The Acoustic Route

Since it was 12/13/14 I figured I would come up with a few songs to work on, but in the end, it became another finished album.  Recorded, Produced, Mixed and Mastered in one day by me and perhaps the only time I have done this with workable songs.  The echophonic years are different, the old man had a reel to reel, tapes were cheap and I had some percussion and knocked a lot of them out.  Most are unlistenable but I was in my early teens.

The Townedgers themselves, Geoff and Martin have taken to other tasks in life and the band has not recorded much together since 30.  Martin continues to go into production and helping other bands get going, Geoff has his daughters and I have myself to contend with.

Like anything else, the Saturday recording session had problems right from the start.  Somehow channel A on the four track is not working anymore and the six songs recorded had to be scrapped and recorded on another channel.  And of course the other problems (Flubbed words, missed guitar chords etc etc), so basically I did a lot of improvising  and came up with the songs of note.

Shooting Star
Star!
Better Days
Avenues
Still Strangers
Cocaine Train  (R.Smith/R.Swearingen/D.Lancaster)

Somewhere Down The Line
Realitesville
Country Life
Wolfie
Dear Lisa
Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever  (R.Smith/N.Passmore)

And a bonus track (Track 14)  The Road You're On

I really didn't get too deep into the catalog, but rather on the songs that I could find the lyrics.  Except where noted I wrote the songs.  The idea was to simplify some of the longer versions of songs (Shooting Star and Star!) from their previous arrangements.  Star! was the first time I attempted to do the song in about 20 years and basically I would have forgotten all about the song had I not stumbled upon the lyrics.  The person in question was Melissa, a strip dancer that I was friends with when she came into town in 1990 and like any other naive person thought this would go somewhere. It didn't and this song came about after a falling out over something trivial.  I would see her one more time in 1991 which the song Sweet Melissa was written.  A much more fonder farewell than Star! 

But there's song that I wanted to redo.  Somewhere Down The Line was one of them with a tagged ending that differs from the original.  And of course Wolfie which was the hit single from Forthcoming Trains.  Somewhere Down The Line i had to redo four times, the third got erased by accident.  Two songs were helped by other folks,  Goodbye Doesn't Mean Forever came from a set of lyrics and some words that Nicole Passmore, thought up when we met in St Louis around 2009 and started to see each other.  She's not musically inclined but she does have a habit of thinking some lines up for song ideas.  She helped me on a couple more songs.  Cocaine Train, on the other hand goes way back to 1983 as a filler track for Living In The Twilight Zone and I didn't think much of the song till my BFF buddy Russell Swearingen picked it out, (to the fact that it had Cocaine for it, I donno) and Dennis Lancaster thought up of the guitar riff, I think he added another chord in there somewhere, but whenever I performed this song, I usually do the arrangement to what I know.  The words are all mine, but Russ and Dennis gets credit for the music.

12/13/14 is the working title. A couple more songs come from the 1980s.   Since I have a catalog of more than 20 albums from 3 decades to choose from, a few songs come from the early 90s since I have the notebooks of the lyrics from that time around.  Some albums were left off, Town's Edge Rock was one, Modern Problems In Reflected Living another, so was The Road Less Traveled or Long Time Forgotten.  I did pick two from Pawnshops for Olivia and two came from Diamonds In The Skies.  The recording (when the recorder would work) was fairly easy, and the new CD Recorder that I did the mixing and mastering on, took about an hour to make it sound presentable.   It was easy, I recorded into one channel with guitar and some delay effects to sweeten up the sound.  It's a mono recording but I did pan things off to the right to give it somewhat of a stereo sound.   No drums were used, no backing vocals or other guitars.  Just me and my Guild Acoustic unplugged and stripped down arrangements.  No hassles with outside producers or band members either.

I am not comfortable about using my name as a solo artist, I prefer The Townedgers be it me incognito or with other guys in tow but this is a solo record and I don't know if it's going to lead to the next recording as Rodney Smith.  The Townedgers are owed one more album under that name.  We'll see what the future holds.

But for now 12/13/14 is what it would be like if I played an coffee house or solo.  It's not perfect but it's an presentation of how I would sound with guitar in hand and a few songs to sing.  But I can live with the results.