Harry's Blog

So I'm trying to make good on my New Year Resolutions 2010. So far I've managed to take a picture a day for Flickr.

My other goal was to write and record a new song every month. I'm a little rusty to be honest - both in songwriting terms and recording and playing. When you're rusty it's rather hard to launch straight into a big project like a full song - especially the kind of overblown nonsense I write.

So this evening - as a little refresher - I've spent half an hour creating the little noodle you can play via the buttons above. It's just a silly little improv over a simple chord progression - full of awful bum notes and the like, but it's good to actually create something and actually find I can still remember how to use recording software.

Should you be interested in the geeky elements it was recorded on Cubase Essential using Line6 PodFarm guitar tones. The actual guitars I played were a Yamaha bass (actually belonging to my wife) and my beloved old Epiphone Superstrat - which I have just restored with new Floyd Rose bridge, all new wiring and a new IronGear pickup.

Those of you who've known me for a long time are aware I have this annoying habit of playing guitar and there's not much people can do to stop me.

Even worse, I've a habit of accompanying this racket with my pretty terrible voice.

When the old version of this stie was set up it was to host our Lancaster University reunion articles, but also the songs I'd written and recorded.

Thanks to the installation of a new plugin, I'm now able to host these songs on here once again. Though why you'd want to listen to them is beyond me. Aural masochists¹ will find my songs right here.

¹_{No that's not meant to sound dirty. Wash your mind out.}

_{Update 14/06/07 - have just been listening to a lot of these songs. Crikey I've written a load of rubbish haven't I?}

_{Update 01/02/08 - Another bump for this post as the new version of this blog software now features an integrated mp3 player, so once again you can hate my songs through this site.}

Written by Harry 1996, Recorded 2002

And now for a self-indulgent Roger Waters style miserable wig-out. It's got all the Waters trademarks, naval-gazing lyrics, cooing female backing vocals and some terrible guitar soloing that isn't even fit to wipe Dave Gilmour's boots. The original song as written was an acoustic number. But I made a mess of recording it and it ended up sounding like the epic you find here.

There are many keyboard parts here and I actually played these parts rather than programming. So that cello, those female vocals and that piano are my stumbling attempts to tickle the ivories. Guitars and bass are all real, the outro solo isn't great, I know (in fact it's tuneless crap at times), but I'd rather post the flawed song as I recorded it than mess around with it.

So what's it about? Well I got the idea when I heard a leader at Lancaster University Christian Union tell a recent convert that "we don't need people like you here" in 1996. My anger at that, and my growing uneasiness about the way such university groups behave and are managed, the emotional damage they cause to people etc., led to the rather bitter lyrics in this song. I know from others that my experience of a universty Christian Union is by no means unique.

These songs feature my guitar playing, my ropey voice and my limited keyboard skills. While these songs were recorded on a PC, they are actual real multi-tracked performances with guitars and keyboards played by yours truly. The only programmed music you'll hear involves the drum tracks.

Don't expect polished album quality stuff - it's just me making rough demos on my PC. They are nothing special, but I certainly enjoy the writing, performing and recording process.

Written by Harry 1995, Recorded November 2001

A pretty simple song, first recorded by Me, Matt and Mike in 1995 via the amazing technology of plonking a microphone in Matt's front room. Here is my more technologically enhanced version. The song has stayed pretty true to the original except I've added some backing vocals. Apart from the drums it's all live guitars and bass.

Simple stuff, but I'm rather fond of it. It's about my escapades during the summer of 1995, the least said about that, the better. In many ways this serves as a companion piece to The Crucible. Some of the issues raised in that song relate to the state of mind when I wrote this song. Both songs relate to my disillusionment and anger at Lancaster University Christian Union.

I should also add that this song was written long before a certain Kylie track that some elements of this song sound a little like. Now there's something I'd never thought would happen.

These songs feature my guitar playing, my ropey voice and my limited keyboard skills. While these songs were recorded on a PC, they are actual real multi-tracked performances with guitars and keyboards played by yours truly. The only programmed music you'll hear involves the drum tracks.

Don't expect polished album quality stuff - it's just me making rough demos on my PC. They are nothing special, but I certainly enjoy the writing, performing and recording process.

Written by Harry 1994, Additional Lyrics 2002, Recorded June 2002

Living a Lie was written in 1994. Time hadn't been kind to the lyrics and when I came to record the song I'd found that they seemed a little clumsy and twee, especially the second verse about footsteps in the sand. So I decided to re-write the lyrics at the beginning of the year. The structure of the song has changed little since I recorded a version with Matty and Mike in 1994. However the outro section first appeared in a 4-track recording in 1999.

This is the first full digital recording of this version, and while not exactly how I imagine it being once finished, it's getting there. This song meant a lot to me when it was written and still remains one of my favourites. I'm just a prog-loving old hippy Led Zeppelin fan at heart.

These songs feature my guitar playing, my ropey voice and my limited keyboard skills. While these songs were recorded on a PC, they are actual real multi-tracked performances with guitars and keyboards played by yours truly. The only programmed music you'll hear involves the drum tracks.

Don't expect polished album quality stuff - it's just me making rough demos on my PC. They are nothing special, but I certainly enjoy the writing, performing and recording process.

Written by Harry 1993, Additional Lyrics Tara Sewell, Recorded August 2001

The Haunted is a song that always reminds me of beginning my time at Lancaster University. Some weeks before arriving at the hallowed ground of Cartmel Bar I'd written most of this song. Strangely enough the intro came to me at 3am one morning when I tinkered with my guitar whilst watching Weekend at Bernie's of all things. By the time I started University I had most acoustic music sorted, I'd also written the lyrics of the chorus and the first verse.

Assistance was to come from a friend, who took an interest in the song and co-wrote the second verse with me. The song structure is virtually intact from 1993, it's just that I've tacked on a bunch of other instruments of the acoustic part. Not a brilliant recording, but it's okay I guess. I'm very grateful to Tara, a good friend during my early days at Lancaster university, who helped me write the second verse of the song. I added a cello to this recording as a way of saying thank you to her as it was a favourite instrument of hers.

These songs feature my guitar playing, my ropey voice and my limited keyboard skills. While these songs were recorded on a PC, they are actual real multi-tracked performances with guitars and keyboards played by yours truly. The only programmed music you'll hear involves the drum tracks.

Don't expect polished album quality stuff - it's just me making rough demos on my PC. They are nothing special, but I certainly enjoy the writing, performing and recording process.

Here's the other of the two rock instrumentals that have been knocking around for a while. It may become a full on song if I ever get around to writing some lyrics. For a change I actually programmed the drums properly. It's just a lot of mad riffage really. I wanted to create that classing Murray/Smith or Tipton/Downing twin-guitar attack sound in the solo. So I played to separate solos, then cut them together so they intertwined.

Here's the other of the two rock instrumentals that have been knocking around for a while. It may become a full on song if I ever get around to writing some lyrics. For a change I actually programmed the drums properly. It's just a lot of mad riffage really. I wanted to create that classing Murray/Smith or Tipton/Downing twin-guitar attack sound in the solo. So I played two separate solos, then cut them together so they intertwined.

These songs feature my guitar playing, my ropey voice and my limited keyboard skills. While these songs were recorded on a PC, they are actual real multi-tracked performances with guitars and keyboards played by yours truly. The only programmed music you'll hear involves the drum tracks.

Don't expect polished album quality stuff - it's just me making rough demos on my PC. They are nothing special, but I certainly enjoy the writing, performing and recording process.

Written & Recorded by Harry 2002

One of two rock instrumentals I wrote and recorded in 2002. This song came into being because I was experimenting with two things - drum programming and harmony lead guitar playing. So here we have the fruits of that experimentation, a short little traditional metal track. All the guitars, including the bass, are live instruments played by yours truly. Only the drums are programmed.

These songs feature my guitar playing, my ropey voice and my limited keyboard skills. While these songs were recorded on a PC, they are actual real multi-tracked performances with guitars and keyboards played by yours truly. The only programmed music you'll hear involves the drum tracks.

Don't expect polished album quality stuff - it's just me making rough demos on my PC. They are nothing special, but I certainly enjoy the writing, performing and recording process.

This recording has been knocking around for ages but this is the first time I have placed it on my website. Why no appearance before now? Well it isn't actually a proper recording, more me just messing around with my guitar and recording software. But these days I'm much more open to posting demos on here and not just more polished work.

The song itself is a catchy yet silly blues ramble written to commemorate the visit of a friend to Morecambe in 1996. A lot of the lyrics are in-jokes and don't make a lot of sense. But it has a catchy riff even if the performance itself is certainly lacking. But as I said earlier, was never intended to be anything other than a bit of messing around.

I should warn you that this one is as rough as houses.

These songs feature my guitar playing, my ropey voice and my limited keyboard skills. While these songs were recorded on a PC, they are actual real multi-tracked performances with guitars and keyboards played by yours truly. The only programmed music you'll hear involves the drum tracks.

Don't expect polished album quality stuff - it's just me making rough demos on my PC. They are nothing special, but I certainly enjoy the writing, performing and recording process.

Written & Recorded by Harry 2003

Here's a romantic little track I wrote in 2003. It's quite different for me because the guitars are so restrained. But I think it's a good song and has some catchy music motifs.

These songs feature my guitar playing, my ropey voice and my limited keyboard skills. While these songs were recorded on a PC, they are actual real multi-tracked performances with guitars and keyboards played by yours truly. The only programmed music you'll hear involves the drum tracks.

Don't expect polished album quality stuff - it's just me making rough demos on my PC. They are nothing special, but I certainly enjoy the writing, performing and recording process.