Original: Words and Music by John Stanley
 A little song I wrote and recorded, about how I felt after my Dad (Willard "Dub" Stanley) had passed away. Actually, I came up with the music years ago. One of my first really, sometime 1987 or 88 I believe. The original lyrics were absolutely horrid! Originally "ooh baby, love ya love me" drivel, Lol! Then there was another pass, after I thought I'd become a more serious lyricist: "I Just Wrote a Letter" was the title. You can probably guess what that one was about. At least it wasn't "I Just Ate My Breakfast" though that might've been a more fascinating subject matter. Anyway, always liked the music and kept trying to put something to it. After Dad was gone, I had words but no  music. Eventually fate decided the two should be joined, and somewhere around 2007 - 2008 I decided to preserve the union. Started with acoustic guitar and built it up from there. It's a pretty decent product, but I do think I got a bit busy. More guitars (acoustic and electric) bass, drums and various percussion, piano, organ, a little bit of sitar, and various other sundries, all played as competently as can be by yours truly. Enjoy.

The Love That Knows No End

 Original: Words and Music by John Stanley
 Another blast from the past. Wrote sometime in the late 1980's early 90's. Although instead of the "Just you 'n I" bit, it used to be "As long as we're high" which at the time I thought was so rebellious and clever... rabble rabble rabble! But anyway, performed and recorded many various versions through the years. Sometime around early 2000 I started recording digitally, and was using my old catalogue as test subjects. As I was fooling about with this one, I thought to myself it's not an all together bad song. "Throw a raunchy guitar solo in the mix... Spice it up a little. Maybe drag out the sitar? Yeah haven't played that in awhile..." I was also on this wierd French circa 1960's gangster flicks kick (hear me out, it'll kinda make sense) and I remember hearing these trippy flute sounds. I didn't know if it was the technique in which it was being played, or some sort of over looping. I figured I could approximate it (which I think I did) with a lot of delay. I just really love little strange sounds like that, and I knew this song would be perfect fodder to play with that odd sort of thing.
For years this diddy always kicked off straight from the chorus, but this time I wanted to start in an opposing chord and walk down into the song proper, like the listener had just stumbled upon something else, just to had to the surreal atmosphere,  just more weirdness for the sake of wierdness really. Fortunately, that chord was middle C and just so happen to tune my sitar in the key of C so it was really one of those moments when everything was coming together with little to no effort. Just one of little magical moments I suppose.
As the usual, I started out by laying down a "scratch" acoustic guitar and then laying down two proper guitars panned hard left and right and playing off each other. I think it was drums next (because I like to be able to play the bass off of the drums instead of "vicey-versus" essentially playing between the rhythm and the melody. I don't... for me it make more melodic bass lines, if it's conducive to the song of course) drums being my weakest performance tool. I remember it took awhile (not unlike my writing here - amiright!? - Sorry) to come up with something fitting and within my limited skills. Then bass, percussion, sitar, organ, and the wierd bits. Finally worked a pretty decent guitar solo, and laid down some vocals and even some spoken whispers (best heard through headphones - like most of my junk!) and I think I came out with a pretty strong end result.
As for the lyrical edit from "high" to "you-n-I" I just thought it made for a stronger piece. I don't think it's selling out really. I mean the whole "Love... It's..." bridge was in place from the start. So the whole "High" nonsense never really fit anyways. I just put it in cause nothing else seemed to fit, and it was easy to use that. Seemed I don't know tougher - you know - writing a soppy love song at 16? 17? I could throw that bit in and still seem cool. Anyway, to sing a song like that I think you need that certain sort of swagger to back it up with and pull it off. I am simply not that guy! :-) But enuffa my yakkin'! (sorry) Enjoy!

John Stanley - It Will Be Alright (Just You and I)

Original: Words and Music by John Stanley
Ok...
Rachel I AM SO SORRY! GWENDOLYN MEAN'T ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!! PLEASE FORGIVE
Okay okay, just kidding everybody. Wouldn't that be really messed up though? Some poor shlub just breaking down while trying to share some of his music? All I can say is: Thank goodness the internet, and this sort of medium wasn't around 20 or 30 years ago, because I probably would've done something like that - and by "probably" I mean "Totally!"
Anyhoodle, let's get this out of the way: The whole "Baby please, down on da knees" bit IS quite a bit sappy and maudlin! Ugh, I wrote those lines when I was like 16 or something, so please cut me some slack. I did in fact make several attempts at re-write, but nothing ever felt as honest. At the end of the day, I'd rather be honest with myself than be something I'm not.
Anyway, another oldie well... oldie for me. Again liike my previous uploads, I play all the bits pieces and parts. Acoustic guitars, followed by drums and bass, some counter melody piano, organ (yeah, a bit hot in the mix, in retrospect) some percussion - I think? Pretty solid guitar solo (I'm not generally in for long solo pieces. "Short 'n Sweet" is my usual motto there. Get in and quickly out, before they realize just how awful you are! This one time however, I wanted the solo to play over the bridge arrangement. Repeating that passage just seemed to make the song flow better - to my ears anyway - and I knew it would be a push, but I figured I could just kinda riff on the bit instead of doing an accomplished part - gotta play to my strong suits right?) The idea with the solo was to start at as comfortably low as I could and just riff up to as comfortably high as I could end. It took a fair share of passes, but I feel I got a pretty comfortable end result. Played it on the Epiphone through digital rotary sound effect just for kicks and maybe a little texture.
Sure it's no "Yesterday" but I think it's one of my stronger efforts - Enjoy!

John Stanley - If I Could Change The Past Today

Original: Words and Music by John Stanley
 Well this one here was an early experiment. Back when I was like 16 or perhaps 17 a buddy challenged me to write something other than a "Ooh baby baby" love song. I figured sure thing, how hard can it be? Then I realized just how boring a person I am. I couldn't figure out any kind of subject, well I mean nothing more interesting than trying to get a girls attention! The strongest candidate was at that point either something about watching infomercials at 2 o'clock in the morning or my growing addiction to cigarettes and hiding them from my parents. Back then my standard routine,  at least on holidays and summer breaks, and to some extant weekends was to stay up very late (to like 4 or 5 am) lay in bed, smoke cigarettes and switch between listening to Beatles records through headphones and draw sketches, and watch t.v. and fool around on the guitar (other fiddling's-about for boy at that tender age, not withstanding! Certainly not worth mentioning any further in this pleasant company, and CERTAINLY not the type of material I was willing to put to song, or fess up to at that point in my life!)
Anyway, one summer night I was doing my routine as a storm was slowly moving in. Always loving the sound of rain and thunder (I would often set the tape deck by the window and record the meteorological symphony!) I started trying to put something musically to it. I quickly realized I wasn't talented enough to write anything - in song - at least nothing interesting about the rain. I did however come up with a cool little melody that sound good. "Guitar with Rain Accompaniment in E" I called it, left it at that for the rest of the summer. I can't remember if it was the following autumn, might have been a whole year but by fall I remember walking home from school in the rain (not as much a fan of it musical quality under those circumstances mind you) but somehow something clicked. That ethereal antenna got switched on, the idea was received. A song about how boring and mundane I am! All those summer nights doing nothing had paid of (?!) and there it all was. Some artistic changes of course, autumn in place of summer, the rain motif stayed, took an idea of using cricket sounds (I mean that's really more of a summer thing... We'll just say it's an exceptionally warm autumn - Indian Summer - There got it!) threw in a middle 8th bit about id-and-ego that I somehow caught on a late night t.v. viewing on some pubs broadcast: something about Feud I guess.The music's pretty much the same thing over and over, but the words just poured out, and I proclaimed it worked so thusly it indeed did!
Funny thing back then with very rudimentary music training. I knew my chords and I was developing an ear for melody, but I had no concept of time signature (still don't,  most would say!) I would just tap out the tempo on my foot, or count off when jamming with friends (of course then we usually just doing Ramones covers) and that was it. At some point I tried to having a beat put to it, but nothing sounded quite right. Eventually my best friend (who happened to be a drummer, and was actually studying music) pointed out that I had written this number as a waltz. When pressed him for explanation, he said "Well maybe not a waltz, but your going 1-2-3-4 and that's wrong. It should 1-2-3 1-2-3" and as he was showing me this he was tapping it out on the snare to emphasize his point. Get teaching technique - even better drum part for song, I was like "That's it! That's the part!"
So all that came together to form this. Recorded more recently (04 - 06 or so) Sigh, as always all the parts by me and me alone (I guess I DID learn something from those late night self fiddling sessions!) A couple of Acoustic guitars to lay the foundation, 1/3 time bushes on snare shuffle (swirling the right hand around the head, because I saw some jazz drummer do it in a movie, and thought it looked cool!) to eventually sticks on snare, bass, and some other instrumentation. 
The storm was from an old cassette tape. On of those actual storms I mentioned recording back in the then. I had to layer it upon itself in order to get rid of passing vehicles and what not, and also to work the thunder claps in on queue (Wow! I guess I can had playing Storm to my list of instruments.) and then copying that mix and panning them hard left and right. Pretty much the same with the cricket sounds, though they was recorded at the time I was recording the song.The only other thing I'd like to make mention of is the wierd little bit that's sort my middle eight bit. I wanted to sound peculiar, you know other worldly. The idea was that in the song I'm doing nothing and keep nodding out and eventually drift off to sleep (another one of favourite pastimes!) In the middle bit there, I thought it would be cool to make it as if that was my subconscious singing instead. I tried several ideas - phasing and lots of echo and reverb and delay. I even tried having those vocals rotate around the speakers (so with heads phones, it would be like swimming around your head) but ultimately the thin tin-ie sound with some delay just seemed to feel like the proper fit to my ears.
And that's it. Pretty simple song really. Oh! When I finally rose to the challenge and played for my buddy... He... Well at first he forgot us having the discussion (alcohol my had been evolved, maybe more, we were underage, just saying no more) he eventually came around "Oh yeah... Yeah that's o-kay-ie... It's kinda Beatle-ie... I mean't something like by the Ramones ya know?"
Enjoy!

John Stanley - Lost In a Dream

Original: Words and Music by John Stanley
Instruments used: Acoustic Guitar, Sitar, and Tambourine. (Also my voice, poor quality "instrument" that it is.)
 Hey there! This is one of the earliest demos of this song that I committed to tape. The account of how the song was written and assembled, is in the description for the final version (although I'm already thinking of re-doing it, with something for the middle eighth, a coda, and some sort of extended instrumental to play out on) of the song proper.
I laid this one down as an audio blue print, sometime near the start of spring (April? May possibly?) 2007. Really bare bones production here. Just me singing "live" and calling out a couple of queues while recording the guitar. I then added a second acoustic to beef it up a little, plus add something of a solo. I put in some sitar next, and finished up with a little tambourine for extra texture and to get idea of how the beat should feel.
It's pretty poor quality compared to the version with all the trimmings, but I don't know... there's just something about this one that a really dig. Something about the warts and all earnestness of the sound I think.
Anyway, a came across this earlier version while looking for some other music, and thought why not throw it up here on this site and see if anybody finds it sticky! As always ~ Enjoy...

The Love That Knows No End (Early Demo)

Cover of The Beatles original written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney (Mostly Paul)
I recorded my version sometime in the fall of 2003, as part of a Beatles tribute album. For this rendition I went back to their earlier effort - one of the versions that made it onto their Anthology 3 discs - and built up off of that.
This is my attempt at 1970's glam pop outer space type of genre sound. Fairly basic recording techniques here.
I laid down the foundation track with the piano. A bit unusual for me, as I almost always do a "scratch" with an acoustic guitar (Darn-near exclusively, even on tracks that end up being entirely heavy distorted guitar driven!) From there I followed with the usual drums and bass. Note of interest: this recording marks (one of, if not) the first times I utilized an effects unit on the drum kit while recording. Some tight compression and an extremely short delay. Again, I was going for a spacey feel, set in a 1970's (technology) style setting! Moving on, I get a bit fuzzy... Perhaps I added an acoustic guitar or two? Minimal percussion, and rounding out the recording I laid down the electric guitar and solo. Finally when I got to the vocals, I simply tried to recreate (note the word "tried" everybody!) that wonderful John Lennon, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney harmony. The lead vocal was common fare, even by voice skill levels. It was quite a bit of fun to sing, actually. The first part of the harmony took a some effort, but the second part really pushed my chords!
In the end, it's a solid effort. Definitely "filler" material. Not a masterpiece - remade, but a fun song all the same.
Please Enjoy! 

She Came In Through The Bathroom Window

Original Instrumental: Music by John Stanley
(Maybe some words in the future)
Initial idea came up around 1991, developed further in '93, then revisited and re-developed in '03 after I noticed one of my exercises for sitar was very close, scale-wise. Recorded sometime early to mid 2000's.
This track is really more of an exercise than any kind of song (even by instrumental standards - actually maybe even more so!) to me and my ears. However, it's one of my few songs that's actually had a real momentum to it. It's been played on a couple of radio stations, and got some pretty decent traffic on a few other websites. So... What do I know?
Anyway, it's always been in my repertoire - mainly for guitar warm up, so it was only a matter of time before it was committed to tape. It's funny in that I had been playing the first part for years on guitars, and then as I started to study the sitar a similar run came up in my exercises... definitely gave me a good head start there!
As usual, I play all the parts here. No Sitar! Just wasn't confident enough at the time, plus I was having the hardest of times trying to mic the bloody thing! Still do, really. ;)
Basically it's just a couple of acoustic guitars and one electric. I play each part one time, straight through from beginning to end. No overdubs, no punching in and out, and no cloning or copying! Essentially what you're getting here is something of a live performance (technically, I guess it would be something like 6 or 7 mini live performances all played back at once) the cool part is any mistakes are right there. To me, it's sometimes the little flubs and tiny imperfections that make a piece of art (what ever the medium) shine for me.
Moving on: a couple tracks of percussion, and completing the work as a whole: an Ensonic SQ-1 Synth going through various wave forms.
A jolly little experiment indeed!
Namaste.
Enjoy!  

Kamasalila

COVER of Beatles original: Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney (This mostly by John, me thinks) Song originally appeared on The Beatles (1968) commonly referred to as "The White Album"
Right, this version like my version of "She Came In Through The Bathroom Window" was from a collection of material I was working on for a project. The idea was instead of doing a middle of the road tribute album, I would take each song and rework them into an entirely different genre. I lost interest in that idea after third (maybe fourth) song! Some of the other ideas (like in S.C.I.T.T.B.W) were to go back to the writer's early drafts and demos, and build my versions from there. The other (that I still want to revisit!) is to swap time periods and what ever style/mode they were in (e.g. Do "From Me To You" as if it were going on Sgt. Pepper's, and doing "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" as if it was a follow-up to "She Loves You" and at the height of Beatlemania.
Anyhow, for my rendition I thought a nice laid back reggae sound would compliment the material. Unfortunately, I forgot how rhythmically challenged I can get sometimes! De boogie down reggae shuffle was no in me feet, Mon! Still... We try and make do as best we can, and it's not without it's charms. Hearing it again now after a few years, I think I would speed up the tempo ever so slightly, just enough to tighten up the beat. Again, not a bad effort though...
As always, that is I and I alone playing all the parts by myself:
Acoustic guitars, two electric guitars (one bright and light, one fat and muddy), drums, bass (I slappuh dee bass!), multiple percussion - especially cowbell, and some keys - a playing clav-type sound through the SQ-1, and playing it through a Wah-Wah pedal to give it kind of a swamp feel.
I also play a little bit of organ for added texture.
On the vocals, I did not realize how much I was trying to sound like John at the time. I do now though! there's also a little bit of a harmony on the chorus. That's me basically just trying to mimic Paul. I think John, Paul, and Ringo were the only ones present during the recording of their version of this song, so that's what I tried to mimic on mine. Although, I did lay down a third vocal to try and strengthen the overall sound in my voices.
Anyway, that's it! A cover yes, but at least some work went into trying to create something "other" than just a blatant copy - not that there's anything wrong with doing that! it's just not entirely my style (until I do)...
Peace, and Love...
Enjoy! 

I'm So Tired

COVER of the Beatles 1966 Classic from "Revolver" Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney (Come on! We all no this was Paul's Baby!) Originally sung by Sir Paul, with a magical score provided by Sir George Martin. Recorded and saved for future generations to marvel at by the Great Geoff Emerick. 
Okay that being said - here's this: Like my previous uploads this is another from the collection of Beatles Covers, where I tried to mix up the styles and genres. This probably being the most radical, and yet probably the most "safe" and formulaic!
I started this one out with just an acoustic guitar (like most of my recordings) and then I laid down a "scratch" vocal track. My plan - neigh my dream was to build the entire rest of the song with something like eight to maybe sixteen - to (do I dare!?) 24 electric guitars... Yeah... That's right... I don't know what the heck I was thinking. I had hoped to play as many of the individual parts of the original version's string arrangement, individually on my own on guitars. Each part with it's own sound and settings some extremely overdriven, some fat, some bright, flanging, lots of distortion, each as unique and individual as possible, and then when combined it would be some heavy metal - sonic orchestra. Unfortunately, my skills just weren't (probably still) up to that challenge.
Strangely enough however, from that same basic acoustic guitar guide track, I was able to lay down the drum beat you hear here, and build the version that is here before you! So in the end, at least something productive came out of the whole affair!
Uh.... Recorded some time in the early 2000's. I'm not playing a 24 electric guitar salute, but that's lil' 'ol me playing everything that you're hearing. Acoustic and electric guitars, bass, two separate drum tracks (same kit, just tuned a little bit differently) percussion, and vocals.
I some times cringe upon hearing my lead vocal on this track. Ah, it is what it is - sigh... but I am truly proud of my harmonies here. Three parts, one to mimic each of the main singing Beatles. Then recorded two more with little variations and slight harmonizing per each Beatle mimic, making for a total of nine harmony tracks, and ten vocal tracks total. God, I love modern technology - Sometimes...
Thanks for checking it out, I Hope You Enjoy!

Eleanor Rigby

Hey there!

I'm not so much a man, as I'm just some tiny little sausage fingers stumbling along the fretboards and keyboards of life.

I also happen to be an Equipment/Stage Manager in the Streets, and a part time, hobbyist musician in between the music Sheets.

I sincerely hope that you are doing well, and having as good a day as you wish!

Also, if anybody likes anything on here enough to leave a tip... I honestly have know idea why anyone would, and it's absolutely not expected, here are some details:

venmo@That-John-Stanley
paypal.me/ThatJohnStanley

ThatJohnStanley

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