Looking For A Reason

I’m working on a new song. Its called, as the title of this blog entry would suggest, “looking for a reason.” there’s something i struggle with almost constantly with sky flying by. its the absolute and total, all encompassing feeling of illegitimacy. i don’t feel like a legitimate artist, just another wannabe hack who’s kidding himself that the music i produce is real. i don’t mean to disregard the dozens of really nice people who have gone out of their way to say nice things about the material i’ve posted.

hell, its those kind folks that lend me just a fraction of legitimacy. i’m really going to be working on this. one thing i am going to be doing is going to a friend’s recording studio (dirty water sound and music) and track drums and some guitars and maybe get some help with my mixes so that at least the stuff i produce doesn’t sound as amateur as it does now (probably the more significant source of frustration i have and what consistently fuels this feeling of illegitimacy.)

another aspect is the fact that sky flying by is not a real band, i can’t tour, or play live gigs. mostly because i’m intolerably difficult to get along with. no, not that i have a huge ego and everything must be done my way… not in the slightest (in fact, i have very little ego, it got snuffed out by years of self deprecation and trauma)… but what the issue is, i’m not very good at human interactions, and i usually make people feel pretty awkward and uncomfortable, so that’s why i’m not part of a band.

so this new song i’m working on is a reason to keep truckin. i know i’m not a real artist, and i know sky flying by isn’t a real band but there has to be a reason i keep doing this. i don’t know what it is, but i’ll keep looking. and when this new song is finished, maybe i’ll be another step closer to finding that reason.

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Answering Questions

i thought i’d take some time, seeing as though i hadn’t posted anything in a month of sundays, to answer some questions. no, its not like i get deluged with questions from an adoring public, its more like an infrequent trickle of curious people asking questions specifically about the music, the process and other things related to sfb.

Question: is sfb really a solo project?

Answer: yes, it really is. through the miracle of technology, you can record yourself playing every part in a song, individually. i’ll get to the specifics in a later answer but yes, so far, to date, every song i’ve released was written, recorded and mixed by one person (me.) which should explain a lot. now, this doesn’t mean there won’t be collaborations, there will be, and when they do happen, those that collaborate will get all of my praise and the credit will be theirs.

Question: why aren’t you in a band?

Answer: i used to be. many of them. this was a long time ago. i just don’t work very well in a band environment. i’d like to try again, and have a very open mind. in fact, a friend of mine and i occasionally practiced, but his personal life got complicated and that was pretty much that. i’m not bitter about bands, i just know what works and what doesn’t. i think i’m more interested in collaborations, not persistent fixtures like what a band is. but lets also be honest, having asperger’s means i’m not so good with the whole communication/talking thing, and i get overwhelmed easily in social situations, so not being in a band right now is also a safety mechanism for me.

Question: do you ever play live?

Answer: to date, no. i know this is has a handicapping effect on what i can do with sky flying by, in the possible “reach” this project can have, but at the same time, that has never really been a concern for me. yes, i’d like to return to gigging. i wouldn’t be adverse to the idea of playing some local (Boston) shows, but there’s a huge practical barrier here. i’d need people to help me out, i’d need a drummer, another guitarist, a bassist and someone manning a keyboard/laptop. so there you have it, the real reason you won’t be seeing sfb on any show flyers any time soon.
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Reimagined: Sighting Through Stars

so i really liked playing this song and recording it originally. its really a fun song to play no matter what instrument because it just kinda meanders around, as it fades from one part to the next and closes with this really loud mournful guitar thing… but when i originally tracked and mixed it came out so not what i heard in my head.

i gave it another go last night. i think its closer to what i hear in my head.

i guess that’s the problem, when i write a song, i have the entire thing in my head… how all the parts work, how the mix should be, the fades, the everything… but my skills as a mix and mastering engineer are not so good so i have a hell of a time trying to translate what i hear in my head to what i hear in my ears.

this is closer. i wanted this really almost over-modulated distressed quality to the drums, and i wanted them to fill up the entire back ground. i wanted the guitars to be fuller and more airy… i wanted that whole synth string thing to come and go more like a cumulus cloud floating weightless but very present.

so now when i head into the studio to record this for real, i’ll have a better template to work with and the engineer can then hear a closer representation of what i’m trying to achieve. so, this process of demo recording isn’t just “get it down” so much now. i have to get things closer to where i think they need to be.

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Caspian Record Release Show, 29 August 2009

its rare to go to a show and be enthralled so completely that it ends before you are ready to leave. i mean, lets face it, you go to watch bands play, and you are typically there to see one or maybe two of them play, and even then its 40 minutes of cool and then you start counting the seconds till you can leave.

last night was one of those very rare occasions.

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Sad Day, So Long Les Paul

so the inventor of electric guitars and multitrack recording has passed away. yes, this is a very sad day indeed. without paul’s contributions to music and music technology, its pretty fair to say that non of what has been created in the last 50 or so years wouldn’t have been entirely possible.

now two of the master pioneers of music technology are no longer with us (les paul and bob moog)

sad day.

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