This song has been a favourite in my family for many years. I decided to record my own version of it for a few reasons:

a) It's one of my Mum's all-time favourite songs.
b) I was quite surprised to find out that my mate Tenille loves it!
c) My bandmate Gogs showed me a killer live version of it by Brian May, which inspired me.
d) I wanted to record a song with an insane amount of vocal harmonies.
e) It's just a really cool little tune.

I started work on this track in the middle of January 2013 when I was still on holidays. Unfortunately it sat dormant for over half a year, as I had to engineer and produce a full length album for my brother in my studio, which took a hell of a long time. Basically any little slots time I could find in my busy schedule to actually get into the studio, were used up on that. My part of it is finally all done now though, so I can get back to my own projects. I eventually got back to this song, and finished it off at the end of August 2013.

Like I mentioned above, I was keen to load right up on vocal harmonies. I ended up singing the choruses in six-part harmony, so it sounds pretty sweet! For what I originally thought was a very simple little ditty, there ended up being a hell of a lot of tracks used in the recording. I was pretty thorough, and although I've put my own spin on it, it's reasonably true to the original.

The song was originally released in 1979, when Rainbow had Graham Bonnet on vocals. He has a killer voice, which is a bit intimidating when attempting to record a cover! Although it's definitely one of Rainbow's more "pop-ish" songs, the catchiness is undeniable. I promise my next song will be way more metal!

Since You Been Gone (Rainbow cover)

Ever since I was a little tacker, I have loved the theme to "Local Hero", which is an instrumental by Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits) called "Going Home". It features the saxophonist Michael Brecker.

Back in the day, Wide World of Sports would sometimes play montages of hang gliding, surfing and other cool stuff, with this tune playing in the background. I always used to think "Boy, I'd like to record my own version of that one day!", and finally at the age of 30, I have.

I recruited the wonderfully talented Brett Spilsbury to blast out the sax for the tune. He is a very hard man to get hold of though... in fact, it took him 16 months to finally come round and record the sax after I laid down the guitars, bass and drums! It was worth the wait though, because it turned out very nicely. And to think... this is Brett when he's "rusty"!

The track was started in October 2009, and finished in February 2011. Enjoy!

Going Home (Mark Knopfler cover)

In July 2020, I decided to record a cover of this Dream Theater ballad from their 2005 album “Octavarium” (music by Dream Theater, lyrics by the bearded god John Petrucci). I’d recently lost a few people from my life who I cared about a lot, and I was pretty down in the dumps. It’s actually quite a positive/inspirational song, even though it has a bit of a sad sound to it. I thought that recording it might make me feel a bit better, and take my mind off things.

Like a couple of my very early covers, I chose to keep it extremely simple with just piano and vocals. Even though this is one of Dream Theater’s most simple songs by far… it’s still Dream Theater, and I’m no Jordan Rudess. So when it came to learning the piano and trying to convert as many of the instruments as possible to just piano chords and melodies, it took me a bloody long time. I actually abandoned the song about half way through doing this. It wasn’t really a conscious decision… I just kind of drifted from it. Pretty much exactly a year later though, I got my arse into gear and went back into the studio to finish it.

I didn’t do anything wildly exciting or original with it: it’s in the same key as the original, with the same tempo. I did make one small change right at the end though, which I’m sure DT fans will be able to pick.

Once I was pretty happy with the song, I decided to make a film clip for it, featuring two of my closest companions. Here’s the YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/uAEHfnKV3Zo

This song is dedicated to the people we care about who we’ve lost from our lives in some way or other.

The Answer Lies Within (Dream Theater cover)

For some time now I've been meaning to record an acapella track (just vocals, no music). I chose a great song: "Forever Autumn" from Jeff Wayne's musical adaptation of The War of the Worlds.

On the original recording, Justin Hayward sang the vocals, and Richard Burton did the narration over the top of the music. It's probably my favourite song from the whole double album.

I recorded this in February 2011, on my only free Saturday night for a long time. I was going to use it to warm up my voice to do vocals for another song, but I ended up spending quite a bit of time on the editing and mixing, to make it sound good... so the other song had to wait. If you haven't heard the original, look it up... because it's a true classic!

Forever Autumn (War of the Worlds cover)

For quite some time now, I've been meaning to record a cover of John Farnham's epic song "You're The Voice". In my opinion, it's one of Australia's unofficial national anthems!

During my holidays in January 2011, I started work on it. Unfortunately like most of my projects, I only found time to do little bits of it at a time, and it ended up taking me three months to complete. In April 2011 though, when after a few shots I got the final mix done, I was pretty pleased with the finished track. My plan was to stay pretty true to Farnsy's original version, but to make the overall sound more epic and huge. I kept the key and tempo the same, but added a whole lot of extra vocal harmonies, a massive timpani drum, distorted guitar, an extended guitar solo underneath the final choruses, among other bits and pieces. I just wanted to make everything "bigger".

In November 2010, I had the pleasure of watching Farnsy perform this song live at the COOPERS BREWERY with Sainty, Justy and Kaylia. It was his last song for the night, and we put our arms around each other's shoulders and belted it out at the top of our lungs with about ten thousand other people! What a moment!

This song goes out to Jamie Glenn Saint and the North crew. MAKE A NOISE AND MAKE IT CLEAR!

You're The Voice (John Farnham cover)

Finally... FINALLY it's done! It is with great pleasure that I give to you the second song in my series that I have decided to name "Songs of Ice and Fire". For those of you who don't already know, I'm writing and recording epic metal songs that correspond to each of George R. R. Martin's books in his saga "A Song of Ice and Fire", and the various seasons of the "Game of Thrones" TV show that have spawned from it.

It's been a long time between drinks. I finished my first song "The Game" (based on book 1: "A Game of Thrones") in January 2013, and declared that the second song would follow later in the year. To cut a long story short though... I ended up engineering and producing an entire 16-track album for my brother, which sucked up every bit of spare time I had for most of the year, and then some. It wasn't until January 2014 that I finally had the chance to begin work on my second song "The Clash" (based on book 2: "A Clash of Kings").

I've come to learn that most of the time in life, things do not go as planned. About a quarter of the way through the year, my life pretty much got turned upside down. I changed workplaces after fifteen years at my full-time job, and coincidentally at around that time, I was suddenly facing some serious, unexpected health issues. I've been making regular trips to hospitals ever since. It has been a very busy, trying year... so yet again, another song has taken way longer to complete than originally anticipated. After doing bits and pieces whenever I could though, I finally put a lid on it in September (eight months after I began).

Anyway... back to the song! Like the first one, I decided to write this one from the viewpoints of various characters (which is also how the chapters in the books are written). Each main part of the song (apart from the chorus) is "sung" by a different character:

Verse 1 - Theon
Pre-chorus 1 - Ramsay
Verse 2 - Stannis
Pre-chorus 2 - Melisandre
Bridge - Tyrion
Verse 3 - Arya
Pre-chorus 3 - Jaqen H'ghar

As most people know, the scope of the ongoing story is huge. Like in my first song, each character's part in this one can only be the briefest summary or glimpse of events from their part in the grand tale. I'm not sure if I'll stick to this format for the next song yet... I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

It's at around the second book when the TV show starts to deviate quite a bit from the written story. Although I'm basing my songs on both, it will definitely be the books that I stick to the most. A good example of this is in the bridge of the song, which is Tyrion's section. I've written about his part in the Battle of the Blackwater. I make mention of the "Three Whores" and the "chain of death". In the books, the Three Whores are the three giant trebuchets in King's Landing. I don't think they're really mentioned in the TV show. The chain of death is my reference to the huge chain boom that Tyrion devises, which gets raised across the mouth of the river to trap Stannis's fleet while it gets bombarded with wildfire and set alight. His plan works brilliantly, and most of the fleet gets incinerated or smashed to bits against the mighty chain. This is one of my favourite parts of the book, and I have no idea why it got omitted from the TV version.

As far as the sound of this song goes, I wanted it to be more fast-paced than the first one, and a bit more raw or stripped back. Although it still has quite a lot going on, the guts of the song is just guitar, bass and drums. I wanted the bass to be a feature of this one, so you'll notice that the bass sound is pretty punchy and predominant all the way through. There's even a bass solo! I also wanted to come up with a killer guitar riff that positively drips with metal. I reckon what I ended up with fits that brief! It's probably one of the most metal riffs I've ever written, so I'm stoked.

A very special thanks to my former Sector 7G bandmates Nick "Blaster" Hansen and Jason "Deadly Headly" Hargreaves for their guest vocals in the bridge! It would not sound anywhere near as fierce without those guys. It may only be a handful of words, but their contribution is like the icing on the cake... the metal cake. Thanks again boys!

Next up for me is the third instalment: "The Storm". I have a great feeling about this one. "A Storm of Swords" is actually my favourite book of the series, so I plan to make the corresponding song a grand masterpiece of epic metal. I'm very keen to bring in some more guest vocalists and/or musicians for it too. From past experiences, I definitely can't make any promises... but if all goes roughly to plan, I should hopefully have it done by about the middle of 2015 at the latest. Stay tuned!

The Clash

Published with permission from the copyright owner.
Vocals: Tristan Kemp, Rachel Vidoni, Kevan "Kevy MetaLL" Keeler, Amanda Ozolins & Nick "Blaster" Hansen.
Special appearance by OLLIE WINES.

All instruments recorded by Tristan Kemp at Suck My Studio, Loxton North.
Arranged, produced, engineered, edited & mixed by Tristan Kemp.
MixDirection & mastering by Dax Liniere at Puzzle Factory Sound Studios, London.

YouTube link:
https://youtu.be/jkW05FFvOQs?si=FUGmlj7UAxbrjRAb

"The Power To Win" - Words & Music by Quentin Eyers & Les Kaczmarek.
© Port Adelaide Football Club Limited 1997.

Port Power Song - Hard Rock Version

I have decided to upload the various vocal covers and collaborations I've done with other musicians. My mate Alex Chaney (who is quite the shredder) did a guitar cover of Bark At The Moon, and asked me if I'd be able to record vocals for it. I was happy to!

This one was done back in August 2012. I recorded a couple of complete vocal tracks for it, and chose the best bits from both for the final product. Just for fun, I decided to also add a few harmonies that aren't in the original Ozzy version.

I believe a backing track was used for the drums and bass. All guitars are done by Alex, and all vocals by myself. Alex chose to record the song tuned a whole step down from the original, so the riffing sounds pretty meaty!

Here's a link to Alex's SoundCloud, so check him out!
https://soundcloud.com/dudemanalex

We later joined forces again for a shot at the classic Maiden track "The Trooper" which I'll be uploading soon. \m/

Bark At The Moon (Ozzy Osbourne Cover)

This is the second collaboration I've done with my mate Alex Chaney. It sounds quite a bit sharper than the first track we did together (Bark At The Moon) mainly because the drum and bass tracks for this one are the actual tracks from the original recording, by Nicko McBrain and Steve Harris themselves!

I got round to recording the vocals in October 2012. Like the last time, all guitars are done by Alex, and all vocals by myself. The key is half a step down from the original version.

Just for something a bit different, I decided to throw in one extra "Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh" at the very end of the song. Seemed to work ok!

Here's a link to Alex's SoundCloud, so check him out!
https://soundcloud.com/dudemanalex

Alex has actually done the guitars for another legendary Maiden track, and I'll be recording the vocals for it as soon as I get a chance. Stay tuned! \m/

The Trooper (Iron Maiden Cover)

Here is the third collaboration I've done with my talented guitarist mate Alex Chaney. Like our last effort, we "borrowed" the actual drum and bass tracks from Maiden themselves!

All guitars: Alex Chaney
All vocals: Tristan Kemp
Drums: Nicko McBrain
Bass: Steve Harris

After keeping poor Alex waiting for months and months, I finally got round to smashing the vocals out in June 2015. It wasn't actually the most pleasant experience in the studio, as I had a bit of a frog in my throat and my voice wasn't in great shape. I persevered though, and belted out take after take until I figured that I should have enough to sift through and pick out a whole song's worth of usable bits. This song was meant to be out sooner, but my voice was so bad on the couple of days I had set aside for it, that I had to give up because I didn't want to ruin Alex's awesome guitar cover with shitty "sick person" vocals! I think I made the right decision.

Anyway, it seemed to turn out rather well. This time round we did the song in the same key as the original.

Here's a link to Alex's SoundCloud, so check him out!
@dudemanalex

Next I'll be uploading the three Dio/Sabbath covers I've done vocals for. A Canadian Dio tribute band called Magika asked me to sing for them... and sing I did! Stay tuned. \m/

Powerslave (Iron Maiden Cover)

In April 2015, a gentleman from Canada called Richard Baxter contacted me through my music page on Facebook. Here's the link to it, by the way:
https://www.facebook.com/tristansmusic

Richard's friend Ron Kausner discovered me through my SoundCloud. Both of them were friends with my hero Ronnie James Dio! Anyway, Richard is in a Ronnie James Dio tribute band called Magika. He asked me if I'd be interested in recording the vocals to three songs that they recorded! I was pretty excited, and jumped at the chance.

So Richard sent through the three mp3 files of their tracks that just needed the vocals to be added. I got to work as soon as I could, and completed the first song "Time Machine" the following month. Here's the finished product!

Thankfully Richard was really happy with it, and I got to the next two songs later that month.

Magika had a youtube clip for the song ready to go. Here's the link to the version of it with my vocals:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLOJYSwfyK8

Here's the link to Magika's Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Magika-Ronnie-James-Dio-Tribute-Band/767927049922017?fref=ts

It was quite an honour to collaborate with some guys from the other side of the world with just as much passion for Dio as me! This song comes from the 1992 Sabbath album "Dehumanizer", consisting of my all-time favourite Sabbath line-up: Dio, Iommi, Butler & Appice. A slightly different version of the track even appears on the Wayne's World soundtrack!

Anyway, I'll be uploading the next two Magika collaborations soon, so watch this space!

Time Machine (Black Sabbath Cover)

In April 2015, a gentleman from Canada called Richard Baxter contacted me through my music page on Facebook. Here's the link to it, by the way:
www.facebook.com/tristansmusic

Richard's friend Ron Kausner discovered me through my SoundCloud. Both of them were friends with my hero Ronnie James Dio! Anyway, Richard is in a Ronnie James Dio tribute band called Magika. He asked me if I'd be interested in recording the vocals to three songs that they recorded! I was pretty excited, and jumped at the chance.

So Richard sent through the three mp3 files of their tracks that just needed the vocals to be added. I got to work as soon as I could, and completed the first song "Time Machine" the following month. The very next day, I completed "Dream Evil". About a week and a half later, I got to this song: "Neon Knights".

Here's the link to Magika's Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/pages/Magika-Ron…49922017?fref=ts

It was quite an honour to collaborate with some guys from the other side of the world with just as much passion for Dio as me! This is the opening song from the legendary 1980 Sabbath album "Heaven and Hell" (the first of the Sabbath albums to feature RJD on vocals).

Richard is keen to record the music to some more Magika tracks one day so I can sing my arse off again... but at this moment in time, we just have the three songs. I hope you enjoy them! Long live Dio! \m/

Neon Knights (Black Sabbath Cover)

This is the third song from STUTAP (my awesome project with parter in crime Juice - aka Rhain Hondow). It's been a long time between drinks, but we finally got it done!

I actually came up with the title and idea for the song waaaaaay back in about 2001. "One day," I told my mates, "I will actually write the whole song, and record it." Ten years or so later... it's done! And it works brilliantly STUTAP's first ever ballad.

Juice and I co-wrote most of the song one Sunday afternoon in early 2011 at The Loxton Club over a few beers (surprise surprise). Quite a long time passed before we finished the lyrics off at Suck My Studio. In usual STUTAP style, the recording of the song took place over quite a long period of time, with several different sessions in the studio, whenever we were both able to actually find the time (our biggest problem). It finally got finished off on a sunny weekend in September.

The song tells of a guy who is going out with a chick who develops "special needs" in the bedroom, and how he's finding it increasingly hard to deal with.

Steel Panther is a massive influence for STUTAP, so we would like to dedicate this song to the Panther boys... we're gonna try our best to get a copy to them! And like most Panther songs... this track is utterly filthy... so be warned!

Only listen if you have a good sense of humour, and don't mind a bit of smut. Enjoy!

It's So Hard To Hold Your Hand

First up, I better make this very clear: I did not write or record this song. I do have permission to put it on here though, because it was written and recorded just for me by The Darkness as part of a competition prize! Pretty neat, huh?

When I pre-ordered the brand new Darkness album online from JB Hi-Fi in April 2015, there was a little optional competition to enter. It said something along the lines of “In 25 words or less, tell us why The Darkness should personalise a song for you.” I thought I might as well enter it, and I wrote something like “Because I would totally do the same for them. If I win, I will re-write and record one of their songs. Game on!”.

I forgot about it pretty quickly. The following month, I received a phone call from a very cool chick called Yvonne from Inertia Records in Sydney. She informed me that I’d won the competition! I had to get her to remind me about what the hell she was talking about! Anyway, my prize was a Skype video call with the band, and they would also re-write and record one of their songs with custom lyrics just for me. Yippee! Little did I know, they would eventually write a completely new original song in response to the song I wrote and recorded for them. My song "Darkness Day" is also on SoundCloud... have a listen and a read about it here:

https://soundcloud.com/tristan-kemp/darkness-day

Lots has happened since the recording of the Darkness Day song! Thanks to that song (and a lot of string-pulling from Yvonne in Sydney) I have had many brilliant Darkness-related experiences. When the band came to Adelaide in November on their “Blast Of Our Kind” tour, I scored free concert tickets as well as VIP upgrades. We were let into the venue super early in the arvo, and got to greet the band as they arrived. We basically got to sit back and exclusively watch everything that was going on in preparation for the concert. Very cool!

I was invited onto the stage by the band to perform the Darkness Day song in front of the VIP ticket-holders. What an experience! Sharing the stage with one of my favourite bands in the world is something I’ll never forget.

Earlier in the evening, Dan and Justin told me they had a little surprise for me later on. At the end of the Q&A session for the VIPs, Dan exclaimed “Hey Tristan! Remember how we told you that we haven’t had time to record your song yet? Well… we lied.” Hahaha… he then told me that I might like to whip my phone out and start recording, because they were about to play it through the PA system while everyone lined up to get things signed and take photos. Before I knew it, my own special song came thundering out of the speakers! It was a completely new song… I was assuming they were just going to re-write the lyrics to one of their existing tracks. But nope… a totally new song just for me! I recorded it on my phone, giggling at the words (which are very cheeky!). A true classic! Dan said he’d have the song emailed to me, which it now has been.

So here it is for other Darklings to enjoy too: “The Prize”. Long live The Darkness!

The Prize - A song by The Darkness

Earlier this year, I recorded a song for one of my favourite bands: The Darkness. The Song was called "Darkness Day", and it was a parody of their song "Barbarian". The lyrics tell of a tradition that a handful of friends and I started a few years ago... a special day of the year that we came up with to honour the band.

I put a lot of time and effort into writing and recording the song from scratch. When it was almost finished, I got to thinking about the spoken-word intro. I needed to find someone who sounded quite a bit like the fellow who speaks the intro to Barbarian... a mature gentleman with a British accent. One day, I had an epiphany... I could ask Tony Hopper, the beloved Gramps of the Hopper girls I'm friends with, and who I once happened to share a hospital room with!

I quickly set about arranging it. I grovelled to him and I got the girls to sweet-talk him for me. From memory, his response was something along the lines of "F*ck off!"... but luckily he was only kidding... kinda. Fortunately for me, he ended up agreeing to it. He and his wife Joan came out to my place in July 2015 to do the recording. I got him to run through his lines quite a few times, until I had enough material to splice together for one perfect intro.

I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. The addition of Tony's voice was like the icing on the cake. As soon as I had the song finished, I sent it off to the band. Since then, many amazing things have happened. The band loved the song, and have promoted it. Darkness fans all over the world have heard it and praised it. The Darkness wrote and recorded a song especially for me in response to it. And maybe the best thing of all... I got to perform it on stage with The Darkness when they were in Adelaide for the "Blast Of Our Kind" tour. What an experience!

Darkness Day now has its own Facebook page. On the night of November 18th, I decided to share Tony's photo with the world. I wanted the Darkness fans to see the face that belonged to that great voice at the start of the song. Tragically... and almost unbelievably... Tony passed away the very next morning.

I couldn't be more proud and honoured that his voice will live on forever in one of my recordings. This track contains the out-takes from the morning he and Joan came out to my studio. You can hear me coaching him, and sometimes you can hear Joan chipping in with a bit of "encouragement"!

Here's the link to the full Darkness Day song:
https://soundcloud.com/tristan-kemp/darkness-day

Here's the link to the Darkness Day Facebook page:
www.facebook.com/darknessdaypage

Thank you so much for being part of this adventure Tony... the song just wouldn't be complete without your contribution! I hope you're in a better place now, enjoying the best f*ckin' fish 'n' chips ever. RIP.

Tony Hopper Out-Takes

On December 10th, 2015... whilst in the shower... I decided that I was going to write my own Christmas song. Some great lines were flying into my head, and I was determined not to waste them. After my shower, I sat down and smashed out a whole song's worth of lyrics in a very short amount of time.

Twelve days later, on December 22nd... I dedicated my whole Tuesday to recording my little Christmas ditty. Got it done just in time for Christmas! Due to time restraints, I limited the tune to just piano, bongos, sleigh bells (all done electronically) and vocals.

So many people have released Christmas songs (The Darkness and Jan Terri each have two now!). My song is definitely not for the easily-offended though. In fact, there's actually a language warning in the first verse of the song itself. If you're one of those people who are offended by everything... or don't have much of a sense of humour... or you just don't like cussing, then you probably shouldn't listen to it. If, however, you are AWESOME... then I hope you enjoy! Remember... I meant well. *shifty eyes*

Merry fucking Christmas! :D

Well-meaning Christmas Song

In late November 2015 I had just finished playing a gig in Adelaide, and was cruising around the city at about 2:30am with the windows down and “Africa” by Toto blasting out of the stereo nice and loud. Every time I was stopped at traffic lights, a surprising amount of random people were joyously singing along to it with me… I was surprised at how many people knew the words! It was jolly good fun. After the entertaining little sing-alongs with Radelaide’s party-goers, I headed North to get my usual pie fix at Bakery on O’Connell.

While I was in there smashing a late-night pie for the thousandth time, I was humming “Africa”, and then my fatigued brain suddenly came up with the idea of writing a song about Bakery on O’Connell, to the tune of Africa. A couple of lines popped into my head straight away, like “I smash the pies down at the bakery” (you know… truly inspired stuff). Not wanting to forget about this idea (like I do with so many others), I put a little note in my phone straight away.

That note stayed in my phone until well into the next year. It’s one of the many things that I was meaning to get to, but just never found the time. In late April 2016, I finally sat down on a Sunday arvo and wrote the whole song. That was as far as I got until June, when I managed to get into the studio to record it at last!

Normally with any project I create in my studio (be it an original or a cover), I record everything myself from scratch. Unfortunately for this song however, I knew I would just never find the time to learn all the music and record so many instruments… the song is really quite complex! So for the first time ever, I totally cheated and just downloaded a karaoke version of Africa to use as a backing track for my vocals.

Even though I basically just had to do vocals, I spent many long hours learning harmonies, recording, editing and mixing. This song is absolutely brimming with vocal tracks! The end result sounds pretty schmick though, so I’m glad I chose to do it properly. Those tasty Toto harmonies are genius!

Anyhoo… here is my finished dedication to one of my favourite places on Earth… the home of piedom in South Australia… the pride of the North side… the purveyor of baked goods to my mouth whenever I’m in need… 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Grab a pie and crank it up! Bakery on O’Connell rules! :)

Bakery on O'Connell Song

I decided to upload a tasty chunk of my Bakery on O’Connell Song with vocals only. It showcases the luscious harmonies of Toto’s “Africa”, but obviously features my re-written pie-related lyrics! It’s the final chorus only.

There are four main vocal tracks here: the lead vocals (which also happen to be the highest pitch), a “middle” harmony and two low harmonies. The two low ones are almost identical apart from a few single syllables. There’s also a fifth track for the additional high vocals between the main lines of the chorus. I’ve used a bit of reverb and delay on each track to give it all a bit of extra creamy goodness.

To hear the song in full (with music), click here:
https://soundcloud.com/tristan-kemp/bakery-on-oconnell-song

Head to Bakery on O’Connell’s Facebook page to drool over their delicious food:
www.facebook.com/bakeryonoconnell

The song was received very well by everyone at the bakery, and I plan to make a filmclip for it later this year! Until next time… get a pie in ya!

Bakery on O'Connell Song Harmonies

Big Milk Daddy is a notorious song from Sector 7G’s 2005 self-titled EP. We were an original heavy metal band based in Loxton, and were active from 2003 until 2008. Starting off playing a broad range of classic metal covers, we eventually started performing our own songs and ended up releasing the EP, a full album (all new songs) and a few live DVDs.

We recorded the 2005 EP ourselves in a home studio, before any of us had seriously sunk our teeth into music production. The sound quality isn’t amazing, but it’s pretty good for the resources we had available to us at the time! Although we had 500 copies of the CD made, we decided (for some reason or other) not to have it mastered… so what you hear on the CD is exactly what came from our recording sessions at Loxton North.

Twelve years and countless technological advances later, I decided to use a mastering website called LANDR to do quick, simple masters of the two tracks from the EP I wrote by myself: Big Milk Daddy and Escaping The Storm. The resulting tracks do sound a bit nicer… and they’re definitely louder and punchier! The vocals are still a bit low in the mix, and probably need a fair bit of compression… but there’s not much I can do about that without the original separate recorded tracks.

I wrote this particular song before Sector 7G existed. In fact, I still have the exact date and time I put pen to paper: Midnight on Wednesday November 13th, 2002. I was living with a couple of mates at our infamous Oak Street house, and some of the boys had just been round for a few beers. That night we watched a particularly horrifying German porn video… and let’s just say that the people on there did some pretty nightmarish stuff with milk! Before I went to bed and had those nightmares, I went out into the back room and knocked this song out in about 15 minutes. Little did I know, it was to become one of my future band’s most famous offerings! It’s not a complicated tune… but the lyrics and the title alone seemed to strike a chord with pretty much everyone who heard it. So here it is, finally on SoundCloud almost a decade and a half after it was written… the dreaded Big Milk Daddy! Enjoy. :)

PERSONNEL:
Tristan Kemp: Vocals, Backing Vocals, Lead & Rhythm Guitar
Ben Petch: Drums, Rhythm Guitar
Jason Hargreaves: Bass, Backing Vocals

Written by Tristan Kemp
Mixed & produced by Ben Petch
Artwork: Tristan Kemp

YouTube:
https://youtu.be/fz-_9ms5tVU

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/tristansmusic

Sector 7G’s old Myspace page from way back in the day (does it even still work?):
https://myspace.com/sector7gmetal

Copyright Sector 7G 2005
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Sector 7G - Big Milk Daddy

Escaping The Storm is the 6th track from Sector 7G’s 2005 self-titled EP. We were an original heavy metal band based in Loxton, and were active from 2003 until 2008. Starting off playing a broad range of classic metal covers, we eventually started performing our own songs and ended up releasing the EP, a full album (all new songs) and a few live DVDs.

We recorded the 2005 EP ourselves in a home studio, before any of us had seriously sunk our teeth into music production. The sound quality isn’t amazing, but it’s pretty good for the resources we had available to us at the time! Although we had 500 copies of the CD made, we decided (for some reason or other) not to have it mastered… so what you hear on the CD is exactly what came from our recording sessions at Loxton North.

Twelve years and countless technological advances later, I decided to use a mastering website called LANDR to do quick, simple masters of the two tracks from the EP I wrote by myself: Big Milk Daddy and Escaping The Storm. The resulting tracks do sound a bit nicer… and they’re definitely louder and punchier! The vocals are still a bit low in the mix, and probably need a fair bit of compression… but there’s not much I can do about that without the original separate recorded tracks.

I wrote this song early in the morning of Monday December 27th, 2004 (how’s that for being meticulous with my music-related record-keeping!). The lyrics are about the “adventures” of one of my best mates (who shall remain nameless… haha). It’s not the most serious of songs, though I do enjoy the main riff I came up with. Nice and meaty! I remember Head (our bass player) delighted in the 80’s glam metal-style guitar solo I jammed in there right after the soft, melodic bridge. It’s great to re-visit these songs after such a long time. Ahhh… memories! Enjoy. :)

PERSONNEL:
Tristan Kemp: Vocals, Backing Vocals, Lead & Rhythm Guitar
Ben Petch: Drums, Rhythm Guitar, Backing Vocals
Jason Hargreaves: Bass, Backing Vocals

Written by Tristan Kemp
Mixed & produced by Ben Petch
Artwork: Tristan Kemp

YouTube:
https://youtu.be/1gacsrdcnzM

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/tristansmusic

Sector 7G’s old Myspace page from way back in the day (does it even still work?):
https://myspace.com/sector7gmetal

Copyright Sector 7G 2005
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Sector 7G - Escaping The Storm

In June 2016 I recorded a parody of Toto's "Africa" about my favourite bakery: Bakery on O’Connell. It was received very well by the guys at the bakery, but it wasn’t until October when I shot a music video for it at the bakery that it really exploded into the public eye! It got me on several radio stations, a couple of newspapers, all over the internet and even on Sunrise! Here’s the link to it on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/udyuQ6UHmJ4

A few months later, I came up with the idea for a second pie-related parody. It was based on just two words: “Chunky Pies”. I thought I might re-write Eric Carmen’s “Hungry Eyes” with pied-up lyrics. I never really planned to do another one, but that song just lends itself so beautifully to baked goods! I wrote the lyrics in February 2017, and recorded the song in April.

Like the Bakery on O’Connell Song, I just downloaded a karaoke track for the music and recorded the vocal tracks myself. A massive shortcut, but it saved a heap of time! I had a bit of a frog in my throat on the day I decided to record my vocals, which isn’t exactly ideal… but I did so many takes, I was able to piece some reasonable-sounding bits together for the song.

Instead of uploading the tune onto SoundCloud as soon as it was finished like I normally do, I decided to wait until I made a music video for it. I enlisted some friends to help me out and appear in the video, and in May we shot it at good old Bakery on O’Connell. It’s now online, so check it out! Here’s the link:

https://youtu.be/1Lmec8QX44k

As I say in the song: “I don’t think this one will get me on Sunrise”, but it was lots of fun anyway. Grab yourself a chunky pie and crank it up! PIES!

Chunky Pies

A parody of Ronan Keating's "When You Say Nothing At All". This is one of the first tracks I recorded in my studio. I actually wrote all the lyrics to it waaaaaay back in 2001, on New Year's Day. Almost eight years later, I finally had the means to record it, and do a half-decent job. I even made a filmclip for it... just go to youtube and search for "you say it best when you're sucking my balls". Enjoy!

You Say It Best (When You're Sucking My Balls)

This is the first track I ever recorded in my studio, before I'd even finished buying all my software, instruments and equipment. As the title says pretty clearly, it's dedicated the the one and only Trent from Punchy... the bogan youtube sensation. If you haven't experienced the wonders of Trent yet, then this song probably won't make much sense to you. I suggest you go to youtube and search for "trent from punchy", and also hit up "trent from punchy the second interview". I've used quite a few sound samples from both of these clips in the song.

I wrote, recorded, engineered, produced, mixed and edited this song within 24 hours (including sleeping time) in November 2008. The sound quality isn't too bad for a first shot ever at using Pro Tools. It's very much my "guinea pig" song, as it gave me a chance to muck around with my new software and familiarise myself with it. It was good to start off with a light-hearted ditty like this one, before I got into anything too serious. Enjoy... and "Just f*ckin' relax aye!!!"

Ode To Trent From Punchy

One morning in January 2010, I woke up and decided to record a cover of Black Sabbath’s legendary anthem “Paranoid”, just for fun. Plenty of other bands have covered this song over the years, but I figured it was my turn to give it a crack. I wanted my version to be the fastest, heaviest version I’ve ever heard, with enough double-kick to make my eardrums implode. I’m happy to say I achieved my goal!

Paranoid (Black Sabbath cover)

This is another song I recorded purely for a laugh. Some time in 2009, I got the idea of blending Lady Gaga’s “Love Game” with Old Gregg’s song “Love Games” from The Mighty Boosh. In January 2010, I finally found the time to turn my little idea into a reality.

The Lady Gaga song is pop, and Old Gregg’s song is disco... but I wanted my mixup of the two to be METAL. So I broke out the 7-string guitar, and started experimenting. The main part of what I ended up with is essentially the Gaga song... and the Old Gregg song just kinda pops in unexpectedly for a while. I got funky with a bit of wah pedal action!

I decided to finish off the song by doubling up the tempo and adding a ripping metal guitar solo, over the top of music I wrote myself on the spot. So the complete package ended up being the two covers smashed together, and some original music thrown in at the end for good measure. Enjoy!

Love Game (Lady Gaga / Mighty Boosh cover)

I have never really been a big Whitesnake fan until early 2010 when my former bandmate Nick “Blaster” Hansen lent me the Whitesnake DVD “Live: In The Still Of The Night”. It opened up my eyes to how much of an awesome vocalist David Coverdale is, and how cool Whitesnake songs actually are. I quickly became obsessed with the live version of “Here I Go Again” from the DVD. It’s a lot heavier than the original 80’s album version, and I began singing it to myself all the time.

It didn’t take me long to decide to record my own version of the song, just for fun. I based my version on the live one I’d come to like so much. I kept it pretty similar to Whitesnake’s, but added my own little touches here and there, and changed the ending to my liking. I also made sure the keyboard sound was really huge.

The recording was done in bits and pieces, because unfortunately I hardly find the time to get into the studio. I eventually finished off the song in May 2010, and proudly stuck it on Facebook to show my friends.

Here I Go Again (Whitesnake cover)

On Monday May 17th 2010 (Australian time), Ronnie James Dio, my hero, passed away. I was utterly devastated, and went home from work early, once I'd made absolutely sure that the terrible news was true.

I wrote and recorded this tribute to him that afternoon. It's based on his Dio song "My Eyes", from the "Lock Up The Wolves" album. I altered some of the original lyrics to suit the situation, and began recording the song. Although I was utterly miserable, it just felt like the right thing to do.

Like my cover of "Hallelujah", I limited this song to just piano and vocals (totally different to the Dio song). And like "Hallelujah", I recorded my whole vocal track in just one take. I guess I just wanted to capture the emotions I was feeling at the time. I shared the song with some other Dio fans online, and it was met with very high praise.

Rest in peace Ronnie James Dio - your spirit, your music and your mighty voice will live forever. I will always raise the horns with pride!

His Eyes (A tribute to Ronnie James Dio)

This is our second STUTAP song (STUTAP of course being Rhain "Juice" Hondow and myself). Juice came up with the idea to "borrow" the music from "Anarchy In The UK" by Sex Pistols, and make the main line in the song "I... wanna see... a monkey" instead of "I... wanna be... anarchy".

We started off by having a writing session at The Loxton Club one Sunday afternoon, and got the bulk of the lyrics done (with a lot of laughing in between). We then picked a weekend out, and dedicated it to the recording of our new masterpiece. On the Friday night, we got almost all the recording done, and (in true STUTAP style) got drunk off our arses! In fact, every single word you hear in the song was recorded while we had a drink in our hands. We ended up finishing our vocals at about 3am, while we knocked off an entire flagon of sherry, among various other alcoholic treats! It was actually a very successful recording session... the vocals are nice and... errr... loose!

The mixing and editing of the song eventually got completed in June 2010. We based the music on the Motley Crue and Megadeth cover versions of Anarchy In The UK... in other words, pretty fast and pretty heavy, with some nice little extra bits thrown in. The lyrics we wrote all stemmed from the title line of the song, and soon we had a song that describes us not only wanting to SEE a monkey, but us going to Adelaide, breaking into the zoo and STEALING a monkey! Have a listen for yourself, and find out how we pulled off this scheme in the song!

This is the first song we've done with both of us sharing the lead vocals. Hopefully our future STUTAP songs will feature more of Juice on the mic! Now crank up the song, and screech like a monkey!

I Wanna See A Monkey

This is the official Filth Fest 2010 song. FF ’10 was a North Adelaide pub crawl in September 2010 that was full of gooooood tiiiams!

Vocals for the song are provided by the Filth Fest Crew – Grandmaster Metal Mung, Loinz, Doctor Calpal, K-Dogg and Sugar-D. Or, if you like… myself, Rhett Colls, Callan Mann, Chris Kropinyeri and Nick Drabsch. I’d written most of the lyrics myself prior to recording the vocals, and we all wrote customised verses for ourselves on the night of recording. There are plenty of great improvised bits all through the song, that were recorded in a big long stretch with no beat, similar to what Drabschy and I had done the year before, for the FF’09 song. Drabschy’s vocals appear in the track, but they were actually stolen from last year’s Filth Fest song. He wasn’t actually present for the recording session this year (as you can probably tell from how much Sugar-D gets bagged towards the end of the song)!

This is my first shot at a hiphop tune, and although all the music I wrote is original, it’s based loosely on The Lonely Island’s “I’m On A Boat”. Just like last year, the song got finished at the very last minute, and had me up almost all night finishing it off. I’m pretty pleased with the end result though. Hopefully we allow a lot more time next year to get the Filth Fest ’11 song sorted out!

WARNING: This song contains CONSTANT offensive, foul, disgusting language!

Get Yo Filth On

In the radio edit of our STUTAP song “Lust Machine”, I replaced the dirty words with different funny sounds. One of those sounds happened to be a hilarious gobbling turkey. Ever since then, I have wanted to dedicate a whole tune to that turkey!

I actually want to buy a turkey, and call him Terrence, and carry him around on a purple velvet cushion. My friend Renaye and I discussed this at the soccer one Sunday afternoon. I haven’t actually purchased Terrence yet, so for now, I have decided to name the gobbling turkey in the song Terrence.

While I was at work one afternoon, a funky bass riff came into my head out of nowhere. It literally just started playing in my head. Straight away, I knew that this would be the basis of my turkey song! Before I knew it, I was in the studio creating a funky little tune. Once I had the tune pretty much finished, I inserted a LOT of Terrence’s gobbling! “The Turkey Song (featuring Terrence the Turkey)” was born. It didn’t take long to make, and the tune itself is only pretty short, at just under three minutes… but finally Terrence is a superstar! It was never going to be anything too fancy, and hey… it’s all just for a laugh!

Break it down Terrence! GOBBLEGOBBLEGOBBLEGOBBLEGOBBLE!!!

The Turkey Song

Wow, it sure has been a while since I’ve put something on here! Three and a half years after my parody about pies, I bring you… a parody about KFC Zinger Boxes! In the winter of 2020, my workmate Tom added me to a Facebook group called “Blokes and their Zinger Boxes”. It sure is entertaining, and I felt like contributing something decent.

Like some of my previous parodies, the whole song spawned from just one line that popped into my head: “We’re off to smash a Zinger Box,” replacing “We’re off to never-never land” in Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” (sorry Lars!). I eventually got round to sitting down and smashing out a whole song’s worth of lyrics in a very short time. During the first weekend of spring, I hit the studio for the first time in ages to record it.

Once again I just nicked a backing track (because I’m lazy) and recorded all my vocals over the top of it. I needed a kid for the spoken word part of the song, and my neighbour Charlie Petch obliged. I got him a couple of blocks of choccy for his trouble, which he was pretty stoked about!

I made a music video mainly consisting of photos from the Zinger Box group. Here’s the link:
https://youtu.be/8Ut6MZ88AFk

I’d like to dedicate this song to the admins and members of “Blokes and their Zinger Boxes”. Hopefully the lads all dig it! Until next time… zing on. :)

Enter Colonel

I'll try and keep this short...

I was born in Loxton on February 4th, 1981 into a pretty musical family. My grandpa was a singer, my dad is a singer/guitarist and my older brother is also a singer/guitarist. It was only fitting (and hardly surprising) that I followed in their footsteps.

I've been playing the guitar for pretty much as long as I can remember, and I really should be a lot better at it by now, but I just don't practice! Naughty me! I also started singing when I was about 18 or so (when I finally got the courage to do it). As well as guitar, I'm also pretty handy on bass, drums and keyboard. I also shake a pretty mean tambourine!

Over the years I've been in a few bands, starting with the infamous "Fat Ankles" in year 8 at Loxton High with my mates Juice, Romers and Goodo. After High School came "Dead Panda Sandals" (later re-named to "The Loose Cannons") and then a couple of years later I joined "Sector 7G", which became a big passion of mine. We did pretty well for four local boys... we released two CDs, had airtime on Adelaide radio, made a few DVDs, played plenty of Adelaide gigs, did some festivals with big-name bands, got write-ups in magazines, etc. The G lasted 5 years, but unfortunately, all good things come to an end.

For over seven years now I've been in my current band "The Door Snakes" with my mates Gogs & Diamond Dave. We enjoy immense popularity locally, and our public Loxton shows are always chockas! We're a cover band, and I like to think we play a pretty vast range of songs, that pretty much everyone can enjoy. If you haven't experienced the craziness of a Loxton Door Snakes show, then I thoroughly recommend it!

In the last few years I have bought some really cool recording gear, and made myself a nice little studio in my house. Using results from a brief online poll among my friends, I named it "Suck My Studio"... classy, eh! Thanks to a lot of help from Wattsy (my studio guru), I'm now reasonably handy with Pro Tools, and have recorded quite a few songs.

I'm a very busy chap, and unfortunately I hardly find the time to get into my studio. Hopefully I can slink in there a lot more this year somehow! The tunes I've recorded so far have mainly been silly songs, cover tracks, or tunes written specially for mates. These songs have been really good opportunities to gain experience with the software, hardware, microphones, recording processes, etc. But I guess you could say I'm still yet to "get serious" and record some original Tristan Kemp masterpieces. I now feel I have enough experience in the studio to start doing this!

I enjoy having mates around to record stuff in my studio. Some mates have "guest starred" on songs with me, and other mates have used the studio to record their own stuff. The single aim of having the studio there is to have fun. It's a cool hobby! And I don't plan to profit from any of the music I make... in fact, I plan to upload all my songs so that people can listen to them for free. If you like any of my stuff, feel free to drop me a line and I can Email you an mp3... or of course, you can download them straight from SoundCloud. Careful though... some of the songs contain some naughty language!

I don't have any limits when it comes to songs I record... nor do I take myself too seriously. I'm a metalhead at heart, but I also have a good sense of humour... so expect everything from epic metal masterpieces, to silly jingles, to comedy tunes, to cover songs, to ballads, to dance tracks!!! Yes... I have many plans! Tee hee hee!

I'm currently doing an ongoing awesome project with Juice (my old school buddy and former Fat Ankles bandmate) called "STUTAP". It stands for "Slave To Uncle Tom's Appetite for Poundcake". Great name, eh! If you're a fan of 80's metal, you should be able to pick out the four song/album names we pinched to come up with our name. "The Tap" (as we like to call it) is all about fun and filth! Juice and I co-write the songs, and record them together. We've done a few songs so far, and they're on here... so check them out! Our main influence for The Tap is Steel Panther... so be prepared for some dirty, hard rocking hilarity!

Cheers for looking at my page. Dang... it seems I didn't try hard enough to keep this short! If you wanna drop me an Email, my address is terrytodger@hotmail.com

And don't forget to "like" my Facebook page: "Tristan Kemp's music" (the link straight to the page is on here).

Gooooood tiiiaaams!!!

Tris.

Tristan Kemp

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