Charloft Saturday - A Music History
Apr. 11th, 2009 10:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fey_fireWhat is your relationship and history with music?
The realization has only just now hit me fully. I'm sitting with the culmination of my relationship with music in my hands.
Breaker Street's debut CD.
After delays, debates and massive amounts of hard work, I am finally holding one of the first pressings. The full release hits stores next week. Our videos are ready to debut, we have radio and magazine interviews set up, plus a live spot in Times Square for Good Morning America. You have to give Robbie Fellowes credit, he and his PR team know how to get exposure for his new acts. He's been dropping our name like mad for months.
But the whole thing didn't feel real to me until now. So much has led up to this moment. Years stretching back to my childhood, singing with my family, the church choir, with cei li bands at dances and impromptu groups of musicians in pubs. I learned from anyone who would teach me, soaking up guitar, keyboards, composition. Writing my first songs. And then I moved to New York.
As the song goes, I played at parties, played in bars, I spent my money buying new guitars ...
Somewhere along the line, a passion took firm root. And when I decided that following my dreams meant forming a band, I searched and auditioned until I found six other people whose passions intersected with my own and Breaker Street was born.
This CD holds so much more than just the current end product of my musical history. It contains Junie Cabriano's verve and fire, the solo career she turned away from to join us; Nil Cameron's deep musical intuition and long session experience; all that Dave Rackley learned from the four other bands he gigged with before we found him; Marcus Kreske's communion with his drum set and thorough understanding of the club scene; Sascha Brockmann's flair, determination and her hard slog through Juilliard; and of course Morrie Dubrowski and his skill and precision at getting our music to the audience the way we want it heard.
All of that, distilled into a 14 x 12 centimeter concoction of plastic, paper, ink and recording media. Such a small thing, to encompass so much.
I can't even fully describe how I feel as I look at it. Accomplished, proud, yes. Grateful for my band mates and everyone else who put so much into the passion we share. Of course the media exposure won't be all positive no matter how hard we try, and there's the pressure cooker of our first tour to anticipate. And I can't help but taste a little bitter in the sweet, since someone I'd hoped would be here to share this time is not ...
... but for now I can just sit, listen and savor this moment of completion.
I wish I could include a play list of songs from the CD-- we went with time-honored tradition and just called our first album Breaker Street –but I would get in no small amount of trouble with the legal department of Serptichore Records, our label. I can see the long-suffering look Bernard Stockdale would give me. “Rory, don't you think your songs will wind up on the Internet soon enough without you helping them along?”
So instead I'll share a few tunes that reach back to my Irish Celtic roots.
Rory - Celtic Influence
*****
Obviously Rory's typist does not have the means or abilities needed to produce recordings of his songs. ;) But for those of you whose characters have an interest in music and might be inclined to check out a new band, here is the track list for Breaker Street's debut CD:
1. Bump Jack (infectious and playful)
2. Hiding From Me (wistful ballad)
3. Back Beat Woman (high octane, fire in the strings and blood pulse in the drum beat)
4. Undertow (achy, uneasy, fallen for the wrong person song)
5. Automatic Panic (energetic, intricate ... the nerves of trying to get with that special someone)
6. Word is Tender (soft and tinged with bittersweet)
7. Sweet Rhythm Overload (unabashed, get them on their feet and dancing music)
8. Nightwhispers (sultry, mellow, sensual)
9. Science of Goodbye (incisive, edgy, rather cynical)
10. Got the Sexay Goin' On (sassy, brassy, tongue firmly in cheek)
11. Done by the Heat (hard-driving, how can she use me and make me like it song)
12. Believer Girl (His song for Pippa)
All music and lyrics by Rory Stone, with Undertow and Got the Sexay Goin' On co-written by Junie Cabriano. For more information plus interview and photo op scheduling, contact Serptichore Records.
Muse: Rory MacEibhir / Rory Stone
Fandom: The Grey Horse by R.A. MacAvoy
Word count: 560
The realization has only just now hit me fully. I'm sitting with the culmination of my relationship with music in my hands.
Breaker Street's debut CD.
After delays, debates and massive amounts of hard work, I am finally holding one of the first pressings. The full release hits stores next week. Our videos are ready to debut, we have radio and magazine interviews set up, plus a live spot in Times Square for Good Morning America. You have to give Robbie Fellowes credit, he and his PR team know how to get exposure for his new acts. He's been dropping our name like mad for months.
But the whole thing didn't feel real to me until now. So much has led up to this moment. Years stretching back to my childhood, singing with my family, the church choir, with cei li bands at dances and impromptu groups of musicians in pubs. I learned from anyone who would teach me, soaking up guitar, keyboards, composition. Writing my first songs. And then I moved to New York.
As the song goes, I played at parties, played in bars, I spent my money buying new guitars ...
Somewhere along the line, a passion took firm root. And when I decided that following my dreams meant forming a band, I searched and auditioned until I found six other people whose passions intersected with my own and Breaker Street was born.
This CD holds so much more than just the current end product of my musical history. It contains Junie Cabriano's verve and fire, the solo career she turned away from to join us; Nil Cameron's deep musical intuition and long session experience; all that Dave Rackley learned from the four other bands he gigged with before we found him; Marcus Kreske's communion with his drum set and thorough understanding of the club scene; Sascha Brockmann's flair, determination and her hard slog through Juilliard; and of course Morrie Dubrowski and his skill and precision at getting our music to the audience the way we want it heard.
All of that, distilled into a 14 x 12 centimeter concoction of plastic, paper, ink and recording media. Such a small thing, to encompass so much.
I can't even fully describe how I feel as I look at it. Accomplished, proud, yes. Grateful for my band mates and everyone else who put so much into the passion we share. Of course the media exposure won't be all positive no matter how hard we try, and there's the pressure cooker of our first tour to anticipate. And I can't help but taste a little bitter in the sweet, since someone I'd hoped would be here to share this time is not ...
... but for now I can just sit, listen and savor this moment of completion.
I wish I could include a play list of songs from the CD-- we went with time-honored tradition and just called our first album Breaker Street –but I would get in no small amount of trouble with the legal department of Serptichore Records, our label. I can see the long-suffering look Bernard Stockdale would give me. “Rory, don't you think your songs will wind up on the Internet soon enough without you helping them along?”
So instead I'll share a few tunes that reach back to my Irish Celtic roots.
Rory - Celtic Influence
*****
Obviously Rory's typist does not have the means or abilities needed to produce recordings of his songs. ;) But for those of you whose characters have an interest in music and might be inclined to check out a new band, here is the track list for Breaker Street's debut CD:
1. Bump Jack (infectious and playful)
2. Hiding From Me (wistful ballad)
3. Back Beat Woman (high octane, fire in the strings and blood pulse in the drum beat)
4. Undertow (achy, uneasy, fallen for the wrong person song)
5. Automatic Panic (energetic, intricate ... the nerves of trying to get with that special someone)
6. Word is Tender (soft and tinged with bittersweet)
7. Sweet Rhythm Overload (unabashed, get them on their feet and dancing music)
8. Nightwhispers (sultry, mellow, sensual)
9. Science of Goodbye (incisive, edgy, rather cynical)
10. Got the Sexay Goin' On (sassy, brassy, tongue firmly in cheek)
11. Done by the Heat (hard-driving, how can she use me and make me like it song)
12. Believer Girl (His song for Pippa)
All music and lyrics by Rory Stone, with Undertow and Got the Sexay Goin' On co-written by Junie Cabriano. For more information plus interview and photo op scheduling, contact Serptichore Records.
Muse: Rory MacEibhir / Rory Stone
Fandom: The Grey Horse by R.A. MacAvoy
Word count: 560
