Here is my latest mix September 2009

Never Let A Good Thing Slip Away (mixed by Gordon Adams)

Never Let A Good Thing Slip Away – Instrumental

Here’s my first mix.

Never Let A Good Thing Slip Away (cybergord mix1)

Never Let A Good Thing Slip Away (mart[1001]final mix)

Here we have the lyrics and chord guide for all those participating in the homerecording.com project

A
I’ve worked the land of opportunity
G
I see the flies settle down on me
A
I turn to face the unreality
G
And I see the curtain fall
A
I fall apart so very easily
G
Everybody wants a peice of me
A
I am the dreamer and I see it in my stars
G
I’m gonna make a bad dream come true

A           G            D                      A
I’m broken, disconnected and I’m blowing in the wind
A               G
I’m Downgraded, relegated
D                           A
Never let a good thing slip away

C                                                   G
Never let a good thing, Never let a good thing slip away
C                                                   D
Never let a good thing, Never let a good thing slip away

A
I held the rose of my fidelity
G
She was the spirit of my destiny
A
I watched the bubble burst and disappear
G
I’m gonna dread that empty space

A          G             D                  A
I’m broken disconnected, planets leading me astray
A               G
I’m Downgraded, relegated
D                           A
Never let a good thing slip away
A                   G
And I feel it in my bones
D
It filters out in to my soul….
A

A
Never let a good thing slip
G
Never let a good thing slip
D
Never let a good thing slip
A
Never let a good thing slip away

C                                                   G
Never let a good thing, Never let a good thing slip away
C                                                   D   (C) (B) (Bb)  G
Never let a good thing, Never let a good thing slip away

Digging your own grave
Words and Music by Gordon Adams

You’re diggin your own grave, baby
Diggin your own grave, baby

I’ve had it with you
I’ve had it with all of you
You make me feel so blue
You make me feel like I can’t sleep tonight

Some were born to win
Some were born with pretty blue eyes
Some were born to emotional blackmail
Some were born to be rocknroll suicides

You’re diggin your own grave, hey baby
Diggin your own grave
You’re diggin your own grave, hey baby

Let’s take a ride to the edge of time
We’ll go dancing with the devil tonight
and we can listen to the angels sing
Take a look at me now

You’re diggin your own grave, hey baby
Diggin your own grave
You’re diggin your own grave, hey baby

I wonder why, I wonder what you are
I wonder why, I wonder what you’ll do tonight
I hear you’re mixing with the rocknroll suicides

ha ha ha

©Gordon Adams Music

This track was one of my very early compositions recorded entirely onto a Fostex X30 cassette tape multitracker.
I sang and played all guitars with my friend Dave McFarland on live drums and backing vox.

It was my first experience to witness an asian culture as there were many asian students in Perth and i was struck by their beauty and fun loving smiles, it was a far cry from seeing the  miserable faces back in the UK. I’ve always had an affinity for exotic faces and I often draw portraits with oriental eyes. This song, I guess was a response to that experience and also a plea for world peace, metaphorically speaking.

Perfect Smile (I want your love)
Words and Music by  Gordon Adams

I don’t want madness and I don’t want hell in uniform
I don’t want trouble and i don’t want crazy anymore
And i don’t want your heros and i don’t want guns and itchy triggers
It’s time for loving, it’s time for love, I want your love

I want your love, and what your’e thinking of
I want your hands in mine
I want your love, ’til I can’t get enough
I want your perfect smile

I want your love

There’s something about you, brings me peace inside
There’s something about you, makes me feel so good to be alive
Cut through the illusion, let the fog subside, oh give me a clear blue sky

I want your love, your perfect smile.

In life we struggle, so have some fath in humankind
We can love one another or dance on the grave of summertime
And I don’t want your sadness so throw away your dirty weather
It’s time for loving, it’s time for love, I want your love

I want your love, and what you’re dreaming of
I want your hands in mine
I want your love, ’til I can’t get enough
I want your perfect smile

©Gordon Adams Music

About the recording
On my return to Perth a year later, I decided to buy some time in a local recording studio. So I found a small place ‘Kitchen Cooked Records’. I could ony afford about 5 hours time so I quickly sketched the song out and recorded and mixed it there an then taking away the demo in hand.

Guitar time	Pete mixing down on Pro Tools	Time for vocals

When it came to mixdown …what we had recorded as really only a sketch for a simple demo became a mixxing contest over at www.homerecording.com with over ten different participants giving it a go. The winner made it onto our budget video that we  made with my mobile phone video capability. What can I say?…we just love it li-fi!

Please read more about the making of this track here and listen to all the mixes in the contest.

Enjoy

Soul Motion
Words and Music by  Gordon Adams from an original idea by Michael Dolan

Old gold don’t shine like it did before.

I’ve told you a thousand times
in so many lifetimes
a truth you seek is in your heart
The end of the world is here
I have no fear
and will you listen to me now
and I’m in love and I’m in…

Soul motion
guided by the light
you’re the masters of disaster
I’m the king of paradise
Soul motion
strolling down the road
get out of my way, get out of my way
for you know not what you do
and ain’t nobody gonna stop me now

Old gold don’t shine like it did before

You’re wasting your time in school
you’re heart is the classroom
that dialogue won’t help you now
I’ve waited a long long time
for something to happen
and something’s happening right now
and I’m in love and I’m in…

Soul motion
guided by the light
you’re the masters of destruction
I’m the king of paradise
Soul motion
strolling down the road
get out of my way, get out of my way
for you know not what you do
and ain’t nobody gonna stop us now

©Gordon Adams Music

Before that… I was rooted in a plain live band that was borrowing that old rocknroll sound from the Fifties and churning out the same Chuck Berry come New York Dolls style riffs. Recording cost money in the studio and I was never impressed with our local studio that often even gave us free rehearsals, but they seemed disinterested in producing anything of qulaity with us and only existed because of local grants I believe.

Aside from having a good time playing gigs, I was keen to learn to write songs and I wasnt’ getting inspired with the basic sounds I was getting with my cheap guitar. The only tool I began with was one of the first Portable Amstrad Hi Fi’s that had a dubbing system built in, it was the first way to overdub tunes and mix onto one cassette tape.

When I eventually afforded a four track recorder I opted for the sleek Fostex X30 and i stuck with it for many years.
There began my experimenting with songs, sounds and creativity (in the comfort of the home). Of course a bunch of musician friends and our weekly £5 HiFi supplies (if you know what I mean) helped enormously.

I collected an array of cheap microphones and sound equipment and produced some odd disjointed compositions. The onus then was on dub music and also rigging up a number of microphones in rehearsals for my regular band. I soon put my first home made album together and I called it ‘Doomed for Destruction’ dedicated to the place where i lived which was a small bedsit that was part of a derelict and blighted block of houses. I was lucky at that time. The only neighbours were my drummers Mum and Dad and they didnt mind a bit about the racket that was coming from my yard in fact they encouraged musical creativity, for they were a down to earth Irish family and music was a big part of their life.

I soon exploited the empty block to my advantage and opened up some of the rooms for rehearsing and storing our gear without the landlady knowing what was going on, bands (Tenderman, DJF, Bandwagon, New Blood) came and went and parties were common. It was about that time i formed my own band for my own songs and welcomed my old friend Alfred Waight to be the lead guitarist, although these days an accomplished recorder,singer, songwriter and composer (DJF). He was happy to take the role of creative guitar solely to exploit his huge passion for everything guitar.

My best friends were drummers Dave McFarland and Gaz Muldoon and we knew a Saxaphone player Mick Penney and we recruited him too. I dropped my bass role and we found John Muldoon brother of Gaz to play bass. Now all my friends were a moments notice away and the creative forces began. As I said earlier most of my songs were an extension of my jam tunes that I crafted freely and shaped them up using my four track cassette recorder, sometimes experimenting with drum machines and delay pedals, old keyboards and whatever guitar foot pedals I could get my hands on.

Some of my first four track compositions were Deadpan Days, (It’s getting hard to be) The Life and Soul, Digging your own Grave, Take me for a ride and Pure and Godless. They became completed songs but there was many crazy dub and instrumental tunes that kept us amused at weekends.

I remember working with Fred Waight a lot and we enjoyed making odd and interesting tunes together, usually in Dub mode or psycheadelic guitar mode. Checkout Crossing Bridges we arranged together over my dub style drum mix.

During those times I enrolled in a local grant based Music and Media Course at the ‘Stoker’ in Coventry and they had computers, so I took advantage and used their free services to  make some drum based backing tracks to take home to my recorder and pile on the overdubs. You can see that in Melancholy Boy, Are you doing alright?, Confusion and Magic table of Dreams.

There was also many opportunities to capture my band live in rehearsals although it was very difficult to moniter levels due to the loudness and the dynamics of my creative friends. There were occasions when we got some great takes like You’re Killing Me, We Love Our Children, Starlights and Cities and The Blood of Arabia, which incidently is my most favourite  and magic live capture, all thanks for Mick Dolan who monitered the levels that evening.

There you have an overview of my home recording experience and the history of the long forgotten and possibly unnoticed ‘Those Cucumber Shades’. Only 10 gigs and the recordings that i made are the only proof of our existance in the Eighties and early Nineties and in the suburbs of Coventry, England when the only musical association to the city…’after the demise of the early Specials’ was their fine track ‘Ghost Town’.

Confusion
Words and Music by  Gordon Adams

Some hearts, bleed depression
And cruel tongues are lethal weapons
But I’ll survive
In this world of confusion

Who the hell am I
To critisize
I don’t know what you’re talking about
And never will

Thats when I fade away in time
Into my dreams of confusion

I dont know, I dont know

Who’s got the key to it all?
Who’s got his back to the wall?
Who’s says you won’t go far?
And never will

I’ll keep this heart of mine alive
Til the day I die
Of confusion..

Confusion
Confusion

Who the hell am I?

©Gordon Adams Music

For this I created a stereo  midi backing track when I was on a music course at the ‘Stoker’ in Coventry. I then had two tracks to record the vocals and guitar and mixed down from my Fostex X30 Cassette Tape Multitracker.

Magic Table of Dreams (instrumental)
Backbeat by Gordon Adams. Guitar by Alfred C Waight

©Gordon Adams Music