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The Seven Points Gang
Douglas, Steve and me. An unreleased post-RCA, pre Corpus Christi 8-track project. Douglas came to me and said he had a few tunes and asked me to help him record them. I immediately rang up Steve and invited him to join in. I suggested that Steve and I each contribute and sing a song for this project. Steve and I are not usually vocalists and I thought it would be good to put ourselves under the creative pressure to write a decent song and one that the respective writer could actually sing. For the most part Douglas' songs deal with the usual peace and love, rasta-babble that Jamaican musicians feel obligated to do for some reason. I liked Douglas' un-self-conscious delivery and the tunes in general. I produced this project myself. Dave did contribute keyboards to The Lonely. As usual I engineered. Below are my track sheets for these tunes.
Distant Drum (Streams)
Distant Drum
(Download)
(This file is 5.5 MB). Douglas' song. Douglas on vocals and
sax, Steve on guitar, Dave on keys and Mike doing drum fills, me on bass and
trombone. This arrangement was a result of me taking one of Doug's reggae
tunes and trying to cast it as something else, without losing that Jamaican
feel. I wrote the horn part and programmed the trusty 707; my bass of
course (except I think Steve played the bass solo on top of me). I have no
recollection but from my notes at the time, it appears I played the keyboards
also. I
brought Mike in to play some live percussion because after all the song IS called "Distant
Drum."
Jump on This (Streams)
Jump on This (Downloads)
(This file is 3.5 MB). Steve's song. Steve on vocals, guitar and
bass, Doug on sax. What did I play? Nuttin'. I programmed the
drums and wrote a nifty two sax horn arrangement and, sat back and produced.
I taught Douglas how to play Steve's guitar solo (which is a complex
solo) so Doug could double it. It took me about 3 hours which included
teaching it to myself, then transposing to Eb so Doug could play it on Alto,
while I conducted..
I've always liked Steve's "matter-of-fact" delivery and I like this song.
It's honesty, it's simplicity.
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The Lonely (Streams)
The Lonely (Downloads)
(This file is 3.2 MB). My song. Me and Steve doubling the lead
vocal. Based on a then current news story about some guy found on a subway
with a loaded shotgun, looking for his estranged girlfriend. Once again I
played bass and programmed the 707. Steve on guitar, Doug on sax and Dave
on keys (including the "fake jazz" piano solo - on DX7 piano).
Glass Houses (Streams)
Glass Houses
(Downloads)
(This file is 5.2 MB). Another of Doug's songs with Doug on vocals.
This was another attempt to stay from a straight reggae feel. This time I
took advantage that Sly Dunbar (of Sly and Robbie fame) had started playing what
I'd call a "heavy metal" beat instead of the traditional reggae feel that
emphasizes "3." So I programmed that kind of beat on the 707. I
played bass, backing guitars and the little fills you hear in the verses.
I gave Steve the honor of the solo. Who knows who played the keys.