic predictable 3-4 chord bebop stuff being passed off as popular music the last 25 -30 years. I mean, there's a reason why Dylan and the Boss's catalogues sold for millions because that music simply isnt going away. Im sure all of the Beatles offspring will never have to work for generations on end granted they have a trust set up for them. Again, this trend of "old music" continuing to sell is not by accident. In fact the Zombies Odyssy and Oracle album has sold more copies in the last couple decades than it did when it was released. Again, what is old is new again to "new" ears. At any rate, this would be the time for another retro band to do the music that made the 60s&70s great as in how Jet sprung onto the seen with song "Wanna Be My Girl" that was featured on an Apple IPOD commercial in the early 2000s.
  3. I would say the first physical exposure to a piano at church. You walked up to it and just started plunking the notes and keys much to the ire of the sunday school teachers. With no one telling you how to play, you explored and manipulated the notes to where by ear you could make out chords. So I was unofficially a song writer at age 4 or 5. Listening to the radio too was an influence to the curiosity of songwriting as well as my older brothers eclectic album collection. It was when I heard KLAATU 's song "Calling Occupants" that the curiosity became a possibility, thinking, if they can sound like the Beatles, why can't I? Quite a silly notion for a 14 year old kid.😄 My first girlfriend in high school had a refurbished piano that she rarely played. This is when I actually started composing songs as songs rather than ideas on a late sunday morning after church. Just after high school I would buy a cheap second hand guitar and the seeds were now sown. Like Ed Driscoll, I bought a Tascam 244, bass,keys and a used roland tr808 drum machine to start the adventure of writing and arranging my own songs. From the 80s on, I would gradually upgrade as prices of home recording equipment started to become reasonable. Though I would take the ADAT tapes over my digital recorder for sound quality. But yeah, once the bug bit to write songs, there was no looking back.
  4. My grandparents gave us this odd portable keyboard. It had these accordion like buttons for chords along with 3 octaves in keys. It had these song books that you could follow along that had numbers for the keys to play along with the button chords. I remember playing "Beautiful Dreamer" and thought, this just isnt cutting it.🤣 So I would start making up my own songs. Yep, at age 6 or 7, I was unofficially writing my own songs. I would further plunk around on church pianos after sunday school and it wasnt your traditional obnoxious finger nails on the chalk board type ramblings. I was figuring out chords and really doing chord blends. Granted I would tinker every once in awhile trying to play a cover song like "Imagine" or Paul McCartney's"Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five" from the "Band On The Run" album. But yeah, it was original stuff I was coming up with. So, the songwriting seeds had been planted early, but didnt come full circle until I got my first guitar just after high school. At that point it just seemed natural to want to write my own songs. I just didnt have an inherent need to be in a cover band or did I care to learn cover songs other than to see how they were constructed. So it was kind of a "You know, I can do that too." feeling about writing songs.😏
  5. A couple years back I played in a trio, more so lounge acoustic style. We were playing an outdoor patio situation that was along a river. It was a nice crowd. Pretty much eating and drinking. I didnt think much that the crowd was bigger than what I had played for at a bowling alley venue that specialized in live entertainment until I counted the tables which were long picnic benches, it came out to 300 people!
  6. It's okay.🤪actually I start with the Beatles myself and would say my style is heavily influenced by them. But as time went on I found other styles of music I liked too, but maybe couldn't emulate to a tee. In those styles I started taking away at least different structures or ideas for arranging. So yes, variety is the spice of life.
  7. That was a nice piece there(Sweet Cherry Tree). I think the length was about right. It's the type of music soundtrack or background music that has a certain vibe to it. Other than how short some of the Everly Brothers or early Beatle songs were, I found Brian Eno's fractured pieces to be an influence too. His "Music For Films" cd was certainly influential in the idea that a short piece can work on different levels. The thing is, alot of writers have pretty much staked out the territory they want to write in and rarely ever experiment outside their comfort zone, which is a shame. Being roped into the "structure" mantra and being told "you can't do that in a song" really does cut off any room for creativity. I used to belong to a songwriters club that was made up of 90% folk and country writers and I used to just befuddle them with the variety of patterns I used to use. In time they went from jeering my approach to accepting and even incorporating such things as bridges and intros or even a solo passages where the melody was different from the verse which would normally be where a solo would take place. Yes, I was deemed the "liberator"😂
  8. Sometimes the bugs or mistakes are what suddenly makes the song come to life. What would have happened if Paul had changed the line "the movement you need is on your shoulder"? John Lennon told him that was the best line in the lyric. Okay, that was a stark example..carry on.
  9. Finding the right tempo has been a challenge all my life. Not so much drastic changes in tempo, but I tend to side a tad slower speed wise when Im just figuring out drum machine parts before recording my songs. It takes abit to adjust. Secondly would be just finishing songs. And that lies more with the lyric writing. You get maybe a verse and chorus or even 2/3rds done and then having to wait for those last couple lines is a hassle. Or knowing what I want to say, but it just doesnt phonically work singing wise.
  10. Hey Devil, I found the bit between the 5 minute mark to about the 7:25 mark abit wandering to nowhere only because you had already done an instrumental passage of length before hand. But yeah, this piece has mood and creativity that you often dont hear.
  11. That piece had a slight early dry Elliot Smith feel to it Devil. The non drums aspect that Smith's early stuff is kinda similar on what you're trying to pull off. Is it intentional? Interesting vibe. Maybe alittle long in some of the instrumental passages. But over all entertaining.
  12. Just like the Beatles "I'll Follow The Sun". Quaint little tune, but had it been extended it would have lost some of it's charm.
  13. It's hard to think about doing a theme album without then hemming yourself in creativity wise. I think two albums come to mind that had a running theme would be Tarkus by Emerson Lake and Palmer and even at that they ran out of material to complete the theme of the album. KLAATU's "Hope" album would be another such album which dealt with a space theme, but they ended up with alot of instrumental music to fill out the album. The Who's Tommy does come to mind, but that counts more as a movie soundtrack, doesn't it? I mean actually, you could argue that most of Pink Floyd's music deals with themes of the human condition. At any rate, to me, theme conjures up the idea of musicals. The closest I ever got to an extended song or I'll use the term mini opera was my song "High Water Mark". It started out as just a song about a teenager's infatuation meeting a shy girl at a dance. Yeah, really hard hitting stuff.lol Anyways, I had this song called "Dance" and it was one of my classic "short songs" and for years it just ended on this one drawn out note. I thought hmmmm....I could dove tail something over that. So I did and extended the story to have him see her leave the dance. I could have stopped there. But now I had this idea of his infatuation to work with and it ended up filling out three attached mini songs. After the 5th part, there was nowhere else to go with it. So I ended it. Link at bottom of page. High Water Mark (J.Upham)(c) 2012 Part 1 V1 So you chose to sit them all out Hey, the band is gonna play anyhow If you feel like you're missing out Tell me, tell me I'll be standing right here chorus: Cuz you're never gonna live today If you're gonna be dead to the world It doesn't have to be this way It's so sad, such a beautiful girl V2 The songs half over, can I ask you to dance? Hey it's the last time Im gonna roll the dice Feel the music, love all around us Tell me, tell me what there is to fear? repeat chorus part 2 Curtain draws, she leaves alone Ducks in a cab that takes her farther away from me (Tail lights disappear) Into the midnight air (standing helplessly) Hanging on every word (will she remember me?) refrain What could I do? (what could I do) part 3 Could this be the last time That I ever see her face? Or could this be the first time? If she ever returns to this place What I'd do for her loves embrace part 4 Love and it's mystery Fates uncertainty for those who dare She was the perfect storm A high water mark I learned On how to drown How to drown part 5 Oh I, I have love Oh I, I have love Oh I, I have love For no one but her Oh I , I need love Oh I, I need love Oh I, I need love From nobody but her Oh I, I've got love Oh I, I've got love Oh I, I've got love For no one but her Oh I, I need love Oh I, I need love Oh I, I need love From nobody else but her 14 High Water Mark.wma
  14. Here's one of my shortys. Clocks in a 1:56. I couldn't see going any longer cause I wanted to keep it's simplicity in tact. Link at the bottom. Came To Light (J.Upham)(c) 2015 In the night As you whisper in my ear I know Is more than just a fond fare well And promises to keep In my arms Dreams are coming true I guess It's time to take them to heart You are the one for me (came to light) Someday we'll find the sun Someday we'll be as one Someday has come for you and me You'll see As I hold you now And tell you that you are the one The one that brings me to love True love for me Came to light-for me Came to light-for me Came to light-will you wait for me came to lite.wma
  15. I never pictured you as a Crimson fan Peggy. Yeah, that song is crazy fun. Remembered when it came out.
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