Michael's Texas Embrace

Per Murf's request, I'm putting up some tracks from James and me's new Sweetness CD. (Since Murf hasn't gotten his copy yet.)

The way we rolled for this Sweetness outing was old school. Pretty much, we'd hit the record button and start playing and singing, partially to keep it real, and partially because making songs that way is much faster. You pretty much cut out all that pesky time wasted thinking about composition and content. Who needs to worry about that? For some reason, I think because James forgot his acoustic guitar so we were working with one acoustic and one bass, the songs sounded a little thin--like they were quick notes jotted down for what songs could be. Once James left, I fattened up the tracks some, adding drums or flutes or guitars or synths. Whatever the song needed to feel a little more full. I tried to make it feel as natural as I could, and I think I succeeded. Me and James were both floored by the results.

I also did some mixing and mastering, making it so the songs were all about the same level, etc. Like I said, we're very pleased. James said it might be our best. BUT! To reiterate, mostly they were done on the fly, pretty much the same way we did the very first Sweetness. It just sounds better because we have a little more knowledge about recording, etc.

So what I'm putting up are two songs, in the original versions and the mastered versions. That is, one version will just be me and James, guitar and bass and vocals, and the other version will have the final touches I put on them. They're still bad songs done badly; we just got a little better at disguising that fact. But just a little.

Lady - Original Mix This was a lame toss-off rock song with a bit of weirdness at the end, and a puppy that's four sheets to the wind.

Lady We didn't think too much of this song until it got drums and electric guitar. Now it rocks.

Yo Soy de Aqui - Original Mix James had the music before, and adlibbed some bad spanish phrases. Hilarious? Or horrible?

Yo Soy de Aqui I thought what this song was missing was atmosphere, so I added a lot of tracks, flutes and shakers and cymbals and drums you can barely hear and synths. And I gave James a dash of really short echo for flavor. Also, the original had a sort of dramatic rising action, but our performance did not. So I tried to give it a swell. James flipped, because it sounds sweet.

There are nine more tracks!