Welcome to Episode 55 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 albums Lost in Babylon, Turquoise in Blue, A Matter of Time and Trip Note Vol. 3. It also includes an unreleased live rehearsal track from 1988 or so. Check it out.
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After I finished the album And We Dream in 1993, I worked on an album to be called Fighting Gravity over the next 6 years or so. At some point, I abandoned it and began to focus on the tracks that would become A Matter of Time in 1999/2000 – which was also my first album recorded on a digital audio workstation (DAW). Some of those early DAW tracks were also meant for Fighting Gravity. During this time I was transitioning away from reel-to-reel 8 track half inch tape with SMPTE time code, to an in the box solution. At the time it was Emagic Logic Audio on the PC, which I had first started using on the Mac. At some point Apple bought Emagic, decided to stop developing the Windows version, and threw us PC users overboard. Have I used an Apple product since? Nope.
I’ve been dabbling with some of the tracks on Fighting Gravity since 2012. After digitally transferring the 8 track tapes, I sooner or later learned the process of what I call ‘Retreading’ tracks – bringing them into Cubase and remixing, editing, and adding to them etc. In the past few years, I also figured out how to import the tracks which were recorded in Logic Audio and exported as Midi and OMF files. FYI, 2020’s Potshots From Over The Hill is a retread album. And now so is Fighting Gravity: where you might have a vocal from 2022 and 1998 on the same song. Same goes for the guitars, keys, drums etc.
I also decided to remove a couple tracks that have been released in recent years in one version or another like Crying and One Heartbeat at a Time, instead adding a couple tunes from the same time frame that weren’t initially intended for Fighting Gravity, like This is the Night and One of a Kind – both of which were just bare boned sketches with no lyrics per se. Once I had 10 tracks, I finally got serious in the last couple years to finish my much-delayed album.
It needs to be said that I think And We Dream was a high point for me – I was in my prime 30 years ago (35 years old then vs. 65 years old now). So to me, for all intents and purposes, Fighting Gravity is the follow up to And We Dream – 30 years later. I think it’s a strong album, and nothing like a new album I’d record from scratch today. I hope you enjoy it.
Summer Music Update. Episode 29 of Live from the InSync Asylum!
Welcome to Episode 29 of my podcast. Let me take you on a tour of over 40 years of words and music, Live from the InSync Asylum. Featuring rare and unreleased music as well as live performances. This episode features tracks from Trip Note: 1978-2018 Vol. 3 & 4, A Matter of Time, Potshots From Over the Hill, and the new album Black & Grey. Check it out.
If you like this Podcast, please share it on your social media – and any feedback is welcome!
Paul Kitchen | When I Fall Apart Live From the inSync Asylum. The 27th date on my ‘No Rhyme or Reason Tour’. I chose to do When I Fall Apart, originally from the 1987 album ‘No Poetry Allowed’, and later from ‘A Matter of Time’ – the guy in the video has the year wrong!. The song was written under the influence, and that’s all I’m going to say – but it’s a cool song, and one of those you have no idea where it came from. As on the other videos from this series, I did the take sans headphones or monitoring the guitar, which contributes to the stripped down mood. If you like it please share, and check out the studio versions on my website.
Paul Kitchen | You’re Still My Baby Tonight Live From the inSync Asylum. The 26th date on my ‘No Rhyme or Reason Tour’. I chose to do You’re Still My Baby Tonight, originally from the 1993 album ‘And We Dream’, and later from ‘A Matter of Time’. Written during the the first gulf war, desert storm. It’s a tough song to sing for me, and one of the more emotional songs I’ve written. As on the other videos from this series, I did the take sans headphones or monitoring the guitar, which contributes to the stripped down mood. If you like it please share, and check out the studio versions on my website.
Paul Kitchen | Just a Matter of Time Live From the inSync Asylum. The 23rd date on my ‘No Rhyme or Reason Tour’. I wrote this song when I was 25. It was heavier than I remember, singing it nearly 40 years later. Originally from a collection of songs from 1983 titled ‘Common Ground’. As on the other videos from this series, i did the take sans headphones or monitoring the guitar, which contributes to the rather somber mood – exactly what I wanted it turns out.
