Ghost town - the radio mix

Remember the song Ghost town. Well, I thought it was a great song. But, not everybody thought so. I've sent it in for evaluation and guess what the comments was? They thought it is a great song, but it is too long....and the arrangements, sounded "unfinished", whatever that may mean.

So, here is the revised mix.

Ghost town the radio mix.

I did away with all the guitar and sax solos for starters. Then I did away with the second bridge. Two bridges are just too much. And then I did away with one verse and one chorus. What we have now is a song about two and a half minutes shorter than the original song, but still about four minutes long.

By doing away with the extra chorusses and the instrumental parts, the story and the message did not change at all. I thought that the sax solo especially did add to the atmosphere, but in the name of time constraints, that had to suffer.

Doing away with a verse takes a little bit away from the story. I had to decide which part of the story to cut down, so I took away the second last verse. The song still makes up a full story and makes sense from start to finish. Just a bit of storyline now simply does not get told. By doing away with the second bridge, I had to let the message suffer. In the first bridge, the singer realise the real meaning of it all. I can not take that away without loosing the whole meaning of the song. In the second bridge the singer resigns to her fate, knowing that her position is not that special and unique. Even though this is an important message, the song still works without it.

Listen to the two versions and let me know in the comments below if you think I did the song damage.

 

Finding Nemo to sing

Now that we kickstarted our project to record the rest of The exile somgs and got it back on track, we have to face the problems. The biggest problem in this project will be to find enough vocalists to sing our songs.

For The exile, the concept album recording, I chose specific vocalists based on some restrictions, e.g. I hade to make sure that I have one vocalist per character and that vocalist had to sing all the tracks where that character was required. I also choose the timber and the sound of each voice carefully to it the written vocal ranges and to ensure that the characters for Tyler and Melissa sound younger than the other characters.

For the rest of this project, I will not restrict myself in the same ways. The only requirements are that the vocalist must preferably be a a specific gender and the vocalist can do the required voice range. I will not try to match voices to characters. This approach may sound strange for a musical, but the idea is not to end up with a cast recording, but rather something that will sound like a compilation or concert recording.

There are not many sources for finding vocalists. First possible source is friends. That means I must have friends, or at least ones that can sing. Failing that, I can try to make friends. That is a long and hard process, and assumed that I frequent the places to find them and the ability to befriend them. Failing those avenues, I can hire local musicians. For the concept album recording, that was also not so easy. It is a slow process and they charge standard union session fees. Each vocalist wants to be paid a session fee for rehearsing and recording the song. Recording of chorus lines or backup vocals require the same, multiplied by at least 3 musicians. I will also have to be present at all sessions, requiring me to take leave from work. All that then need to happen in a studio that cranks up studio time. All and all, it works out to about R10,000 per song (about $1,00), plus my own time and cost of leave (yes, we buy our leave).

For the concept album recording I opted for Studio Pros. Each vocalist now charged $150, and that includes a lead vocal and one backing vocal track. That has brought the costs down to about $300, or R3,000 per song. Studio Pros includes all studio time and everything was mixed in my home studio. That is still pretty expensive going at about R30,000, or $3,000 fot the whole project, but for a final album that can be sold, that is a possibility we may wish to keep in mind. Another advantage of this route is the time saving. Turnaround times for Studio Pros are usually a few days. Even a large project like the concept album recording was finished within three weeks. And best of all, it needs very little time from my side to revord the vocals after I upload the files.

However, we first want to see if we can get away for free. There only a few places you can get people who are happy to sing for free, and most of them I have not found yet. The one place I have used before is Indaba music. I had a huge successful recording of Ghost town there. So, I will try Indaba again.

Progress is sure to be slower than what I planned for, as I will rely on volunteers only, but let's give it a chance and review our strategy as we go along.

 

So much to do in so little time

For somebody who is doing this while holding a pretty busy daytime job, I have far too many projects in progress.

First there is The exile. This is my main project which we are now in the process of pitching to producers.

Next there is Ghost town, a rock concert musical in development.

Then I have Wake not the dead, the horror musical. This is a musical propper, and if all goes well, I will record the songs by sometimes middel of this year.

Last on the list of musicals is A story of a nightingale. Many of the songs are written.

For all of these musicals, at least one, and sometimes many, demo songs are recorded.

Next in progress, on the production side is the farce, Bottoms up, by the Protea Stage Productions. My involvement here is more on the hand-of-all-trades and whatever-I-can-find-to-do-to-look-like-I-am-helping nature. The show will go on stage in May 2013. Later this year, around October, we will put a musical up, so watch this space. I will be much more involved in that production.

On the songwriting side, I am pitching songs for 2 projects. One I am especially keen for. This will probably turn into a 50's /Jim Steinman style rock show. The other project is pure adapting of some of my songs for a singer who plan to record an album this year.

So, if all these projects just keep moving forward and if my work gets accepted, then this year will be a very busy year. Keep watching this space.

 

Do you know what is behind the Ghost town?

Earlier this week we've given away a free mp3 of the song Ghost town.

This song is full of imagery and metaphors. Follow the lyrics on our web page (or scroll further down). The song makes ample use of lyrical detachment as discussed by Axeman Jim in his excellent book about songwriting.

http://dog-on-blues.com/ghost_town_lyrics

Did you you know that the ghost town is a real place? Can you find the clues? It is a place I have visited probably more than 100 times. Easy? How many places have I been to that sports a forsaken beachfront? And with storms pouring violently down? Gee, Grisilda on Point road. Now it is a give away!

Now that you figured out where it is, can you figure out the rest of the riddles? Do you know who or what Samara is? Can you find all the clues? Who is Lilith? The blight? Who are the cave-men and what are the rat-holes?

Ghost town

 
Music and lyrics by Eric Swardt
(Vocal by Jeanette)

Verse 1
The cave-men are escaping from the rat-holes
The sun is down on this desolated town
Through the mist the lights shine down on no-one
As the storm pours violently down

Verse 2
Ghouls crawl along the forsaken beach front
On point road Merrow performs her rite
A patron talks to Griselda about a quick one
Then sped off into the misty night

Chorus
Free me from this coast town
Where the gloom will drive me insane
Save me from this ghost town
Free me from this strangling chain

Verse 3
A beast in rags begging on the beach front
For a desperate grit a scrap of food is fine
He will sweat for bread or drinking water
In the blight of fear Lilith resigned

Verse 4
In the dark I can hear the demons talking
With a tongue of people gone and dead
The smell of the dread and loneliness overwhelming
As pictures of my death runs through my head

Repeat chorus

Verse 5
Taking refuge in the corner on a bar stool
Watching Samara play the bass guitar
A barrel of rum is all that I needed
To fall in love with little evils charm

BRIDGE
This is not a nightmare, the truth bears down on me
This is not a nightmare, the truth has come to be
How is it that I could not foresee
How did I become a dead machine
Will my future be drowned in sadness
Do I have to stay in this affair
In this life of endless madness
I have to escape this nightmare

Repeat chorus

BRIDGE 2
There are many through this before me
Many martyrs survived this ordeal
All too scared to cross the Red sea
While the kings will have their meal

Repeat chorus

Coda
At the break of dawn the skies are dull and cloudy
Slaves face the puke for one more day
A day in hell would be a mercy
As I send little evil on her way

Ghost town

Today I'm going to break the tradition a little bit to make things interesting and post about other shows I am working on besides The exile. I'm also going to give away an mp3 to my blog followers.

I have been asked once: How many musicals do you have inside of you?

Some composers might have only one or two musicals, but for most - we have many. There are all these ideas that we are half working on. In a way it is good, as it gives our brains a break to concentrate on something different when we get stuck on a project, or it seems like a project does not move along fast enough because we are waiting for somebody else to catch up (book writers, producers, directors, publicists, etc)

I am currently working on four shows, including The exile. One of these shows is Ghost town. This one is only in the concept stage, with one concept song recorded, i.e. the Title track, Ghost town. Click on this link to download the mp3, or go to this page to stream. I am particularly happy with this version, which features a great vocal performance by Jeanette.

Enjoy!