Odds and Ends

Someone wrote to me saying he disagreed when I said, in my column about demos (Recording a Demo Part 1), that a demo did not need to be perfect. He said that he preferred spending an extra five years working that demo than sending something that was less than perfect. He presented his case well (starting off by saying that, as usual, my column was great). And I entirely respect his opinion. I do, however, disagree with it. And pretty much everybody in the industry disagrees with this opinion. First off, if you’re going to spend five years on a demo, inevitably, you’ll get tired of it. You’ll then either quit music altogether or start all over again, with the wrong attitude and the wrong songs. If you do that, I can assure you that your demo will be quite poor. Another thing that will happen is that the music scene will have changed so much that, even if you did manage to work five years on that demo, it will be out of date. One thing that record companies look for is novelty. A sound that’s not out there yet but that may become quite popular. The music scene, at times, changes quite rapidly. Back in 1982, pop rock was going nowhere. Then Asia came out with their first album, including the song Heat of the Moment. On another front, Montrealer Aldo Nova came out with his first album. Both these albums completely changed the music scene. If I wanted to bore you to death, I could come up with a lot more examples like this. But I do value my readership… If you’re working on a demo with a sound that’s not yet out there, odds are that in five years it will be. Music evolves, people change. You have to go with who and what you are. Today. Five years down the road you’ll be five years older. And you may have lost the opportunity to make a lot of good contacts. Finally, suppose you do spend five years working on that demo (by this time you haven’t seen the light of day in so long people mistake you for a vampire…). You’ve spent a lot of time producing this thing, it’s perfect (for you at least, but you’ve been so cut off from the rest of the world that you can’t really be sure…). The record company exec puts your CD in the player, presses “play” and the first song, with it very well produced intro starts. The guy hates it! After five seconds. You just stumbled on a series of notes that are not to his liking. After five seconds the guy presses “eject” and throws five years of work into the garbage can. Great.

Overproduction

As I’ve mentioned before, you most likely will not produce your first album. I mentioned two albums I knew of that had been, essentially, made from demos. Someone wrote in and reminded me of another one, Boston. Their first album is also essentially the demo. After being cleaned up and reworked, etc. So it’s not worth spending a lot of money. Of course, if you go to a studio and talk to the owner, he’ll tell you the exact opposite. Why? It’s his business. If he tells you you can record an adequate demo at home, he’s losing whatever amount of money he could be making off you.

Nothing like that live feel

If you’re in a band or solo with a backup band, then live is the way to go. Either record a practice session or a live show. For sound details, read Dan Lasley’s article on sound engineering. After the gig (well, after you’ve finished partying and have slept a bit…) isolate those song you want to use for the demo and place them together on CD. Why go live? If you present a demo to someone who likes it, it could prove to be a lifesaver (not the candy variety…). The exec listens to your CD, tape, whatever and likes it. Anyone who likes your demo and is interested in it will want to hear more. This guy goes out for lunch and sees a poster for your next gig. Tonight. He goes back to the office, makes a note of it and listens to your demo another couple of times that afternoon. Then he goes to see you play. If your demo has nine guitar tracks, three drum tracks, four for bass, five for keyboards and a Brazilian choir, it will leave quite an impression. But how do you reproduce this live with two guitars, one keyboard, one drum set and one bass? (And only the local 5th grade choir…) If this guy sees you play and you sound nothing like your demo, he won’t stay for the first set. If, however, you sound exactly like your demo, he will stay. He’ll stay because that’s the sound that made him want to go see you in the first place. Hence the beauty of using a well-recorded gig for a demo. Please record from the board and not from someone in the audience with four or five mics hidden under his raincoat.

Rewording

On an entirely different subject… Suppose you want to write a song with a specific time reference which is now, what do you do three years down the line? Usually when a song has a time reference, it will be in the past: “That was the summer of love”, or something more generic like “When we were young”, “Days of long ago”, “Those were the days”… You get the picture. Time references can be tricky when you start talking about specifics in the future. Manfred Mann’ Earth Band had a song called Lies (through the 80’s), that had references like “‘Cos the race is on we’re gonna land on Mars/All through the 80’s”. I’ve been through quite a few parties in the 80’s, but I don’t remember anyone ever landing on Mars. Or FM in their song Seventh Heaven: “Now the seventh decade is behind us/Time to face the challenge of the eighties/Will the nations find a peace, conforming to survive/ Or like a dream will it all fade away”. Well now the 80’s are over and history has spoken. Even more precise was Asia’s Heat of the Moment: “And now you find yourself in 82/The disco hot spots hold no charm for you”. Don’t ask about the disco hot spots, that’s best left forgotten… See the problem of playing this live in the future? At first is wasn’t so bad. In the 84 Asia tour, John Wetton sang “And now you find yourself in 84/The disco hot spots hold no charm for you”. Easy enough. Except in 1990 when Asia played Moscow: “And now you find yourself in 90” just doesn’t work, try it, you’ll see. Missing one syllable. Wetton then reverted to the original 82. On his Chasing the Dragon live CD from 94, Wetton once again plays Heat of the Moment. You don’t remember the disco hot spots, neither does anyone else. It became “And now you find yourself in 94/The disco hot spots aren’t there anymore”. Heading in the right direction. Finally, in 1996 on Steve Hackett’s The Tokyo Tapes, this version of the song has Wetton singing: “And now you find yourself in 96/End of the line for all your dirty tricks”. So there’s the beauty of keeping a song in the here and now, in the… here and now. It works fine, most people won’t even notice, and those who do will find you very clever.

Closing

Before leaving, I’d like to recommend that you read David Hodge’s column on structure (Unearthing The Structure), it will be helpful for the next few columns. Til then!