What’s cooking in the galley….

as we sail through spring. Working on Show#23 which will be an all Bindlestiff experience, coming soon. Meanwhile I’ve trimmed the list of listenables on line (at My life in Sound) down to just the podcast series itself. For single tracks or other musical misfits go to www.myspace.com/bhelm where there will be a slowly rotating half dozen tracks you can access. Thanks again for stopping by to check stuff out, I’d best go check on my production assistants, I smell hot fur.

 

Available for listening At-The-Helm Episode 22…

Which  features solo works from the second half of 1997 and a little of ‘98 recorded live in the studio in Colorado. Tracks and start times are as follows:

1- African Snowglobe 0:00   (A tune about global climate change)
2- Drifting Forward  5:01   
3- Puzzle Dust 10:08    (What’s left at the bottom of the puzzle box?)
4- Falling Autumn Stars 13:55
5- No Jah In Sight 2   16:15 *  ( A variation of the tune with a  live looped guitar lead)
6- Pass The Lemonade  21:08  ( A title inspired by Andy Helm minus the expletive)
7- More Bad Advice 23:24   ( Mutiple  loops with a live keyboard counterpoint)
8- I Miss The Rain  28:25 *  ( A live guitar loop over a live to tape loop construction)

All tracks composed/performed and recorded live to tape by Bryan Helm. Tracks marked with an * have a live guitar overdub to the original live recording. All rights reserved by the artist. Next show we go back to the duo of Bindlestiff and then soon on to BrotherSync, so please do stay tuned for more musical mirth and thanks for listening to this series. As always your comments concerning any and all aspects of this project are appreciated..more soon.

 

Production notes and a mile marker….

 …on this the 18th of April 2008 the one year point into this blog that follows the progress of the at-the-helm podcast series I’d like to thank everyone who has stopped by for a read or a listen.  I’m currently working on upcoming episodes that I think will prove quite listenable for all concerned, please stay tuned (all puns intended). In the meantime we’ve reached the summer of 1997 as far as the time line of the musical work presented so far in this series and at this point I’ve been living in Longmont Colorado for 2 years and working musically by myself although sending recorded material to Dave Stafford in California for a Bindlestiff project “at a distance” as it were as opposed to our usual live in the studio situation. I’m attempting to add as much as I can inside in the way of layers to the loop format including multiple loops designed to define the construct of a piece of music rather than traditional chordal arrangements. During the course of the summer of 1997 I also recorded the track that I would release as “Liquid Center” a live unedited performance cd that captured live to tape over 50 minutes long of live looping and solos in studio from August 20th 1997. I’m thinking of re-releasing this cd for a very limited time again soon to those who might be interested in owning a copy.

In the meanwhile Episode #22 is in production and I hope to have it available for your listening pleasure soon. If you haven’t heard show#21 or any others in the series please do so at your earliest convienience I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. Again thanks to all those who have tuned in over the months. please do keep on doing so and I’ll try to bring you new music from my past to hear now. This image from the road into town circa 1997…have a great weekend.

 

Episode 21 of At-The-Helm is now…………….

….available and features recordings of solo works from 1997. All instruments and vocals by Bryan Helm. Titles and starting times are as follows:

1- Mr. Crow 1    0:00
2- All The Rabbits   2:20
3- Sad For Today    4:41
4- Tales From Treehorn   9:19
5- Our Hearts Are All Around Us    13:12
6- Mr. Crow 2   17:44
7- Frost   23:14

Recorded live to tape by Bryan Helm. All right reserved by the artist  Mr.Crow 1&2 has a live guitar overdub. Photo from my paper route circa Jan-April 1997 Weld County Colorado. Please do give a listen , stay tuned for more and thanks for stopping in.

 

Episode 20 of At-The-Helm (My Life in Sound)………

..is now uploaded for your listening pleasure. This is an all solo show starting with one last track from California then moving on to six selections from 1996 recorded in Colorado in my basement studio.

1- Silver Lining (3-2-95)

2- An Evening Breeze- 3:02

3- Boot With Love- 8:39

4- How Was I To Know- 13:15

5- Bob’s Your Uncle- 18:30

6- While Rome Burns- 22:33

7- Autumn Light- 26:20

All tracks performed and recorded by Bryan Helm live to tape except #4 which has a live keyboard over a taped 11 string guitar track (free range tuning). All rights reserved by the artist. Please note starting times for tracks now listed for episodes #17 and up. Photo from near the Nevada/Utah state line August 1995. Today is my 50th birthday so sicerest thanks and best wishes to all those who’ve taken the time to enjoy this series so far,  I look forward to completing this musical tour of my past as this year winds on. Please have a great weekend and look for more here soon.

 

Production Notes on a late winter’s day…

…..Spring is just a week away.  A few odds and ends to talk about: First there has been a change at the My Life in Sound podcast page. I’ve taken 6 of the short musical numbers and relocated them to my MySpace page where they will be available to hear and download for a short while longer. I’m beginning to arrange it so only the At-The-Helm podcast series will be available at that site eventually but to also showcase some shorter/newer works in the process, hence the roatation  I have also been asked to post starting times during the episode for the listed tunes since it’s all one big show now with no introductions for each. I’ll do this from here out and also update the info for episodes -17.18 & 19. Hope to have show #20 up in a week or so, meanwhile there’s a St. Patrick’s day musical treat coming later today for all who’d like to listen. Don’t worry no monkeys were harmed in this effort, have a good weekend!

 

At-The-Helm Episode 19 is available…..

now for your listening pleasure. This show is a live Bindlestiff concert recorded April 30th 1995 in San Diego CA  direct from the mixing board. It features the following tracks:

1- Short Circuit Circus

2- Fantasia

3- The Night Sky

4- Sleep It Off

5- Orbital Noon

6- The Night Sky 2

Thanks to Dave Stafford ( e-bow guitar, loops,effects, original recording engineer). Thanks also to Mr. John Goddard and family for hosting Dave and I for some of our performances during the years 1989-1995.  Copyright 2008 Helm/Stafford all rights reserved. This is the last show in this series from the California period and also the last live Bindlestiff concert to date. My thanks again to Dave for his work and to all the folks who came out to see us play live. Next episode it’s off to Colorado so please stay tuned. Featured photo is from the farm equipment show last summer. Thanks again for reading and listening and have a good week

 

Episode 18 of At-The-Helm (My Life in Sound)….

….is now yours for the asking. This show is different in this series in that all the tracks are pieces that use earlier recordings of loops as the base for a new recording that adds a live solo overdub alongside that earlier recording, a primitive mutitrack technique of sorts. Anyway mister Dave Stafford also shows up with the midi pedal bubble effect on track 4 and the E-bow lead guitar on track 7 , both lovely to behold. Otherwise all the rest is caused by me:

1-  Strange News

2- The Rain Returns

3-  Monsoon

4-  Sleep It Off

5- Big Saturday

6-Ten Years

7- Musing Moon & Solemn Sun

Recorded in Escondido CA 1995 by Bryan Helm. All rights reserved by the artist  This Polar image for a bipolar world.

 

Episode 17 of At-The-Helm is now here……

an episode that marks a change in format . From now on all episodes will be all music and no talk, I’ll hopefully cover any relevant info here in my blog. My thanks to Glenn for his talents in editing the first 16 shows. This change will allow me to include another 8-10 minutes of music in each podcast, which may prove necessary in the shows to come to try and cover all the materials I’d like to in this series.  The seventeenth show in this series features the following tracks:

1-  32 Seconds

2- A Man I Know

3- The Sunday River

4- A Distant Embrace

5- Mister Nelson’s Radio

6- My Old Man 

It’s an all solo deal with me on drum machine,synthesizer, vocals and loops . This is a rare (no-guitar) episode in the series. The first 2 tracks are from October’94, the last 4 were recorded between 6-19 and 7-4 in 1994. Track #6 is dedicated to my father. Performed and recorded live to tape by Bryan Helm. All rights reserved by the artist. Photo of tree downed by lightening in RMNP Colorado (probably did make a sound).

 

Episodes 15 and 16 of At-The-Helm now up..

and available for listening. Sorry for the delay but hopefully a double dose will help, and a matched pair at that.

Both shows feature the work of Bindlestiff. First we’ll hear selections from the CD “Quiet”

 in show #15 and then selections from “Loud” in #16.

Show#16

1- Continental Division

2- Spiral Ginger/Descent

3- Signs of Spring

4- Who is Number One?

5- Into Blue

and then #16

 1- Suspend Your Disbelief

2- Passage by Day

3- Suddenly Nothong Happens

4- Fantasia

5- Thunderous Voice

 Selections from both discs recorded in 1994-95 in Escondido CA, at Studio Seventeen. Engineered by Dave Stafford. All titles copyright 2000 (the universe) Helm/Stafford.For more info please visit At-The-Helm.US and click on the specific CD cover icon or go to the Pure Ambient lisiting in the links section for more info still. Thanks for your patience in listening and I hope you enjoy these new selections. The photo is from last summer in RMNP in Colorado, a double bill of it’s own sort. More music soon, have a good day!