JOHN DREWS IS BACK ON PIANO, AND GRAHAM BROWN DEBUTS ON SAX, ON MICK NADIN'S "CUTTIN' LOOSE"

Cuppla weeks back, we had wrapped up Mick and Manny's 'Potential' (see post below) and were close to packing up. Mick said he had a new set of lyrics pretty much ready to go, so we started messing with it based on an acoustic piece of Manny's.  It sounded pretty good right from the get go and we thought we might focus on it the following week. 

What was different was that Graham Brown, until now the PBGB percussionista par excellence and frequent songwriter, was tootin' on his saxophone. Graham has been learning sax for a while now and indeed has taken it on stage a few times with the Bega District Big Band. But he has not, until now, brought his sax into The PBGB Shed. Well he has now, and you can expect to hear more of it on future PBGB ditties.

 

Meanwhile, before the following week rolled around we got a phone call from our old stompin'  brother John Drews. John said  he'd like to drop by The Shed sometime and say hello. Well we hadn't had a visit from John for three years or so, so we said "Sure, absolutely, come on down" .  Sure enough, the following Monday there was John's van at the Shed door and in he came with his new electric piano. Great !

 

We put two and two together, and realising that John would latch on to Cuttin' Loose lickety split we decided to spend the afternoon trying to get it down. And we did just that. Three, maybe four takes, and there it was !  Well, in truth, Graham was away on the day so we added his sax part the week after. 

We were very pleased with ourselves. It was great to see John again and we loved the spice he added to Mick's song. And Graham did a fine job on the baritone sax.

 

See what you think..........click HERE for a listen.

 

The song is pretty self explanatory.........the lyrics tell the story........."Cuttin' Loose from this crazy world, worn out scene, hit the track, ain't comin' back, won't look back". Everybody gets the blues sometimes !!

 

Mick Nadin wrote the lyrics and sang

Manny Aigner wrote the original music

John Drews played the keys

Graham Brown played the sax

Neil Porter played the guitar and produced

Louise Nadin played bass

Pete played the drums

NEIL BURNHAM DEBUTS ON THE MANNY AIGNER / MICK NADIN CO-COMPOSITION 'POTENTIAL'

We are very chuffed to announce that we have, AT LAST, been joined on a PBGB Shed recording by long time PBGB supporter and stalwart Neil Burnham. That's him smiling at you in the photo.

 

So we now have a Neil P, and a Neil B.

 

Neil B has been following The PBGB Shed with great interest and enthusiasm for many years. He is a longstanding personal friend and neighbour. We have known that Neil has a musical past and keyboard skills but Neil had muscular issues with his hands that prevented him from playing with any confidence. But thanks to the marvels of modern medicine Neil is now cured, his hands are fine, and he is IN THE SHED!

 

Neil debuts on our beautiful 1973 Fender Rhodes electric piano, which we call Frhodo, by contributing to the Manny Aigner / Mick Nadin co-composition 'Potential'

 

You can read all about Neil's musical journeys by clicking on The Musos tab above, then clicking on Neil's name.

 

Anyway, Potential...............another song which Manny brought to us fully formed as a guitar piece to which Mick said "I think I might have some lyrics which will fit this", and voila!........... they did.

 

We set about getting the basics down and it all came together very quickly. Basically nailed it straight out of the box, although we did add Graham's percussion at a later date, and Mick re-sang his vocal track. Best of all, Neil Burnham's piano part was good to go right from the start...........like the rest of us he had only first heard the bones of the song about an hour before the basics, including Neil's piano part, were recorded. Nice work Neil !!!  Give that man a PBGB T Shirt !!!

 

It's not hard to get the gist of 'Potential'. One listen makes it clear that Mick is urging people to have a go. We all have plenty of potential, no matter what  avenue we choose to pursue,  just get up and have a go. You can do it !! very positive stuff thanks Mick.

 

Have a listen by clicking HERE.

 

Manny Aigner wrote the music and played guitar

Mick Nadin wrote the lyrics, sang them and played harp

Neil Burnham played Frhodo

Neil Porter played the bass and did all the recording and production work

Graham Brown played percussion instruments

Pete played drums

MANNY AIGNER'S STARS ALIGN WITH 'MOONCHILD'.

Manny has been a great contributor to PBGBisms for nigh on six years now. He brings a level of musicianship that enables us to get songs together faster than we otherwise might. He 'guides' us as to what is musically appropriate, and can knock out strong rhythms and leads lickety split.

Moonchild is a classic example. Last week, most of the regular Shedders were absent due to travel and injuries. Graham was sporting a chronically sore shoulder and Mick and Louise were away skiing in Japan....... (they did submit a note).

 

So 'twas just Manny, Neil, Pete and a wounded Graham in situ.  What to do?

Well we knew Manny had a song in his kit-bag that he called Moonchild. "OK let's do it!"

 

Straight on with the recorder. Manny played rhythm guitar, Neil played bass and Pete hit the drums.

 

Well that all sounded pretty good, so Manny overdubbed some lead guitar parts. That sounded good too, so Manny put on the 'phones and sang his lyrics.

 

And that was about that. Neil took the tracks home and did his thang............added some percussive parts, balanced this with that, sprinkled some fairy dust around with a bit of gris gris thrown in, and VOILA..................Moonchild is with us.

 

Have a listen by clicking HERE

 

Cool aye?

 

Or as Graham Brown quipped.........."Manny from Heaven"

 

Now you may have thought this was a song about illicit drug consumption. Hmmmm. In fact the story behind the song comes from a music clinic Manny put on for a school for children with intellectual disabilities. Manny was touched by the warmth of the kids who dug what he was doing albeit seeing the world from a very different perspective.

 

Manny Aigner wrote the song, sang it and played guitar

Neil Porter played the bass, added extra percussion parts, and did all the recording and production work

Pete played the drums

MANNY AIGNER, GRAHAM BROWN, AND THE GANG PIECE TOGETHER 'NOTHING'S WHAT IT SEEMS'

The usual PBGB Shed story..........somebody has a riff, a melody or a snatch. Somebody else has a set of lyrics waiting for music. Or vice versa. Bits and pieces. 

"Nothing's What It Seems"  started with Manny bringing in a fully formed  guitar piece that we really liked.  We fooled about with it for a while, and settled on a drum and bass feel that we figured  worked pretty well.  Graham had a set of lyrics that he thought would work well with the tune. Mick fired up his vocal chords and gave them a crack. Voila !

 

Sounded good to us.

 

Neil turned on the recorder, and before long we had the basic tracks  of the whole song down.

 

Manny added a rhythm guitar track. Neil tightened up the bass track.

 

Done.

 

The story line is one of lost love. "We had it good, mutual desire, someone came along and put out the fire". After the fire goes out there is drinking, black dog depression, shattered dreams, and nothing's what it seems. A story too many of us can relate to.

 

Anyway, have a listen by clicking HERE

 

Hope yasall dig it !

 

Manny Aigner wrote the music and played the guitar parts

Graham Brown wrote the lyrics

Mick Nadin sang the song and played harp

Neil Porter played the bass and did all the recording and production work

Pete played the drums (and, as usual, wrote this text)

WHAT CAME TO BE 'LOVE TURNS AWAY'

Sometimes in The PBGB Shed a song morphs all over the place as it ripens. Probably a result of us often starting with nothing more than a riff or a beat.....whatever. Anything that gets our creative juices flowing. 

In the case of Love Turns Away, our starting point was a particular bass and drum  'sound' Pete was keen to chase.  We got that pretty well worked out and thought we could build a song on it.

Neil got a set of chords and a rhythm guitar pattern together and we were off.

Mick, as he often does, had a set of lyrics in his kit bag that he thought might fit. We tried it out, liked how it sounded, and decided to put two and two together.

   

It was early in song development and late in the day, so we decided to record a demo for ourselves, to take home and ponder what we each might do to spice it up.

 

As is often the case, once Neil gets a set of tracks together he starts fiddling. By the time we got back together Neil had pretty well transformed our basic demo into an almost fully developed song. He played it to us and we all thought it sounded great. Not what we were originally after, but then again we didn't really know what we were after, but we liked what we heard and decided to run with what Neil had come up with.

 

Manny and Mick, having only played the song once, dropped in a new lead solo and vocal track respectively. 

 

Back at home, Neil went back into action, adding some keyboards and some percussion parts and replacing bass and guitar tracks. It kept betting better.

 

Pete and Neil sat down and did some fiddling with the drum track, and Love Turns Away was pretty much done.

 

Sounds like THIS

 

Really a long way from what we started with, but that's cool..........we're more than happy with how it ended up. Hope you like it too!

 

Lyrically, it's a reminder that loving relationships can turn bad if you take your eye off the ball. "Hurt the one you love.......Love Turns Away.......and then you pay"

Credits:

Vocals/lyrics - Mick Nadin

Harmonica solo - Mick Nadin

Guitar solo - Manny Aigner

Rhythm guitar - Neil Porter

Bass/bass synths - Neil Porter/Louise Nadin

Keyboards - Neil Porter

Drums - Peter Reid

Production - Neil Porter

GRAHAM BROWN DREAMS.......A BLOODY NIGHTMARE.

Spending time in hospital can be a healing and/or harrowing  experience, as regular Shedder Graham Brown is well aware.  And of course, when surgery is involved, so are potent cocktails of all sorts of mind bending pharmaceuticals.  It may have been as a result of a drug induced dreamlike state that Graham started having nightmares about the quantities of blood being extracted from his body during a recent hospital episode.

 

Why did the late night nurse look so excited when she was about to take a sample? What was that red stain on the other nurse’s lip? Are vampires just the stuff of legend?  Or............??

Real or imagined, it was questions such as this that spurred Graham to start obsessing about vampires. Next thing you know he was jotting down lyrics to a song he eventually titled 'Ward Vampire'. Of course it is a piece of pure bleedin' fiction, which we had lots of fun extracting.

 

Got a taste for the red indeed!  HERE is what the Shedrats cobbled together around Graham's lyrics.

 

Hope y'all like it, and that it keeps the vampires at bay.

 

Graham wrote it, and played a deadly tambourine.

Mick Nadin sang and played harp

Manny Aigner played guitar - welcome back Manny !

Louise Nadin played the bass

Pete played the drums

Neil did the production

PETE DREAMS UP A DITTY 'BOUT A 'HITCH HIKIN' FOOL'.

Pure fantasy this little number.

It's a yarn Pete dreamed up about a dude who gets his rocks off  spending his weekends following fate to wherever and whatever his thumb takes him. Gets out on the Princes Highway, just north of Pambula, sticks his thumb out , and is more than happy to go waft off wherever a ride might take him. Further on up the road as it were.

 

On this occasion a beguiling temptress pulls up. Hmmmm.........

 

Story goes that around dusk they glide into Milton feeling a bit peckish. Pull into the pub, one drink leads to another, and another, and then...........well take a listen to the lyrics.

 

Didn't quite turn out as our blindly optimistic fool of a hero thought it might. But you know, them's the breaks. Close to a kewpie doll, but you can't win 'em all.

 

We'd been playing around with this one for quite a while. It started out as a sort of marching drum beat, but that didn't seem to have the legs ( as it were ). It stayed on the back burner for a while and nearly got lost in the queue. But we sort of liked the story so, you know, try this, try that. Eventually we figured "what the hell, it's only rock and roll". So out came the old four on the floor.

 

And HERE it is.

 

Works for us!

 

Pete wrote the lyrics and banged away on the drums

Mick Nadin belted out the lyrics  and blew his harp

Neil Porter played the guitar and did all the production work

Louise Nadin played the bass

Graham Brown gave the tambourine a thrashing

 

Good fun thanks team !!!

A HUMANS BEING WAKES UP TO FIND "SHE'S GONE"

The PBGB Shed has evolved over the years, what with so many musos coming and going, all the while doing their own thing outside life in the PBGB Shed.

There was a time when some of The Shed regulars split off and started rehearsing at our terrific  local community radio Sapphire FM studios in Pambula. That line up was Mick Nadin, Louise Nadin, Graham Brown, Steve Faggotter and Pete. After a while, Pete drifted away from that leaving the quartet of Mick, Lou, Graham and Steve to make a go of it.

 

Next thing we knew they had a repertoire and started  gigging. They are still at it and now perform regularly around the local traps. They go under the name Humans Being.

 

When potential venues started asking them for samples of their songs, they came into The PBGB Shed to record some quick demos. .

 

It's  traditional that we post at least a sample of whatever is recorded in The Shed, and as Lou, Graham and Mick are now part of the regular Shed line-up, we thought we'd post one of their demo recordings.

 

We chose a ditty they call "She's Gone".  Came up sounding  like THIS

 

It's a story about waking up in the morning feeling somewhat hungover and having trouble remembering just exactly what went on and what you said the night before. Oops, baby's gone.  What happened ? Can we rewind please? Baby please don't go.

 

Have a listen and if you like it, catch Humans Being at a gig near you!

 

The song came together with all players pitching ideas into the ring.

 

Graham Brown wrote the lyrics and played a plethora of  percussion instruments.

Mick Nadin sang and played harp.

Steve Faggotter played the guitar

Louise Nadin played bass

GRAHAM BROWN WARNS US ABOUT MRS. JEKYLL.............A DUAL REALITY ??

It's been  a while since we last posted a new song  on the PBGB blog, but now we’re back, with something different.

Graham has written a number of songs drawn from real life situations........the sort of  situations which most of us have faced at some point.  ‘Can’t Take it Back’ and ‘First Impressions’ , both of which you can listen to in the PBGB Vault,  are two examples. 

 

Mrs Jekyll (no relation to the original Dr Jekyll & Hyde of course!) is about the duplicity and the ability that some people have to hide their other, sometimes darker and more manipulative sides from us. 

 

Mrs Jekyll was written nearly two years ago.  At the time we tried different melodies and styles but gave up and pushed it to the back of the song queue.

 

But recently Graham decided to put it back on the table and suggested a particular Latin groove, with a more percussive feel.  

 

We’re more than happy with the result.  Mick’s vocals really bring the lyrics to life; the solid drum and bass duo of Pete and Lou keep the groove tight and give Neil, Mick and Graham the opportunity to add some spice with their instrumental interludes!  And, as always, Neil’s production is what makes it work.

 

We had lots of fun putting it together and we're pleased with the result. Click HERE to have a listen and see what you reckon

 

Graham Brown wrote the lyrics and played the percussion instruments

Mick Nadin sang it and played harp

Neil Porter played the guitar and did all the production work

Louise Nadin played the bass

Pete played the drums

 

Hope you like it!

MICK NADIN RETURNS WITH HIS 'IRIE WOMAN'

It's been a while, what with Covid restrictions and the holiday season, since the PBGB Shed has seen much action.

But recently we finally got the core crew back together and dusted off our instruments.

 

Perhaps surprisingly we seemed to be in good form. In fact we played through Mick's new song 'Irie Woman' a couple of times and figured we pretty much had it wired. So we switched on the recorder and reeled it off. We thought it came up pretty well.

 

Have a listen CLICK HERE and see what you think.

 

Mick tells us the story behind the song................

 

"This song was influenced by an old instrumental reggae rhythm. 

It was originally set to a faster tempo, but we slowed it down a bit and it turned out we liked it better that way.  

The melody line and lyrics just seemed to roll off the tongue so to speak."

 

Well Mick, what rolled off the tongue suited us just fine, so just keep that tongue rolling please.........so to speak. 

Mick Nadin - vocal, harmonica, writer

Peter Reid - drums

Louise Nadin - bass

Graham Brown - percussion

Neil Porter - guitar, production