Welcome to Episode 52 of my podcast. Let me take you on a tour of over 45 years of words and music. Strings Attached. We’ve got a new name, but we’re still free range and use the words Zazen and Zafu every now and then. This episode features tracks from the new album Turquoise in Blue, as well as Tuscazure, Fighting Gravity and Blue Tattoo.
If you like this Podcast, please share it on your social media – and any feedback is welcome.
I thought about doing a follow-up to my 2022 album ‘Black & Grey’ for a while and finally got the opportunity to get started on it this past summer. The concept behind all of the ‘Live From the inSync Asylum’ albums was to revisit songs I hadn’t sung for a long time, and film it as well. With ‘Turquoise in Blue’, I took my time, and think I ended up with another nice recording. The process is basically figuring out what song I want to attempt and seeing if I have a suitable backing track already available to use. When I have one, I strip it down as far as I can and start again. When I don’t have one like on ‘Only You Know Why’ – a song I wrote 44 years ago, I start from scratch.
I go into more detail in the ‘Turquoise in Blue’ update video below. Check it out and be sure to let me know if you like the album – and share it while you’re at it. Also, most of my activity recently has been on my YouTube channel, so please subscribe to that. Thx Paul.
I recorded and filmed this performance of ‘No Goodbyes’ on 1-24-2025 for the 37th date on my ‘No Rhyme or Reason Tour’. I wrote the song in 2018 and originally released it on the album ‘Blue Tattoo’.
I started with stripping down the Blue Tattoo track, and adding a guitar track, keyboards and bvox. I used a drum part I played in 2018 but did not use then. As before, I recorded the track without headphones or monitoring the guitar, which was later run thru a NeuralDSP plugin.
The video was recorded via three webcams to a single 4K video file in OBS studio.
For the 35th date on my ‘No Rhyme or Reason Tour’. I recorded and filmed this performance of ‘I Talk to Jesus’ on 1-9-2025. I wrote the song in 1988 and released it on the ‘Lost in Babylon’ album in 1989.
For this track, I pulled up the original 8 track recording and stripped it down, keeping only the keyboard bass riff, a couple guitar snippets, and a keyboard in the middle solo section. I added a live guitar and vocal, bass, keys, bvox, drums and loops. I ran the original keyboard bass riff thru a DS Audio Tantra plugin, as well as one of the drum loops, and had a new groove for the song.
As I have done on previous Live From the inSync Asylum videos, I recorded the track without headphones or monitoring the guitar, which was later run thru and Neural DSP Morgan Amp plugin.
As for the song, I’ve never thought of it as a religious song, but more one of desperation. When I did the Lost in Babylon album, I was reading the bible, with some of the tracks veering toward the apocalyptic (like the leadoff track ‘Take a Nail’). I still think it’s one of my better albums, though it’s starting to sound exactly like it was recorded over 35 years ago. Check out if you haven’t already.