I found this on my hard drive, from a long time ago, In fact, from just before I stopped singing in a mid-atlantic drawly sound and went natively english. It was supposed to be a tribute to Bonn Scott and AC/DC, but sounds a bit more Def Leppard round the edges. Anyhow, it remains probably the only proper "Rock" song I've actually recorded I think. Enjoy the guitar wankery.

Stuck Here

Testing my new focusrite saffire pro24 by throwing as many things at it as I could. Starting with a sample from Maz Totterdell's "Kaleidoscope" I chucked in some sampled drums, a big wobbly VST bass, and some analogue synthy beepiness. Then I decided it needed banjo, and marimbas....

Bassline

Back when I realised I was going to have to do some Plastic Squirrel music live, I had to figure out a way of doing all those weird noises as just one bloke. So I plugged my electric mandola with the twin outputs into some funny boxes and recorded a bunch of rough demos to check it worked. Here is one of the results.

Sell My Soul - demo

Red Son - Demo

Created for the BassChat september composition competition. It got away from me a bit and went to unexpected places. Apologies to Andy Fraser for nicking his Mr Big solo at the end. I didn't notice until after it was done.
Was written for the picture that is with it, that was the brief, that was what I did, it reminded me of late summer evenings when someone turns up with unexpected cider, and it all gets a bit more fun that you thought it would be.

Slightly Rattled - BC composition (Dave Vader)

Written for the October Basschat Composition Competition, using the picture attached as inspiration. I seem to have channelled my inner Harold Faltermeyer/Jan Hammer and written an 80s film soundtrack. Lots of fun with the novation bass station soft synth, and my ancient Roland D110 module. Also some theatrics with an SG and some delay pedals. Very 80s, ooops, not sure how that happened. And I didn't even touch the moog for once.

Fighting Feet

I found a half-finished joke project on my hard drive from 10 years ago. The samples are not well filtered and the original drums and music step all over everything I added. Hacked it down from an 8 minute crazy journey down to 2 and a bit minutes of fuzzy moog, guitar feedback and other noises. It is nicer now.
If anyone wants to sue me over this, feel free, you can have a percentage of the total lack of earnings it will bring in. Clue is in the title as to who might want to sue me.....

Bintney Speared

A song about a Polar Bear who is no longer sponsored by a well-known fizzy drinks corporation, and the ensuing withdrawal problems that result from this.
Vocals still sound shocking as an SM58 is a fine live microphone, but a bit shit for recording purposes. Lots of work rounds employed as my poor old PC couldn't load any VST instruments, so all the synths came from my ancient Roland D110. Which wasn't playing nicely anyway.
Enjoy.

The Rola Cola Polar Bear

For International Synth Day, here's the first thing I put together when I got my Jen Synthetone SX1000 20-something years ago
Also features a Roland PRO-E and a Boss DR-550 drum machine
All recorded on an antique (even at the time) Fostex 4-track tape machine that could only record 2 tracks at a time and barely kept

Compilation

Laughing In Your Sleep(pt.1)

In the first week of the Iraq war, back in 2003, I recorded ten minutes of the news from radio 4, and a similar sized chunk of ITV from the same time (I think it was Des and Mel) along with an ad break, and faded them against each other. Then I threw some jangly guitars and stuff underneath it and called it a thing. It was the soundtrack to my then-girlfriend (now Wife)'s art installation that summer, which featured chairs and mirrors and newspapers and all kinds of madness (couldn't find a photo of it). A slightly altered version ended up on the end of the Audio Pornography album. But this version was always better.
Thought that with the 10th anniversary happening it was worth sticking out there again. All the sites it was on 10 years ago appear to have gone out of business. I miss mp3.com