The Evolution of a Song part 5

I have detailed most of the songs on Evil Clocks, from their first midi versions through various studio versions and finally to their released versions. I have a few more pieces sitting around but with the exception of Scales, most of them sound almost like the final versions. So, Scales will be the last one I'll post in this evoltion series.

The song itself is from 1979 and was my first contribution to the punk-jazz band I was in at the time called 3C-236. The name itself apparently describes a "Fanaroff and Riley Class II (FR II) radio galaxy" but as I didn't name the band, that was never really uppermost in my thinking of the unit. Anyway, we had a pretty cool approach to music I think. The guitarist and the drummer (Gerry Henri and Ralph Piedalou) were both Toronto ex-pats who had spent a lot of time jamming at the Music Gallery with CCMC stalwarts like alto-player Maury Coles. Combined with that spontaneous composition aesthetic was a charted-out punk energy and earnestness. It was quite a band, and we would often play a frenetic punk-rock head arrangement that would usually devolve into free playing and, with the inclusion of composed cues, back out of the blowing into a re-cap of the head. The songs might last anywhere from 3 minutes to an hour depending on our moods.

I brought Scales in as a number I would sing. The song's thudding 12/8 pulse was inspired by Robert Fripp's Exposure album (the song "Chicago" which itself was a prog-bluesy outing). We had the accordian free section (ie the length of the soloing was free to expand or contract as we saw fit, NOT something that was ever meant to be played on accordian, Pauline Oliveros notwithstanding).

I liked it well enough in that context because it was my vocal spot-light and the first song I ever wrote to be played by others (usually I wrote stuff where I played all the parts on jerry-rigged cassette decks), but it was a bit of an anomoly for the band as the tune sounded neither all that punky or even jazzy. It was fun to jam on though and that qualified its inclusion.

28 years later I did a version of the song that I put to 10T for their approval for the Diagramma CD (at this point we decided to expand the original release of 5 songs to a 7 song one and were dusting off "suitable" songs). It never made the cut. This time out I thought it might work as the lyrics were suitable to the vague album concept so I whipped up a demo for the lads. The tune was pretty well what 3C-236 did with it, even to the point that the solo section starts off almost identically (I played bass in 3C-236 and the bass part I played on the demo was almost identical to the original one).

After the band ok'd it, Aaron laid down drums, I put some guitar and breathy effected vocals and then Claude Prince laid down an amazing bass part over which our dear dear departed musical genius friend Guy LeBlanc put down an amazing solo. The solo section re-unites two Nathan Mahl members and it is a delight to hear them doing their thing over Aaron's powerhouse drumming. quite frankly that one section alone is worth the price of admission for me. Hearing a song I wrote decades ago played by such masterful players is kind of why I stared writing in the first place.