by A Naked Kiss
When recording music, the spirit of the moment is much more important to me than any kind of perfection. Much more, imperfection can be fun in itself. I tend to let it flow, and often I am surprised by the result myself.
Listen to the song while reading the text.
Just playing around
Creating the song “Live and in Stereo” has taken me only two hours, from the moment I started to the finished master. I didn’t even intend to record something.
To learn the possibilities of the online tool soundtrap, I opened a demo song and started playing around with it. I added tracks, removed tracks and turned some knobs. After about an hour, I felt that I created something that had a meaning to me.
From there on, I primarily wanted to keep the spirit of the song and change only little bits. Clearly, I could have added more details and variations, and it is a bit lengthy as it is now. But as it is now, it has a spirit I like, and imperfection is part of it.
Playing Live
With playing live it is even more important to create a moment. I never understood bands that try to reproduce their records on stage as perfect as possible. In my opinion, it’s mostly imperfection that creates emotions and memories.
Thanks to a friend in college, I had the opportunity to work as kind of a roadie for a concert organizer. Once I’ve been in the group that had to control that nobody climbs the stage during a Rolling Stones concert. Needless to say, being between the front row and the stage, I had the best place to watch the band play (and I’ve even been paid for it).
It was so much fun to see Keith Richard enjoying himself. There were parts when he smoked a cigarette instead of playing guitar. And once he grabbed into Bill Wyman’s bass and disturbed Bill while playing his part. They both laughed.
Next day, I read a review about the gig, and it said that the Stones lack technique, that they partially played false. Well, the Stones had fun, and the reviewer obviously not…