I Should Make A Record
I took Riley to register for kindergarten today. That’s just bizarre. I can’t believe he’s old enough to start school. I can’t believe the amount of money I’m going to save on day care. Viva kindergarten!
I want to record a worship album. I want the songs to be in the gospel/soul/southern rock style. I want the album to be engineered to sound like Al Green’s “Love and Happiness“. I want the guitars to sound like Joe Walsh’s guitar sounded on The James Gang’s “Funk #49″, which is my favorite guitar tone ever recorded. I want there to be a choir but I don’t want them to sound big and open like most choirs do, I want them to sound like they were recorded in your living room. Really tight and really present. Wouldn’t that be super cool? Fifty voices right up in your face.
Some of the stuff on Jonny Lang’s latest album has this sort of vibe but the songs would never work as worship songs. I think worship songs should have about eight to ten words, two or three chords, and a wickedly memorable melody. That’s what I like anyway.
That would be such a cool record to make. I’ve already got one tune written that would be perfect for it. I should do it.
Yes you should . . .
‘Listening’ to you ‘talk’ about your ideas, fancies and objectives here really sparks a lot of visuals for me, or not so much that… it get’s me also thinking, is what.
The thing about recording the choir tight and close sounds really appealing. Not at all the grandiose sound from The Stones’ “Cant Always Get What You Want” (which I always thought was stupid anyhow) but like a very ‘wrapped around the head’ thing. That’s very exciting to ‘picture’ and I think maybe you might have alluded to that ambition in the ‘choral’ parts of “Home”, no?
I knew you liked that “Funk 49″ song, but I had no idea that was your fave guitar sound. I think my favorite thing about that song is the title, though I have to say that having heard you cover it at least allowed me to release my negative associations (getting picked on in the schoolbus every morning throughout the 70′s) to that tune and others like it. I think about what my favorite guitar sound might be and I know it’s certainly planets away from what you’re thinking, so I’ll just keep those thoughts to myself. (I don’t wanna get made fun of for liking the sound of the Roland JC 120, you know?)
I have to say, I get a little thrown when I ‘hear’ you ‘say’ “worship band” and “wickedly memorable melody” in the same blog. It feels like you’re putting out a sort of a mixed message but knowing you a little bit, I think I get what you’re ‘saying’. It might also be that because your new, or revived, faith in God IS so new and because you may still be in a transition state to one or another degree, that your casual languge has not yet caught up… does that make any sense? Anywayz, thems just werdz, they ain’t a gonna hert nobuddy.
8 – 10 words, huh? 2 -3 chords? You’re gonna try and write some chants, it sounds like. I have to say I like the idea – Like a really concise, easy-to-remember prayer – A Psalm, in fact – literally. But what in the world could be harder to do? Or do well? Man, I wish you luck there, but if you really let God guide you and just ‘channel the source’, so to speak, then I don’t suppose you can fail.
Dude, you talk about Riley starting Kindergarten and I shudder – 1st cause I remember him being born not all that long ago and 2nd cause it drives home the reality that it won’t be too long before that’s me talking about kindergarten!
Freak out!
Sophia, by the way, is just cuter’n ever, growing exponentially and doing all sorts of new tricks… who’s playing who, here?
-C
Oh, and by the way, SUPERCOOL is all one word.
I guess it never dawned on me that “wicked” might be taken a smidge differently than I meant it. How about a gloriously memorable melody? Glorious Sportsmen? I still haven’t gotten over that name. I still prefer it to The Formula Kid. Oh well, by-gones. (This is sort of an inside joke to those of you who have no idea what we’re talking about)
I too always hated the choir on “Can’t Always Get What You Want”. It always sounded like a joke to me. But yeah I want to do the polar opposite of that sound. I’m not sure how to do it but it sounds good in my head.
The 8-10 words thing was a bit of an exaggeration but I like ‘em simple. Of course there are very wordy and complex worship songs that totally blow my mind but that’s not what I intend to shoot for.
I’ve been checking your site for new pictures of Sophia but I haven’t seen any yet. Get to it son.