Zoom Gear & Home Recording Forum

Thanks for the kind words. I'd love to shop some of my tunes, but I think it would be impossible without a move to NY, LA or Nashville. Dave did a great job on the BGV; and I agree with him that I am not an easy singer to complement. BIAB works well if you work with it.

Thanks for the complement. I'd love to hear the song about the fish & chip shop closing.

Ah ... slammers!

I would guarantee you that, if my band was still playing at Earl's Hideaway Lounge in Sebastian FL, a lot of people would be buying shots every time we'd play this song. The bar owner would love it!

Thanks for the kind words, and for listening to the lyrics; I put a lot of time into them.

BTW, the line is "When LOVE'S the hockey stick and you're the puck." And I did have a long list of rhymes for "puck," one of which is probably the word you were thinking of.

I always enjoyed listening to your lyrics; you have a unique style.

Earl's Hideaway Lounge? Now THAT sounds like a place with some character. I want to hang out there.

There's another angle: write songs with then intention of making the bartender a bunch of money. That is a sure fire way of getting booked again!

Good one F.P.

I think I will review the tunes this week:

* Spotlights - Travis Brown
- Obviously a really pro sound and mix going on here. Very nice!
- The vocals sound great and the mix is amazing.
- Constructive criticism:
- The "credit card" business with vocoder and chopped up sounded a little cliched, imho. I wasn't wild about the slow down thing at the end. It was a little gimmicky. Try something more off the wall and surprising. Something we haven't heard before.
- Drums could have been mixed up a little more. They got a little samey...
- Once again though, pretty amazing song you have here. Great work. Reminds me a little of Self. Good work Travis!


* Straight Up Shot - Famous Patrick Bonier
- Love the guitar intro and solo in the middle. Fit perfect.
- Delay on the vocals is very cool
- Dorene's Canteen - great name. Great story telling. I can picture her feeding the 5 into the jukebox.
- Really clever use of song titles in there. They fit in very nicely.
- The "talk out" at the end was very cool too.
- Great tune with a ton of fun and unique images. Classic tune FP. Good work!


* Let the Sunshine In - Guys From South
- We don't get many club dance tunes on the show. Cool!
- The production is amazing and the groove works really nicely
- The lead vocalist is really talented.
- Great work!

Been away from the show a while - picked a good one to return. Three good songs with a broad range

* Spotlights - Really liked this one. This is the type of electronica stuff I like - adds interesting texture without taking away from the song. Cool stuff.

* Straight Up Shot - Good song. I was wondering where it was going with the first verse and was really, really looking forward to the chorus and when it finally arrived I just loved it. That kind of groove is hard to do. I also liked the bit about hockey puck, run amok, give her a buck and tell her what to play. I was really expecting "tell her what the ..." Well, you know.


* Let the Sunshine In - Really nicely done. Different for the Home Made Hit Show. Variety is good.

Hey All!

I should probably clarify something that I said earlier about saying something in your lyrics - 'even if it IS just about a yellow room'

The thing I liked about Yellow Room was that it DID say something. When I said that you shouldn't waste an opportunity to say something, I didn't necessarily mean something all deep and meaningful that's going to change the world, etc. etc. After all, Blowin' in the Wind has already been written, right ?

I just meant that if you've got good music, you should put some effort into the lyrics as well. Even if they're not deep, they can be interesting. Heck, a couple of my favourite songs that I'VE written are about A) my cat, B) a Starbucks employee, and C) a truck driver.

Oh yeah, that reminds me, let me know if I've got this straight: Tony doesn't care about lyrics, but he hates lyrics he can't understand (IE in foreign languages) and also doesn't like songs WITHOUT lyrics.....do I have that right ?

Also, as far as using 'too many' good lines in a song, I don't think there CAN be 'too many' good lines. If you've got some really strong lines then yeah, maybe they might not all sink in right away, but there's nothing more I love then coming back to a song I've listened to for years and suddenly being struck by a lyric that's never really hit me before. John Hiatt does that to me a lot.

Stevie Z

Yep, we pointed that out on the show. It's an interesting conundrum because I stand by all three statements, I never listen to lyrics and if I am not listening to a song I can't recite lyrics or remember them, but I hate instrumentals. There's probably a deep point there

Questions for Tony

In your opinion, how many words does a song need in it, for it to not be an instrumental?

One word. A sentence. Something that's long enough to ryhme with itself, or how about a spoken monologue over the music, would that qualify?

And what about foreign words you understand, or maybe words you understand, but don't make sense. How do you feel about those?

I just don't analyze it like that. I am sure there are one word songs that I've liked. I like that old song that goes "na na na na" all the way through.

I think it's the use of vocals that I like with some ability to follow along, some kind of vocal hook.

The hook is the thing. I'm not a big fan of the instrumental either (see my comments above), but even the instrumental pop songs that I have liked, they all have a great hook. We were discussing Edgar Winter a bit on the new song page. His monster great hit from the early 70's, "Frankenstein," had an outstanding hook. I haven't heard that song in at least 10 years, but I can still hum that hook like it was yesterday. But ask me something actually about yesterday and my mind goes blank.

The hook is the thing.

Edit: I think I"ll shoot over to Youtube and view/listen to "Frankenstein".

Yup, just how I remember it, literally:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olKilzV1 ... re=related