BLUESLOOP-98

[Michael Messer]

I found this earlier today. It was an experiment with looping that I did when I first got into using Sonic Foundry Acid Pro software.

It's just a backing track....



Shine On
Michael

[Michael Messer]

It was a long time ago, but listening to it today I think I can hear three Elmore James tracks, one Bukka White and a Robert Johnson.....

I guess that's why I never pursued it and put in on an album

Shine On
Michael

[Deleted]

I can hear a bit of moby too!
TT

[Michael Messer]

TT, I was doing that type of stuff in 1994/5 on the MOONBeat album and various bits and bobs like this one right through from 94 onwards, as was Skip McDonald AKA Little Axe. Skip put out 'The Wolf that House Built' at around the same time. I think our records made it across the Atlantic. I believe that Skip actually tried to do something through the courts, but it was too late. I had not heard any of Moby's album, apart from one single, until after I had recorded Second Mind and people said it was similar to Moby's work. I was not influenced in any way by Moby. I was not influenced by Skip McDonald either, we were just on a similar mission at the same time. Also on that same type of mission around that time was RL Burnside & Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and a few years later, RL's remix album 'I Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down'. I didn't hear any of these records until after Second Mind was recorded. I was just doing my own thing and then people started talking about these other blues records that were using loops and samples. Syncronicity....I guess...

If I find any more like that I will post them on here.

Shine On
Michael

[slide496]

It didn't occur to me to associate it with moby or Burnside. It sounded like early development of the second mind sounds and I found I could sort of fit rhythm licks along the lines Fred Mcdowell to go along with it in open A.

It kind of reminded me, as a sound experiment, of a video I saw of Robert Belfour where he played the same lick over and over for about 5 minutes, or some of the Robert Wilkins I've been listening to where he would repeat a word or a phrase at strategic points, play licks with little variation and that was it for the song - and here I thought that was what you were experimenting with the turntable, if thats what that was.

It's amazing to me to hear the experiment, and having heard the brilliant and innovative Second Mind, to project the additional overlays of instruments and vocal that eventually would make the full arrangement.

[Michael Messer]

Hi Harriet,

I think the connection people made with Second Mind and Moby was more to do with the use of ancient blues sounds, rather than the structure and groove of the music. Second Mind was not done using loops and building tracks on a computer, which is how Moby and RL's records were made. On most of the tracks we just played live as a band in the studio with the turntable plugged into the board. No loops or computers. With a couple of tracks we recorded a hiphop drum pattern from vinyl loop records onto the tape and then we all, including the drummer, played to that. I preferred vinyl loops, especially ones that have been used lots, because they sound all gnarly and scratchy. The main drum groove on Blue Letters is a vinyl loop.

You are right about Bluesloop-98 being a sound experiment early development that led to Second Mind. I tried a few different ways of approaching the idea before we settled on just playing live as a band and going with that, which is exactly what we did in 1995 when we recorded MOONbeat. The main difference was that MOONbeat was a digital recording and was not trying to sound analogue and funky. I was trying to find a way of incorporating old scratchy blues records, modern rhythms and songs, and the sound of classic analogue recording, without it sounding like a hiphop experiment. Hopefully we got there!

Thanks for your very complimentary comments about Second Mind.

What very few people know (until now) about Second Mind was that it was never meant to be made. The studio was booked, the musicians were booked, and I was booked to produce/record an album with Louisiana Red. Three weeks before we were due to record, due to what we eventually found out was a misunderstanding, Louisiana Red pulled out of the deal. The record company didn't know what to do because it was too late to pull out without paying everyone, so I said....."I'll make a record. It's my band, my regular studio...etc, all I need to do is to write and create an album. I'll be ready in three weeks!" And that's how it came to be. We were planning to record a new MM album that year, but not in three weeks time.

Red and I were great friends and he always felt bad about what happened, but actually he did me a great favour by pulling out of the deal.

Shine On
Michael.

[slide496]

Thanks for the backstory!