If you were wondering who created the marvellous cover art for my latest album “Over the Rocky Mountains” it was a rather talented chap called Paul Thompson. He’s also a comic book artist and writer whose latest series is entitled Tales of the Hollow Earth. He’s just started up a new blog too http://talesofthehollowearth.blogspot.com/ go visit and say hi, it’ll be worth your while!
Archive for category Mister Fusty News
Tales of the Hollow Earth
Oct 27
Over the Rocky Mountains
Ladies and Gentlemen let me introduce you to the third album by Mister Fusty, “Over the Rocky Mountains”. It’s now available for you to listen to and download in the Fusty Emporium, Or you can listen/download/share from the player below..
It’s been mastered with expert precision by Jimmy Ether, top man of the rather marvellous Headphone Treats label, of which I am thrilled to be now part of. There will be more info to come about Headphone Treats and their lovely new website later in the year. Stay tuned!
I’m very proud of this album, it was a tough one to do as it’s the first I’d attempted with vocals. I do hope you like it. Below are some, probably quite tedious, ‘sleeve notes’ I wrote about each track on the album.
“Rocky”
The title is a pun really, it’s a ‘rocky’ track, i.e. it ‘rocks out’ a bit, but also the chorus refers to being, “Over the Rocky Mountains”. I got married last year and went on honeymoon in Vancouver and fell in love with the place. We’ve been to Canada a few times and we keep dreaming of moving there. To get to Vancouver you fly over the Rocky Mountains, coming from the UK anyway, so that’s where the title comes from. Also it’s a double meaning, the phrase ‘Over the Rocky Mountains’ could also mean you are over a particularly bad or rough patch in your life. So it’s a place everyone would like to escape to at some point in their lives.
There’s a totally different version of this song which may appear at some point.
“Make a Stand”
This song has had probably the most changes and fiddling about (that’s er..a technical term by the way) of all the songs on the album. It’s had several different choruses and different arrangements until I finally settled on something I liked. I don’t know why it took so long, but I got there in the end! It’s a bit of a environmental song but it’s also about people just joining political groups on social networking sites and then feeling they have done their bit. I’m basically saying don’t just join a Facebook group, go out and protest on the streets or write to the powers that be if you feel strongly about something. Not that I ever do, though.
“Talk”
This just started out as a drum sequence and bass line then developed from there. The vocals were done really quickly (it probably shows) there’s a hushed and low feel to them as my wife, Andrea, was in the house and I was a bit embarrassed that she’d hear me! With the lyrics I was literally making them up as I went along. I don’t really know what they are about but I guess my subconscious might.
“Airport Lounge”
This is part love song, part travelogue. All the places in the song I’ve been to and the events are real. For instance I did nearly choke on the Champs Elysee in Paris, it was a chocolate bar that went down the wrong way! You’ll notice that after I sing “Barcelona…”, it goes backwards and weird. The lyric goes, “Barcelona, Sagrada Familia Fantastico!” which is a reference to the wonderful unfinished cathedral by Gaudi there. But I had trouble singing it as it’s a lot to fit in to that line. So I just reversed it and added spooky reverb, so no one will know…until now that is. “Don’t forget Berlin“, that’s where I asked Andrea to marry me.
“Black Rain”
I had the idea of having a song just based on the same chords in a cycle and seeing how I could build it up. I thought of a couple of mantra-like vocal phrases, that I made up on the spot, again I don’t know what my subconscious is saying – perhaps I was particularly depressed that day!
I was determined to include a mandolin somewhere on the album and it’s on this track. Although I can’t play it very well, it adds a bit of texture.
“Exit”
This is another song about escape and wishing to move away from the country you live. It was originally a song I gave to friends of mine (Gaz & Daniel from The Heavenly Spheres) who were going to add their own input, although I don’t think they’ve ever got around to finishing their version yet, so I thought I’d do my own. I suspect should they finish it, theirs will trounce mine.
“Thirty Seven”
This song was pretty much written, recorded and finished on my 37th birthday (hence the title).
Originally it had vocals and lyrics but at the last minute I decided I didn’t like them, also I thought it’d be good to have an instrumental track on the album in reference to my former instrumental past. (I’m a recovering instrumentalist.)
“Grumpy Like Me”
This is the only song on the album where I came up with the melody before writing the song. Usually I write a song around a set of chords or arrangement but the chorus of this song came into my head, lyrics and all, one day and straight away I tried to create a song around it. I wanted to have a funky, disco-like feel. The end features Andrea and me clapping and chanting, which made her laugh. I thought I’d leave the laughing bit in. It’s a bit of fun really. Although it’s true though, my wife and me are a pair of grumpy buggers…
“Blankety Blank”
This is one of those occasions where I came with a tune and arrangement I really liked one afternoon but had no lyrics to go with it. I was keen to finish the track but my mind was totally blank on what lyrics to have, so I came up with the daft idea of writing a song about not being able to write a song. Incidently it’s also the name of a, sadly long gone, British game show.
“Wake Me Up When The Future’s Rosy”
I managed to coerce my wife Andrea to sing some backing vocals on this. It’s a quite melancholy song about sometimes wanting to shut the world out. I think I must have written it after watching the news in an “oh-isn’t-the-world-terrible?” kind of moment. Musically it has 1980s fey indie band feel.
“A Balloon Flies Over Ruskington”
This album, and indeed this song, is dedicated to my friend Ian who sadly died of cancer last year. He was only about the same age as me. At the funeral his children let go of two balloons at his graveside that flew into the sky, and I remember watching them fly off into a beautiful blue sky. It was a moving moment and inspired this song.
You may or may not be interested to know that this album starts and finishes on the same chord, a Dmaj7.
Roll up, roll up! Ladies and Gentlemen let me introduce Mister Fusty’s Download Emporium, a one-stop-shop for all your Mister Fusty tuneage. Listen to all Mister Fusty’s releases so far (no snippets – full tracks!) There’s downloads to be had (some free) in high quality mp3 or lossless varieties. You can get the first two albums for the stunningly cheap price of £2.50 each! Also you can share tracks with all that social networking malarky – Facebook, Twitter, etc. Too good to miss surely? I’ve also written new “liner notes” that probably give very little insight whatsoever into the recording process.
The new album “Over the Rocky Mountains” will appear there in the near future, more news on that to come…
To go to the shop click here or click on the “Listen/Download!” tab on the top right.
An Update (of sorts)
Jun 9
I’ve realised that I have not posted anything on the site for a while so here I am.
Hello. How are you doing?
I don’t have anything really profound to say (if ever) but I will give you a quick update on what his happening in Fusty World. I won’t mention too many details yet but I am in negotiations with a rather nice label in the US, who happen to like the album I recently completed, “Over the Rocky Mountains“. If the deal is done (I’m not demanding much – just a few jars of Smucker’s Goober peanut butter and a case of Brooklyn Lager) then all will be revealed in due course and I shall hopefully have more details, release dates etc. Until then I bid you farewell and leave you with this nice picture of a Grizzly Bear. Go Bears!
Completion!
Apr 17
Just a quick note to say that the new Mister Fusty album, “Over the Rocky Mountains” is complete. A team of recording boffins in a secret cave somewhere in North America are poring over the tracks, trying to make them sound at least half-decent for mass consumption. Stand by for more information as it comes…
This is the last of the “Making Album Number Three” blogs. I’ve bored you enough with my tedious accounts of fumbling my way through making an album!
So I shall keep it brief.
If you want a percentage I would say I’m about 75-80% done. I have 8 tracks pretty much finished. I need to come up with vocals to 2 or 3 more then there’s the tricky task of mastering to complete.
Mastering is a fine art, which I have yet to ‘master’ (pardon the pun). Some people spend weeks over it but I am far too lazy. There are a couple of plug-ins though, like Izotope’s Ozone and TRacks that makes things easier, especially for baffoons like me. If only I was friends with Bob Ludwig ….
There’s a new song on the Myspace page called, “Make a Stand“, which will be on the album. This song has been a bit problematic, it’s had several rewrites and re-recordings of the chorus and various other bits of fiddling about (that’s a technical term BTW). Finally I’ve found a version I like. I think. It’s Fusty’s “Eco Warrior” song and I hope you like it.
I’ve also decided on a title for the album, which is, “Over the Rocky Mountains“. Watch this space for more news on when it’ll appear – wide eyed and blinking into the world.
Thanks for reading.
It was my birthday recently (hooray) and I turned 37 (oh…). You can see in this picture I’m wearing a rather nifty t-shirt bought for me by my wife, it’s not that clear in the pic but it says “I Need To Score” and features pics of several movie soundtrack heroes of mine, like Morricone, Barry, Mancini, Williams etc. A perfect gift for music nerds like me! I also got a microphone stand, so this is manna from heaven for idiots like me who try and record vocals holding their mic and the pop screen at the same time.
So I thought I’d have a go at recording stuff with the new gear. I basically finished the backing track on my birthday and did the vocals the day after. That’s fast even by my standards! It was one of those moments where everything falls into place and it just works. A series of happy accidents and inspiration has made (hopefully) a great song. This is a rare moment of self belief, folks. Maybe I’ve turned over a new leaf .
It started from a guitar doodle, recorded for the first time using a mic (and the new mic stand of course) instead of directly plugging it into the computer. I think it sounds better this way so I shall be recording acoustic guitar like this more often in the future.
The song is called Thirty Seven for obvious reasons. The lyrics are the usual made up on the spur of the moment bollocks. I’m so pleased with it I just have to share it with you, listen below.
[audio:37.mp3|titles=Thirty Seven|artists=Mister Fusty]
So it’s 2009, wow, doesn’t time fly? I daren’t think how long I’ve been messing around with songs for this third album.
Mind you I only record a bit at a time, sometimes there’s weeks where nothing happens – laziness, business with other things or mental block takes over. If you added together the total time I’ve been working on it I guess it could be a couple of weeks, which is not long really, it just seems like it’s been a long time!
Where are we at this stage, January 2009? At the start of the year I had a very productive afternoon and created a song in almost it’s entirety, bar a verse melody/lyrics. It has quite a radically different sound then some of my previous stuff. I wanted to do a song with a bit of ‘ooomph’ and distorted electric guitar. This is the closest you’ll get to Fusty rockin’ out. I’ve now more or less finished the track called, “Rockies” and I’m very pleased with it. I may even make it the album opener as think it would be a good track for the starting gun. I was going to post it here but that would spoil the surprise…all will be revealed (eventually).
I’m currently working on a track that involves a slow bossa-nova beat, a synthy moog bass, and a spooky sounding organ. God knows how this one is going to turn out…
Twittering on
Jan 9
Happy New Year! ( Better late than never I suppose.)
I now have a Twitter page, so you can keep to date with all my doings: – when I pick my nose, what I’m drinking at that particular moment, what I’ve decided to have for lunch, my stupid thoughts etc.
The address is below so if you are on Twitter ‘follow me’. I could do with a few ‘followers’, mmm…I feel like a little known religious deity saying that.
https://twitter.com/Mister_Fusty
What else it happening? I’m still plodding on with making a new album. You can keep up to date with it’s riveting progress here, or you can click on “Making Album Number 3 Blog” over on the right and you can see all the posts so far.
I’ve been thinking of what to actually do with this third album, when I finally finish it (hopefully this year!), but I’ll wait to see if it’s any good first though. If it passes muster I might see if some nice lovely small label wants to distribute it (fat chance) or I may just give it away free. Who knows? It’s a way off yet (only 3 or 4 songs finished so far)
Have a fun and prosperous 2009 everyone.
Remember that track I told you about in the last part? “Make a Stand”? I tried to record a brand new chorus and changed the instrumentation around but I’m still not happy with it. So I think the chorus needs another go, but I’m going to leave it for a bit. Sometimes it’s best to put something aside and come back to it later with fresher (cloth) ears.
Last night. A revelation!
I have a song, the backing is done – it was the one I mentioned before with the four layers of guitars on (are you keeping up?) and I have some lyrics. I even have worked out the tune. I had a go at a lead vocal and it went ok but was missing something.
Here comes the revelation. I got my lovely wife involved!
I asked her opinion because I was having trouble working out a harmony. She listened and had an idea, “You need some ba-ba-bas”.
Of course I do.
“Do you want to have a go?, ” I told her. To my surprise she stepped forth in front of the mic. The reason I was surprised is that I’ve been cajoling her for a while to have a go at some backing vocals for me, she’s convinced she can’t sing – but I will have none of it. If I can yell at a mic and claim that it is singing then I’m sure she can.
She did. The ba-ba-bas were added and it sounds pretty good. The resulting track is called “Wake me up when the future’s rosy” and you can listen below. It’s only a rough mix but it gives you an idea.
[audio:rosy.mp3|titles=Wake Me Up When The Future's Rosy|artists=Mister Fusty]
I think, though, she may end up regretting it as immediately afterwards I started playing her all my other unfinished songs, “What do you think of this?…what about that one?” etc…
It does highlight one of the problems of being a one-man band. Sometimes it’s very useful to have another opinion other than your own.
