At last! We finally left the house one day last week. Jeannie was bored being pent up at home, so we took a day trip out to Montauk at the very end of Long Island. It was a lovely day for a ride, and when we got there it was a great time just hiking around the beaches and cliffs and rocks for a few hours. There were some other people there but the parking lot was mostly empty and it was easy to keep one’s distance. And believe it or not, passing thru Queens at rush hour on a Wednesday, there was virtually no traffic.
But the main point of this post is music. I started in on what will hopefully become the fourth Buzzy Tonic album at the beginning of the year. I’m close to done on two new tracks in my home studio. One is Who Speaks on Your Behalf, which is pretty much there, just the mastering to go. The other is The Story Lies, which is close behind, so I’ll talk about that one next post.
You can hear the song here:
Who Speaks on Your Behalf was originally written by The Cheshire Cat, the best band to come out of Buffalo in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Maybe even better better than my own group jazz fusion group Event Horizon. There really was a lot of great music at that time and place.
The Cat consisted of John Massé on vocals and keys, Joe Q on vocals and bass, Ryan Boyle on vocals and drums, and Mike McLaughlin on guitar. They had alot of talent, with three strong singers at both lead and backing, with different style voices and great harmonies. They were all excellent musicians, and everyone in the group wrote. Their sound was sort of pop-prog, a blend of synthesizers and guitars, often heavy, sometimes funky or atmospheric, with influences of Rush, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, Faith No More, Grand Funk Railroad, King’s X and the Chili Peppers, to name a few.
They had a bunch of great songs, but Who Speaks on Your Behalf was my favorite. It has a lot going on musically, and moves from mood to mood, heavy to sunny and back, with a big build section. Structurally, motivically, lyrically and harmonically everything is tightly related. Almost a pocket symphony on the level of Strawberry Fields Forever or Good Vibrations. Plus it has a great lyric and a great vocal delivery.
I figured the song out on piano many years ago when the Cat were playing it live regularly. For this version I went back and listened to the record to make sure I had the form and the chords right. I ended up spending most of the time on the track programming the drums and practicing the opening riff on bass. Everything else went down pretty quickly. I was happily surprised at how easy it was to get a great teak on my vocals.
My lead guitar skills are pretty limited so I didn’t even attempt the guitar part. Instead I put on some synthesizers and a horn section consisting of a soprano and a tenor sax. I think it came out well. The sound of my version is somewhere in the neighborhood of Steely Dan, 80’s Sting with a dash of Pepperland. The guys in Cheshire Cat liked it too, and seem really flattered that someone remembers their song and cares enough to do a new interpretation after all this time. It was worth it, it’s a great song.