lofidiyrecordingstudio

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

Fresh from the Lo-Fi DIY Recording Studio in southern Kyushu, the latest song, Something Special. If you like the song and want to hear more, please go to BandCamp and search for Ian Kitney for my whole catalogue. Thanks!

Lyrics: Fiona's got a silver jewellry box Protected by 3 or 4 big locks. It's in the second drawer next to her socks It must be something special.

And Sally's got a brand new diary, She keeps it in a cottage by the sea And writes at night so no-one else can see It must be something special, surely something special.

The waves beckon, so what do you reckon? Don't waste another second. Gotta think of something special. And then Fiona said to Sally "Get your shoes, We're going on a 3-week harbour cruise, So pack up all your oranges and blues, It must be something special." released November 27, 2024 Track credits: Once again, I played everything, engineered, produced, mixed, mastered... all very lo-fi you understand. license https://iankitney.bandcamp.com/ https://lofidiyrecstudio.substack.com/

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

Fresh from the Lo-Fi DIY Recording Studio in southern Kyushu, the latest song, Something Special. If you like the song and want to hear more, please go to BandCamp and search for Ian Kitney for my whole catalogue. Thanks!

Lyrics: Fiona's got a silver jewellry box Protected by 3 or 4 big locks. It's in the second drawer next to her socks It must be something special.

And Sally's got a brand new diary, She keeps it in a cottage by the sea And writes at night so no-one else can see It must be something special, surely something special.

The waves beckon, so what do you reckon? Don't waste another second. Gotta think of something special.

And then Fiona said to Sally "Get your shoes, We're going on a 3-week harbour cruise, So pack up all your oranges and blues, It must be something special."

released November 27, 2024 Track credits: Once again, I played everything, engineered, produced, mixed, mastered... all very lo-fi you understand. license https://iankitney.bandcamp.com/ https://lofidiyrecstudio.substack.com/

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

I have wandered into a rather bad habit. I can not drift off to sleep unless I’m listening to British comedy on TuneIn Radio with one earbud. It was one night, as I was in that weird, ebbing realm just before slumber, that I heard the legendary George Formby singing ‘Our Fanny’s Gone All Yankee’, (first line: “Our Fanny ain’t the girl she used to be…”) and I misheard the lyrics as ‘Myfanwy’, a lovely Welsh name, and also the name of the great Myf Warhurst, sister of my two oldest Melbourne musician buddies, Andre and Kit.

The next morning, I still had the misheard lyrics in my head, “Myfanwy ain’t the girl she used to be”, and decided it was too cute to ignore.

Songwriting Process:

So, I had a chord pattern idea that rocked back and forth from E major to A major with a relaxed feel, and as soon as I put the lyric idea with this and changed the George Formby melody (a bit) it began to take on the shape of a song.

The cuteness of that first line “Myfanwy ain’t the girl she used to be” rattled around in my head for about 2 weeks, giving rise to several other versions such as “Myfanwy ain’t the girl we used to know” and “Myfanwy looks so happy every day”. It was the rhythm of these lines that suggested they were keepers, as well as the potential rhymings for “be”, “know” and “day”. These variations led to a theme, or story involving Myfanwy, a friend who could drink us under the table, outlast the best of us, but who finally found someone to settle down with.

It’s not actually written about Myf (Warhurst), but I kept her in mind as I wrote the lyrics, more as a focal point than any biographical purpose.

Quick sidetrack: let me tell you about onsens. An onsen in Japan is a public bath, usually separated into a men’s section and a women’s section. Occasionally a large one will have a mixed area. Most of the time, the customers are older people. On rare occasions, one can find oneself alone or sharing the space with only one or two other people.

During the winter of 2019, I was lucky enough to find the beautiful Kirishima Royal Hotel onsen almost deserted, save for one or two old farmers wandering in and out. Relaxing in the big pool (bath?) alone, I began to ‘hear’ what I had of the song in my head. It was within about 20 minutes of soaking and humming and seriously committing an entire original song arrangement in my dumb brain, that I had completed Myfanwy, from the acoustic guitar intro to the key change play-out at the end! I couldn’t get out and dried and dressed quick enough to sing the arrangement into the iPhone voice memo recorder (indispensable!) in the change-room.

Here are my notes from that voice memo: (notice that it was still called May idea 05, because the original idea of | E / A7 / | came in May 2018. Also my instruction ‘bombastic rock’ ha ha!)

And here are the lyrics:

Myfanwy ain't the girl she used to be She used to sink champagne, but now it’s tea She’s acting kinda strange, her life is re-arranged, it’s plain to see. Myfanwy ain't the girl we used to know She’s trying so hard not to let it show They think it might be drugs, I think she’s in love, but who’s to know? But I've got nothing to say, 'Cause I've got nothing to do with it. It's not my beeswax anyway, She's finally found her happiness, and we all wish her well. Now I've got nothing to do, But I've got nothing to say about it. We're gonna miss her, that's true But she's finally found her happiness, and we all wish her well. Myfanwy looks so happy every day (Myfanwy is a girl we used to know)

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

We kick off this series of posts with a fun little song from my 2019 album, DIY.

Mr. Sun opens the album with some bright and shiny positivity. It’s upbeat, with some elements that suggest the familiar curves and features of late 60s, early 70s British pop. That was the intention from the start.

Songwriting Process:

In the winter of 2019, my vegetables were outside in the cold, hard soil, being ignored by me because it was a particularly cold winter. Where I live is subtropical, so the summers are wet and green, with a rainy season and a typhoon season appearing almost like clockwork. However, the winters are very cold, not cold enough for snow to fall like the blankets and flurries of our Osaka life some years back, but still cold enough to freeze the outside water pipes, and indeed, the rich dark soil that crunches underfoot.

It was on one of these cold mornings that I was practicing a lovely song called Himawari no Yakusoku「ひまわりの約束」by Hata Motohiro 秦 基博 (a proud Maton Guitars artist!). The capo was on the 3rd fret, a situation I quite like, because it makes my CJ-818 (Country Jumbo acoustic guitar) sound amazing. This guitar is notorious for having a very large bottom end sound, and playing a big E chord used to make my synaesthesia go nuts! So, with the capo on 3rd fret, the bass presence is still felt, and the top strings jangle and dance beautifully in the upper registers.

My fingers were starting to tire of the demands placed on them by this wonderful song, so I grabbed the pick and just started ‘chugging’ on a G-chord shape (with the capo on 3rd fret, this becomes a Bb chord for those following at home).

Immediately, a melody and line popped into my head, suggested by my looking out the window at the greyness being split open by the mid-morning sun appearing over the bamboo forest on the south side of our house.

“Good morning Mr. Sun.”

That was enough to abandon any more Himawari no Yakusoku practice, in favour of teasing out some more sunny vibes from this tiny seed.

The ‘chugging’ feel, at this stage still on ‘G’ (Bb remember?) made me think of The Move’s Goodbye Blackberry Way, but faster.

The melody for the first line intentionally ascended, reflecting the morning motion of the sun itself, but the last note (on “sun”) wasn’t sitting well on the ‘G’ chord, so I moved to a ‘C’ chord (for those of you still following, that’s an Eb), and it really began to take on a shape. Now, the simple act of going from ‘G’ to ‘C’ - up a 4th - opened up a lot of possibilities in terms of musical motifs, so along that path I happily went. 

Still looking out the window at the miserable bamboo forest and frozen vegetable patch, my fingers, still wanting to send chords climbing up, fumbled around an ‘Am’ and ‘D’. This sounded too conventional, and the ‘Am’ soon became an ‘A7’, creating a four-chord major ascending pattern. 

Now, here was an opportunity to apply a cute musical motif called antecedent and consequent.

Basically, antecedent and consequent consists of 2 melodic phrases that compliment each other. Think Black Sabbath’s War Pigs - “Generals gathered in their masses, just like witches at black masses”. The first melodic phrase (antecedent) is ascending, forming an unresolved emotional response, and the second phrase (consequent) is descending, creating an emotional ‘closure’ or resolution.

I already had the first phrase, ascending like the morning sun, so I worked on some ideas for the second line to descend and complete the motivic idea. Lyrically, “Good morning Mr. Sun, the day has just begun,” blew the wind up my skirt, and within an hour of workshopping ideas, recording them onto the iPhone’s voice memo app (really useful!!), and scrawling a rough chord chart on the back of last month’s calendar page (this is a thing in Japan - at the end of each month, rip off the finished month, fold it in half and use it as notepaper), I had the basic shape of the verses. 

I don’t have a great deal of spare time generally, but during the long midwinter months it’s either too cold to spend much time in the veggie patch or there’s not much to be done there, so two weeks I had completed most of the arrangement for Mr. Sun, including all of the lyrics.

Bath-time in Japan is an important part of life, and I can see why. Up to my neck in warm, cozy water, I could focus on writing the lyrics in my head, or at least a jumble of ideas that rhymed, and were rhythmically appropriate. 

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

Who doesn't love comf'table pants?!

Lyrics: Comf'table pants, don't take a chance, How I love to wear comf'table pants. Now I can dance, do yoga perchance, In comf'table pants.

Fall out of bed, water the plants Pour out a coffee made in advance Feeling alive, no more in a trance These are the things that make me want to open the draw Shake the mothballs out and close the door It's time to don our

Comf'table pants, don't take a chance, How I love to wear comf'table pants. Now I can dance, do yoga perchance, In comf'table pants.

Comf'table pants, comf'table pants Don't take a chance in comf'table pants

Open the draw, shake the mothballs out Close the door, it's time to put on

Comf'table pants, don't take a chance, How I love to wear comf'table pants. Now I can dance, maybe yoga perchance, In comf'table pants.

Comf'table pants, don't take a chance, When I'm wearing comf'table pants. Now I can try yoga perchance, In comf'table pants.

released July 13, 2023

Written, performed, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Ian Kitney in the Lo-Fi DIY Recording Studio in southern Kyushu, Japan.

You can also read more about these and much more at my Substack

Listen to all these songs at my BandCamp! 

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

It came to me in a dream! At least the chorus melody did. I got up before dawn, walked out into the backyard and sang the melody into my iPhone voicememo. If you listen to the lyrics (if that's your thing), you will hear the continuing story of some characters that first appeared in tracks 5, 6 and 7 of 2022's album, Fresh Out of Fucks: Don the Suit & Handy Jim Dandy

Anyway, here are the lyrics: Here's Don the Suit and Handy Jim, sleeping rough and getting thin, "Hale and hearty, and how ya bin?" Live a little, do what you like. Here comes Fiona and Sally Smith, cashed-up, come-down and kept up with, Belt and braces, believe the myth, live a little, do what you like.

If you want sparks and magic, you're barking up another tree, But if you want love and laughter, you can get them both for free.

Now Don looked at Jim, and he said to him, "It's make or break now, it's sink or swim", And just like a couple of idioms, they promptly ignored their advice. Fiona and Sally, for their big finale, hopped a tree-change up to the Mallee, And raised a crop in a secret valley, live a little, do what you like.

You say you want sparks and magic, you're singing in a different key, But if you want love and laughter, you can get them both for free.

Hold on, and a little time will have to turn on, and a little fire's gonna burn it long, burn it strong.

If you want sparks and magic, you're never gonna get them from me, But if you want love and laughter, you can get them both for free. Sparks and magic are singing in a different key, But if you want love and laughter, you can get them both for free. La la la .....

Written, performed, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Ian Kitney in the Lo-Fi DIY Recording Studio in southern Kyushu, Japan.

You can also read more about these and much more at my Substack

Listen to all these songs at my BandCamp! 

Released August 28, 2023

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

Another song about sleeping! This one is more about my difficult relationship with sleep.

Lyrics: Better stay inside Don't go out unless it's night Stay curled up instead You'll be apples if they think you're dead.

Pull the sheets over your head Tidy and neat, you'll be safe in bed.

Close your eyes and hide Thirty seconds and you're out like a light But something gloms your leg Bolt upright, it's a brush with death!

Pull the sheets over your head That's some deceit, "You'll be safe in bed"

Now that I'm sleeping, I can go anywhere Now that I'm sleeping, there's nothing at all to fear.

For most of the night I've got one eye open Look around What's that sound? Is anyone there? The next thing I know is the sun creeping in through the window I'm in limbo It's time to get up! Time to get up! Gotta get up! But I've gone back to sleep!

Now that I'm sleeping, I can go anywhere Now that I'm sleeping, I can do anything

Written, performed, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Ian Kitney in the Lo-Fi DIY Recording Studio in southern Kyushu, Japan.

You can also read more about these and much more at my Substack

Listen to all these songs at my BandCamp! 

Released October 6, 2023

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

Happy Birthday to Me! At this point in my life, I feel a little like a Time Slider: a character who slips quietly in and out of time. Sometimes in time, sometimes out of time. This is my birthday present to you, yours for FREE at my BandCamp!

Here are the lyrics: Relax Let it go Chill Follow the flow Find a quiet corner and grow, grow, grow!

Time slider, slipping in and out of then and there Tripping here and there and everywhere.

Find a quiet corner and grow, grow, grow! Time slider, slipping in and out of then and there Minutes, hours, days and years rider Tripping here and there and everywhere.

Time slider, slipping in and out of then and there Minutes, hours, days and years rider Tripping here and there and everywhere. Slipping in and out of then and there.

Released October 18, 2023

Written, performed, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Ian Kitney in the Lo-Fi DIY Recording Studio in southern Kyushu, Japan.

You can also read more about these and much more at my Substack

Listen to all these songs at my BandCamp! 

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

I arrived in St Kilda, fresh from the country, early '90s. For a young musician wanting to get on the scene, it was eye-opening to say the least. Every night I would wander down to the Esplanade hotel (not name-checked in the song) to watch amazing live music. Pretty soon I had joined Overnight Jones (not name-checked), and soon after that, \creek (name-checked!). I lived on the name-checked Grey Street, and would often find myself walking home past working girls lining that street. The line "From me they've got nothing to fear" is due to the fact that I had little to no money, and was definitely not the kind of clientele that would prowl those streets at that time of night. You know, husbands after a late night at the office. So, this is an autobiographical stroll through a time and place that is very special to me.

Lyrics:

Grey Street, 3 a.m., winter 1993 Holey acid-wash and flannelette, a Salvo's coat I got for free. Saunter past seven working girls, from me they've got nothing to fear Reach to top of the hill, and home is so near.

Catani Gardens comes alive, early summer '95 From here the water is so clear, meet you at St Kilda Pier.

Over, you're taking me over, you're taking me over You're taking me home.

In time, to wake up in the sunshine Listen to the Nursery Crimes, Practicing with \creek, the gig's next week! There, sitting on the Prince's stair Punters filing past don't care But he used to be a star before, in '84.

Released May 2, 2024

Written, performed, recorded, produced, mixed and mastered by Ian Kitney in the Lo-Fi DIY Recording Studio in southern Kyushu, Japan.

You can also read more about these and much more at my Substack!

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

Fresh from the Lo-Fi DIY Recording Studio in southern Kyushu, the latest song, The Waiting Game. If you like the song and want to hear more, please go to BandCamp and search for Ian Kitney for my whole catalogue. Thanks!

Lyrics: If you want to find your way, don't follow me And if you want to know the future, just wait and see. The more you want to change, the more it stays the same So if you want to change the world, play the waiting game.

Dream, dream on, Dream on until you're ready, ready to play the game.

The more you want to change the more it stays the same, And if you want to play, you have to play the waiting game.

Dream, dream on, Dream on until you're ready, ready to play the game.

If you want to make a difference, just click your heels, And if you want to be a someone, I know how it feels. The more you want to change, the more it stays the same, And if you want to play, you have to play the waiting game And if you want to change, you have to play the waiting game.

© 2024 Ian Kitney

[lofidiyrecordingstudio]

Fresh from the Lo-Fi DIY Recording Studio in southern Kyushu, the latest song, Something Special. If you like the song and want to hear more, please go to BandCamp and search for Ian Kitney for my whole catalogue. Thanks!

Lyrics: Fiona's got a silver jewellry box Protected by 3 or 4 big locks. It's in the second drawer next to her socks It must be something special.

And Sally's got a brand new diary, She keeps it in a cottage by the sea And writes at night so no-one else can see It must be something special, surely something special.

The waves beckon, so what do you reckon? Don't waste another second. Gotta think of something special.

And then Fiona said to Sally "Get your shoes, We're going on a 3-week harbour cruise, So pack up all your oranges and blues, It must be something special."

released November 27, 2024

Track credits: Once again, I played everything, engineered, produced, mixed, mastered... all very lo-fi you understand.

https://iankitney.bandcamp.com/

https://lofidiyrecstudio.substack.com/