Tag Archives: Pia Berg

Thursday 24th February 2011 – Henry Spencer Project

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To coincide with two new You-Tube videos I would like to talk a little bit about Henry Spencer Project (HSP) this week.  The two videos can be seen here and they are acoustic versions of Henry Spencer Project’s  two most popular songs.

HSP was never intended to be a band as such as it is difficult enough running one band (I also write for/play guitar for/help to run Lunar Rising).  Getting the right people with the right style of playing and way of thinking is hard enough and getting them all to be in the same place at the same time is harder; finding people that are committed is harder still!  So with HSP I wanted another outlet for my ideas but not wanting to wade into another band I kept it as a recording project.

The first incarnation of these ideas involved a singer named Jacqueline Rolston and we called our duo ‘Ephemeral’.  We worked quite well together but had to split due to her copyright worries.  After that I spent time coming up with music that followed on from this early project and was influenced by funk and acid jazz.  Well, loosely anyway…   Really eager to get some kind of music project out of the songs I approached Dominique Allan of Lunar Rising.  We worked on three or four songs but before long she decided that she didnt have enough time for the project; with the band and various personal responsibilities taking up much of her time.  So HSP came to a halt for a bit.  Later on during 2009, I found I had more time; taking on various projects always means that your concentration shifts with their needs.  So… I carried on with the usual internet advertising trying to find a singer. ..

Pia Berg was the first to contact me, and she did this very gingerly saying that she hadn’t really sung outside of the shower for ten years and hadn’t really tried to write a song before.  Always open, I thought I’d ask her to work on an idea that I sent her and bring it along.  Having never heard her sing, her caution rubbed off on me and wanting to avoid an awkward X-Factor moment I let her know that we couldn’t be sure if her voice would be right but would very much like to meet her as I really did value her interest in my oddball tunes!  Naturally, she was worried that her efforts would be wasted so I suggested that she just bring along a basic idea…. when she did this and started to sing during this ‘audition’ I couldn’t believe my luck…

So, that is how HSP formed.  The name of our little musical escapade is usually something that people ask me about too.  With much of the rhythmic influence coming from New Orleans funk and soul of the 1960s I wanted to give the name an almost retro feel and to do this I thought a jazz-esque name would be perfect.  Therefore, it had to be ‘something’ trio, something ‘project’ etc, etc. The latter seemed the coolest but I still needed a name to go with it…  For the name I took influence from a film that I’m very fond of called ‘Eraserhead’.  This is typical David Lynch weirdness but to me, the main character Henry Spencer is a (comparatively…) normal guy caught up in a weird world and a weird situation that he never asked for or wanted.  This really hit home with my distaste for the the world of corporate work, uninteresting jobs and offices etc that I felt forced into.  I’ve always had a gripe with not being able to easily do what I wanted with my life (although I am trying!).  People always have an answer for me when I say that but that debate is beyond this post…

So that’s it really… A short introduction into Henry Spencer Project…. I wont say much about the sound of our music as that’s for you to decide really.  But what I did want is rhythmic excitement coupled with a soul feel and the occasional use of some nice, dirty guitar… Follow the link in the first paragraph for a listen….  The videos can be seen there or here on my ‘Videos’ page.

Jay

Thursday 3rd February 2011 – Don’t Get Carried Away

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For some reason, over the past week or so people that actually read this blog have been telling me that they take an interest in it and what I do. This is pretty amazing really as up until now it really has felt like I’m writing to the void.  In a peculiar way it is quite fitting that this week’s post was intended to be more of a listen than a read…

My newest song is called ‘Don’t Get Carried Away’.  I wasn’t entirely sure  what I was going to do with it but my partner in crime for Henry Spencer Project, Pia Berg, said she’d think it cool if we used it.  As this song is a bit of a cross-pollination between different interests I would like to talk a bit about it…

Don’t Get Carried Away is the third song that I have written as a solo effort (not taking into account a few singer’s-point-of-view suggestions Pia has made!)  My first one is posted on my music page but this one really has been a sort of maturity in my songwriting.  Have a listen to Don’t Get Carried Away while you read by clicking here.

First of all, the main guitar part isn’t mine… Lesley Flower wrote this after her first guitar lesson with me. I concentrated on getting her to make sounds and to strengthen her fingers.  I find no value in teaching people songs when they want to learn the instrument and actually use it.  Replicating a song is for iTunes and technique can be picked up other ways. I was very pleasantly surprised when she showed me the result of her efforts.  She was making her own tunes not playing a half-baked Oasis song…  However, it seems she did pick up my style somewhat as the melody may even sound at home in a Lunar Rising song! …Anyway, I turned a metronome on and held a mic to the strings and asked her to play… As well as it being a pretty little melody, the awkward picking style only a beginner has lends a lovely innocence to the tune and I feel this really adds to a resulting lullaby feel.  Lesley messed around with some midi strings but I used the surrounding chords to see through my admiration for the tune in my own way…

The second influence has been through a development about subject matter.  Some that know me realise I’m quite opinionated on stuff that’s close to me (although I hope not in an obnoxious way!).  Through chatting to people on Twitter (as well as ‘real life’ friends!) I started to realise that some have the same opinions as me (for a change!). In particular, TheRealBobby004 said something about extremist Islam that really hit home with my beliefs and it was this conversation that led me to convey my ideas in this song. (if you’re on Twitter, follow him, he’s a nice guy and balances the all too popular general/ignorant views of what Islam can be. No, I’m not religeous by the way…).

Lastly, a seemingly minor contribution comes from the synth sound used in the song, especially at the break before the last chorus.  This may seem a small aesthetic contribution but it has derived from my blossoming interest in the more artistic, experimental side of sound/music.  I designed this sound for the art project I am creating with Lesley and I used the ‘Sculpture’ synthesiser that comes with the Logic Pro sequencer.  The sound came from the making of a soundtrack for one of Lesley’s photographs; part of the background in the photo is quite blurry and I wanted to convey this with a sound… Out of context and using different notes, the sound conveys a different notion….. but in any case enough of the waffling… If you haven’e heard the song yet, have a listen by clicking here.