Another Deep Drag

[feaker66]

Wow, what a transition from good to excellent.

Folks on this board are sharp and the suggestions are priceless.

I love different/unusual stuff like yours. That guitar at 1:10 was awesome. Is that you playing?

Are you using a guitar pick on the bass? Ha ha lots of questions.

Very cool song.

sincerely

paul

[eddied]

Magne and Paul -- thanks for the additional input, and kudos on the song!

Magne -- appreciate the tip on the vocals. They are way out in front, and I will drop them back just a little bit for that whole first part you point out. I guess that is the learning process. Once you mentioned it I thought "man, those really ARE way out in front", I just wasn't hearing it myself! That other pair of ears (a bunch of them with peer-to-peer) really helps!

And Paul -- bass is by this friend of mine, Sandra. Former metal bassist that plays without a pick. And the electric guitar starting at 1:10 is by Rafa, another friend. Interestingly, they were both in the same metal band a couple of years ago, Vrademark, a local group here in Catalonia. All I actually play myself on this song is the picking type / hammer-on guitar part (an acoustic guitar through an amp) that comes after a couple of the verses and in the break section.

Whether I get more input or not I will come back and update this thread again once I post the video to Youtube. Sandra is especially fun to watch on video, the girl never stops moving.

Hats off to my peer-to-peer peeps!

EddieD

[eddied]

Hi there -- so I finished up Another Deep Drag, and the video is now on Youtube:

http://youtu.be/L30kj2TllUU

The song should pop up on iTunes anytime.

The peer-to-peer help was priceless. The key thing was cleaning up the bass and drums so they were no longer muddy, had clear definition, and real impact. The help here pointing in that direction, just fantastic.

The video is inspired by the whole Pomplamoose videosong idea, but applied loosely. The electric guitar soloist, and me playing that tiny keyboard, are the "real" takes -- and some of the singing. But in the end I film all the takes of me singing, and comp together the video and audio separately so that in any given moment the video might be showing the real performance. In the end I care about both being the best they can be, and so am not rigid about applying the videosong formula that "what you see on the screen is what you are hearing from the speakers." I hung up some green material on one wall of the studio to film people against. A few shadows which means the green screen was a bit sketchy in parts. Another thing to improve for the next video!

Ed

[nick.moxsom]

ED !

I'm pretty late to the party here, but I just wanted to say it's a very interesting and original piece. Personally, I love the heavier sections, and I can honestly hear the whole thing being more industrial – you know, to reflect the incessant traffic, and somehow accentuate how cheap life can seem.

Great work, man, and looking forward to the vid.

Nick

[eddied]

Hi, Nick -- thanks a lot for those comments.

I have let my Taxi membership lapse a few months ago, but think I need to get back in the game to see if any of my material can find a home with some kind of licensing opportunity.

The video link is:

http://youtu.be/L30kj2TllUU

Take care,

Ed

[andygabrys]

nice! sounding great !!! video is cool. nice work there too.

[eddied]

Thanks, Andy!

[HectorRContreras]

The video link is:

http://youtu.be/L30kj2TllUU

Take care,

Ed

Woah ! I really like this Video, dear Ed.

For many aspects :

- Cool Mastery of the Song, from yourself and female vocal partner
- Cool editing, in the way of entertaining the audience with the Visuals while listening to the Song
- Cool Guitars, cool Percussion
- Cool tiny Keyboards !

Have I used the word "cool" too many times ...

"Cool" means : well done, it is fine, it is all right, it does the job, it brings pleasure, it feels good, etc ...

[eddied]

Hi, Hector:

Thanks for all the kudos, man!

I especially like the Korg nanoKEY2 -- with its two octave range it lends itself well to solos, especially. There are some great Youtube videos of people with far better keyboard skills than me jamming away on it!

Every project is a learning experience. A few dicey moments throughout with my green screen footage, but I know how to fix that next time. The most powerful thing I have discovered this year is to FINISH projects, so I can truly learn from my mistakes, and then feed that information into the next project. I will misquote something I heard along those lines:

"I never make mistakes . . . because I never finish anything."

The cool thing about Taxi is it surrounds you with people who are all about getting it DONE . . . but my first few years as a Taxi member I never actually brought a song all the way to a mastered, finished place, and certainly with no video. So I never really progressed in some fundamentally important ways. I guess I was afraid that "doing the best I could do" would still leave something lacking, thus proving I was a talentless hack. Well, guess what? I finally learned to walk by that fear. And accept that nothing is ever perfect, and I just have to do the best I can within limits of time and money. And that's the way it works.

Anyway, I am rambling here. Thanks again for your kind words. I am going to stay more involved with peer-to-peer, keeping the karma going both directions.

EddieD

[HectorRContreras]

Dear Ed,

Love that rambling. Thank you so much because it helps.

"Perfectionism" is a big one.
Not easy.
To do one's best but it is never good enough, type of thing.
One says that to oneself, constantly, or some other people say that to you, or you just see it everywhere, that what other people do is better.

So far, since we are at TAXI, Catherine and myself are having difficulties with this constant "Higher Bar" stuff, and the requirements of perfecting oneself in zillions of varied ways and methods, etc ... with the example of people who are above the rest of us, because they worked hard, and now they are successful, etc.

And at the moment it is not working for us.

We almost feel that we were better Musicians before joining TAXI, lol. We feel that, we do not pretend of course.

Why ? Perhaps because we ARE perfecting our Art all ready, year after year, we learn something new, ... but perhaps at a much slower pace, and through chances, through opportunities, through intuitiveness, through experiences and experiments, etc

In short, we do not push ourselves, and this in order for the Music to talk to us.

Otherwise, we would be talking to the Music ! And it does not work like that.

So we decided to relax for a while, to stop submitting Music, therefore to stop aiming at the money, and to settle being less good.
And to compose at our pace, taking our time, and only go for that which talks to us.

Here in the Link below, you can visit Catherine's Chanel at YouTube. And perhaps enjoy one listening or two.
The Videos are certainly not perfect. They could be perfected indeed !
But it would feel similar to a Child of 9, thriving to be as good as a Student of 19.

We decided to love what we do, to be ourselves, and the improvements will come in due time.