The brief was; Reggaeton/Hip Hop remake of a classical piece called Asturias, which I assume is a fairly well loved and known classic. I wouldn’t say this is my best work, but what I did know is that 30 other composers were going to have trouble getting a groove and a decent pocket going in 6/4 or 12/8 whatever it’s in. It’s a weird time signature for sure, but the answer is it’s eethy peethy. Reggaeton/South American music is built for weird time signatures and I’ve worked in all kinds of time signatures, and the truth is, it only takes a few minutes for the brain to adjust from a lifetime of listening in 4/4 and once you’re locked in the time signature is, in effect, invisible. And I bet if I didn’t mention it, no one would notice this wasn’t 4/4.
Category Archives: Music
LA Galaxy Vocals – Ravi Drums
Quick vocal job here. Ravi needed vocals that sounded like a stadium chanting “LA Galaxy” for a set before an LA Galaxy soccer game at their Stadium in, yep, you’ve guessed it, L.A. Multiple layering of as many different variations of singing LA Galaxy into an sm-57, add a bit of reverb, some OTT, job done. His 10 min DJ set before the game was killer and included a track by Knock2 called “Dashstar”, which has a killer drop and well worth looking up.
Work Day Rising – Ravi Drums
A track for a conference in San Fran and subsequent digital ads. (early version of/the version I like). A collab with Ravi Drums and Steve Wreck, both of which are amazing. Ravi is an amazing performer and producer, killed it on this. I just played a bit of guitar and sung a rough chorus and “whoohoo” hook into an iphone and he took it from there. Adding the amazing voice of Steve Wreck, who sounds like how I think I sound like in my head, lol, but even better than that and changed woohoo into aaaahaaah, which is even better. This is what a vocalist is supposed to sound like. I’ll add Ravi’s contact in ‘contacts’. Great TV/Film/Records producer and all round star talent.
Cadillac
Toyota
Volvo
Something for Dennys
An Oceans 11 Trap remix for Dennys
Some TV
‘NASA’, used extensively for the Fox coverage of the world cup. ‘Mackintire’, the opening track on a series about DJ’s, the Fatboy Slim episode of “After the Raves”, Netflix. ‘All Day Dub’ used on ‘Social Fabric’, Netflix.
Old Navy Spot
This beat out 37 tracks. Me n Rei doodling in the studio. Those drums are one mic, loads of distortion and one take. And Rei is a first class bass player.
Check The (Fuckin) Flow – Amateur Night
This also just found a home in Amateur Night, movie. My friend Alicia Angeles on the vocal mic. I did offer to do a ‘clean’ version of this, and also to give it a clean title, because, after all it is an Ashley Tisdale movie. I’ve written music for her before and she’s covered a couple of my tracks, and her fanbase are all minors. No dice, though. Well, maybe they’re going to use a bit of the track that has no cussing. If they can find two seconds that has no cussing in it, that is. Still, nice placement. Thanks Andy.
Bong – Amateur Night
One of my madder tracks and has two spots for a total of about 3 minutes in the movie. Horrible track, but a nice appearance from my beautiful piano in the intro. She’s a duesey.
“Late”
Nice way to end a Friday afternoon. My favorite Music House in Chicago just sold “Late”, again. Jim’s sold this several times. I don’t know what it’s for this time, and I really don’t care. And strangely I don’t have an instrumental of it, so Jim’s been selling the vocal version and I think they use the instrumental bits in the track. I should think so too, cause it’s a really sad song. Good mix, though, and a great drum track from Ravi. Now I’m off to buy this: Ferrari 360 Modena with custom fiber glass bass box housing 3 subs. It’s basically a Stereo on wheels.
And this is from way back, “Late” again, for Bank of America. 2008, I think, yeh, just after the crash, so banks were trying to be endearing and… ‘yes, we understand your pain, and we care, and your debt is safe with us’. Whoever the supervisor was, on this, was spot on, cause this track is about extreme loss. No joke.
Old Navy and Trap House
I rarely do radio spots. In fact I think I’ve only ever done one radio spot and I can’t remember what is was, so maybe I didn’t. Anyway, just this last weekend, an Old Navy Back to School commercial. “Instant” got it, but “Dance Track” was the agency’s pick, which the client thought was too upbeat, or loud, or something. And also in the playlist are some other tracks that were submitted.
Soniando – Dreamer
I must have missed the release of this, (I’m sure a lot of people did) but, once again, to show off the talents of my Beverly Hills mate Matt Kahn. This time singing in Spanish, his translation of a song written 22 years ago by my old room mate/flat mate Jamie Flynn called “Dreamer”, which for some reason, as I do now think is an awesome song. “Soniando”. I think it was used in a restaurant scene. In fact, I don’t like the production much. Skip it. Matt sounds good though.
Paranormal
Now this has been out for a while and is now on Netflix, I think it’s okay to put it up here, and it doesn’t give away any jokes, so it should be safe, BUT, you are going to want to turn it off at around 2 min. Trust me.
There’s a cue missing from the above .MOV file, no idea why, but here’s the vocal version of the track in the cue. This version went on the soundtrack and has my Beverly Hills buddy Matt Kahn, doing a rap in full London cockney, with all the correct intonations, especially “get the fuck up”, and it’s funny, because he’s LA born and bred. His ‘artist name’ for this is Winston Cartier and it is entirely his invention. On top of my track The Grind, which was used in a ‘character does mad things in the middle of the night’ scenario. Also on the soundtrack album, but not used in the film, “Hey Now” from my good friend, James Langford, who’s straight outa South Central and is one of the sweetest guys you could ever meet. And, by far, the best rapper I know. Ah the injustice of this world/industry. Soon come.