WGW - guitars, fretless guitar, slide, bass, keys, loops and drum programming (except where noted)
recorded at krakdhaus 2005 - 2012
paradox_LOST. I don’t know… the name seemed funny at the time. Anyway, around when I was finishing up the “dumBass” CD… I was already thinking what I wanted to do for my next project. I've always been drawn to doing instrumentals, basically because I'm never happy with how my singing goes down in recordings... I prefer my voice to be my guitar. Now, what I hate most about instrumententals is the fact that they're always to long. I wanted to make sure these were short, just enough to set the melody... or just get the gist across.
I had a couple of ideas laid down, but they needed fleshing out. Most of these had a simple drum machine backing. I’ve never had the tolerance to program patterns and form a whole song (I’m too impatient), usually I’ll come up with a beat and just go with that. Or, I’ll do a loop and (with the miracle of computers)… splice it up. The premiss was going to be a simple bass and drum rhythm, then lay a couple of guitar tracks down behind them. I say “behind them” because, even though guitar is my main axe, I didn’t want it in the forefront that much… I kinda wanted the listener to do just that… listen for it. Tracks like “Sideways Slidin’” and “Swallow This Pill”, the guitar is supposed to sit behind the main mix. It was an influence by Larry Coryell’s playing behind the band on Herbie Mann’s “Memphis Underground”, and I also loved his distorted sound. I added some cheesy one finger keyboard parts and tried for some interesting guitar work. This whole release came together after I penned "She does This to Me". That was written in ten minutes while sitting on my couch in front of the TV. I grabbed my recorder and threw down the guitar line quickly so I wouldn't forget it (like so many other songs written in the same manner). Surprizingly, the drums didn't take long to program. A lot of folks I played this to suggested I turn it in for possible soundtrack work. So, I sent it in (along with others) to several of those services that try and match you up with publishers who specialize in that field. I had one reviewer write back saying it lacked melody. Thats when I realized most of these operations probably hire interns in their young twenties to process out the submissions. I quicky dropped that idea.
The rest of the recordings fell in rather quickly. The second too last song, “Freak”… I had kicking around since 1990... I wasn't going to include this, simply because it's set apart from the rest, but eventually liked the idea that it was different. It came about when Chris Fee invited me over to his studio to lay down some noise guitar tracks. At the time, he was hooked up with David Arps, who used to be the premier beat maker in Cincinnati (he owned and operated Beat Box Music). David had that particular beat laying around and decided to add to it (listen hard enough you can hear Hitler giving a speech in the background). Didn’t take long for me to come up with that reversed/butchered “Sweet Emotion” style lick that sits where the chorus should be. I used two distortion boxes for that nasally lead sound. I wasn't going to include the last song either, but thought it would be funny. Ah, poor, poor Jeanette. She was a friend of mine thru MySpace that lived in Nevada. Back then MySpace had a feature where you could do like a “Skype” type call. She had a little too much to drink that night and… I don’t know… long distanced booty called me? Anyway, I was able to record it without her knowing (of course). I got her to mention her least favorite style of music was techno... so what did I do? Spliced up her call and put it over the cheesiest techno I could muster up at 4am. Next day… I posted it to her site. That was the last I ever heard from her…