MY ATTEMPTS AT MUSIC

2003 Recordings Bergamo, Italy All songs written and recorded by James Kettner Copyright 2003

Still Waiting For You (Final Rough Draft).mp3 –(November 26, 2003) Music and lyrics by James Kettner. All instruments played and recorded by me. That is about as far as I can take the rough draft. I’ll re-record it paying more attention to the quality when I’ve got the time.

Still Waiting For You (first scratch).mp3 – (November 21, 2003) wrote and recorded this track in one day. It’s not finished, but I really like the feeling. Think it’s one of the better songs I’ve written so far. I kept it up just to show what a little work can do to change a scratch track into a rough draft.

1990 Recordings Tampa, Florida

Recording made with an old Yamaha 4-track in 1990. These were all written and recorded over a three-month period with Lou Russo in Tampa, Florida. Lou is an excellent guitar player and also very good with the technical aspects of recording. You have to consider that in 1990 home studio gear was pretty new and we were lucky to have one of the few 4-tracks with Midi sync capabilities. Outboard gear was expensive and I don’t think there were programs yet like Cubase or Cakewalk. We did the best with what we had and were pretty happy to be so well equipped for a home studio. Unfortunately for the musical relationship with Lou, I moved to Europe at the end of the three months. This was really just the time we started to click. Some of the songs are unfinished. I’d like to think that if Lou and I had had more time to evolve together, we would have been able to produce some decent stuff. Oh, and yes almost all the guitar parts were down with the Rockman ……

Equipment Used (to the best of my memory):

-Yamaha 4-track recorder which had MIDI sync capabilities (really state of the art at the time)

-some really old drum machine (one of the first I think)

-a dbx compressor

-Alesis midiverb

-Yamaha mic

-Ibanez guitar through a Rockman

All songs co-written and recorded by James Kettner/Lou Russo Copyright 1990

Closed the Door Poppy song recorded with live drums

Take a Chance Another sappy pop song

Your'e the One Yet another sappy pop tune

Special Kind of Woman Trying to get a little Bluesy