When I first started down this road to begin my adventure on the world wide web, I decided that I'd like to have a section called “Lost Tracks” on this site. The title mostly refers to a few cardboard boxes filled with cassettes that contain a lot of unfinished music from way back when. Some of the pieces were written for a band but recorded without one, some are songs or instrumentals that were finished but only roughly recorded so they wouldn't be forgotten, some are songless lead guitar parts, melodies, rhythms, fingerstyle phrases, bits and pieces of things, etc. In other words, stuff you save for years in the hopes of using it someday.
My musical partner for a lot of these tunes was my good friend Louis Riel. I can assure you that he is real and that that is his real name. Though my writing sometimes pays little attention to the usual boundaries between fantasy and reality, I have never played guitar with the guy on the postage stamp. Having said that, I'm open to doing so if anyone has a time machine. Our sometimes drummer, on the other hand, Dr. Rhythm, is as real or imaginary as you want him to be. He told me to say that.
The three of us didn't like the idea of our music fading away in a cupboard without it having been heard. We had a lot of fun creating it and the few people who did hear it seemed not to mind that it was a little rough. Maybe someone else can get something out of it too. And I think that people tend to be interested in the process of creation and the beginnings of things.
Though we may soon be working on some new music, it's also possible that someday in the near future, we may polish up some of these old pieces and release them as an album or two. Have a listen. If you feel they're worth working on, maybe you could let us know. Any feedback, positive or negative, is welcome. For myself, never having released anything like this before, I'm kind of curious as to what the world might think. So here's the first in a series of Lost Tracks, brought to light and life from a dusty sleep of too many unheard years.
“Nomad"
Written by John Kirnan and Louis Riel
Drums – the incomparable Dr. Rhythm
Acoustic rhythm guitar – Louis Riel
Lead electric guitars – John Kirnan
Possibly interesting fact – the solo toward the end of the piece was improvised while recording it. I mention that because my main memory of this track is being really surprised when what I had played fit perfectly into the space available and felt exactly like I had wanted it to.
Possibly interesting fact no. 2 – “Nomad” is an instrumental. When I wrote the melodies for it, I was imagining a woman of a nomadic tribe dancing in the desert.
Possible reason for returning to this post – I think we may do a video for “Nomad” of, yes, you guessed it, a woman dancing in the desert. Stay tuned.
To check out the first Lost Tracks song, right-click on this link and select Save Link As to download the mp3 file: Nomad
Feel free to share this post
Follow us
