Indie Music

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On a business trip to Chicago a few years back, I had a riff that was sticking in my head from the start of my trip. I was only going to be in Chicago for about 4 days. I’ll tell you something about the windy city, there are plenty of cool blues and jazz clubs that you have to go to, to immerse yourself in the flavor of the city. I was privileged and able to go to just 2 in my 4 day stay. The first one is called B.L.U.E.S., in which is a small club with a tiny intimate stage that packs them in nightly to hear some real great players. Lot’s of local musicians play there as well as some up and coming newbies – don’t miss that club. Another club I was able to check out was Rosa’s Lounge in which , I thought was blues at it’s best. There is so many other clubs I would liked to have visited–but alas 4 days and on a business trip, I just could not do it, as they say it, “there’s always next time”. Well back to the riff in my head. As said, the whole trip and my club hopping brought me around to thinking how I can tie this riff into a song. So with the riff in my head, I wanted to get back home to my studio to see what I could work out. Wait a second – if I have a riff, what about some lyric’s? My trip to Chicago was coming to an end and I summoned up an Uber on my Iphone to take me back to the airport and home. The Uber picked me up and we proceeded to drive through town and onto the freeway towards Midway airport. Then I saw it – First one billboard than another ” Pink Monkey” it was a strip club – I fell in love!!!!!  (not only with the strip club by the name Pink Monkey)

Now I got my inspiration mojo to start feverishly writing. I grabbed a pen and a piece of paper from my brief case and started to Pen the lyric’s – Ohh – The Pink Monkey – as I got to the plane it struck me from where my journey started and where I would end back to. New York to Chicago (and a layover in) Baltimore to get back to New York the words just flowed out as I sat in (BWI) Baltimore Airport waiting for my flight back to New York.

Please Enjoy 

“The Pink Monkey”

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Another treasure. After all these years – I can listen with different ears and I hear a Joe who liked writing lyrics, played little bits of show tunes, used unusual chords and sort of ‘chopped’ at the guitar. I’m still playing parts of show tunes and even MORE unusual chords and much crazier rhythms with a broader palette of sounds than I did . . . . let’s see . . . about 1985 or so? That’s 85-95 (10 years) 95-2005 (10 years) 2005-2015 (10 years) + 3 or 4 and that’s about 33 or 34 YEARS AGO!!!!!!
I started playing guitar at around 14 years old. So roughly 50 years ago. I should really be much better. I did give up playing guitar after Vinyl Flesh for about 7-8 years. But I played piano or keyboards instead so I really didn’t quit playing and totally  got into recording. I think you & I banged around a couple times over at the house you & Dena lived in. And we’re still doing it.
 There were 2 commonalities – you & Ken so there ya have it !
Enjoy – Vinyl Flesh “Archived Cassette Tapes”
“Talking in Lies”

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Here is another song out of 3 songs that I stumbled across through my Vinyl Flesh cassette archives. As said in the previous post, The quality of the tapes over time has lost some of there dynamic’s, these tapes were home studio tapes that was just thrown in a cassette recorder for our rehearsals, they were done through the home mixing board at home studio, and the quality is definitely not pro-studio quality. I must point out these songs were all written and performed sometime in the early 1980’s.

JoeZworld Commented on finding these tapes: Aldo your playing, the style, it was a major element rather than just a bass guitar player thing. I’d forgotten that we were as tight as these recordings show. Above all I can appreciate the ‘sound’ we created – kind of like we bridged the end of ‘new wave’ with ‘classic funk’ with a sprinkle of ‘punk’ and a dash of ‘jazz’ and a pinch of ‘rock’. Certainly there were many changes and bridges that were almost classical probably showing how we were influenced by ‘progressive rock’ bands like Gabriel, Yes, Crimson, but also Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Tubes.

This song is sung by Kenny ” The Bird-man” Kern

Here you have

“Walk and Talk”

 

Cover Photo by: https://unsplash.com/@sawyerbengtson

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This is just fucking crazy!!!! I have been looking for weeks through my old library of  cassette tapes, actually looking for a song that my VF band wrote that I desperately want to re-do because it is really frigging awesome, “She’s So Tall”. But alas, I can’t find it.      Although -Lo and behold I came across a Bunch of material that I have literally and totally forgot about. The quality of the tapes over time has lost some dynamic’s, although these tapes were home studio tapes that was just thrown in a cassette recorder for the rehearsals, Albeit through the mixing board at home, they are not full mastered pro-studio quality. This shit is really good and Vinyl Flesh had a great sound that was funky, punky, cool and tight.

This song is sung by JoeZworld, it was written about how in India women are made to marry in pre-arranged marriages and bride-burning occurs when a young woman is murdered by her husband or his family for her family’s refusal to pay additional dowry. Yes that sucks!!!

Here you have

“BURNING BRIDE”

Cover Photo by SAAD (Unsplashed)