In the Key of K

Volume V was the fifth self published album (really, an EP) I made by myself. This one is different because it is all solo instrumental material. I would never release something like this now. The tracks are here if you want to hear them but the playing isn’t great the tuning is not always great and the sound on some tracks is very thin. 😶‍🌫️

Desert Sunshine — I don’t remember for sure but I think this was supposed to be on the third Lewd Blue album that was never finished the latter half of the 90s. The guitar is out of tune and there are some volume problems. I was obsessed with pinch harmonics and was always trying to put one in everywhere I could–even when it made no sense to do so. It was not successful here because I didn’t know where the nodes were and I just kept trying and hoping for the best. 😎 I still like this one. I may re-record it and breathe new life into it.

The Goliard — Merriam Webster defines Goliard as: “a wandering student of the 12th or 13th century given to the writing of satiric Latin verse and to convivial living and minstrelsy.” I don’t know why I called it that. I don’t remember writing it or recording it though it sounds familiar when I hear it. It would have been written in the early 2000s. In my ears today, this is not a solo piece. The tempo is all over the place–in general, this is, to me, very mediocre work inspired by boring Renaissance music. 😒

Out of Tune Blues II — The first ‘Out of Tune Blues’ appeared on my second album Out of Time Out of Tune. It was a loose blues form and the vocals were horrendously out of tune. I re-recorded the vocals at some point later but it was still monumentally terrible. This one is instrumental but, at the time (early 2000s), I decided I would occasionally use a blues chord progression and numerate the songs as the next ‘Out of Tune Blues’ I’ve done three so far. I will probably do more as the inspiration strikes.

Unknown — Another one from the early 2000s that I have no memory of writing or recording. It appears to start in 7/4 and then moves to 4/4. Later there are weird changes to swing eighth notes. 🤦To my ear today, this one is better than the Goliard but not by much. This sounds like a rough draft to me. It also sounds like this is my era of using fake nails to play guitar. My classical guitar teacher at the time used ping pong balls to glue to the under side of real nails to make really durable fake nails. I did it at the time because, if you’re playing four or five hours a day for practice, teaching six or seven hours per day, and playing two or three hour gigs regularly, you play the fingernails right off of your hand. I played nail-less a few times over the years and tried claw pics but I am more comfortable playing with nails than without and I like the tone more. Since I don’t play nearly that much anymore, there is no danger of playing the nails off. But I am also not nearly as agile or durable a player as I used to be. 🤷I don’t use guitar picks at all anymore–except for sometimes playing bass.

——————- — This piece never had a name but I’ve decided now to call it Dashes. I’m not 100% sure but I think this was another track for the third Lewd Blue album. Definitely written in the 90s. I love this piece but the guitar is terribly out of tune. It was recorded to a Tascam four track (though only one track was used) and I vaguely recall speeding up the tape to try to coverup how out of tune it was (most of these tracks are probably sped up). Like Desert Sunshine above, I may re-record this one.

Uh-oh — Like three of the songs above, I wrote this while studying for my BA in guitar performance in the early 2000s. I was still learning the fret board and trying to get better at a lot different techniques. I had also embraced studying classical guitar and playing in the jazz band. My teacher at the time wasn’t super impressed with the piece. I don’t think I will ever play it again. It isn’t terrible but it sounds to me more like a bunch of unedited ideas all thrown together–like I’m showing off that I can play difficult things instead of making an idea and then playing within the song and writing within the song idea.

I recorded it and multitracked some percussive bucket playing over the guitar track (this is the only piece in Volume V that isn’t just one guitar track). I took a couple of two inch felt bass drum mallets and pounded on a five gallon bucket. My partner at the time and I lived in a tiny efficiency apartment with no air conditioning on the 13th floor of an old Art Deco building in midtown St Louis. Playing a drum set was out of the question in that space. We later moved into two different larger units for the four years we stayed there but I left my drums at her mother’s house for that whole time. For a while the elevator stopped working so I had to carry my 30 or 40 pound amp, solid body guitar case, and backpack full of print books up all 13 flights after I had jazz band rehearsal. Eventually they opened the freight elevator for us and they had to hire a person to operate it 24/7. You had to walk up to the elevator and scream what floor you were on so they could come pick you up. Good times. 🤪

Anyway, I gave out a bunch of CD copies of Volume V to friends and family. When I released Live 2003 I included everything on Volume V because it all fit on one CD.