Dedication #1

I wrote a song that was really a tribute to two others I’d admired: One, Del Shannon. Del Shannon wrote ‘Runaway’.. When I was a kid at the ‘Fitties’ slot machine arcade, a glass box with wire puppets of The Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Piggies in it could be activated for a penny. For reasons known only to a native of those parts, the song and action activated were ‘Runaway’ by Del Shannon. This 1961 hit engraved itself into my psyche thus.

The story for Del and Runaway is a short one.

Originally from the country, Shannon went to New York seeking a career-boost. Disc Jockey and impresario, Ollie McLaughlin persuaded Shannon and keyboardist Max Crook to rewrite and re-record one of their earlier songs, originally called "Little Runaway", using the Musitron as lead instrument.

On January 21, 1961, they recorded "Runaway", which was released as a single in February 1961, reaching number 1 on the Billboard chart in April. Shannon followed with "Hats Off to Larry", which peaked at number 5 on the Billboard chart and number 2 on the Cashbox chart in 1961, and the less popular "So Long, Baby", another song of breakup bitterness.

"Runaway" and "Hats Off to Larry" were recorded in a day.

Shannon enjoyed continued success in the United Kingdom, where he had always been more popular.

In 1963, he became the first American to record a cover version of a song by the Beatles: his version of "From Me to You" charted in the U.S. before the Beatles' version.

Another homage featured in ‘Hinterland’ is Patrick Michael DiNizio of The Smithereens, who I had the pleasure of seeing at Glastonbury in the eighties. If you listen not to hard, you may hear inflections of ‘Behind the Wall of Sleep’ in the chorus.

Patrick died in 2017 and it jarred with me, as I’d been working on my song at about the same time.

This song is dedicated to Del Shannon and Patrick Di NiZio accordingly...

https://soundcloud.com/clarksongznz/hinterland

We all have off-days - Learn From Them.

I have been writing songs for a long time. For whatever reason, the ‘song-fairy’ sprinkled her dust over me and I got the inclination to express myself in word and song in my early teens. I had an uncle who could ‘play anything’ so I thought ‘You won’t be able to pay this bugger…’

When Jae Bedford Of The Bedford School of Music and Performing Arts  https://thebedfordschoolofmusic.webs.com/ asked me to hold a songwriter’s workshop during the 2020 harbour Street Jazz and Blues Festival https://www.harbourstreetjazz.com/

– I readily accepted. My pride, ego and vanity all a-flutter.

But then thought: 'Shit!'

‘What on earth might I be able to offer by way of advice”’

I suppose I could boil it down to this:

Listen to other songwriters.  Forget about their look, their age, their gender, their sexuality or background. All that stuff is the wrapping that promoters like to envelop the ‘product’ in. Listen to each songwriter with the same ears. Ask yourself. Is this a good song? Not ‘Does this artist look good in a cat-suit?’

And yes, if not looking good in a cat-suit is a measure of song-writing ability I’m up there with Lennon and McCartney. And secondly challenge yourself. Be prepared to accept that even Lennon and McCartney had their off-days.

It may be true that torture begets great art. But you know what really begets great art?

Working at it. 

More of that later.

Thanks for not selling me your Gear, Dude!

I’d like to put out a huge vote of thanks to the young man in a major musical-instrument franchise based in Dunedin, NZ. By my estimation, he saved me several hundred dollars and helped put more food on my children’s table.

My friend, I know yo are filling in time while your band gets some traction in the market, but seriously, were you that above putting in an ounce of effort? 

Having done some research about Loop pedals, I went into a veritable Alladin’s cave of music and asked about the best options. I was keen to buy – perhaps ready to be persuaded.

The guy who showed me the pedal was a paragon of restraint. 

No ‘buy-now, pay later’ nonsense. 

No ‘perhaps you’d like to leave a deposit.’? 

No reference to any easy-to-buy or credit facility.

No taking the object out of the box, rigging it to an amp and leaving me to savour its delights while he unobtrusively allowed me to fall in love with the pedal.

No. This guy was impassive. I can attest to the sheer bloody-minded dedication with which he made sure I was not going to be tempted, induced, impelled or persuaded to invest one red cent into the said equipment.

In fact, such was his disdain, I began to suspect he thought I’d visited the shop in order to try and sell the peddle to him!

Once again. Thanks for your dedication, anonymous young man. I suspect you’ve saved many a relationship perhaps the odd marriage with your dogged devotion to treating customers like some kind of inconvenience in your otherwise frantic day….

Ps i am now a dedicated shopper in another music shop. 

You know, where they actually interact with you.