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Home Recordings From San Diego, CA
If you like or hate the songs feel free to let me know in an email (hdm@hammerdownman.com). If you really like the stuff then I'll send you the hammer down man CD for 5 bucks (postage included in the continental U.S.) delivered right to your door. Check out www.hammerdownman.com for more info.
2002 Year of the Smooth
Instruments: Guitar, Vocals, Ambient sounds of airplanes and fireworks.
The Plan: I wrote and recorded this in the evening of December 31st, 2001 while waiting for a friend to pick me up. It’s multi-layered guitars based in an altered tuning I can no longer remember. Some heavily reverbed monk vocals in the background help to round it out. You can hear fireworks and airplanes that I recorded from my porch that night.
Right Click Here 2002 Year of the Smooth
I Said I Don’t Ever Want To Forget
Instruments: Guitar, Vocals, Alesis Airsynth, Ambient sounds of airplanes.
The Plan: Another piece based on an altered tuning. Easy to listen to and soothing even when the vocals are bit flat. Because I lived in the flight path (Ocean Beach, San Diego) the roar of airplanes are in most of the recordings I made there.
I Said I Don’t Ever Want To Forget
Angola Rodeo
Instruments: Vocals, Guitar, Djembe, A toaster tray full of wood screws struck with a spoon, Ebow guitar.
Guests: Andy Huse - Vocals
The Plan: Andy wrote this in preparation for meeting in New Orleans to visit The Angola Prison Rodeo! We recorded it on my laptop in the funky bed and breakfast we took over. It is a cool, dark confession story with lots of room for the guitars and vocals to stretch out.
Right click here to download Angola Rodeo
Click here for lyrics
Oh Yeah, I Know
Instruments: 12 string Guitar, Harmonica
The Plan: No plan, just a mood guitar piece with a little harmonica. Nice and short.
Right Click here to download Oh Yeah, I Know
Old Pictures of an Old Town
Instruments: Vocals, Banjo, Guitar, Harmonica, Sounds of heavy machinery and radio transmissions recorded at work, clock radio broadcast of a college radio DJ talking about a song I requested “This one goes out to Shawn, it might be Shane but I think it’s Shawn…”
Guests: Joel McLeod – Banjo
The Plan: A song of the heartland written and recorded with Joel in a Madison, Wisconsin hotel room in August, 2005. We were in town working at ESPN’s Great Outdoor Games (basically lumberjack games). Joel’s beat up old banjo, heavy machinery and radios, lonely harmonica, lyrics of how an old farmer views a changing world.
My Buscarino Guitar
Instruments: Drums, Bass, Guitar, Vocals
Guests: Bert – Drums, Cale Hix – Bass, Scott Gould – Recording Engineer
The Plan: A funk recording project that we just started. This improv jam happened when Cale asked me how I got my guitar. This was my response. This jam is totally fun and totally funky.
It’s Gonna Be Hard
Instruments: Drums, Bass, Guitar, Vocals
Guests: Bert – Drums, Cale Hix – Bass, Scott Gould – Recording Engineer
The Plan: Another improv jam with a great beat and bass line. Fun wah delay guitar and easy lyrics “my mama she told me sometimes it’s a gonna be hard.”
Right Click here to download It’s Gonna Be Hard
Chainfall
Instruments: Drums, Bass, Guitar, Vocals
Guests: Danielle LoPresti – Vocals, Cliff Almond – Drums, Dave – Bass, Peter Carpentier – Recording Engineer
The Plan: Chainfall is a grandiose studio creation with an extended rockin’ solo at the end. Features killer drumming by Cliff, amazing backing vocals by Lo Presti and layered guitars to the hilt. The song begins with a guitar with all the strings tuned to D flat. This studio produced and edited piece never made it on to my CD because I felt it didn’t rock the right way (and though I was always proud of the lyrics I was also embarrassed by my vocals).
Right Click here to download Chainfall
Click here for lyrics
Spring To Fall
Instruments: Guitar, Vocals, Organ, Harmonica, Sampletank Programming
Guests: Joel McLeod – Organ
The Plan: The first coast to coast musical collaboration between friends. I sent the complete pro tools session to my friend Joel in NYC via the internet. He added the organ and sent it back. The song’s percussion is a repeating arppegiated dual guitar bed. The female vocal lead was programmed with Sampletank in Pro Tools. Interesting chords and some background oohs and ahs fill in the empty spots. The lyrics are about growing up and apathetically growing old, hence the play on words Spring to Fall.
Right Click here to download Spring To Fall
Click here for lyrics
No Stay No More
Instruments: Banjo, Guitar, Vocals, Knee Slaps, Floor Stomps, Spoken Background
Guests: Joel McLeod – Banjo, Slaps, and Spoken Word
The Plan: An interview with Joel about nothing serves as a background serves as another exercise in apathetic depression. Though the mic’ing of interviews, knee slaps and floor stomps made for excessive background noise, the song seems to sound exactly as it should, to say exactly what it does.
Right Click here to download No Stay No More
Click here for lyrics
Shady Deal
Instruments: Sampled 1960’s funk beats, bass, guitar
The Plan: A fun funk creation. When I recorded I forced myself to use the bridge bass line even though it was out of key, hence the odd key change at a couple of points during the song. Plenty of guitar solos with wah and delay and lots of other juicy stuff. Astute rock ‘n rollers will find a beat lifted from 311’s Stealing Happy Hours at the end.
Right Click here to download Shady Deal
Smooth Sailin’
Instruments: Vocals, Guitar, Egg Shells, Bongos, Mini Mexican Accordian
Guests: Andy Huse - Vocals
The Plan: Another song written by best friend Andy, Smooth Sailin’ is a great number about his mom’s sailing school. Andy arrived in San Diego for a visit with this song in his pocket but we had too much fun getting out and about to record it until the last night. We got drunk while we recorded it and had a lot of fun.
Right Click here to download Smooth Sailin’
Birth
Instruments: Samples from 20 or so artists including Enya, The JB’s, White Zombie, Mano Negra, Live, Last Crack, The Lounge Lizards, Vai, Overkill.
The Plan: I sat down at the computer in the fall of 2000 and eight hours later stood up and had this. A poppy little number named “Birth” because that is what it felt like moving to San Diego, breaking up with the girl I moved out there with and starting over.
Right Click here to download Birth
Cool August Night
Instruments: Guitar, Harmonica, Keyboard, Bowl of change, crumpled tin foil struck with pencil.
The Plan: It was a cool night in San Diego in 2000. Of course every night is cool in San Diego when you come from Tampa Bay Florida. It is a mood piece of a quiet evening with low lights.
Right Click here to download Cool August Night
Decemberence
Instruments: Guitar, Drum Samples, Vocal Percussion
The Plan: A short mood guitar piece with plenty of effects and some beat box drums. Recorded in December of 2006.
Right Click here to download Decemberence
Finding Morricone
Instruments: Old funk beat samples, Guitar, Bass
The Plan: A simple piece based on one of the main themes of the soundtrack for The Good The Bad and the Ugly. It is a sparse musical interlude that I eventually remixed for my dad with no drum sample.
Right Click here to download Finding Morricone
Shane Sanchez
Instruments: Vocals, Guitar, Whistling, Sampled beat from Sly and the Family Stone’s “Dance to the Music”
Guests: Andy Huse – Vocals, Jesse Salazar – Spoken Vocals, Joel McLeod - Whistling
The Plan: Written after a debaucherous visit with Andy and Jesse to Rosarito, Mexico. Jesse repeatedly offered translations that people were constantly asking if I was Shane Sanchez for whom the whole country was seeking out for retribution of heinous crimes. Andy retells the visit as though I were an outlaw. Jesse offers a drunken spoken word, and Joel’s whistling offers a western feel. The tongue in cheek performance is so fun that it allows me to forgive this one for all its faults.
Right Click here to download Shane Sanchez
Click here for lyrics
Irish Family
Instruments: Guitar, Vocals, Pennywhistle, Sampled Drums
Guests: Mike Gustafson – Pennywhistle, The 20th and E crew – Vocals
The Plan: “If my grandmother Kay were still here today she would laugh like a racehorse and light up the day.” Irish Family is a two chord Irish drinking song. My buddy Mike G. said upon hearing the vocals, “did you gargle rocks before you sang that?” I wanted a gravelly tone so I recorded the vocals right after I woke up one morning. I don’t expect many people who aren’t in my family to download this but it is kind of fun. Mike G purposefully butchered his pennywhistle part because he is a cynic with a soft middle who hates and loves everything in life.
Right Click here to download Irish Family
Click here for lyrics