Steve Ford Soundclick Player

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Up and at 'em... fiiinally.

So a month ago my computer suddenly stopped working. Just wouldn't boot up. Nothing i tried worked, and soon panic set in... to keep this a very short story, i had to wipe everything and start over but have been told by my techno-ninja friend that he copied my ever precious data (including every piece of music i have ever recorded in my entire life) to an external hard drive.
yay.
So today, after weeks of trouble shooting, virus scans, reformating, reinstalling, updating, debugging, etc... I fiiinally have my music making machinery all up and running... and i have quite a lot of pent up tunage in my head. In 6 torrid tune filled hours I sketched out 3 totally different song ideas. double yay. Once i finally figure out how to get all my old data off this linux configured external drive that my meganerd buddy saved it to, I will also have access to the 5 or so tunes that are totally ready to be mixed down, rendered and shared with the world. Meaning all like 10 people that ever listen to my stuff, but still... I'm excited. It has been far tooo long, and it's hard to get much momentum going with all the unfortunate interruptions yo.
anyhoodle.
Hopefully i'll have something soon!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

New Song - The Broken Keys Redemption

Hey! So, i've had this track kicking around for almost a year... and as much as i liked it I never really knew what to do with it. It just kind of sat there with a date as a title for a long time, but recently it has been coming up more often in my media players and it reminded me to share it i guess. Unfortunately i still had no title.

I had let another music-making friend hear it, and he immediately commented that the piano sound i was using for the bass line was "broken". I think he meant it as a compliment, ha. I'd mangled it pretty good with EQ, and de-tuned it, and ran it through guitar amps and such. Since then it was 'broken keys'. After i'd redone the brass parts to be bigger and better I wanted to add something to hint at its uplifting quality... and thus the new title yo.

I have absolutely NO idea what bloody "genre" this is supposed to be classified as. Unfortunately, no encoder or website yet has "Good" or "Kick Ass" listed as a category of music.
SO... tell you what. Take a listen folks, and then please let me know.

The Broken Keys Redemption (on Soundclick.com/SteveFord)

/Peace & Loud Music

Friday, May 29, 2009

Absence and Attonment

So... It's been a while hey?
I would love to say i've been too busy to blog, too productive to post, to uproariously uplifted to upload... but it would be a lie. There is absolutely NO good reason why i haven't been writing here more regularly, and why i haven't been putting up a tune a week really. I haven't been working on new material -nearly- as much as i should, but i have quite a few tracks sitting about waiting to be heard. So what do i have coming up to talk about, such as to motivate me to actually follow through on sharing it?
-Some piano-mangled brass bustin' funkesque goodness for starters.
-Last week i put together a track inspired by just how much of a curve ball roller coaster this spring has been.
-Also, i finally mixed up the first couple of tracks on an EP of 4 or 5 songs i've been working on all with song titles inspired by a friends bathroom renovations. So i can start posting them soon as well!
-Lastly, I've been playing a set of 3-5 finger strummed tunes on the acoustic for months that sound similar to each other in style that i should really get around to recording them.

Ok then. Projects are on the go, and older material does exist for me to upload...
So.
Less excuses.
More music.

/peace.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

...Licking the Knife Will Get You Nowhere


One should not be in such a Rush to taste a sharpened Tool, afterall...



...Licking the Knife Will Get You Nowhere. (on Soundclick.com)
...Licking the Knife Will Get You Nowhere. (on Last.fm)

After stealing the idea for the song title from Jon, taking a suggestion from 3D (which is what i've decide to call David DeDourek from now on to save space, ha) about writing something in an odd time signature, and throwing in a heavyish guitar riff i'd been working on... well, i've got this... about two and a half minutes of rockness.

[throws horns]


...nice kitty.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

mmmm.. Chili and updates.

Heyo,
So i made some seriously tasty chili this afternoon while working on a new tune... guess i was cookin' in both the kitchen -and- the studio. I've gotten a pretty decent draft of a few different sections for the tune, and could leave it as is if necessary, so i quit for the day and came up to feeeeed.
What is it going to taste like?
Well, let's just say that a suggestion from David DeDourek to write something in 7/8 time to cure my boredom combined with a Tool-like riff i'd been kicking around and a song title I stole from one of my buddy Jon Ernst's photo captions has all added up to tasty...
mmmm.... chili.
Stay tuned and hopefully i'll have at least the draft mp3 posted on Monday yo.
Cheers!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

New Song - Sunny February Afternoon


So last Friday was an absolutely beautiful damn day.
After all the cold and snow earlier in the week, there were still drifts of undisturbed white out in the yard... and then of course, as the weather is apt to do here in Calgary, it changed totally and went from bitter winter to totally gorgeous. Clear and sunny and nice, and somehow all the ways i'd felt crappy all week kinda just melted off and were warmed and replaced by this very quiet contentment... it started with a very simple acoustic thing (that starts the song)... just two strings, a simple passage... that kind of just grew as an idea along with my own feeling of... Not ass? Ha.
From earlier in the week and all the self-reflective ass kicking and discouragement and blahblahblah to this simple moment of clarity and contentment and peace into something more active, something bigger and fuller. Quiet joy perhaps. The song and I. Bright and crisp.

Anyhoodle. It turned out not-so-bad for something that grew out of nothing quite organically on a sunny February afternoon, and so i have posted it on my Soundclick page and may get around to putting it up on the last.fm sometime too. If you want to go directly to the song's page on soundclick instead of the artist page you can click either the title or the picture.

Peace and loud music,
Steve

Sunday, March 1, 2009

SplatterSking - Good times at the Yard Sale

So, i finally went skiing again for the first time in years a couple Sundays ago on the 15th. A friend of mine gave me a pair of his used skis, lightly damaged, and harassed me incessantly to come out. I had a tiny bit of post-Christmas/Birthday gift card action and cash left, so i went for it despite my intense poverty.

I am so glad i did. It was awesome. I'd forgotten how much damn fun it can be. There were seven of us who went up to Sunshine and spent the day skiing and goofing around laughing at each other and generally having a helluva good time. I'd forgotten. Forgotten the fun, forgotten to freedom of it, the beauty, the purity, the rhythm.

Paulie had his camera up, and in addition to a bunch of pics he caught some pretty classic moments on video... including the absolutely perfect video he has posted of Jer coming in fom out of nowhere at high speed to put a severe snowing on Dr.T, ha... and to make it so much more priceless, at that exact moment i come in to frame and fully BAIL. Faceplanted. I was laughing so hard it was tough to breathe.

Dr. Snow & the Great Ford Yard Sale

I'm still surprised i wasn't hurt. Anyway, it still makes all of us laugh every single time we watch it. It is in fact, a perfect representation of the good times and the feeling of that day. Enjoy.

Monday, February 2, 2009

-sigh- I don't even blog on my own music sites, why would i use this?

-sigh-
I have come to realize that i am not much of a blogger, and not much of a forum user, and not much of a self-promoter at all... on or off the internet.
I've never bothered to use any of the blogging capabilities of any of the sites i have ever used, joined, or frequented. I haven't even taken advantage of them on sites dedicated to distributing and promoting my music! I probably should have been posting regularly for a long time on my SoundClick pages , or on my last.fm artist page or my iLike page, but no... not me. Instead, once every few months when i remember to update something i make a brief and largely uninteresting post that no one reads. Kinda like this one.

Similarly, given that my best exposure musically has come from my contributions to Pure Pwnage (check out the Season One Soundtrack for instance), i have tried in the past to maintain some presence in the forums there to try and stay somewhat connected with some people who actually really liked my work. I should have used that great community to help some other people out, and to help me out as well... Unfortunately, i haven't done a very good job there either.

So why am i here?
Well, i'm really not sure. To be quite honest (something of a fault of mine), i will be pretty damn surprised if i end up using this at all. On the other hand, i know quite a few folks out there in the ether who thought precisely the same thing.
meh.

I suck at self-promotion.

Introduction

Heyo.

My name is Steve. I am cool. I make musics.

also,
i like cheese.