Cast of Characters:

The Beautiful Dark -- @thebeautifuldark -- Carl -- vocals, lyrics, Ovation acoustic guitar, and composition
J.J. Terrell– @j-j-terrell – organ and upright piano, and JJ's angels (voice synth)
Entheogenic Psychonaught (Josh Clary)– @josh-clary-1 –Josh – Warwick fretless four-string bass and Collings mandolin
Mistermark-- @user-432503709 -- Mark –- VST fiddle
Llanpsych -- @llanpsych -- Tez – Fender Stratocaster electric guitar
K2 and the Three [and the Four]--@k2andthe3, @k2-kara –Ken -- drums
TexMex Shaman– @texmex-shaman –Stephen — Earle Scruggs custom banjo, production, mix, and mastering

This is the latest in our series of songs Carl has written about us. Being as both Tez, a lifelong, and to a lesser degree, Carl are Manchester United fans, Carl siezed on the opportunity to celebrate their shared fandom. Although the lyrics are a little inscrutable to us Americans, we love that football (soccer) fans from across the pond will know exactly what he's talking about. 
  Carl wrote this song on his acoustic guitar, and upon sharing it with us, we weren't sure as to the direction we wanted to take it. JJ threw down first, adding his good-time-sounding upright piano and strikingly beautiful organ to the mix first. He also added the subtle human voice choral synth you hear throughout. Enchanted with Carl's composition, Josh next added his bass and mandolin both in the same recording session, without even closing his DAW. Mark was in right after, adding his friendly fiddle solo as well as fiddle fills throughout. Being as the song is about him, Tez came along shortly after and added the tuneful intro and outro on his guitar. Then, as it was just about to sit for a while, Ken added his very tasteful, perfect drums to the mix, thus completing the rhythm section. 
  Before we put a bow on it, though, Stephen made it back from his week in the Colorado wilderness in time to add his magical banjo to the mix. Speaking of mixes, now it was time for one, and we turned it over to him, our in house pro, to do the honors.
  We all really enjoyed working on this one. It is an example of Eclectic Collective taking one of Carls songs and having our way with it. Always a team effort getting it over the line, but we always manage to do it. We hope you enjoy listening to this as much as we enjoyed creating it.

Original lyrics by The Beautiful Dark:

Division Two Champs, '75
Small consolation for '74 cries
Fan wow land psyched
True Red Devil in this life

We fell to Leeds
Last Division 1
We had the Irish
Man, I followed them
McGrath didn't train
A different breed
Golden era
Boozed up greats as seed

Then, we mostly won
But still, these moments to memories shone
Keane's end at Juventus
His team's power won
Beast perseverance
2-3 semi so they march on

Teddy & Ole
Broken Bayern lines
Videos with no YouTube
In sport mad mind

Great from great, Cantona
Flying curve ball martial artist
Old Leeds leech
A la French finest

Man Utd before Glazier fud
Old Trafford dreams
Red Devil blood
A fan forever no matter loss
Good grinding Fergie
Our hairdryer boss

True Red Devil
Hughesy's volleys
Arsenal disheveled
Good Giggsy speed
End to end
Back of the net
Great teen we get
Front of our dreams

True Red Devil
Scars from Aguero
And Barce's better
New cycles please
We've been Malcolmed
Bought like shop
These greedy Glaziers fucking up
Our theatre of dreams

If only for Fergie time
We'd be doing just fine

True Red Devil (Eclectic Collective)

"Magic is what we do. Music is how we do it." -- Jerry Garcia

Welcome to my page, my peers, associates, friends, and musical family. I'm a lifelong, multi-instrumentalist musician who records prolifically and joyfully. You'll hear me play guitar, bass (regular four string, and four and five string fretless), mandolin, banjo, keys (piano, organ, synth), lap slide, sitar, and sing on my recordings here. I've been in a few dozen bands in my life, playing everything from bluegrass, jazz, rock, jam band, reggae, funk, afrobeat, Middle Eastern, traditional Irish, singer/songwriter, pop/covers, to experimental/avant garde. 
  Since I found SoundCloud a couple years ago, I've found many talented, creative people with whom to create music. However, in the summer of '23 I formed a band called The Eclectic Collective with some of my favorite musicians I've met through here. It started as a loose collective of musicians and coalesced into a core group of musicians who find other musicians with whom we'd like to make music, then run their songs through our process, and in effect add a full band. That core of The Eclectic Collective includes Tez (Llanpsych), J.J. Terrel, Ken (K2 and the Three), Stephen (Texmex Shaman), Chris (cgmaness), and Mark (mistermark). A couple of other musicians are frequent collaborators, as well, including Artur of Surfers Like Us, and Steve Vervaet of Steve's World. More recently, we've been joined by Carl of The Beautiful Dark fame. 
  The magic of music is amplified exponentially by each person adding to it. So, we really try to add our sorcery all kinds of music from all kinds of artists. Sometimes, we keep it within the group, but a lot of what we do is collaboration with other artists. Therefore these days, 100% of what I do is collaboration, within the group or with other artists on the side.
  I, and we, are also available for hire if you have a song or lyrics and you really want to add bigger instrumentation or a band and good production to it. 
  A small sampling of the artists whom I consider primary influences, and whom you will hear coming through my fingers include Phish, The Flaming Lips, The Grateful Dead, Radiohead, Rye Cooder, Steve Earle, Miles Davis, Fela Kuti, Arcade Fire, Mikey Dread, Yellowman, Purpleman, The Meditations, Michigan and Smiley, Lee Perry, Dillinger, Django Reinhardt, Impossible Recording Machine, The Allman Bros Band, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Bela Fleck, Les Claypool, Sam Bush, David Grissman, John Prine, Talking Heads, Beastie Boys, MMW, Moe., Morphine, Ween, Steve Lukather, Michael McDonald, John Abercrombie, Dave Holland, John Scofield, Victor Wooten,  Cannonball Adderly, Thelonious Monk, Flea, Parliament Funkadelic,  Frank Zappa, Prince Paul, Pete Rock, Thievery Corporation, Amon Tobin, Chet Baker, Joao Gilberto, Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Carol Kaye, Tame Impala, Mumford and Sons, Japanese Breakfast, LCD Soundsystem, Beach House, Sean Lennon, and Billy Strings, but of course there are many more. I also really like and am influenced by traditional Iranian, Palestinian, Indian, Sri Lankan, Sudanese, Mauritian, Somalian, Egyptian, West African, and Syrian music. I welcome anyone who plays non-western music to contact me for a collaboration, too.
 I'm overjoyed to have found my community on SoundCloud. This is a truly unique forum where everyone is sincerely trying to build each other up. The profoundly supportive and positive SoundCloud community has really opened up an exciting new world of collaboration for me. That is the main reason I'm in the Cloud, actually, to connect with other musicians and make music that I enjoy listening to, and hopefully others do, as well. I am ALWAYS looking to collaborate with interesting musicians, mostly though BandLab, which is where I record almost exclusively. It's a solid, free digital audio workstation hub where you can share recording projects, even if it's not where you make your recordings.
  Everything I do is live instrumental, not programmed, and using no computer beyond my phone. That's not to say that I would be opposed to using that kind of tool, it's just not my preferred medium with which to paint. If you like my music, please share it. If you want to collaborate, my BandLab handle is @bingo_pajama. Feel free to contact me at cornbreadband@hotmail.com, as well, even if you aren't on BandLab.
  If your music is primarily AI, please don't come around my page, as I'm not at all interested in complimenting a machine.
  Here's a link to music I've recorded live with a group of musicians here in Pittsburgh called The Northumberland Street Ramblers.
Check out The Northumberland Street Ramblers on #SoundCloud
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/fU4Me

New tracks tagged #Eclectic Collecitive