Feverishly working on a backend system that will not only simplify my life, but will also improve your experience as a part of my Jody Army. There’s a good chance I can still get it fully working before Friday when Egoman releases. The first song I ever used a vocal tritone harmony on.
For the system, I put the pieces together correctly, but for some reason it isn’t sending the email. Somewhere in the system I mussed up a setting or the information in a variable. Once I find it, it should work flawlessly. Which will allow me to get out weekly emails with much less effort. Or to send them bi-weekly or monthly based on your choice. The page/part where you can choose how often, that works.
Power to the listener!
With this week’s release it was power to me when I took a concept from my then roommate, Jeff Scott Soto. He had recently recorded a track for a situation where he’d asked me to do some gang vocals on. Then he did a bit of a volume ride to bring in a vocal harmony. I’m pretty sure he lifted it from Prince, and I lifted the idea from Jeff.
The impetus of the song itself came from a mutual friend of Jeff and I. We were all given a shot at writing some songs for an actor who had joined a hit TV show (Melrose Place) and somehow also got a record deal. A small group of us wrote songs for him and I was asked if I’d be his touring guitar player if things took off.
Egoman was my contribution. It was heavier than the selections the rest of us had submitted, but he was looking for something heavy with a grunge vibe. Yeah – it was during the grunge era. In the end, the situation fizzled despite some cool songs and all the demos.
I took the song as my own and de-grunged it as I didn’t see myself as a grunge artist. Though I did keep it more simplistic by not going with a flat out guitar solo.
The part in question in terms of the vocal harmony and a volume right happens in the chorus. There’s a dark harmony that rides in every other time the title is sung. It coincides with the dark nature of narcissism and the dark corners of fame that come from it.
To say that I enjoy singing and playing this song live is an understatement. Mainly because it reminds me of a time when a fair amount of action was happening around me and it seemed like the world was going to be my oyster.
Stay tuned for more coming next week.