Category: Music

One of my favourite riffs from one of my favourite guitar players, the rarely revered Andy Summers, he has a long, long history dating back to the psychedelia of the 1960s (Soft Machine and many others, much of it LSD fuelled according to his autobiography). Summers is best known for his time with The Police of course, alongside Sting (who hails from my hometown near Newcastle and was given his nickname by my sister’s friend’s Dad!) and drummer Stewart Copeland.

Anyway, this is me doubling vocals (one at the original song pitch, falsetto in the background and the melody again an octave down on the verses). Played the Telecaster parts, and bass guitar but used a downloaded MIDI drumtrack to keep better time than any drummer, even Copeland (Sting joke from Ghost in the Machine era Montserrat recordings).

Posting here as preview sample while licencing on Loudr FM goes through for posting cover to iTunes etc.

The original song was in the UK charts in 1979. It was based on that video I mentioned actually composed in Dm not C#m and I reckon they notched it down a semitone in the studio to give Sting’s high voice a little more headroom…for me I’d need to notch it down another couple of semitones to get the full high without screeching.

Bottle on the beach photo CC licence via Flickr adapted c/o Jenni C

It’s a quarter of a century since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but still lives are put on hold by those who will divide and subjugate us. Isn’t it time, once again, to reject their calls, put them on hold?

Put them on hold

I made the call that I’m a free man
I talked wild of spirit, throughout the land
I saw the wonders that were open to mankind
I held up hope and love and life as gifts that we might shine

Then days became much darker than the night
The hope we had soon vanished from our sight
The love we took for granted we’d never find
Life fading fast as fear our hearts would bind

We put you on hold
Despite your objections
Despite your deflections
You will do as your told

When you’re out in the cold
No time for reflection
No more defection
We bring you into the fold

I dreamed that I could be a free man
I wondered if my spirit just might find a plan
I saw with wonder how despair crushed all mankind
No hope to hold, no love nor life to help us shine

We put you on hold
Despite your objections
Despite your deflections
You will do as your told

When you’re out in the cold
No time for reflection
No more defection
We’ll drag you into the fold

But, surely we can this hate denounce
We can this fear renounce
If there’s one ounce, one single ounce of decency left inside

We put them on hold
Despite their objections
Despite their deflections
We come in from the cold

We tear down the walls
At last, On reflection
from your hate we’re defecting
We reject all your calls
We reject all your calls

From my mini-album Songs of Experience
Words & Music by David Bradley
Vocals, instrumentation and mixing by DB

Cover art adapted from a photo by Saxon Moseley. More information about the photo here j.mp/tacheles-berlin-89

Now with added belltree, but no cowbell (yet)

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Mission (MER) is an ongoing robotic space mission involving two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, which headed for the planet Mars back in 2003 and reached their destination in January 2004.

Spirit is quiet now despite NASA’s best efforts to keep it talking. Opportunity continues to relay data. The mission’s scientific objective was to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. A little poetic license was taken in these lyrics to be sung to the tune of Mancini’s “Moon River” from the film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”.

Mars Rovers travelled ‘cross the miles
A million score or more, who can say?
Then months later, it’s Endeavour Crater
Whatever you’re scanning, we’re coming some day

Two grifters, on a new, red world
It’s such a different world to probe
Searching for life not only hope,
That oughta see them through
There’s water out there too
On that old red globe

You lost Spirit
Opportunity’s still there
Explore and let us know that some day
If our dream making isn’t heart breaking
On the old Red Planet we soon might all play

Two grifters, on a new red world
It’s such a brave, new world, you see?
That red sky at night, an astronaut’s delight
It’s well within the sight of NASA’s little mites,
Mars Rovers and me

First-world Problems…you know the kind of thing…and the biggest most self-referential of them is worrying that that the phrase is itself not politically correct!

There ain’t no problem that’s too small
For us to gripe and moan and bawl

There ain’t a thing we can’t complain
We even groan when it don’t rain
Sunshine’s warm but that’s not all

We have the food, we live the life
But little things they give us strife

The time we have we often waste
We move too fast, less speed more haste
The angst it cuts you like a knife

First world problems – The TV is on the blink
First world problems – There’s washing up in the sink
First world problems – Slow broadband makes me scream!
First world problems – Someone ate the last custard cream, someone at the last custard cream

These are the ills that give us grief
Moanin’ about them brings no relief

These are woes that make us swear
If I wasn’t bald I’d pull some hair
The sun’s too warm and that’s my beef

First world problems – The deli didn’t have no sage
First world problems – My downloads take an age
First world problems – This song is not in tune
First world problems – Have to stay in bed till noon
First world problems – The iPad is way too bright
First world problems – My coffee ain’t quite right, no my skinnyfrappamochachinowithcinnamonmaple syrup ain’t quite right

Words and music by David Bradley
Guitar and vocals DB
Mix coming soon…

You can’t hide a smile

Wait for something, Something comes along
Do you realize you, you could still belong?
Could you handle it, or just move on?
If the love’s still there then maybe it’s me that’s wrong

Tell me to believe, I will walk a mile
Say that I deceive, I will hide a smile
Show me what you mean I cannot be free
Not until the time, that time that I can see

Think of nothing, think that nothing’s wrong
Could you handle it if it’s the time to move on?
Do you realize now there’s nowhere else to hide?
On the move again, and leaving behind all pride

Oh, tell me to believe, I would walk a mile
Say that I deceive, I will hide a smile
Show me what you mean I can-not be free
Not until that time, the time that I can see

Wait for something, Nothing comes along
Do you realize you really could belong?
Could you walk a mile, or just move on?
If the love’s still there then maybe it’s me that’s wrong

Words and Music Dave Bradley Vocals, acoustic Guitar, cajon DB

ClassicFM asked me to work out an equation for Tim Lihoreau’s More Music Breakfast show to help them celebrate #worldmathsday I’m sure I’ve overlooked the caffeine and toast, but never mind, this is how we summed it up…using a little integration from 6 to 9 am…

I’m sure the mathematicians out there and indeed the theoretical physicists will be appalled, but hey ho…

Tim’s on from 6 100-102 FM, on digital, Sky (0106) and Virgin (922), and, of course, via their app and on the web.

As if having Eddie Bryant record a dual sax part for my song “Escape to the Stars” wasn’t fantastic enough I’ve got permission to edit up a journey into space video montage from Luigi Quattrocchi from his original tribute to Hubble!

The song is about the whimsical and fantastical notion that if we mess up this planet we could somehow pioneer a new home among the stars…

Escape to the Stars

Over the water, no anchor out at sea
Islands will be washed away by change

Climbing up our mountain believing we’re free
Emptiness that clings hides only rage

You’ll see them as they struggle through the years that roll by
You know that they’ll try their best but in destiny they’ll die

But the air is poisoned, so there’s nowhere left to hide
Could we leave behind this empty shell with no pride?

Ever looking upwards it’s the stars that draw us near
If stardust’s what we’re made from then our fate is ever clear

Over the water, no anchor out at sea
Our island washed away by change

Know how we struggled as the light years flew by
Know that we suffered for the dreams we left to die

And the air that we poisoned, left us nowhere else to hide
So, we left behind that empty shell and our pride

Words & Music by Dave Bradley
Vocals, guitars DB
Sax solo Eddie Bryant Andoran
Video montage courtesy of Luigi Quattrocchi – Impermanence

More information imagingstorm.co.uk/escape-to-the-stars.html