30.12.11 - DAY 364 - Failures (ft. Duke Special)

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Very late night SADFAY with the amazing Duke Special! Musing on failing epically. Come hear us perform this and other SADFAY classics tonight at the Black Box for the Song A Day For A Year - END OF YEAR EXTRAVAGANZA. See ya there!

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

28.12.11 - DAY 362 - Stitch And Mend (ft. Katharine Philippa)

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I am very pleased to have had the chance to work with the amazingly talented Katharine Philippa tonight! Wait until you hear this track! So I started with a bit of a sweeping groove beat thing, followed by a couple of layers of toy glockenspiel, Philippa added keys and organ bass, then those awesome vocals! The lyrics she wrote have a few nice layers and meanings to them too. Lahvaley.

In her own words:
It was great to have the opportunity to work with Marty on one of his songs, which are written every single day, for a whole year. It's nice when two musical brains collide. Hopefully you will enjoy the music. If you want, you can go to these links: http://www.facebook.com/katharinephilippa or http://katharinephilippa.com/ to hear some of my solo work.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

27.12.11 - DAY 361 - Green Tea (ft. Ciaran Monaghan)

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Tonight's track was created in the lovely city of Dublin, with my good friend Ciaran Monaghan. It's about the dilemma, many of us face, of finding yourself waking in a hotel room and realising you have already drunk all the complimentary Nespresso. But hey! You're in Japan, can it really be all that bad? オーライ

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

24.12.11 - DAY 358 - The Festive Spurt

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Eeek. Cheese Alert! Happy Festive Whatever Thang And Stuff....

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

18​.​12​.​11 - DAY 352 - Reflect Tune (ft. Mark McGregor)

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Some choice quotes from the fantabulous Mark McGregor tonight. Some cheesy retro house vibes.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

Listen (and/or buy) now on Bandcamp/a>

Tonight involved a song writing session with Mark Mc Gregor, who wrote the majority of the lyrics to this song.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

16.12.11 - DAY 350 - Heroic

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Today's track was a bit rushed again. Which is a bit frustrating, but hey, life gets in the way sometimes, just have to deal with it.
This is a wee acoustic number about ... ummm... Stuff... hehe.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

12.12.11 - DAY 346 - Outside Of The Inside (ft. Kris Marsden)

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Another collaboration tonight, this time with singer / songwriter Kris (Kippy) Marsden. The bulk of this track was written earlier today and we laid down the basics of it fairly quickly, spending more time on the other instrumentation and tweaks.

Kris Marsden is a songwriter and adult literacy tutor who incorporates music and poetry into his teaching. Kris is a regular on the Belfast open mic circuit.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kippys-Muse/146868152087567

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

11.12.11 - DAY 345 - Lovers Rise (ft. Dominic O'Neill)

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A collaboration with the immensely lovely chap known as, Dominic O'Neill, who I regard as a bit of a songwriting legend! Dominic played all the instruments on this (except the programmed drums) and I sang some of the backing vocals and harmonies. Creating this song was loads of fun and I hope I get to write music with Dominic again some day.

Dominic O'Neill is a member of Leeward Side who are currently finishing their second album-length E.P. He also captains the world-famous John Hewitt Singer-songwriter night. Working on SADFAY a year has fulfilled his year-long ambition. Here more at http://leewardside.bandcamp.com and http://dominiconeill.bandcamp.com.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

10.12.11 - DAY 344 - Absence

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More disco-y pop rock type shenanigans tonight. "Absence makes me care no longer" I thought was a nice spin on the ol' proverb, "absence makes the heart grow fonder". I think my version helps me cope better, maybe.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

09.12.11 - DAY 343 - We're Better Than That

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Friday again. Who wudda thunk it? Party time kids!

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

06.12.11 - DAY 340 - We All Got Paid (ft. Window Seats)

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A collaboration with Window Seats tonight. The lads came round and laid down some lovely riffs and it all came together in just over two hours. I hadn't as much time as I'd have liked to mix this and mess around a bit more, but hope the quality of this track shines through!

Window Seats are a three piece alternative rock band from Belfast.

The band are currently touring in support of their new EP 'Frozen Bones'. The CD is available in stores now, and a free download from the band's website.

A highly acclaimed video for the track 'Local Superhero', from the EP, can also be seen online.

All info, tour dates, videos and free music downloads can be found at http://windowseatsofficial.com

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

05.12.11 - DAY 339 - Where To Go (ft. Amy Best)

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A collaboration with Amy Best today, who lent her sultry vocal talents to some acoustic guitar riffing I did a little earlier this evening. I sent Amy the guitar recording via t'interwebs and she recorded her vocals at home, then sent them back to me, to arrange and mix. I added a few other sound effects and 'textures' towards the end. Job done. Very pleased with this one!

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

03.12.11 - DAY 337 - I Had Nothing (ft. Fathers Of Western Thought)

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Well today, I'm very proud to have had the chance to work with the Fathers Of Western Thought. Rob, Gordee and myself have been brought together by something we all have in common: We're all writing a song, every day in 2011! It's a beautiful thing. We're SADFAY brothers from different mothers. The lads started on January 1st 2011 also, so we're in synch with our song numbers too. Working together on Song 337 has been pretty damn awesome! It's like two Universes colliding. It should be noted that this was one of the fastest SADFAYs yet: We literally had 2 hours to bang this one together, it was a very spontaneous outpouring of ideas and then, bam! It was done. Really pleased with this one!

The Fathers Of Western Thought came together in Autumn 2010 to write and record songs

in a home studio, the pair use a drum machine and their two separate guitar styles to provide the basis for songs that come naturally through improvisation.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

22.11.11 - DAY 326 - Near Silence of Nature

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I had a nice walk in a park today, wrote down some lyrics. Came home, planning to make some sort of simple, 'heartfelt' track. It sounded awful and I couldn't bare it. So I changed the words a bit and made something else. It feels equally as over-the-top, but in a different, kinda abstract way.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

21.11.11 - DAY 325 - See The World (ft. Rory Nellis)

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A collaboration with Rory Nellis tonight. We made a lovely big pop track, fit for mass consumption and ready to take on the world. All in, this took about 3.5 hours to write, record, arrange, edit and mix. Not too shabby.

A bit about Rory:

Rory Nellis is a singer and guitarist in Belfast-based alternative rock band 'Seven Summits'.

His interests include songwriting, football and Arnie films.

www.sevensummitsmusic.com

sevensummits.bandcamp.com

sevensummitsmusic.wordpress.com

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

03.07.11 - DAY 184 - Slowly Dying

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This was fairly spontaneous. I liked the drum kit I was using and everything else worked off that groove. About halfway through I got thinking about the song, "Get Innocuous" by LCD Soundsystem, so that might explain how I approached the vocals. Overall I'm pretty chuffed with this, I was planning on doing something more complex, but the vibe of this just swayed me.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

02.07.11 - DAY 183 - A Box of Stars

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Aye, so big beats, PHAT bass and stuff. I ran out of time when working on the vocals, but this is a good step up from the quality of a lot of recent SADFAY tracks, so I'm fairly pleased!

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

28.06.11 - DAY 179 - Blame

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More piano based stuff, with some vocals and beats. A formula I'm enjoying quite a bit these days.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^

20.06.11 - DAY 171 - Sweet Song Don't Fail Me

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A big string pad and big chords, to reflect how I feel. Some sombre over-processed vocals, in reference to the struggle for clear communication. A slow song to soothe, or to reflect the need for a good night's sleep.

Enjoy

Cheers ^_^