Clouds or Smoke? - from Jul 11, 2005

RE-POD from July 11, 2005: Now that I have changed the subscription feed at podcast.penmachine.com, I’ll be mixing in some older tracks with the new ones, so you can get some of the music you might have missed if you haven’t been a long-term subscriber.

As a birthday present to myself in mid-2005, I bought a new guitar, so I recorded a new track with it, and called that track "Clouds or Smoke?" (MP3 file), because one day earlier in the year I was walking in downtown Vancouver and saw what I thought was smoke from a large fire. But it turned out to be merely an ominous dark cloud.

Now that I listen to it, the beginning of the song sounds like Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" (from the Wish You Were Here album), but I swear that wasn't intentional. It’s one of my favourite tracks on my album Penmachine Sessions, which you can buy, and on which it is the fourth tune.

This is also probably the quickest recording I've ever done—I wasn't even planning to keep it. Rather, I was trying to get some good sounds out of my new Godin guitar, and this was the result. Both the background track (which includes the volume-faded intro chords and bleepy arpeggios) and the lead overdrive guitar were first takes. The rhythm consists of a few of Apple's pre-built GarageBand drum loops assembled together. And that's it. No bass, keyboards, vocals, or overdubs. Almost like playing live, but it's just me.