 |
Tale of the Red Jester
|
|
This album, Ralo's debut album, topped the charts for 7 weeks "at
a time... in a row"! Completed with the members of the band Ralo
and the Popsicle Sticks, this band also had special guest artist,
50's superstar, PumpaJack!
-Pumpa (Manager) |
|
"This was our debut album. The band
and I used this to learn the
recording tools, like mixers and such. It's got some good
tunes, but but we still had a lot to learn."
-Chris (Sound Engineer) |
|
This was my first attempt to
write and perform music. When people tell me my music sucked, I just
say, 'So! Your mama!', and that usually clears up any
problems."
-Ralo (Singer/Song Writer) |
MP3's:
|
| *****The Asterisks
show
the quality level of the tune in Ralo's world or from fan feedback on a per
song basis. If
you only plan to download one or two songs, download the 5 star ones.
When you're done, shoot us an email
to help our ranking system. |
|
|
|
Song
|
About the Song
|
Production
|
|
Hershey's Kiss Me**** |
This is the first song I wrote. It's obviously
about Hershey's kisses, those tasty chocolate morsels almost no-one can
deny. Just an exercise in a bluesy tune, I wanted to make a mellow
kind of tune, envisioning a group of later-teen/early twenties in-crowd
sitting around a sidewalk shop sharing a bag of kisses. |
The first song I recorded, I used the keyboard for
drums, the electric guitar for both guitar fills, leads, and the bass
notes too. To get the bass notes, I used CoolEdit to drop the
frequency an octave (or two?). This has been the favorite of the
album, and I've played an acoustical version of it live with family and
friends.
|
|
Tale of the Red Jester*** |
This tells the heroic tale of an unassuming farmer in a
small village. The village gets attacked by a dragon that has been
asleep for years, wakes up, and decides its time for dinner and
plundering. The farmer (The Red Jester) eventually meets up with
the dragon, slays him, and returns to his hum-drum life. |
This is the most complicated orchestration on the alum,
allowing me to really explore the capabilities of CoolEdit extensively
for the first time. For the intro, I used long-time bass player
David Geoghegan's prize bass from the days when he was with Captain
Midnite. I used a glass finger slide with a tapping motion on that
intro and through out the song giving sort a pop and tink to the guitar
intro and fills. I used the Epiphone for the guitar fills
and a few effects in CoolEdit. For the dragon voice effects, I
grated my voice and dropped it an octave in CoolEdit.
|
|
Cantankerous Jester*** |
Just a quick diddy I pounded out one day exploring a more
brash, less orchestrated composition than most of the other tunes on the
album. I enjoyed using a rough, "Pumpa Jack" voice
here, as it seem most appropriate. I see Pumpa Jack and his old
blues town friends sitting around a small club hammering out the tune
off the cuff. |
Acoustic jam with an guitar given to me by my brother,
Anthony Harden, who is the creative force behind Panama City Women also
featured on this site. I
also used the keyboard set to a saloon mode, synth drums on the
keyboard, bongos, and harmonica on a twelve bar blues pattern.
This is probably my favorite from this album, because it has a lot of
energy and sounds a bit raw.
|
|
Meeting Laurie** |
This is a lengthy instrumental where I explored some
simple patterns and wanted to create a light feeling and flow. |
On this composition, I used the electric guitar,
the keyboard set on studio piano, and on harp, as well as using it for
some percussions, and the harmonica.
|
|
Lester** |
Here's a fun tune playing with bashful love between a
Jester and a Fairy. The Jester wants to win her heart by using
magic, but in the end learns he doesn't have to, cause she likes him
too. |
The ocarina is the main element in this tune, in addition
to guitar, piano, shaker, some wooden sticks.
|
|
