I close the week with another unreleased song by VEP. Again from those hurried sessions mentioned in the previous post. When I joined the band, I listened to some tapes from the early to mid-90s filled with sketches and small ideas for songs. After all, VEP was quite different from Fastened Bulbous, which meant that most of my then recent ideas for songs did not suit VEP very well. I found this little idea that I had taped using Håvard Oppøyen's acoustic guitar. This dates the sketch to sometime in '93, as I borrowed his guitar for a few months back then. Thinking that the sketch was quite catchy, I developed it into a "proper" song (i.e., I added another sequence of verse/chorus and wrote lyrics).
This is, in a sense, my New Zealand song, with the strumming and all; no acoustic guitars left now, but its acoustic origin comes through in the strumming. Although I never intended it to, and despite the differences of melodic type, the song reminds me of The Bats, my 5th or 6th favorite New Zealand band from the 1980s (Softcocks used to cover Made Up In Blue). The influence is perhaps exhibited clearest in the minimalist guitar solo.
It is not only the solo that is minimalist. The verse and the chorus is built around the same three chords, played in the same sequence and in the same manner. Only the small bridge before each chorus breaks this pattern for a slight moment. The melody, likewise, is built around repetitions, with only small variations, and a chorus that echoes part of the verse. I'm not even sure it should be called a chorus.
I was about to post the song earlier, but discovered that the guitars were out of tune! Consequently, I have re-recorded them. So, this song is "fresh from the pressing plant", sort of.
We never managed to get this song as catchy as it had sounded on the original sketch, not in rehearsals and not in this recording. But it's a nice little song, in its inconspicious manner. In any way, it is the purest POP-song I've ever written, I believe.
Edit: A slightly different version has been posted, Per's comment relates to the earlier version. Description of the differences can be found here.
you could have been a pop star! nice tune, perhaps a little too slow, and perhaps not the most inspired drum programming. in a funny way, though, the jangly guitar parts make me think of - ahem - the byrds. (bet you never saw that coming. i guess my references are a bit different than yours!)
SvarSlettone day, i'm going to sit down and write out the chord names for all the chords you're using. suddenly, you will find that you are in fact a jazz guitarist;-)
Yeah - upon re-recording the guitars I felt this too, it should have been a bit faster. I think we played it faster at rehearsals, but the recorded version is in the same tempo as my original demo for the band (115 bmp).
SvarSlettAll New Zealand popbands from the 80s was inspired by The Byrds, so the influence is probably there, but indirect. Myself, I never listened much to The Byrds, and prefer Husker Du's version of 8 Miles High to the original.
A chord-schema would be nice, actually. I have no idea what chords I use most of the time as I usually just fiddle around on the guitar until I find a sound or a harmony I like, and then move it up and down on the guitar. I think my next fastened Bulbous upload will have some pretty strange chords, which migh be labelled jazzchords (of course, I bury them beneath a lot of fuzz).