Here's an explosive track written and recorded in 20 minutes on my iPhone voice memo. A talented musician and old friend, whom I wanted to collaborate with musically, challenged me to do an original song …since he had no interest in recording a cover. This is that. It's one of several originals done for that purpose. The lyrics are based on the FOMO (fear of missing out) stresses related to people’s addiction to mobile devices, social media and the premise that all the good that technology provides us should be tempered by responsible usage and self-control. A lyric line encapsulates the words of caution: “…Everyone’s trying to get ahead; I'm just trying not to wake up dead.” I had envisioned this universal “plea of hope” as a soundtrack to a film noir about getting caught up in technology’s deadly web--with few chances of breaking free. Sound effects and a bass line were added in GarageBand. The Original Recording was done in my garage (really) and the "reverb" is actually natural echo with the sound bouncing of the walls. Three very small amps were used to track the percussion, vocals and guitar track---all recorded in one take. Since I tend to lean towards ballads, this 127BPM track is a bit out of my wheelhouse. So, it comes from another place in the universe. A Remix and master was undertaken in May of 2016 to clean up the tracks, get a higher resolution experience and apply the punk bass line which, in retrospect, is pretty rocked up for its genre. Comments, shares and likes appreciated. Oh, and, that friend? I never did record with him. Seems he moved onto other things and recording music wasn’t one of them. Isn’t it a pity?

Say Oh Hey - To The Universe - ReMix- eMastered

Everyone loves a good story. We've enjoyed telling them in words, pictures and music. 

Please follow MichaeldelAard here and on twitter @MichaeldelAard. We've long been moved by the rough cuts, bootlegs and demos by storied artists both past and present because they show pure emotion, high creativity unfettered by auto-tune and over-production. The elimination of anything that could remotely resemble anything but a perfect track is not part of this stream. This project is more about spontaneity. You'll find perfectly human imperfections and, spare (lean and mean)demo productions throughout. On occasion, though all tracks were recorded ultra-simply on an iPhone's voice memo app, we would pull a track into GarageBand to add a track or sound effects (as in several of the originals, herein)...but all in all these are low-fat productions that reflect our most basic love for music and storytelling. Nothing more than that. Should a track tickle your ear, we'd be most grateful to here about it. Thanks for the opportunity to share with you. Follows, comments and shares are welcome.