'So Long' Instrumental Colin Demo 2004 (Early Act Appalled Ideas)

This idea was the very first seedling of what would eventually become  'Act Appalled' but there would be many iterations both from myself and eventually the whole band before finally getting to what you hear on Juturna.   

While going through a bunch of old recordings I came upon some of my 4 track instrumentals that I made when Anthony and I initially started the band, just before we had any other members join.  I was making quite a lot of these at the time. 

I didn't have a computer or any software to record on yet but I had two four tracks, one analog and one digital.  (I also had NO idea what I was doing) The goal was to make recordings by myself that sounded like a full band playing together for Anthony to sing over... These days I can do this effortlessly (and often do) using Logic Pro on my computer but as mentioned, back then I had to get pretty creative in order to achieve this. 

Try to follow along this process...

I started with two guitar parts... then I would add bass guitar... I would record the guitar and bass ideas to a click on the digital 4 track and then because I didn't have good headphones at the time I would send those tracks blasting through my PA speakers while I used a room mic to capture myself jamming along on the drums onto the analog 4 track.. LOL. 

So if you came down the basement while I was doing this it would sound like a full band was playing but actually it was all me looking like a lunatic hahhaha. Anyway that's why the recording sounds so distorted and chaotic and also why my timing on the drums is a bit off in certain sections... I literally couldn't hear whether I was playing on beat or not, I just tried to play with feeling and hoped for the best. The drum recording which I eventually had to bounce back to the digital 4 track also had the guitars and bass blaring in the background. It was a mess but it makes me smile to think of how much drive and passion I had back then. The energy and time that it took to make this happen blows my freaking mind and I did it dozens of times over before we had the whole group together. This is DIY energy taken to a whole other level. 

This is me sending some love back through time to my younger self , it was all well worth it my dude! 

I'm excited to share a lot more of these from over the years. (there are SOOO many) They are really special snapshots of transitional growth captured in sound and I hope if nothing else they inspire you to cherish and nourish all of your ideas. Keep watering those seeds, you'll be surprised what they can become with the right amount of TLC.  I think it is also a lesson in loving detachment.  It is so apparent to me now how important it was not to latch onto to any one version of these sketches but to just keep trusting in our collaboration and allow all of these ideas to grow into what they wanted to become.  

xoxo

C