Shark Tale

It was the '80s. I was playing out live with my band. I wanted something that looked stunningly different, but was still a great guitar. This was it! It was an '80s rock guitar even if I was the only one that I knew that played one.

I bought it around '83. I played my O'Hagan Shark for years. I loved this guitar. My brother helped me yanked out the factory pickups and put in EMG-81 pickups. That was over 20 years ago. We also carefully attached a Washburn Wonderbar to the Shark tail. I had to change the guitar strap knob to get the crazy cool shape to not kill my shoulder after 4-sets with the band. This thing is as heavy as a shark. ha! It weighs approximately 9 lbs. It feels like 15 lbs because of the balance. BUT it is a super solid guitar with great action. It stayed in tune and I cranked on that whammy bar to help cover up for my short comings soloing. When it doubt dive bomb.

Time passes and my Shark as been dry docked in his case for some years. Replaced by a Parker Fly Deluxe. I got to thinking about the Shark and found a website dedicated to the whole O'Hagan line. Check out all the versions and more history at www.ohaganguitars.com

Mmmm...I could go for some shark fin soup now!


By the way, the photos I took today with my Palm Treo 650.

Gold Member

-- 10 O'Clock Report --

Oh my, I found the old cassette I was writing about a few hours ago. This is from around 1983 or maybe 1984.

FreeAstray was my band. If I was 18 right now (but I'm not) I'd wanna be in Theory Astray!

Ok back to my history. Over 20 years ago, I wrote this song. I played some of that guitar (yes that lovely intro lead) and sang the song. Recording at H&G Studios on a Tascam-38 eight track to 1/2" tape. I had no idea what I was doing other than I knew I wanted to write a song.

Here is Golden Dream.

I took this off an old cassette into Sound Forge 7. I think the belt or something needs replacing in this cassette machine. It was out in the garage for a few years. It's a Nakamichi MR-2.

Two Became We

I've been looking around for the first song I ever recorded with a "band" in a studio. I think I've found a cassette or two of that song, but now I need to hook up a cassette player. I have one in the garage. So stay tune for "Golden Dream" in the near future. I told myself a few years ago that I would someday do a remake of that song. Don't hold your breath.

Thinking about that song, got me thinking of other old recordings. Wow, I had a lot of stuff I recorded. I even recorded on 8-track tapes. I'm talking cartridge kind of 8-track. I don't have any of that old stuff anymore, but I have bag full of tapes that I should sort through and archieve...or maybe not. ha ha!

Ok, a little more current day or at least current day according to the calendar. The style of song I know the world is waiting to hear me singing and playing. It's "Two Became We" in all it's glory! I wrote this song a few years ago and then played (recorded) all the guitar parts with some drum loops. I then mixed it with a lot of compression. I just saved it as an MP3 tonight as I ran across the demo on my computer. Here is the demo for Two Became We.

Broadjam

I signed up for Broadjam last summer when I decided that I wanted to have some motivation to actually complete (i.e finish) some songs.

1. To arrive at or attain the end of: finish a song.
2. To bring to an end; terminate: finished recording a song.
3. To consume all of; use up: finish a pie.
4. To bring to a desired or required state: finish a painting.
   
5. To give (wood, for example) a desired or particular surface texture.
6. To destroy; kill: finished the bad guy.
7. To bring about the ruin of: The stock market crash finished many speculators. (ha!)

The motivation was becoming a Taxi member, but the Broadjam membership gave me my own spot to upload my songs. Broadjam also has a "review" system built into their design. You get "feedback" from other songwriters. The design of having other wanna be songwriting reviewing my songs is a bit flawed, but it's interesting to see how much people either hate or like my songs.

I'm having fun with it!

Here's the most recent review I've gotten:

Your songs reviewed by Broadjam members Review of Song: Cool Creek - featuring Joe Retta General Overview Do you listen to this genre on a regular basis? Yes What Genre is most appropriate for this song? Pop What is an appropriate title for this song? cool creak Song Analysis Does this song have market potential? 4/5 Quality of Lyrics 3/5 Originality of Song 4/5 Quality of the Hook 4/5 Quality of Instrumentation 5/5 Quality of Arrangement 5/5 Would you like to hear more from this artist? 1/5 Instrumentation Quality of Vocal Pitch 5/5 Production Quality of Recording 5/5 Overall Rating 4/5 Positive Comments A really good sounding song- rockin! Constructive Comments The theme / words don't draw me in

Kiss Me Again

About a year and half ago, I wrote lyrics and music for a song that I named "Kiss Me Again". Though I'm not a big George Michael fan, it kind of reminded me of something he might do. Ok, maybe my imagination is out of wack. Anyway, I usually just let songs I'm writing go in whatever direction they seem to want to go. I demo'd (played all the parts and sang) the song myself. I'll stick the demo right HERE.

Ok that's the demo.

I decided to get some more musicians involved on this one. Over the past year, I've slowly been getting this song flushed out more and more. It's continued to turn into more of a rock song. I'm going to stick the latest version right here. This is a more acoustic rock version with Joe Retta singing. Lance Morrision is playing the nice bass part. Kurt's playing the tasty lead lines. Ron Wikso all the percussion. Wally Minko is on organ. I mixed this verison of Kiss Me Again last night.

We do have a bunch of other tracks completed. Ron played a big drum part on this Foreigner drum set. He really does have his old Foreigner tour kit setup in his studio. Kurt and I have added a bunch more guitars. Wally's got some electric piano tracks. Lance did another version of the bass track I'm still debating about. We have a bunch of layered vocals I did.

I wanted to to get this mix completed first. Last night's version is a little more mellow than what my finished version will likely be.

This is me finishing (in under an hour) a very hilly 10k race today!