Welcome to launch week, day four!
For launch week I’m posting everyday, Monday thru Friday.
Then on Saturday, for the New Moon, I’ll post a special bonus link where paid subscribers can stream or download an advance copy of my new single, “Fading Fast.”
After launch week you can expect a new post every week or ten days or so.
While on the road as the opening act on Tom Petty’s Dogs With Wings tour, my label set me up with an ADAT digital multi-track recorder and a Mackie sixteen channel mixer. On a rare night off our front-of-house engineer Martin Feveyear set the rig up in the front lounge of our tour bus. He hung two SM57 microphones in a stereo array from the ceiling and my band The Sinners and I were arranged just so to get an ideal balance of instruments.
The song begins with the line:
Stayed awake for damn near forty-three hours
This is true. Earlier that year I was sent on a grueling solo promo tour of Europe. Each day or two I’d fly into a new city for back-to-back interviews and photo shoots. My first stop was Amsterdam where I was simply having too much fun partying in my down time to bother with sleep. I decided to see how long I could stay up. I admit that this was not the wisest way to begin a demanding tour but I was a young rock and roller living the dream. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
The last verse goes like this:
Oh yeah the evening is young
We gotta fly to Vienna tomorrow
We had just enough fun
For the next three nights tonight
But I’m low on my smokes again
The trip to Vienna was a memorable one where I was duped into playing the opening of a fast food chicken restaurant. See yesterday’s post for that story here.
As I listen back to it now, all these years later, the song feels like a first draft. I dig the tune though. And The Sinners sound great here, especially Loud & Proud Peter Stroud on his Fender Telecaster electric guitar.
If you look carefully at the photo above you can see the microphones hanging from the ceiling. And if you look even closer you’ll see that I’m smoking a joint. I’m happy to report that these days I’m clean and sober. Those days, not so much.
The Sinners line up at the time was:
Pete Droge - Vocal & Guitar
Elaine Summers - Backing Vocal
Peter Stroud - Lead Guitar
Dave Hull - Bass
Dan McCarroll - Cardboard Box
Peace & Love Songs,
Pete
PS: Paid subscribers click HERE for a bonus link where you can download “One Hit at a Time” along with all of the other rarities posted on Love Songs Etc.
PPS: This download is available as either MP3 or Hi-Res 24bit 48k WAV!
I propose that the word "saunter" be replaced with the word "droge".
"I droged out to the tour bus and wrote a love song".
Cool cool time travel...between the groove and the photo I feel like I am back on the tour bus environment! Nice laid back saunter (is that how you spell "saunter"? Is "saunter" a word?).