S T E E L. D O G. C A F E

Danny  finality

This song was intended as a soundtrack for the experience of that late night, 3:00 AM in the morning, rolling down the interstate, and the lines in the road passing you by - that sort of hypnotizing tunnel vision effect.  Lyrically, the track speaks to that desire to move on from where you are to somewhere else, either metaphorically or actually.    

Traveling Song

One of the more eclectic psychedelic groove tracks from our "Stone Fly" album, “Questions” is similar in feel to "Feeling Like I'm Over You."  The lyrics were mainly written by Clay, the guitarist, at a time when he was studying history and simultaneously inundating himself with current events on CNN.  The troubling crimes against humanity, both past and present, and the bleak outlook for the future of mankind weighed heavily on his mind while writing this song.  Referencing the lyrics “think I’m gonna cry,” the guitar solo section was actually supposed to be symbolic of the songwriter’s tears dripping down.  This track also marks the beginning of Clay's experimentation with the organic wave-like phasing effect for the rhythm guitars.  It was first tried on the synthesizers for "Blame the Foothill Tribe" and on "Questions" it makes the song breathe like a living organism.  This effect was used a few more times for some of the rhythm guitar on "Conspiracy No. 9" and the "Scatterbrain" EP.   We hope you like the song.

Questions

She Said, She Said is one of the deeper album tracks from Conspiracy. We were a bit nervous about posting the track at this stage. It is a clean driving track and a nice change from the wah infused psychedelia we have posted of late. The track is more of a minimum foundation than a completed song. Even though it is unfinished in its present form, we hope you enjoy the idea. 

Thanks for listening to the Tribe.     

She Said, She Said

“Rough Lightning” is the final track on our low-fi, bootleg, instrumental, improv jam album “Ruckus Amuckus.”

Every time we would get together and rehearse we would record the session.  Early on we ran two room microphones into two channels on a Fostex 4 track cassette recorder.  Later, after the Fostex broke, we would record on a crappy, little boom box cassette recorder strategically placed somewhere in the room.  In the case of this particular track we were using the boom box.  Most of the time the improvisational jams were misses more than hits, but every so often we would catch lightning in a bottle (no pun intended).  “Rough Lightning” is indeed one of those moments where the band was firing on all cylinders, delivering a super charged, scorching hot, mostly instrumental improvisational jam.

The beauty of a performance like this is that it’s so ethereal in nature.  One moment it’s there, and the next it’s gone.  Nothing was preplanned.  We just flipped on the amps and launched into the music flying by the seat of our pants.  The setting outside was chaotic as a vicious lightning storm raged across the Florida Gulf Coast.  After a few riffs into the jam, our bass player, Danny Bertram, walks over to the light switch and turns it off.  Everything you hear on this track was recorded in total darkness, except for the momentary, strobing effects of the lightning.  You can hear the band ebb and flow along with the storm as it oscillated between varying levels of intensity.  We had seamlessly fused to become one with the violent hostility of Mother Nature!

Eventually the lightning became too intense and, for the greater good of protecting our equipment from a dreaded power surge, we brought the jam to an end.  Before, the music stops, you can hear our drummer, Rob Gilmore, say “That’s some pretty rough lightning,” which is how the track got its title.  You can hear me the guitar player, Clay, exclaim “Woooowwww” in dazed astonishment at the spectacle of the storm and the intensity of the jam.  Then Danny walks over to the tape deck saying “Let’s kill it for a few,” and the recording is shut off with decisive finality, bringing the Ruckus Amuckus album to completion.

Clay Urquhart
Clay@TheTribe


Rough Lightning

“Always There” is one of the final uploads from our “Conspiracy No. 9” album (“CNN”). The song was recorded during the beginning of the making of CNN, and for the band it ended up being one of the jewels of the album. The song definitely leans toward our more psychedelic side, but the song also involves a swimming (but hopefully solid) slow-burn style funky groove, some interesting musical and vocal tendencies, and the ending section hints of jam sessions past and future. For me personally, the end section leaves me yearning to climb behind my drums right now as I write this. It also leaves me yearning for those moments (like the ending section of this track, or entire sections of intensity in our "Rough Lightning" jam) where we just let go and lose ourselves in the groove and music channeling through us in that moment - that's where the magic lives. 

Although we don’t recall exactly how the song came into existence, Clay had the chords for a long time before we started jamming with the ideas in rehearsal and tossing things around until we had the outline of the song, and ultimately the completed song. I remember working on the lyrics with Clay and we spent a lot of time focusing on and developing the phrasing of the lyrics in the verse. If you listen you will hear a sort of “rhythmic pulse” type of phrasing to the lyrics during the verses, and there's a subtle different in the chorus sections. It's a pretty cool thing in my humble opinion and it was great fun to sing.   

The song style and the production quality of the recording make the song sound like it could easily have been on our "Stone Fly" album. An interesting note is the last section of the song was never completely developed or finished.  During the last section of the song from around 3:15 onward (beginning immediately after the last chorus section) you will hear the band go into a stepped-up grooving sort of jam feel that is just laying the floor for more. Clay commented that he wanted to leave the last section of the song undeveloped (or to be developed later). The idea was to leave the end of the song open for an outside producer to have input on and to work with us to see where we could take the ending jam (recall during this time we were talking with different producers about possibly working with the band). As a personal note, I really enjoy Clay’s swimming guitars and his wah pedal work on the song (check out Clay's understated solo wah parts starting at 3:15 or thereabouts). The bass guitar lines and drums during the ending section combine into a pretty cool interplay and groove (one of my favorite interludes in the track is the short breakdown around 4:10 where everything drops out except drums and bass). The bass playing is some of the most interesting on CNN  in my opinion. On drums, I was doing a lot of rolling type of snare accents and the bass drum might be a bit too busy in places, but I feel like it still works for the jam-groove section because we were digressing naturally from song-mode to jam-groove-mode. For a totally unimportant note - a few times during the song you will hear me using my kit's 8" bell. This is one of few instances my kit's bell can be heard on any of our studio recordings (that I can think of at least). That 8" bell has a distinctly warmer tone than my ride cymbal (which itself is a 22" Sabian Heavy Ride - its a monster thick ride cymbal capable of cutting through the heaviest wall of guitars when struck with conviction). I know, I know, enough drum talk already.   

We really hope people find the song interesting and unique to the ear. Thank you for listening and for your feedback.  Sincerely, Rob@TheTribe. 


Always There

The is basically the same track as the original, but with a trip hop beat mixed in.  Enjoy!

Hippie Girl (Free Love Mix)

------  BIO -------
The Foothill Tribe (f/k/a Steel Dog Cafe) is a three piece alternative-psychedelic-progressive rock band (and recording artist) from the tiny ocean-side town of Destin, Florida, USA. The Tribe is: Clay Urquhart (Guitars | Vocals); Rob Gilmore (Drums | Vocals); Daniel Bertram (Bass Guitar).  

A Note On The Photos: The picture beside each uploaded song is the Cover Art for the Album, EP, or Single the song is on. We will update our Profile with our discography soon.   

We really enjoy (and continue) trying  to push the creative envelope with our music, whether it be with our songs or instrumentals. We often incorporate different genres, styles, and sounds into our music. Our desire and goal is to create original music that is interesting, different, and uniquely recognizable as The Foothill Tribe's own sound. Thank for listening and we truly hope you enjoy our material.   

As a three piece power trio we have no separate front man. We tried out several "would-be" front men when we were first forming the band, but ultimately we were not satisfied with any of the proposed lead singers because they just did not fit with the band or our vision for the future. Out of necessity we made the decision to handle vocals ourselves in what would become a "twin lead-singer" approach with Clay (guitars) and Rob (drums) both handling lead vocals, and with Dan (bass guitar), Clay, and/or Rob handling back-up vocals depending on who was singing lead. This twin lead-vocal approach has developed over the years and forms a key ingredient (and some have gone as far as calling it a trademark) of the band's sound.   

Over the course of writing and recording our various Albums, EPs, and Single releases the band's sound has developed significantly. There are a handful of songs along our path that show the growth of our sound and are witness to a change in the band's direction creatively. We hope to have a chance to tell some of the stories about these key songs and what was going on at the time. We try to offer a bit of background on each song, and sometimes even the lyrics are posted, in the song description for anyone who might be interested in a bit more info about a song.  
 
Since joining Sound Cloud, we have made some awesome new friends and met some great bands and artists. We really appreciate all who listen to our music and who have elected to follow us. Our sincerest thanks! We look forward to continuing to share our music, to making more new friends, and to continuing to discover new and inspiring music/artists/bands as we all grow together. THANKS TO ALL for  sharing in our story and for allowing us to share in yours!  Thanks again for listening to The Tribe!

Rough Lightning

foothilltribe