www.continental-collision.com
Available on Bandcamp - https://continentalcollision.bandcamp.com/track/boring-town. 
Now on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/album/5wf5isry5VTiOJo93dU38E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD_ThUpLBk8&list=OLAK5uy_lzXT1QxPKHH__ERx2AeZbUlK8tnKV7IIo

The second song to be released under the name ‘Continental Collision’ but this time with special guest and good friend Dave McKeown. Rodolfo first let me hear the original basis for ‘Boring Town’ back in June, yet somehow he didn’t sound excited about it. However from the first I knew it could be great. I was looking for the story in those two words as well as in the mood of the music and fortunately it came quite quickly and fitted like a glove. Singing this was a challenge for me, like everything we do, but it was exhilarating. I had introduced Rodolfo to Dave’s cloud and it felt right that we should ask Dave to help us complete the song. I hope we will have the opportunity to work with him again soon. 

Composition, instrumentation, arrangement and production: @rplanes
Lyrics and vocals: @markjbennett
Saxophone: Dave McKeown: @https://soundcloud.com/dave-mckeown
Photograph: Harlem NYC by Douglas Corrance

When I look around I see the light’s gone out this town,
Realising just a bit too late.
Streets have all gone quiet and feels like all the wires are down.
Tell me why I’m feeling in this state?
Not so long ago we felt that we’d be happy here,
Not just for now, but for always.
That’s all turned around now at least that much it is clear,
Not the old days, instead separate ways.
Like the loser on a game show.
Can you tell me where did all the fun go?
Darling without you,
It’s such a boring town,
Only coz you’re not around.

The bar, where we first met, is still there, though I never go,
Realised it’s lost its old appeal.
Crossing the park, where we might meet and stop to say hello,
Couldn’t deal with how it made me feel.
All the places we once loved I feel I must avoid
Not just for now, but for always.
I no longer know what I want, I feel I’m paranoid,
Not the old days, instead separate ways.
Like the loser on a game show.
Can you tell me where did all the fun go?
Darling without you, where did the love go?
Such a boring town,
Only coz you’re not around.

Boring Town - Continental Collision (with Dave McKeown) - Now on Spotify/Bandcamp

Main parts --- nylon and steel string acoustic with some electric guitar overdubs later. A kind of study, with some almost experimental electric guitar ornaments. Recovered the acoustic guitar files, fixed them up, and glued it together! A bit of unevenness in the quality means best on earphones I think.

Step into the Light

THE MAGIC TREE

The tree is an ancient symbol, old, watching us as a silent witness. As a child, I grew up in my parents' garden which had a massive, more than a hundred year old tree with a trunk thick enough for a three person embrace. We, my sister and I, felt safe under it, as if the tree protected us. Sometimes we'd hide there from the rain, we played hide and seek, and used it's old curled roots as the backdrop for our imagined adventures. 
With the three recent storms we had here in Holland I again saw the enormous strength and resilience of trees.
Although... One strength is bigger, that is of mankind as a whole. I am not a treehugger, although my wooden guitar I embrace every time I play, but I would love to see our world getting greener again, humans living more in balance and in sync with nature ... I play this one for the tree of my youth, It is still there, and try to put to sounds the images and stories ...

This is a piece for two acoustic guitars, although it has very clear composed parts, I improvise some of the parts, as usual. The style is a personal blend of flamenco, jazz, fusion, latin, rock, classical, etc.

I hope you will enjoy and appreciate this one and as always: I really enjoy your likes, shares and comments!

-Dan

All music, arranging, composition, guitars by Daniël van den Berg, February 2022
Guitar: Joan Cashimira, modelo 145, spruce top w/ cocobolo sides and back, Gata de Gorgos (Alicante), 2015
Recorded using an Apogee MiC.
Mixed in Auria, masterered in Auria and Final Touch
Cover art: Daniël van den Berg

The Magic Tree

The Magic Tree | Dan van den Berg

Here is another band blast from the past called faithinfools a seven piece rap rock outfit from Wigan that i played guitar for and is an original rap rock track called Spaghetti Western and was recorded at Jarraf studios in Wigan by John Kettle, and also comes with a video set in Wigan and filmed by Ric Foster! The cover picture is from Haigh festival back in 2012 were we played on a massive stage to over 4k audience. Hope you enjoy! Cheers Peace

Video on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56KJQqcOQUY

Band line up:

Stuart - Raps
Natalie - Vocals
Will - Drums
Kurt - Guitar (Clubfungus)
Smalley - Trumpet
Chris - Saxaphone
Rob - Bass

Faith in fools - Spaghetti Western 📹

We Don’t Talk Anymore

Sad when the summer came I sang to you
Sorrowful, somber, sable words
Buried the dreams you drempt inside of you
Ever alive and held on to

Straight into the eye of a powerful storm
Down electrical lines, keep me swaddled and warm
Winds whip through the trees, broad branches are broke
In the street there’s debris from an elderly oak
Men out on the sea being battered and tossed
Hear the captain’s decree, feeling hopelessly lost
Gave myself to the cause, sacrificed for a war
You use to write all the time, now we don’t talk anymore

Sad when the colors fade like joy we knew
Wittering blade and wilted limb
Wish it away this sleep we’ve fell into
Filtered, the sunlight seems so dim

Straight into the eye of a powerful storm
Down electrical lines, keep me swaddled and warm
Winds whip through the trees, broad branches are broke
In the street there’s debris from an elderly oak
Men out on the sea being battered and tossed
Hear the captain’s decree, feeling hopelessly lost
Gave myself to the cause, sacrificed for a war
You use to write all the time, now we don’t talk anymore

You use to write all the time
You use to write all the time
You use to write all the time
We don’t talk anymore

We don’t talk anymore
We don’t talk anymore
We don’t talk anymore
We don’t talk anymore

We Don't Talk Anymore

This is a newbie, I'm playing my epiphone Dove on this one, but a lot of the guitar parts originally started out on my Yamaha classical. I'm writing a lot of music on the classical at the min, but lyrics generally come when I change to a steel string, mostly the Dove these days. 

take it easy folks, thanks for stopping by!

Lyrics

When I let you stay the night
boy I don't appreciate the morning call
gonna turn your foghorn right down
just so as I don't have to hear it anymore

keep playing your indie pop
like it is 1994
or take a leaf right outta my book
and nail it onto your door

I don't understand why your tiny cloth ears
they don't listen
yeah you'd rather tune in to some
pastiche cheap country honk musician

keep playing your indie pop
like it is 1994
or take a leaf right outa' my book
and nail it onto your door

I don't understand why for me 
your crying eyes do not see
and I can't quite comprehend
why it is that you picked her over me

keep playing your indie pop
like it is 1994
or take a leaf right outa' my book
and nail it onto your door

it's getting harder now
than it ever was before
that little voice inside of your head
is screaming out
and he'll shout 

forevermore
forevermore
forevermore 
forevermore
forevermore........ and maybe some more


thanks for listening, and inspiring, always greatly appreciated. 

recorded at home on my Tascam 8 track.







1994

A little psycho funk trip with accordion and more...

Funk This!

🖤Buy

Sweet Hard

Lyrics & artwork: Cosmic Keanu. Backing vocals. David. k. A. Spencer

Coming back to cosmic reality. (Vocals. Cosmic Keanu.

(Free WAV Download available here under '••• More'; and eventually, as part of a future solo album)

Greetings all you fun and funky SC musicians. I don’t typically upload remastered versions of a song as a new track. I usually just replace the old with the new, and change the title to reflect the remaster. But this one is special, for a few reasons (and if you’re not much into personalized mixing details, you may want to skip this liner note).

First (and most importantly)… I thought I’d lost the ability to edit the original tracks for this song. The last time I opened it up in Logic (updating it for the 2018 album remaster), the siren voices were all messed up (automation in Alchemy can have odd results sometimes). I just assumed the original native file was broken forever, because I no longer had access to that version of Logic. I had to do the album remaster from my only existing mix… and it was definitely lacking.

4 years later, I’m so glad I took a chance on reopening the native file when I concluded this ‘Siren’ trilogy. All the sounds/automations were exactly as I had left them. Prior to this attempt, I just assumed the worst, and never tried again. Thankfully, I was wrong. :D

Second… the remaster turned out much better than I hoped; and the differences were so satisfying, I thought it might be fun to have both versions up (for a side by side comparison, for any interested musicians out there. Here's the older version: https://soundcloud.com/grevusanjl/siren-rising).

So why does this one sound so much better than the original version? (And please take all of this with a grain of salt. I’m no pro. But I have discovered what works for me.)

Honestly, a tremendous amount of credit goes to having a much better understanding of Compression. For many folks, Compression is almost a dirty word. Just the title of the plug-in alone confused me at first. Why would I possibly want to compress my sounds, when I liked them as is? 

But it turns out (for me at least) that the different Compression options really shine when chosen specifically, and used minimally. As an example (and I’m not sure if your DAW offers similar options, but), Studio VCA works brilliantly with strings, female vocals and many of my favorite synths. But Studio FET works great on drums. Etc. And while some might cringe at the idea, I absolutely love what Soft Distortion does to most tracks as well. Used in mild amounts, Soft Distortion adds a phenomenal amount of spacial quality to the sound. I don’t use this one all of the time, but I bet I use it at least 75% of the time now (and Compression in general on about 95% of the tracks).  So there you go… I’m definitely a big fan of Compression… when used responsibly. :)

In addition, I’ve also learned a lot about EQing since I first did this song in 2017; so much so, that I was actually baffled by some of my earlier choices. So a large amount of the repair/update time for the 2022 remaster was spent on getting the EQing for each track set up more effectively.

And finally, I had the opportunity to give the full mix a healthy rebuild. After 5 years, you’re undoubtedly going to have a very fresh perspective on a piece. And I realized a lot of the sounds simply weren’t in their optimal positions in the stereo field. I also reconsidered where sounds faded in and out, and how intensely they did so… and I updated all of that as well. 

And there you have it, the story/history behind one of my all time personal favorites. I’m so glad I had an opportunity to revisit this one (while leaving all the original instruments true to form), and I hope you enjoy all the latest sound enhancements as well. I’m excited to hear what you think of my ’Siren Rising (2022 Remaster)’. :D

WTF! The Musical

Siren Rising - 2022 REMASTER

MY SIDE (prod.iano)

Songwriter based in Chicago, Illinois.  Contact via email simplecircuitsmusic@yahoo.com or PM.  Thanks for your kind feedback!


We Don't Talk Anymore

Simple Circuits