Guitar Therapy : New Song & Video

Now that Spiritual!!! Moi??? is done & dusted, and after a foray into makin some more vids, it is now time to think about the next collection of songs that will comprise Artie Q VIII .
So. Guitar Therapy is a track that is a collaboration with my ole pal, guitarist LRW. In a sense it is loosely based on another track we worked on, way back (Everybody Wants To Be In Love), but this is more devoted to his his guitar and a voice over idea I had. Video & links to buy and listen, below.

Guitar Therapy - Buy

Guitar Therapy - Listen

Guitar Therapy Video, below

Wackel Dackel / Nodding Dog; I'm a Yes Man for your love

New collaboration with Mindmovie

Click below to listen

Wackel Dackel - I'm a Yes Man for your love 

Art: LRW

Well it looks like I am inching closer to finishing up tracks for the new cd: SPIRITUAL!!! MOI??? set for release August 1, 2013. With Wackel Dackel now in the bag, I need a couple more and I'm done. 

Around September, 2009, I spent an idyllic week in Zakinthos, Greece with Achim (Mindmovie) and the very lovely Maria, his wife. We had a fabulous time just "hanging." I forget exactly who brought up the idea (Maria or Achim), but it was suggested that a song about the nodding dogs that wag their heads in the back of cars would be a good idea ... Hmm ... Upon my return to LA, Achim sent me a Euro-ish thumping Dance track, which I promptly jumped on added some chord changes, melodies and lost interest/got distracted ...

Now, I don't know about other song writers, but the reason I came to a screeching halt with the idea was because I didn't have an "angle" for the song. To me, it is not good enough just to sing about nodding dogs in the back of a pick up, there has to be something more engaging in a song. Well, to cut a long story short, it wasn't until a month ago, I came up with my direction. What if the Wackel Dackel/Nodding Dog were not a mobile domed stuffed animal, but one hell of a Love Sick Puppy (human); a Yes Man who is slavishly devoted to each and every whim of his beloved (whom treats him with great disdain), and it is all he can do just to stay in the game, for indeed, Better an obsequious & wretched mongrel existence with the love of his life, than not. Surely?

- "Life without you, ain't an option, baby."

So, this was my angle. I picked samples of Achims original track, tweaked my vocals, added different lyrics, chords, beats and new melodies, requested the fabulous soaring solo-ing Mindmovie guitar finale and Bingo! -  Wackel Dackel (Engl pro: Vuckl Duckl). Also included is a lovely hi guitar figure & harmony by LRW (Laurence Richmond Whiteley) to give the choruses extra jump and color. He also plays the 1st solo. Thanks, boys ... and Maria W. Nice!

Lyrics: Robin Thomas Quinn © 2013

   Wackel Dackel (Vuckl Duckl)
 Wackel Dackel (Vuckl Duckl)

I’m a Yes Man for your love 

I’m a nodding dog, I’m a laphound baby
 

Hanging round for scraps of love from your door 


- I can’t help myself 
Wackel Dackel—Yeah, Oooh, 

Ahah
 Wackel Dackel—I’m a lapdog, baby 


Hanging round for scraps of love from your door


I’m a Yes Man for your love

   Ooooh, Wackel Dackel, Ooooh - Can’t get enough of your love

   What good is self respect when you ain’t got love?


When you got no pride, when you got no stuff?


The kind of stuff inside that makes a dude feel manly


Dandy, Stanley & glad to be alive.

   Something strange is happening to me


When I’m with you, bang goes dignity


‘N so again what’s the point of pride, 


When the candle lit dinner for one
 is a fact from which I cannot hide?

   I’m a Yes Man for your love


I’m a nodding dog, I’m a laphound baby


Hanging round for scraps of love from your door


- I can’t help myself
, Yeah, 

Wackel Dackel—I’m a lapdog, baby 


Hanging round for scraps of love from your door


I’m a Yes Man for your love

   Wackel Dackel - Can't get enough of your love

   I hate myself for loving you,

leaving's on my mind


But life without you's not an option, baby - Ooh. 

Hey, yeah
, I'm just a Yes Man, baby, hanging round your door

   Wackel Dackel, Ooooh,
   
I'm a lapdog, baby, hanging round your door
   Oh baby, Oh, baby.


Life without you ain't an option, baby

New Songs, New Videos, New Collaborations

Click to listen:  THE FUTURE YOU  -  THE HEARTACHE BABY

                                                                                            

The Future You—Video —Watch

OK, so I’m winding up my collection of songs for the Artie Q VI cd "SPIRITUAL!!! MOI???," and I’ve got about another 3 tracks to go until completion. Hmm ... I’d like to give a lil variety to my usual Electronic Pop sound, so I decide to call on an old friend of mine, the very fab AERONAUT, with whom I have collaborated with in the past, but nothing recently. Aeronaut aka Jef De Corte’s passion in music is classical; mine is pop. “You got any ideas you don’t know what to do with, Jef? If so, you wanna send them my way?”

One in particular catches my ear: Beside You; it touches the bittersweet melancholy nerve. So Jef sends me the music files and I begin to play; have some fun. As the track develops, melodies sing to me; though what to write about, exactly?

One particular morning, I’ve been “hard at fun” for at least four hours; ideas are taking shape, but something weird is happening on the computer. As I look at the Mac clock, the penny drops. Uh Oh! On my “Music Dedicated Only Mac,” I have an old operating system: 9.2—I know, I know, I know!!! Before you TechnoGeeks barrage me with abuse ... 9.2 works for now, and I shall upgrade in time. Very infrequently, the computer will wig out, and the Date & Time feature will roll back the years to 1904! (I have spoken to other 9.2 system users and they have all had similar experiences. Still, it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.) Now, this problem has to be addressed immediately, so it will mean not saving/erasing all files date stamped 1904 and rebooting! Which means I’ve lost the last four productive hours. I’ll have to remember where the track was going—Argh!

I start to harangue the computer as if it were a person, You Fuckin' Fuckin’ Fuck! Get thee 'ere, Mr. Q; I’m gonna have some fuckin words—you, You, YOU—I hit the wall so hard, aah, my fist will be sore for days. Wow ... I am talking to the computer as if it were me from 1904—Yikes! Hey, what if the song were about a man from the present who could go back in time, and talk to the man he was back in ? ... So the man he was, could find out about the man he is to be/his future … AND, is he "allowed" to change it ...??? BINGO! “That” is what the song is gonna be about. But, as it happens (re-written for the song and video) our hero travels forward from the year 1973 to the man he will be in 2013. SERENDIPITOUS!!! MOI??? :)

Guitar, mix tips and technological advice: the very wonderful MINDMOVIE Thanks, Achim. —Couldna ha' done it withoucha, M!

The Heartache Baby Video — Click below

THE HEARTACHE BABY— Listen

Heartache Baby was a track I wrote many years ago, and always had a hankering to update it in some fashion. The perfect vehicle arrived one day in the guise of a track from them WI:RE boys. Claas Reimer and Achim Wierschem.  Claas sent me a laid back groove that took my mind to a sunny lazy vacation I spent with Maria and Achim Wierschem in Zakinthos, Greece in 2009. Somehow the track also reminded me of the melancholy feel of my original lyric. So ... I cut the track up into bite size 4bar/8 bar pieces added chords changes, melodies, lyrics and hey presto! No great lyrical message here, other than the Heartache Baby that resides in us all. Oh yeah, sent it back to Achim for his wonderful guitar that takes the song to it's final conclusion. Love it—Nice!

The Man Who Would Be King

Song: KING OF ENGLAND Click to Listen

So, there I am in the Bug 'Utch workin on the remaining tracks for "SPIRITUAL!!! MOI???" (Artie Q VI cd), when over the wires comes two files from MisterCee/TheReimMan containing beats/grooves/noises. One in particular takes my fancy titled Medieval. The loping beat groove gives me a feeling of "procession, majesty, king like" motion ... what to do with it? Hmm ...

... I knew a young woman, many moons ago who overdosed on magic mushrooms. One time only. So extreme was the potency (and it was the first time she had ever taken any kind of drug) that it pushed her into the realms of paranoia to the extent that in order to "regain balance"/normality she was forever forced into taking medication to redress the balance. I met her a few years after her "Shroom Encounter" and considered her quite a regular fun loving babe. "A regular fun loving babe ...?" ... hmm ...except when she did not take her medication, of course ...

So ... what if "Our Man" takes one hit too many and ends up on the other side? He now believes himself to have unlimited powers; he is reborn as King Of England. Nothing is forbidden to him; he can do what he likes. A perfect existence, surely? Except that with all delusional souls, inevitably, he finds a way to turn it around: paranoia & suspicion sets in. He starts to wonder why all the hangers on at court & in life should be so friendly. Do they really love him for who he is or what they can get out of him? Oh, to be "normal," again!!!

Click the Pic to listen to KING OF ENGLAND

Artie Q VI: Another song in the bag: Measure Of The Man

Have decided that the name of my next cd/Artie Q VI will be "Lil Ole Spiritual Moi." Or, maybe even, "Spiritual!!! Moi???" Seem to be writing songs from a material versus spiritual slant these days, and this next piece of pop fluff is no exception. Art by the very fabulous Laurence Richmond Whiteley Nice!

(This can also be downloaded for 99 cents/proceeds go to help support internet radio. NewUSB Radio/BuyMyMusic @ http://buymymusic.info/

Click the image to listen

 

Lyrics - Robin Thomas Quinn ©2012

Don’t let my pretty English accent fool you
A million miles away where I come from
Cos underneath this suit, a wolf is lying by
Watch the hand and not the singer of the song

Don’t be deceived when all that glitters doesn’t fly
I’ll eat you alive–live to fight another day
The measure of the man
Is in the hand and not the song
And that, my friend’s the land where I come from

The measure of the man
is in the hand and not the song
Watch the band and not the singer of the song
Not what I’m saying—Watch what I’m doing

Hey ah,  what’s that you say, ah ...
The truth will always play?
(Tell me) What good are well kept words left in the rain?
Without any game—will they fight another day?
   
The measure of the man
Is in the hand and not the song
Watch the band and not the singer of the song
The measure of the man
Is in the hand and not the song
Watch the band and not the singer of the song
Watch what I’m doing—Not what I'm saying

Don’t be deceived when all that glitters doesn’t fly
I’ll eat you alive—Live to fight another day

No matter what you see–the truth is in the deed
No matter what I say–the proof is in the play
Watch the hand and not the singer of the song
Watch the band and not the singer of the song
Not what I’m saying—Watch what I’m doing

Artie Q VI: More Songs In The Bag

Ok, so. Where was I?—Ah, yes ... New songs to be considered for the next cd, Artie Q VI (promo vid, here)

Listen CROSSOVER: IF I DIE TONIGHT Or, click the pic:

 

Back in LA, 1995-ish, I had the privilege to get involved in theater, primarily due to the encouragement of the great DigiRob and was involved in a couple of LA Weekly Theater "Pick of the Weeks." One was "A Grimm Evening." A production directed by Robert Prior. Based on four stories by the Grimm Brothers, one in particular took my fancy: Godfather Death. The performance was a lot of fun. CROSSOVER (IF I DIE TONIGHT) is a somewhat twist on that scenario, only this time, the husband is bereft; his wife of 30 years is now deceased and he cannot get over it. He will do anything to have one last farewell/meet with her. He strikes a deal with the devil: One chance to see his dearly beloved & deceased wife for one last time. In exchange ... for his soul. Joining me on guitar, again, the wonderful Laurence Whiteley. Ah loves ya, bro.

NEXT! No, not the song by Jacques Brel; the next song for the album: COLUMBUS IN CAR WITH GUITAR.  <—Listen. (I think this will definitely make it.) This song concerns a technologically geeky friend of mine who, with his SUV, Sat Nav & other modern appliances sees himself as a sort of contemporary Christopher Columbus and longs for the days of Master Commander of the Far Side ... a captain of a Spanish galleon or similar. But if he were granted his wish, I doubt that he'd be able to take his iPad with him.
I loved the thought of listing notables who in their time, really were the Neil Armstrongs of their day. Folk who fearlessly trod (or fearfully, maybe) in order to further empower knowledge of their generations. Great stuff. I salute each every one of them; from eons ago to the present day. (I am sure that this list is a drop in the bucket of folk who dared to dream, but alas, all's I got is a four minute pop song! :( )

"Walter Raleigh, Robert Scott, Tenzing Norgay, Jacques Cousteau, Francis Drake. Marco Polo, Leif Ericson, Pedro Escobar, Livingstone, Neil Armstrong, Captain Cook, Juan Perez, James Of Ireland, Sven Hedin, Hannu The Navigator, Edmund Fanning, Ernest Shackleton, Edmund, Roald ... ... I’d rather be Columbus in a Car ... with a Guitar"

I built the track with LRW's guitar, and the fab Mindmovie/Achim Wierschem came in at various points & with a great solo at the end. Thanks, my Go 2 Guitar Boys—Nice! (I would have no others!!!) Thank you, Laurence & Achim.

The World's Least Spiritual Soul: New Song.

OK, enough time has passed since The Bug 'Utch cd. Time to be getting on with the new stuff! Click the image to listen.

http://soundcloud.com/artieq/spiritualmoi

 No Eye Boy by raVen Mackay

Shock! Horror! The World’s Least Spiritual Soul ... might just be The Worlds Most Spiritual Soul!!! SONG. Listen: http://soundcloud.com/artieq/spiritualmoi

Lyrics, below.

SPIRITUAL .... hmm ...? This state of (?) being has always somewhat bemused me. Mostly, because I really don’t understand the terms with which spiritual folk use. (Truly, I cannot relate.) ... I have no idea; sorry, no answers, here. I just “am.” I “do.” Does that answer the question? And what was it, anyway? :)  

Among friends, I will often mockingly declare myself as The World’s Least Spiritual Soul, not really because I believe it, but mostly to playfully elicit a response. I have to say that all of my good buds will then rush to my defense with ” Oh no, that’s not true, Robin, you are very spiritual”—Oh Really, I then respond. Smirks.

Recently, a good friend of mine, Stacey Parry of Soulful Transitions (doing very important work and the subject of Rap 1 in the song) declared on Twitter "You are not alone. Psychic network, make friends, etc …" I responded with “I am alone; I am The Worlds Least Spiritual Human Being. I must be alone. Surely?” She then responded "You are NOT alone. Authenticity is the best part of spiritual. You live my definition of the most spiritual." Hmm … This phrase stuck with me for a week: “Authenticity ... is ... Spirituality.” ... I cogitated on it. And when I finished, I masticated ... thermagulated, even. Finally, I hit on an idea. What if someone (not necessarily me) who believed himself to be The World’s Least Spiritual Soul, actually found out the bald truth; he was in fact The World’s Most Spiritual Soul—HaHah! Hey presto! There's the song.

Having seen and really liked recent art by No Eye People: raVenMackay aka Nasty Mushroom Gal, I thought her illustration of “me” from 35 years ago was most appropriate. She kindly allowed me to use it. “Delicate but Resolute” I choose to term it. She no doubt calls it something else. (Please check out her web, as with with my other partners in crime, below)

Guitar & Arrangement: LRW - Laurence Whiteley
http://www.facebook.com/EXP.Hendrix
Art: No Eye People
http://no-eye-people.artworkfolio.com/
Inspiration: Stacey Parry
http://www.soulfultransitionscoach.com

LYRICS - Robin Thomas Quinn ©2012

Authenticity is spirituality, according to a pro, is "me", well, apparently,
and she should know, she does it all day long,
calls herself "transitioner," a mighty fine practitioner.
Now I describe myself as The World's Least Spiritual Soul,
moving away from "possession" is my goal.
Can I live my life without a safety net?
Tryin' real hard; I'll get there … I'll get there.

Tell me, where is "there?"
Tell me where you're going to.

Dah, dah, dah, dah. Dah, dah, dah. Dah, dah dah. Dah, dah dah … I'll get there.

With this in mind, I'll just have to confront myself—"Artie Q: who are you?"
And I should know, I do "me" all day long;
an imposter of Krishna, a nary Christian missioner.  
Now, I've not claimed myself as a man of lofty goals,
I'll leave that up to others with religious souls.
A short dry capucino drink is all I'd like to get
Forget the Splendid Journey … Are we there yet?

Dah, dah, dah, dah. Dah, dah, dah.

Doesn't help with the big picture; view it all, it'll just restrict ya.
(One) Step in front of another, the mountain I'll discover.
When confronted with enormity, get busy like a bee;
visualize my destiny, I'll be the Super Ant in me.
Now I describe myself as The World's Least Spiritual—
I'm having second thoughts about it;
I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it.
I had a change of heart—I'm going to Nirvana … I'll get there

Baby, ooh baby, I'll get there. Yeah.
Dah, dah, dah, dah. Dah, dah, dah.
Spirituality equals Authenticity, without it an eternity, yeah baby.

I'll get there.