slide – Wheal Alice Music

Paper City Revisited

backup:

Rough mix, for the present.

A cheerful rock ‘n’ roll-ish ditty about the breakdown of the global economy, written in the very early 80s. These days I wonder which will go first: the economy, or the globe.

I woke up with my mind’s eye facing your direction:
I looked hard and I saw you needed help.
You’re choking on paper and tape and legislation,
But you can’t produce one thing to help yourself.

Paper city at the heart of a paper empire:
You’ve got strings to pull, you’ve got wires all over the earth.
Sky-climbing parasite, concrete and paper jungle,
You’ve got money to burn, but I know you’d rather freeze to death.

You’ve got stacks of stocks and shares and bonds:
You’ve got telephone and telex,databank and dateline too.
But you can’t produce as much as one lead pencil,
Or a bar of soap, or a rubber band to pull you through.

The media twitch at the flash of a freemason’s handshake:

Speeches are made and the punters gather round;
Paper politicians and faceless company men,
Taking the pulse of an ailing paper pound.

I bet you know just what you’re worth on paper:
When the market crumbles, what will that do to you?
So many cold people don’t own the earth they lie in:
Will you be all right in your green-lined paper tomb?

Paper city at the heart of a bankrupt empire:
Your towers get higher as your assets hit new lows.
Nose-diving parasite, I wouldn’t mind you dying,
But you’ll take so many with you when you go.

Bootup Blues (slide version)

I thought I’d released this slide version, but apparently not. Anyway, I’ve done some tweaking in Audacity: I’ll think about a commercial release. He said, threateningly…

The song must be a good 25 years old, though I’ve tweaked the lyrics a bit since then. No iPads in those days – the original lyric said ‘Amstrad’!

(Backup)

Available as a .WAV from Bandcamp.

When I woke up this morning
My laptop wouldn’t boot at all
I said I woke up this morning
And tossed my Tosh against the wall
My baby took the mains adapter
And the battery’s screwed beyond recall

Well she left me for some guy
With a 99GHz overclocked PC
And now she’s interfacing
With his RS232C (he’s a serial womanizer)
She said my hard disk was too small
To satisfy
Her new spreadsheet

I wouldn’t treat an iPad
The way that woman treated me
She fragmented my hard disk
And ran off with my Angry Birds DVD
Left me nothing but this boot sector virus
And a copy of Wordstar version 3.3
Dah-diddy-dah-diddy-dah-diddy-dah…

New Album – Dinosaur Tracks

Hat tip to Ken Bechtel, who for some reason suggested that ‘Dinosaur Tracks’ would be a suitable title for a Harley album. Be that as it may, the album is now available on Bandcamp.

Here’s an MP3 the track that’s featured on Bandcamp: ‘Butterfly’

Dinosaur Tracks cover art

When I started to do many more of my own songs, back in the 1970s, much of my repertoire was blues-based, and my own songs reflected that bias, including most of the songs here. The performances here are mostly demo-quality, mostly taken from cassettes rather than studio performances, but the fingers and the voice were generally in better shape than they are nowadays. The guitar in particular is generally pretty decent on these tracks. And while I’m less blues-oriented nowadays, I think these songs fit quite nicely into the genre, and my opinion is, of course, quite unbiased.

These are all ‘live’ recordings with no overdubs except for the lead break on ‘Lady Luck’ and the slide on ‘This Guitar Just Plays The Blues’. All the songs are mine, and all the guitars and vocals are me.

1. Butterfly (Over The Hill)
2. Southside
3. Bootup Blues
4. Wearing Out My Shoes
5. Stranger In Uniform
6. Sylvie (Letting go)
7. This Guitar Just Plays The Blues
8. Scratch One Lover
9. Low In The Water
10. Soleares
11. Lady Luck
12. Drunk Last Night
13. Odd Job Man
14. Down To The River

Released July 12, 2021

David Harley

‘Ten Percent Blues’ Album

Now available (and listenable) at Bandcamp.

1. Make It Pay 01:30
2. Butterfly (Over The Hill) 03:43
3. The Road 03:13
4. Anywhere 03:12
5. Ten Percent Blues 03:42
6. Now How Long 03:45
7. Blues For Davy 02:01
8. Baby What A Groove 02:52
9. Another Bangor Day 04:12
10. Long Cigarettes, Cheap Red Wine 04:22
11. Moonstruck 01:30
12. Angel [demo version] 02:15
13. East River 03:07
14. Empty Sunday [demo version] 02:09

You might regard this album title as an over-extended pun. Not only does it include more blues/American-influenced material than my previous albums (though I’m not sure how to quantify the exact percentage), but it also draws some inspiration (if that’s the right word) from life on the road. Though in fact my own time as a professional musician was extremely short, and no agent was getting very fat on ten percent of my income at that time. And at this time of my life, I don’t think I’ll be spending much time playing live again, let alone living in a tour bus.

If I ever belonged to a particular ‘school’ of songwriter, it was probably that very English group that included people like Bill Caddick, Peter Bond, Bernie Parry et al. (Whatever happened to Al?) Still, looking back (as I have been a lot recently) to the songs I’ve written in the last 50-60 years, I suspect that there is enough material there for at least one more album with a fair amount of Americana influence.

Released May 19, 2021

All songs, guitars and vocals by David A. Harley

‘One Step Away’ released

Please forgive the absence of fanfares and fireworks, but ‘One Step Away (From The Blues)’ is now officially released, only three decades or so after it was first recorded for an album never released. Unlike the recent album ‘Tears of Morning’ and the single ‘Moonflow VI’, it’s available on Amazon and Apple Music, among other sites such as Spotify, as well as Bandcamp.

Personnel:

Me on acoustic guitar, vocal and electric slide guitar
Don MacLeod on acoustic lead guitar
Bob Theil on 12-string acoustic guitar

David Harley

Singing in the Silence

Singing in the silence: copyright David Harley 1974

Backup:

It was cold waking up this morning
Just like all the lonely nights before
But there’s hope in my heart even yet
Rising early to meet the road

My heart sings in the silence
Racing down that old white line
A sweet voice whispers in my ear
That I’ll maybe get to see you one more time

Every time the road gets longer
It gets harder to pin down that dream
Racing for the scenery
Escaping from the scene

My heart sings in the silence
Racing that same old white line
That same voice whispering in my ear
That I’ll maybe get to see you one more time

Odd Job Man

Words & music (c) David Harley

Backup:

I haven’t actually done this with slide guitar in decades, but I found this version on a cassette and quite liked it. Even though it leaves out my favourite verse.

I’m an odd job man, I work by day and night
I’m an odd job man, I work by day and night
I’m a handy-doodle-dandy and my dovetails fit just right.

I’m a Do-It-Yourself demon, got the tool for every use
I’m a D-I-Y demon, got the tool for every use
I’ve got an A1 set of drivers when your screws are working loose

I’ve got the brace and the bit to drill just where you need
Gotta brace, got a bit, I can drill just where you need
I’ve the angle and the rhythm, satisfaction guaranteed

I’ve got the switches and the cable and my fuses never blow
Gotta jack for every socket and my connections never blow
When I overhaul your wiring just lay back and watch her go

I’m an odd job man, on the job just when you please
I’m an odd job man, fix it anywhere you please
If your hardware’s getting rusty, just let me slip you some grease

A 12-bar reflecting my long-standing interest in Do-it-Yourself. Though I hear it’s more fun if you don’t have to do it all yourself. Ahem.

Butterfly (Over the Hill) – two alternative versions

Having post links to a video and a couple of alternative versions of this blues-y thing, I discovered a couple of completely different versions lurking on a USB drive.

One version where I unleashed my trusty Les Paul. Haven’t done that for a long while…

Backup version:

And a slide version. Too slow for my taste now, but some nice slide-y moments.

Backup version:

David Harley

Adventures in Video – Painting the Desert

I don’t have technical skills to generate sophisticated animations and such, and I’d rather not flood the world with too many live videos of variable quality. But some recordings seem to fit OK with a series of photographs. Well, to my ear and eye, anyway. ‘Painting the Desert’ is actually an improvised slide guitar piece accompanied by photographs from a drive through the Painted Desert in Arizona, from when we followed up a work trip to the Bay Area and San Diego with a version of the Grand Circle Road Trip including Zion, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon, as well as Sedona, Oak Canyon and so on. I have a feeling that I’ll eventually find a use for some of the photos from those attractions, too. In the meantime…

And this is the audio capture.

Backup:

David Harley

Adventures in Video – Moonflow III

Music (c) David Harley, who played acoustic guitar, resonator guitar and electric guitars through the magic of overdubbing. Both electric guitar parts feature a Line 6 Variax. I can’t remember what guitar the first electric voice emulates, but the second was a Coral Sitar emulation. Photographs (c) Jude and David Harley: mostly from Stonehenge and York.

The recording was remixed for the video.

David Harley