A Cross Section of My Songs - ReverbNation

Started by ducktrapper, December 27, 2014, 11:36:07 AM

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I thought I'd move this to the proper forum. Thomas Lee is the name I've decided to perform under in Wisconsin. It's my wife's last name and if you drop the ball from mine you can come up with Lee, as well. All the songs are mine as well as all the playing except the canned drums. My voice is a lot better now that I haven't smoked in 14 years but it is what it is, as the young folks say these days. Have a listen. Hope you like them. Tell me what you think.   :cheers

http://www.reverbnation.com/thomaslee4

Five songs recorded on my Boss BR-8 circa 2001. A cross section of some of the styles I've gotten into over the years. For non Canadians and non hockey fans, The Pocket Rocket in John McKenna's Blues is Maurice "The Rocket" Richard's younger and smaller brother Henri "The Pocket Rocket" Richard. The only man to ever play on eleven Stanley Cup winning teams. A record that will never be broken. Anyway, I met John McKenna outside The Hoito, Thunder Bay's famous Finn restaurant, and he asked me for some money to buy a drink. I liked his honesty so I gave him a buck and a half and bought him a meal. He told me his story and I got me a song.

Please feel free to hit the "like" button.  :smile:
 


Nice stuff Tom. I knew who the Pocket Rocket was, by the way!
Larrivee LS-03WL Forum VI Limited
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Martin 000-16
Washburn C80S
Espana Classical (made in Finland)
Eastman MD 504 Mandolin
Epiphone Olympic Solid Body Electric (1967)
Larrivee F-33 Mandolin (8/1/2008)
Soliver Pancake Mandolin
Larrivee A-33 (8/21/2009)

Enjoyed, Great playing Tom!! Though never did care for the Pocket-Rocket am  a big Canadian Fan think it was the whole Al MacNeil thing.
Larrivee Electrics - My Dream then and Now!!!!!<br /><br />Forum IV     00-03MT       #4      (Treasured)

Great songs, Tom.  I liked "Talking To Myself" the best, but they are all thought provoking.  We have some incredible song-writing talent amongst us, that's for sure.  We sometimes get hung up on the technicalities of the recording or the skillfulness of the playing, but when I listen to these recordings of Yours, and Dan's and Matt's songs, I feel like I'm just sitting in a coffee house somewhere enjoying the live entertainment.

Next, I'm going to give Tuffy's songs a listen. 
"Badges?  We don't need no stinkin' badges."

Became a Shooting Star when I got my 1st guitar.
Back in '66, I was 13 and that was my fix.
Still shooting for stardom after all this time.
If I never make it, I'll still be fine.


:guitar

Quote from: Riverbend on December 27, 2014, 06:20:32 PM
Nice stuff Tom. I knew who the Pocket Rocket was, by the way!

Thanks RB. I thought of changing it to the Yankee Clipper for US consumption but the guy really did look like The Pocket.   :beer

QuoteEnjoyed, Great playing Tom!! Though never did care for the Pocket-Rocket am  a big Canadian Fan think it was the whole Al MacNeil thing.

Oh my! I loved the little guy. Maybe cos I'm only a couple inches taller myself. Thanks for listening.  :cheers

QuoteGreat songs, Tom.  I liked "Talking To Myself" the best, but they are all thought provoking.  We have some incredible song-writing talent amongst us, that's for sure.  We sometimes get hung up on the technicalities of the recording or the skillfulness of the playing, but when I listen to these recordings of Yours, and Dan's and Matt's songs, I feel like I'm just sitting in a coffee house somewhere enjoying the live entertainment.

Thanks Kurt. Actually, I sort of misspoke in my introductions. That song is only a little over a year old. Wrote it just before moving and recorded it on my little Edirol R-9 playing my D-35. Played it a couple times at an open mic here and it got great response.  :beer 



Great stuff Tom.   
Thanks for posting these

Quote from: tuffythepug on December 28, 2014, 12:43:01 PM
Great stuff Tom.   
Thanks for posting these

Thanks for listening Tuffy. I added a few more, by the way.

Those are great!  The lyrics are clever and entertaining and the playing and singing is well done.  I'm not on Facebook but, if I was, I'd give you a Like for sure.
Larrivee 00-40R

    Thanks for putting up more, I'm listening to em now. :thumbsup

Quote from: WileE on December 28, 2014, 04:17:11 PM
Those are great!  The lyrics are clever and entertaining and the playing and singing is well done.  I'm not on Facebook but, if I was, I'd give you a Like for sure.

Thanks WileE. I appreciate you giving them a listen. If I'm not mistaken, there's a like button on Reverbnation, as well.   :wink:

QuoteThanks for putting up more, I'm listening to em now.

Hey thanks for taking the time to listen Dan. I've been searching through my files looking for more that are worth sharing. There are lots more that are way too rough but there may be a few more that aren't too bad.  :cheers

Hey...enjoyed the new stuff, too! Hard to tell on my laptop speakers but I could hear at least a few layered tracks and you pieced the parts nicely.
Larrivee LS-03WL Forum VI Limited
Larrivee OM-40M
Larrivee O-01W
Martin 000-16
Washburn C80S
Espana Classical (made in Finland)
Eastman MD 504 Mandolin
Epiphone Olympic Solid Body Electric (1967)
Larrivee F-33 Mandolin (8/1/2008)
Soliver Pancake Mandolin
Larrivee A-33 (8/21/2009)

Quote from: Riverbend on December 30, 2014, 05:47:40 AM
Hey...enjoyed the new stuff, too! Hard to tell on my laptop speakers but I could hear at least a few layered tracks and you pieced the parts nicely.

Thanks again. I'm not totally unhappy with my arrangements but I usually feel I'm a poor excuse for a lead guitar and bass player and my harmonica playing isn't going to make people forget Paul Butterfield. On songs where there's more than guitar and vocals, I was basically learning how to use my 8 track recorder and filling up tracks often settling for "good enough" under the circumstances. I always intended to redo these a little better but then decided I probably couldn't do a whole lot better, recording on my own and even if I could it wouldn't be that much of an improvement using that technology. I look at these as fairly rough demos. A lot of fun to do though.
I have a 16 track recorder now, with a much better drum program, which I'm still trying to sort it out before trying to move forward. I recently got a DVD manual to help me through it. Sometimes I feel a little technologically challenged but unless I get a little more proficient with the machine, I can't see achieving much better results.  :cheers

Duck, I also have had trouble filling up tracks to flesh out songs.  I've used egg-shaker percussion in addition to Alesis SR-16 drum tracks, filled in with some basic harmonica blows, added up to 2 or 3 extra rhythm  guitar tracks with different strum patterns, and used a slide on a resonator to get a fuller sound;  I hate the dead spaces.   It doesn't  take long to fill up 8 tracks by the time you've added a couple of vocal tracks.  Your arrangements sound good to me' but I'm sure you'd like to flesh them out more too.

Quote from: tuffythepug on December 30, 2014, 11:12:31 AM
Duck, I also have had trouble filling up tracks to flesh out songs.  I've used egg-shaker percussion in addition to Alesis SR-16 drum tracks, filled in with some basic harmonica blows, added up to 2 or 3 extra rhythm  guitar tracks with different strum patterns, and used a slide on a resonator to get a fuller sound;  I hate the dead spaces.   It doesn't  take long to fill up 8 tracks by the time you've added a couple of vocal tracks.  Your arrangements sound good to me' but I'm sure you'd like to flesh them out more too.

Well, I like the idea of "one man (or woman), one guitar" and it's something I've done for a long time so I have that aspect and songs that I'm fine with naked, so to speak, or with a bare minumum of production. I also like to arrange and fool around with multi tracking on songs that are written to be produced, at least the way I envision them and I love to wind out on electric guitar! I've been at this a long time and have written a lot of songs, many which I've forgotten or let slip away, some I wish I could forget and others that keep coming back for more. Lately I've been digging up old songs that were never quite right but contain a germ of something I still like and trying to rewrite or finish them. It's not like anyone's familiar with them. Other than my abilities, which are what they are at this point, I find I am only limited by my imagination, determination and my courage or lack of it.   :cheers

So ... after some difficulty, I uploaded a few more. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't up load them. I would go the "browse" route and they weren't there when I searched. What the heck? Eventually I figured out that they were WMA files and Reverbnation's system  doesn't recognize them. Then I couldn't figure out how to convert them to MP3. I ended up burning them on to a CD, then ripping them into MP3's and then I had files to upload. Maybe there's an easier way.  :?

I'm still wet behind the ears regarding recording but the Zoom 2 converts WMA to MP3 then I just remove the SD card and plug it into the computer. Once I played a cassete tape thru the Zoom 2 and recorded it,  converted to MP3,  then used the SD in the computer to burn a cd. That worked out fine.

      I'm sure you may find other methods but I'm still finding other uses for my Zoom.

Quote from: dependan on January 02, 2015, 10:49:13 AM
I'm still wet behind the ears regarding recording but the Zoom 2 converts WMA to MP3 then I just remove the SD card and plug it into the computer. Once I played a cassete tape thru the Zoom 2 and recorded it,  converted to MP3,  then used the SD in the computer to burn a cd. That worked out fine.

     I'm sure you may find other methods but I'm still finding other uses for my Zoom.

I'm no engineer either. I used my Boss BR-8 for most of these and it records in 24 bit digital. Mostly, using a stand alone CD burner, I burn a CD from that and then rip it to my hard drive. Unfortunately, the BR-8 records on zip discs and I wish I had that to do over again. Anyway, for some reason, a few songs on my hard drive were still in wav rather than MP3.
I have a little Roland Edirol R-09 recorder that I use for putting new songs down so as I don't forget them and it records in MP3 and does a real nice job but I can't multitrack with it. I'm thinking there's a way to transfer them to my newer BR-1600 so I can add tracks but haven't got around to figuring that out. In the last year or so, I have gotten a lot of painting and home renovations done though.  :laughin:    

Very nice, liked them all.  "Meet Me Halfway" sounded  like a cross between Bob and Gordon. The "Sweetest Surprise" reminded me of Jimmy Buffet. "Christmas Everywhere" really got my foot tapping.

Thanks for posting.
Roger


"Live simply so that others may simply live"

Quote from: Mr_LV19E on January 04, 2015, 01:16:35 PM
Very nice, liked them all.  "Meet Me Halfway" sounded  like a cross between Bob and Gordon. The "Sweetest Surprise" reminded me of Jimmy Buffet. "Christmas Everywhere" really got my foot tapping.

Thanks for posting.

High compliments indeed. Some of my favorite songwriters! Thanks for listening. I appreciate it.  :cheers

So, maybe against my better judgment, I've entered three of these songs into the American Songwriting Competition. Anyone have any experience with this contest?

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