New Song:  Flock of Fools, Part I

Here’s a rough mix of the last song from the first batch of tunes for the upcoming Spellbound record.  This brings us up to twelve minutes of recorded music in six months, a blazing pace for me.  That’s less than a third of the total running time of the record, but more than half in terms of the number of songs.  Two of the remaining three songs are about another twelve minutes combined, and the last one is most of an album side.  This one did not appear on the original recording, but I added a couple of songs to bring up to the length of a full-length LP record.  I wrote it around the same time the Spellbound songs, and fits in thematically. 

Flock of Fools was a song idea I had for my prog rock band Infinigon, which was active from 1986 to 1988.  We mostly played covers of bands like Yes, King Crimson, Rush, ELP, Pink Floyd, Genesis and others.  We also had aspirations to write our own material, but little experience at it, so it was slow going and took up lots of rehearsal time.  Flock of Fools was long and complicated song with a lyric and all, but we never worked it up to be able to play it out.  I continued to work on it after the band split up, and at one point in the early 90’s must have made a midi demo, which is the basis of this track.  This is only part 1, a heavy drum and organ instrumental to serve as an extended intro to the main song.  I’ve subsequently taken pieces from some of the other sections and reworked them into other tunes including Angel or Alien, and King’s Hex.  I don’t think I’ve ever done the main section of the song, but may someday.

This is the shortest tune on the record, under two minutes.  I’m thinking of using it as an intro into another song now, possibly to the eighteen-minute epic that comprises most of side two.  It’s about the misfortunes of a sailor who goes off the sea the world and look for adventure, and is itself a continuation of the two-part suite that opens the record.  If I do this, I may rename the track Tempest Fugitive.

Like the other songs so far, this track uses patches from my venerable Roland Alpha-Juno, most notably the Rock Organ 42, layered in with sounds from my onboard SampleTank software synth.  There’s also a swoopy bloopy synth intro/outro that utilizes layered patches from the Roland as well as my rarely-usedMoog Phatty.  This was knob jam that cannot be created in midi. 

I added a lead guitar part that was not in original track in the spirit of “what would Martin do?” Inspired by his solo on Sandcastles, it turned to be fairly Frippy, with lots of compression and sustain for a heavy overdrive sound, mainly on long high notes.  It was good to be able to explore this kind of thing without having to cop a specific part.

I was hoping to one more mixdown after listening back, but unfortunately, my MBox, the heart and soul of my recording studio, bit the dust sometime last week.  (Maybe coincidentally, my garage door opener started glitching right around the same time.)  The lights light up and it communicates with the computer, but it doesn’t output any sound from my DAW.  Oh tragedy!  The thing is about fifteen years old, and connected to an equally old computer, running an equally old version of ProTools.  I’m hoping I can find a replacement MBox and be able to plug it in and it all just works, but if not the whole system may be kaput.  Too bad, I had it set up in a way that really works for me, with effects plugins and synthesizer sounds that I’ve gotten to know very well, and I think of as part of my sound, to say nothing of being able to pull up twenty years worth of recorded songs if I want to remix them or anything like that.  Ah well, all things must pass.

Indeed, I’ve been planning a replacement and major upgrade to my studio for some time now. I have modern-era computer that has Logic Pro and Reaper installed on it, and I have a new 8-channel audio interface I bought in the wintertime, along with a set of mics and stands to mic up my drum kit.  Only problem is I haven’t had the time to get it all wired up and configured. 

Last summer I was planning on producing an album of Martin’s songs, and I was going to use Reaper, since that’s his DAW software package of choice.  And he was gonna help me get to know his favorite effects and sounds and all that as part of the process.  Obviously that did not come to pass.  When I finally regrouped and decided the next record would be the Spellbound project, I decided to use my old rig one last time, at least to start with, just to get making music as fast as possible.  The plan to record live drums requires using the new rig, so that will get me a pathway there.  I’d figured I could compare the two ways of working and find comparable sounds in the new system.

The other thing holding me back was after last July’s origami convention, my studio, which a combination origami and music studio with a finite amount of space, was just plain full up.  There was no place to put away new paper or any more folded models.  There were no clear work surfaces.  It was upstairs all over the dining room too.  Around Thanksgiving I had to clear the dining room table, and the situation became clearly unsustainable. Around Xmastime I started reorganizing my studio, throwing things out to make more space, and all that.  It was a much bigger job than I anticipated, and I’m still not done yet.  Mostly there though.  And we have a long weekend coming up.  Soon, soon.

Anyway, after all that rambling, here is the track Flock of Fools, Part I.  Enjoy!

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/spellbound25/FlockOFools16a.mp3

New Song – The Silent Hour

Here is a rough mix of the third song for my forthcoming album Spellbound.  Unlike the others so far, this one was mainly written by Martin, and the original version of this song was just him singing and accompanying himself on a single electric guitar with no other instruments.  I didn’t sing or play anything, but I still get a songwriting co-credit because that’s what we agreed on for all the songs in the project.  So for this version, my main task was to learn the song and guitar part.  It’s not a particularly hard song, in fact it was probably the first song Martin ever wrote and the chords are very basic.  But there’s alot of nuance that I wanted to be sure to capture.

The vocal was pretty straightforward.  Martin and I have a similar vocal range and sense of phrasing, and this song was neither very high nor very low in my range.  The guitar on the other hand, well let’s just say I’m learning alot about how to record electric guitars.  Martin’s original take was just a six-string Ibanez thru whatever amp he had at the time.   I don’t believe there were any effects on it other than the tone of the amp.  So my first pass was using my PRS six string and my Roland Jazz Chorus amp, and it produced a warm and satisfying sound, definitely in the zone.  Being such a sparse arrangement I wanted the gutiar sound to really shine. But it was a little muddy and the low end was uneven, so I got in there with some EQ and compression, and even added an amp modeler as a sidechain effect.  Oh the joys of digital production and the endless tweaking it affords.

I added a second guitar track to give it some more depth.  (I often double track my keyboard parts.)  This one was a 12-string.  Martin switched mainly to twelve string sometime in the nineties, and the guitar I used was one that used to be one of his.  This time, however, I went direct inject and mixed it into the same sidechain amp effect.  All in all it sounds pretty good but I’ll probably continue to tweak it.  I might even try again using the 12-string as the main guitar.

But for the time being, here’s the song.  Enjoy!

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/spellbound25/TheSlientHour08c.mp3

New Song:  Sandcastle Kingdoms

Here’s a rough mix of Sandcastle Kingdoms, the second song for my forthcoming album Spellbound. I don’t really remember too much about writing this one.  It’s mainly one of “mine” with me sings lead vocals and having a keyboard part as the spine of the track.  I guess I was feeling restless and forlorn at the time, and tapping into that for the lyric. 

Musically, it’s pretty much a power ballad, with a repeated 8-bar verse and a bridge.  I was aiming for some level of terraced dynamics, building up layers of parts throughout the song.  And there’s alot of parts.  In addition to the piano bass and drum, there’s a string/brass synthesizer and the guitar. Of course the piano is double-tracked with a Fender Rhodes and the Juno’s Polysynth 1 patch.  The drums are midi and samples for now, but I’ll put down real drums later one.

The lead vocals are drenched in effects, although I’ll probably dial that back later.  This song was really high in my range and has some really long sustained high notes.  It took me a few takes to really nail it.  If I were writing this song now I’d probably shift it down to an easier key.  But once I found my voice up there it sounded really good, so I kept it.

The synth part is a blend of four patches, two each of synth strings and synth brass, and one of each of those being an onboard sound of my protools rig and the other one from the outboard Juno, being the sounds used on the original recording.  I was going for something nice and rich and fat.  I still need to go in and add some fader moves to make the brass predominate in the louder sections and the strings in the more delicate parts.

This is the first song where I tried to replicate Martin’s guitar part.  Martin didn’t sing on this track and the guitar seemed to be his only contribution. Martin’s sound – the phrasing and the tone – always had a certain magic to it, even from these early recordings.  I’ve been listening really close and trying to capture that, but ultimately found it’s elusive and I’m having to make it my own.  I’m using a whole different setup, different guitar, amp and effects that sounds like me.  But I’m learning alot about how use effects to get different kinds of guitar sounds.

In any event, I copped his solo fairly faithfully because it fit so perfectly in the song.  I also paraphrased his riffs in the intro and outro.  I even added some new riffs on the the bridge.  All this is on a lead guitar track.  On the original track Martin also did a bit of noodling around in the verse, but I didn’t duplicate that.  Instead I added a second guitar track, low and overdriven with alot of sustain, deep in the background to give the track some fullness and weight.  This is the kind of thing Martin used to call “guitariness”.  Getting the right sound for this was a learning experiment too, and I’m not finished yet.

So here you go, enjoy!

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/spellbound25/Sandcastles27.mp3

Top 40 Prog Rock Songs

Here’s this summer’s playlist.  The theme is my top forty favorite prog rock songs.  This may or may not actually fit with a summertime backyard barbecue party vibe, but it’s what’s been on my mind recently as I’m putting together the Spellbound record and looking for songs out there to compare to.  So I thought I’d give it a shot just because it’s hard to find the time to sit down and listen to music.

The roots or prog of course are in 60’s British psychedelic blues and pop jam bands, so that’s where we start.  I actually had a whole bunch more 60’s songs on the list which I jettisoned to make room for more core proggy stuff in the 70’s and beyond.  As with previous playlists, I decided to have only a single songs per band, although King Crimson tempted me to make an exception because the different versions over the decades were essentially different bands.  Nevertheless, some musicians like Bill Bruford, Tony Levin and John Wetton appear multiple times since they’ve been in a bunch of different bands.  The other rule I had was to avoid full album side length tracks.  The one exception to this is Iron Butterly, the original long song from a heavy 60’s jam band. As it is, this playlist is almost as long as other that have twice the number of tunes!  Also there’s a good handful of songs that are considered canonically essential, but I skipped them because I never dug them.  As the 70’s get into the 80’s and beyond, the list gets a little more idiosyncratic as the genre rubs against adjacent styles like metal, techno and jazz fusion.  Hopefully I did a good job representing the re-emergence of prog in the twenty first century as it continues to the present day.

1960’s
The Beatles – Strawberry Fields Forever
The Beach Boys- Good Vibrations
The Nice – America
Iron Butterfly- In a Godda Da Vida
The Allman Bros Band – Whipping Post
Frank Zappa – Peaches en Regalia

1970’s
Gentle Giant – Giant
Emerson Lake & Palmer – Take a Pebble
Yes – Starship Trooper
Led Zeppelin – Four Sticks
The Moody Blues – I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock’n’Roll Band)
Jethro Tull – Living in the Past
Deep Purple – Highway Star
Uriah Heep – The Magician’s Birthday
Chicago – While the City Sleeps
Pink Floyd – The Great Gig in the Sky
Supertramp – School
Queen – Ogre Battle
King Crimson – Starless
Camel – Air Born
Genesis – Dance on a Volcano
Kansas – Point of Know Return
Rush – Xanadu
U.K. – Thirty Years
Styx – Renegade
Bill Bruford – Hell’s Bells

1980’s – 90’s
The Police – Behind My Camel
Asia – Wildest Dreams
Alan Parsons Project – Gemini/Silence and I
Iron Maiden – Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Spinäl Tap – Stonehenge
Marillion – Pseudo-Silk Kimono/Kayleigh
Gowan – You’re a Strange Animal
Dream Theatre – Pull Me Under
Ozric Tentacles – Astro Cortex
Liquid Tension Experiment – Paradigm Shift

2000’s – Now
Tool – Lateralus
Porcupine Tree – Trains
Spock’s Beard – On a Perfect Day
Tame Impala – Let It Happen
Sons of Apollo – God of the Sun
King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard – Dragon

New Song – Strange to My Mind

Here’s a rough mix of Strange to My Mind, the first song for my forthcoming album Spellbound.  As previously mentioned, Spellbound is based on a project Martin and I did together in January 1990 when were on winter break from school, using a borrowed 4-track cassette recorder.

Strange to My Mind was the first rock song I wrote to completion.  At that time I had a jazz fusion group Event Horizon, and was mainly focused on instrumental music that combined composed sections with opportunities for free improvisation.  I had some sketches of ideas for lyrics but had never seen thru to the end the process of fitting a lyric to a melody and working it up to sing and perform it.  I learned alot about what worked for me and what didn’t and it gave me a foothold into a whole new realm to explore.

As far as it goes, the ambition wasn’t super high.  The lyric and chord progression are pretty simple and the form is straightforward, with an intro riff, verse, chorus, repeat, bridge, solo, and recapitulation of the verse and chorus.  Still, that’s enough for a satisfactory three-minute pop song.

At the time I was mainly writing on piano.  I had a Fender Rhodes I’d bought for something like $175, and a Roland Alpha-Juno synthesizer.  I didn’t have access to a real piano and in those days synthesizers did not have very good piano sounds, so this rig became the basis of my sound.  Meanwhile Martin was playing a cheap Ibanez electric guitar with a a couple of Boss pedals for chorus and distortion.  We didn’t have a bass for the project; I did all the bass parts with my left hand along with the keyboards in the right, like Ray Manzerek of The Doors.  The drums were added at the end, played by my friend Mark along to the tracks and recorded using a single mic.

For this version of the recording I brought it more into line with my standard way of doing things nowadays, while trying to capture the spirit of the original.  I used an electric piano as the spine of the tune.  It was fun figuring out the part I made up long ago.  It had a fairly busy left hand, since that was the bass part.  Also it has a pretty cool hook with the chord progression going from G to Bb to D, with a little jazzy modulation in there.

To this I added an electric bass guitar and a midi drum track.  For this project, the big new thing is to use real drums, but I haven’t gotten that far yet, and that journey is a whole ‘nuther story.

At the time I was leaning heavily into a sound on my synth called Polysynth 1 for the general comping and rhythm playing.  I deemed this essential to the song, so I fired up my old Juno synth and was delighted to find it still works after all these years.  I doubled the piano part on the the synth and blended it in. 

Oh, and of course the sax solo.  I played it on alto at the time, but on the new version I use a tenor.  I’m wondering, though, if I should have stuck with the alto.  Even though my tenor sound is big, with a Dukoff mouthpiece and all, it’s maybe still a bit dark and smoky compared to the searing high register of the alto. 

Listening closely, it appeared that there was no guitar part on the original version and Martin’s sole contribution to the completed track was some harmony vocals.  Nevertheless, I added a rhythm guitar part for some more depth to the sound, and overdubbed his vocal parts a second track after my own lead vocals.

Anyway here it is.  Enjoy!

https://zingman.com/music/mp3/spellbound25/StrangeToMyMind17c.mp3

New Lyric – The Silent Hour

This is the first song of the Spellbound project that was mainly written by Martin. In fact when we recorded it, it was just him singing and strumming along on guitar with no other instruments. My new version follows that arrangement. The feel is a sad and beautiful folk ballad, although played on an electric guitar. Very stark. The subject is about how winter is a kind of death of the world, maybe even a gateway to another realm, told from the point of view of a guiding spirit offering a choice of returning. This was probably the first song Martin wrote to completion and worked up to perform. His writing was full of deep and surprising imagery from the beginning.

The Silent Hour

Hello, I’m glad you made it here tonight
With your creased and folded paper body
And eyes still shining bright
Relax, you’re one of us now
Join us in this inner circle embrace the silent hour

And you see how the wind can blow at night
Opens your eyes to the dreaming silver starry sight
And now you know why the winter comes our way
Giving freedom to the souls too tired from the day

Away, you’re time is rushing by
Like freezing water thru your fingers
Or softness from the sky
I know, the child has gone away
But if your heart can’t bear to follow I will let you stay

And now you know that pain can make you cry
Smiling eyes and sadness in you for all of us must die
And now you see what makes the winter cold
All those payin’ must leave the fold
A goal to make them old

Arise, the leaving time is near
To take it from this fading world
The wish that brought you here
Goodbye, the story now is told
Lay your head upon the snow and let your body fold

And now you see the pains you used to fear
Closes your eyes to the dreaming leaving with the year
And you know you’re one us now
Listen to the world sleeping listen and embrace
Listen to the world sleeping listen and embrace the silent hour

— Martin Szinger, 1990

New Lyric – Sandcastle Kingdom

Here’s the lyric for the next song on the forthcoming record Spellbound.  This is another one of “my” songs, with the lyric and arrangement mainly by me, as well as the singing on the original track.  This one is basically a power ballad, which is a style I don’t really write in anymore.  I don’t remember much about writing it, other than not being totally satisfied with either the lyric or the chord progression at the time.  Listening back now, I think both hold up quite well.  Thematically, it’s about longing and yearning for the future, like alot of the songs on the record.  Musically I seem to recall trying to work in some jazz chords but never really finding a place for them. There’s a pretty cool lift from G major to E7 in the middle that made the final cut.

Sandcastle Kingdom

Passing time
But somehow I don’t seem to mind
As if I had some time to spare
Never a day left to share
With you but why then don’t I care I’m getting left behind?

Once long ago
Although now you’d never know
I held the flame that burned so bright
It lit the sky up in the night
But then somehow I lost the light I wonder where’d it go?

[guitar solo]

Loose your dreams
It’s not as painful as it seems
Imagination all dried up
Fought the fight and gave it up
Waiting for a change of luck to open some new streams

Well they might have been castles I built inside my head
Seemed real enough when I lay dreaming in their bed
But as a change of the tide will wash old sands away
The time to build new ones comes with a new day

Gone a year
But now I feel the time is here
Don’t wanna put my faith in fate
You know there’s not much more I’ll wait
Because tonight is growing late tomorrow’s drawing near

— John Szinger 1990

Spacecats at the Green Growler

Here’s announcing the next upcoming show for my jazz group Spacecats, a triumphant three-peat return engagement to the Green Growler in Croton, NY, on Friday, May 30 at 7pm. The Growler is one of our favorite places to play, with a relaxed and comfortable vibe, and always a good crowd.  The group features John Szinger on saxophone, Josh Deutchman on piano and synthesizer, Ken Matthews on bass and Rick Arecco on drums. We play a blend jazz and funk, originals, standards, and pop songs with our own unique twist.  We’ve been jamming some fun stuff lately and will probable debut two or three new originals, as well as changing up the mix of standards and covers.  Should be a great time, so come on down!

Spacecats – Jazz and Funk
Friday, May 30, 7 to 10 pm
at
The Green Growler
Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520

New Lyric – Strange to My Mind

Here’s the lyric for a new song for the upcoming record Spellbound.  As previously mentioned, the original Spellbound E.P. was a concept album Martin and I made one winter break way back when we were in college.  Now I’m making a legit album out of those songs, based on our demos from long ago. 

Strange to My Mind is one of the songs I’ve been working on in the first batch.  It has a bit of a different feel than the other songs on the record, more jazzy and groovin’, say like Supertramp rather than Yes or Pink Floyd.  Martin said he always liked this song because it was the beginning of me finding my voice as a songwriter, and it launched a whole style of songs that flowed from the stream this one opened up. 

Indeed, this was the first real rock song with lyrics that I wrote and brought to completion to record or perform.  Looking back now, the lyrics are not really that substantial, just some vague hippy sounding fluff.  But it’s enough to make a tune, and getting from nothing at all to something was a big deal at the time.  I remember really struggling over that third verse! And I must say, having recently learned to play it again, that chords and general feel hold up nicely.

More on the recording and instrumentation when the rough mix is ready.

Strange to My Mind

I can feel a change and it’s strange to my mind
And I feel it grow and I know we will find
That you and I will see what will be in our time

Does anybody feel like I do?
Does anybody know what to do?
Does anybody feel like I feel like I feel, oh yeah
Maybe it’s true

I can see a way, a new day to begin
Knowing that our love is not above but within, oh yeah
Now’s the time to start in your heart let it in

Does anybody feel like I do?
Does anybody know what to do?
Does anybody feel like I feel like I feel, oh yeah

Maybe it’s true, she-dooby do
Maybe it’s true for me and you, oh yeah

[sax solo]

I can see a change and it’s strange to my mind
And I feel it grow and I know we will find
That you and I will see what will be in our time

Does anybody feel like I do?
Does anybody know what to do?
Does anybody feel like I feel like I feel oh yeah

You know it’s true, she-dooby do
You know it’s so true baby, oh yeah
Talkin’ talkin’ ’bout, talkin’ ’bout me and you

— John Szinger, 1990

Freewheelin’

April’s almost at an end.  It’s been nice weather the last few weeks.  All the trees and plants are flowering and filling in with leaves.  Such a dramatic difference.  Lovely to be outside, and a great boost of energy.

Easter was about as late as it could be this year.  We had Mary and the family over, and Jeannie made a rib roast.  It was a nice time.

I’ve been doing plenty of biking, getting to know my new bike.  We’ve been out on the Empire State Trailway twice now, the second time with my new bike.  Both times I did sixteen miles, which has become my basic trip.  I’m trying to get my time down to 64 minutes, which is fifteen miles an hour, or four minutes a mile.  So far my best time is more like four minutes and five seconds a mile on average.  This last trip, I made it to the end where I turn around in thirty-one minutes!  But I got tired on the return trip, and in the end didn’t go much faster than my first time this season.

I’ve also taken my bike into the Nature Study Woods a few times now.  It’s a woodsy place near my house with trails that are mostly pretty flat, but hilly and rocky in a few sections.  I can pull up all the hills pretty handily on my new bike, which is good cuz I wasn’t able to test it out on that kind of terrain before I bought it.  I’m exploring different, longer rides in my neighborhood.  Last time I went all the way thru NSW up to Mill Road, then zigzagged my way back home thru New Rochelle, for a total of 10 miles, and about 500 foot elevation gain.

Jeannie’s bike is in the shop right now, so this weekend we did some hiking instead.  Went up the Timp in Harriman State Park.  Four and half miles, 1000 feet vertical.

I watched the new Bob Dylan movie a couple weeks ago.  It was lots of fun, especially cuz my patron Alan Lomax, the visionary behind The Global Jukebox, was a character in it.  One thing about it found funny was that I used to live in Greenwich Village, so to see it reconstructed thru combination of hHollywood backlot and AI-generated CG took a few minutes to get used to.  It also made me miss smoking.  Perhaps predictably, the story ended just after Dylan turned electric in 1965.

I also watched the new Led Zeppelin documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin.  It was done by the guy who did American Epic, and in cooperation with the surviving members of the band.  It features lots of interviews with Page, Plant and Jones, and archival interviews with John Bonham.  It mostly focuses on how Jimmy Page put the group together out of the collapse of the Yardbirds, in the midst of British psychedelic heavy blues scene of the 60’s.  Also a deep dive into Jimmy and Jonsey’s work as session players and that scene at the time.  Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger was shown an example.  There’s concert footage from early TV and concert appearances as The New Yardbirds, the as Led Zeppelin in America in 1969, culminating in the band’s triumphant return to England shortly after the release of their second album to play their first major shows on their home turf as Led Zeppelin. In a surprising twist, the story ends just before they turn acoustic in 1970. 

The next night I had to watch Celebration Day, the Zeppelin reunion concert from 2007.  It still holds up, great song selection and great performances.  Musically and sonically is actually better than most of their concert footage from when they work together as a band.  It makes me wonder how much they fixed up in the studio in postproduction.

Speaking of the studio, my recording project Spellbound is coming along.  I’m up to tracking vocals on the first batch of four songs.  One is really low in my range, one is really high, one is right in the middle and the last one’s an instrumental.  The low and middle ones went down pretty easily, and now I’m tracking the high one, which is well within my range if I’m warmed up.  It’s kind of a belter, a power ballad sort of thing. I’ve done a few takes and am getting comfortable and focusing on the phrasing, which is a good place to be.

I’m also continuing to cleanup and reorganize my studio.  In the last couple weeks I got rid of a whole bunch of old computer and electronic equipment.  The last thing is go thru boxes and boxes of origami models and cabinets of paper and consolidate all that.  I hope to be finished will all this before Michelle moves home in a few weeks.  Meanwhile I’ve also set up the mic stands and microphones around my drum kit.  The final step is to plug everything in and start recording.  BTW, I’ve decided to learn how to play The Crunge on drums.

One more thing, my jazz and funk group Spacecats has another gig coming up on Friday May 30th at the Green Growler in Croton, which is fast becoming one of our favorite places to play.  The band is in a fun place now, playing at a very high level.  I’ve been slowly making charts in software of my backlog of songs, and bringing them in to the group, so we have some new originals each gig. 

The most recent of these is Mo’bilty, which I originally wrote for my pre-pandemic band with Gary and Jay and Rich, and subsequently recorded on my record Bluezebub.  The recorded version was a sort of cartoon-jazz vibe in 7/4 meter.  The band took to the odd time signature but came up with a pretty different feel, but also very hip and much more modern sounding.  Should be fun to see how this one develops.

Meanwhile, watch this space for updates on the gig as the time draws closer.