SKY 9 is simply a band name for me. I write and produce all the songs. I also play all the instruments. Violet Fair was written a few years ago and recorded on an 8 track reel-to-reel tape machine. I have advanced as a songwriter, producer, and musician since then. In fact, I don't even write songs like these anymore. I enjoy Violet Fair for what it is and I'm releasing it here to be complete as well as for fun. It is intended as a full album experience and I hope you enjoy it that way - as a whole. Even though this was released in 2008 it was actually recorded in 1994-1995. I like a few things about the album - the arrangements, the bass playing and the primitive recording. It was recorded primarily with a $40 omnidirectional Radio Shack microphone and other found mics. When I listen to it I enjoy hearing it through headphones - it's one of those records - and it's neat how songs slide in and out of each other. I'm not fond of my singing but accept it as it was for the time. While not intended as a concept album, it has the feel of one. Songs segue in and out of each other and seem to have some vague military or travel theme. When I decided to mix it all together with today's technology I had to bake the 1/4" master tapes in a meat de-humidifier in order to get the oxide to stay on the tapes long enough for transfer to digital. Otherwise the oxide would flake off and gum up the capstan on the Fostex R8 tape recorder. I'm surprised it turned out as well as it did. I hope you appreciate this music. I know it isn't "today" style but it has merit if you accept it as it is - real instruments being played by a real person and produced in a classic style. I enjoyed making it, rediscovering it, and putting it together from many reels of tape so I hope you can dig the unique scene that is this album - Violet Fair. Exclusive SKY 9 Violet Fair Interview - Everything's Coming Up Violets CDB - I've had the chance to listen to Violet Fair several times and what strikes me is how much it has grown on me with each listen. I love albums like that. I'd like to take you through it track by track and get your opinions on them if you're up for it. SKY 9 - Great! Let's do it. Track one is "All Figured Out". It starts of with an orchestra tuning up. What, if any, is the significance of that? SKY 9 - I thought that was a nice way to begin. A majestic way. It says something is coming. That's a short song. Just a verse really. I think I wrote that when I was feeling a little insecure like we all feel sometimes. I made up the bit about making reservations, though. I like the bells and bass on the track. And the choir. It seems larger than life. CDB - From there the listener hears a plane fly by which seamlessly catapults him or her into "Sky Pilot". What did you have in mind for that song? SKY 9 - I was just imagining flying in a bi-plane. When I was growing up I would go flying with my dad or grandfather and I was just remembering what it was like. The "Take me to a higher plain" line was a just a play on words and had a slightly deeper meaning. I put sound effects of planes in there just to amuse myself and make it interesting. Also, the song was a bit longer. I edited it down after I mixed it to make it tighter and flow better. I may have axed a whole verse. But that's what you do as a producer. You make it as tight as possible. By the way, I now hate to fly though I'll do it out of convenience and necessity but I can't imagine why anyone would want to do it for leisure. I think my grand father and my dad were idiots for being into it. I always hated it. CDB - I love the next song "The Flight". It's an instrumental. SKY 9 - I had been listening to a lot of the Beach Boys. Not that this song is in their style, it just has a lot of strange melodic chord progressions that are easy to get at on piano. It also has a lot of harmony vocals and sound effects of a plane. And it slides into… CDB - "Dear Paige." Love the drums on this one. SKY 9 - Thank you. That's me trying to borrow some Ringo licks. I've always like the name Paige. I've known several girls in my life at one time or another with that name. So I just imagined writing a letter from wherever to a girl named Paige. The person has flown somewhere if there is any narrative to the first set of songs so that seemed appropriate. I like the piano and the slide guitars. It's an upbeat major key pop song. Oh, and it's not about any of the girls I've know with that name. It's just an inspiration. CDB - "Glad To Go" is the next one. It features a 12 string acoustic. What is that sound leading into the song? It sounds like a dinner party. SKY 9 - (Laughs) That's exactly what it is! I was stuck at a party once and just remembered what it was like wanting to leave. Some of it is exaggerated like most songs but that's all. Just being tired and wanting to split. I believe this song has a verse edited out of it also. I like the harmonica solo in the middle. You don't hear them much these days. CDB - So that song ends with the party sounds again and then cuts right into "(Let's Sing Along) With The World." SKY 9 - Yeah. An upbeat piano song. I used to work with a guy who was always saying funny things like "the elusive flying zipper fish" and things like that. So I took a couple of those sayings and strung them together with other strange phrases like "compound duple meter". I even referenced "The Truro Bear" poem by Mary Oliver. It was just a hodgepodge of things. Even the fade is a theme form Tchaikovsky's Pathetique symphony played backwards and some other loops I made. That's my favorite one by him. CDB - That one cross fades into "Dream Come True". I didn't see that coming at all. SKY 9 - I love music from the 20's. I had this fragment of a song in that style and played it with a scratchy record. I think the instruments are a banjo, ukulele, and my voice. I also mimed a trumpet. It doesn't last too long. That's what I do when I'm too lazy to finish a song. Just make a song fragment and put it between other songs. These days I would probably leave it off and finish it, but at the time that's what I did. I love the way it edits right into "Time" CDB - That's what I was about to get to. The next song is one of my favorites on the record. SKY 9 - Mine too! I even like the reprise version. Not to get ahead of ourselves! CDB - I like the feel of it. Very produced. Very Classic. SKY 9 - Again another song fragment. I think I just had a verse or two. Did a full blown production and it comes out sounding like something that was meant to be. I don't mind doing that. I mean so many Beatle songs are fragments thrown together. Listen to side 2 of "Abbey Road". Or "Happiness is a Warm Gun", "A Day In The Life", "Uncle Albert" even "Band on the Run"… all are just fragments of songs that were melded together to make a whole. Paul McCartney did it all the time. He's still doing it. So "Time" slides into "Bright Lights". CDB - Tell me about that one. SKY 9 - It's a piece of garbage. I edited it down as much as I could. I must have removed several minutes from it. Inspired by "The Great Gatsby". I should have left it off and figured out another song for "Time" to slide into. There are only four good things about that song. 1) The crazy out of tune violin, 2) the fuzz bass 3) the way the drums stay in 4/4 time when the rest of the instruments slip into 3/4 and 4) the end of it. I hate it. I'm sorry that you had to listen to it. CDB - It's not bad at all. SKY 9 - Yes it is. But that's okay. (Laughs) CDB - So "Bright Lights" cuts right into a truly bizarre piece called "Jimmy Jumper". SKY 9 - Just a little self amusement. Nothing more. I pictured a guy at a circus doing tricks. A lot of this kind of creation is imagination. It's just a silly piece of sound. CDB - That cuts into "Southward". What can you tell me about that? SKY 9 - Again another song fragment. I was at the beach one day and that happened. It is literal. I like the way the drums sound and the organ. The bass line is pretty cool, too. See with all these song fragments I didn't really know how to finish them or what to do. I didn't know much about writing songs and I probably didn't have any business recording a record but I was learning and having fun. So I guess that made it worthwhile. I will say taken as a whole the album is stronger than the sum of it's parts. CDB - "Above The Clouds" - the song that follows "Southward" is truly a classic. It's awesome on every level. SKY 9 - Thank you so much! I remember writing it in bed with an acoustic guitar while watching "The Tonight Show". I always have a TV going. The song has nothing to do with that. I just remember sitting on the bed and that was on. It's a song about reoccurring nightmares I used to have so It's very real to me. I love the unexpected breakdown in the middle with the plane crash. There are many more instruments on it that I mixed out of this version. They just didn't fit. I just like the feel of the song. i no longer have those nightmares in case you are interested. (Laughs) CDB - The one that follows it, "On The Sea" is completely opposite and a very interesting juxtaposition. SKY 9 - I didn't plan it that way but I can see that. You go from a minor chord guitar song to a upbeat major chord bouncy piano tune. I had this piano phrase… the one that ends the song… and it sounded nautical so I wrapped chords around it and formed it into a song. I imagined what it would be like to be lost at sea. I like the harmony and the piano. The acoustic guitar lead is kind of tasteful as well. CDB - Interesting that it ends on a minor piano chord. SKY 9 - D minor. Oh, that was just to set it up for the next song that starts in D minor. (Laughs) CDB - "Away From Here". SKY 9 - A mostly literal song. One verse is about a politician who knocked on my door wanting my vote and another is about a guy I interned with in college who was always going on about how great he was or could have been if his back didn't hurt all the time. The rest was just silly nonsense. I love the bass on this song and the guitars. I think I shaved a little off of this one as well. It was a little longer. The clinking sound is a pencil on a glass that was sitting on top of a speaker when I was recording. This is the only track on Violet Fair that features someone besides me playing. A high school friend plays drums on this one and does a great job! We used to record all the time. The one thing I don't like is the low harmony part on the chorus. I think the tape was sped up so I could sing it and then when played back at regular speed it just sounds weird. CDB - "Away From Here" cuts into "I Remember You". What does "get blue" mean? SKY 9 - That was a phrase my drummer friend would sometimes use to mean "get stoned". You know the line "All the grass we used to do". That's what it meant. Another way of saying it. I like the guitars. The percussion is me slapping a big open dictionary with a drum stick. I think this is the only song on the album to feature artificial double tracking of my voice. I could be wrong though. CDB - "String Resolution" SKY 9 - That was just a recording experiment of bowing my Hofner bass and my violin at different tape speeds. I liked it so I used it as a link. CDB - Now we're getting to what I feel is the heart of the album starting with "Garden Flower". SKY 9 - I'm with you. "Garden Flower" is my favorite song on the album. It's so simple. Acoustic guitar, Bass, and Drums. Then a few background vocals. I love it. It's pure and melodic. CDB - And it slides into something you don't hear very often - a reprise of a song from earlier in the album. SKY 9 - You're talking about "Time (Reprise)". It's an unabashed allusion to all those great Wings records. It seems like they used to to it on every album. I like the idea so I did it here. It has a stranger feel, though. I think I recorded one of the the snare drums in a bathroom shower and the vocals have flange and delay. But then for the second half it becomes "normal" again. CDB - Then it goes into "Life" which has a very circus feel. SKY 9 - Doesn't life normally? That's why I did it. It's also sort of a joke too. At the time you would always see these Time/Life shows on TV selling something so I thought it would be amusing, at least to me, to have a song cycle called "Time" and "Life". The chords at the end are out of the ordinary and I like that. CDB - And the grand finale - "There You Are". SKY 9 - Written in college as were most all of these songs. When you're in college you start to talk and write different. The standard norms of conversation go out the door. Suddenly you're exposed to all these big words and vague concepts and they naturally make their way into your vocabulary and writing. They make you seem smart and important. Then you get out of school and realize they just make you sound like a twat. It was bordering on overkill here but it didn't go overboard. The first slide guitar is an allusion to Led Zeppelin's "Your Time Is Gonna Come". The second slide guitar is an allusion to the great song by Bread called "Guitar Man". They do it so much better though. It was just the inspiration. CDB - Tell me a little about the recording itself. How was it done? You seem to take pride in saying it was "homemade". SKY 9 - Well, it was. It wasn't like I was at the Record Plant. I had a Fostex R8 reel-to-reel 8 track recorder, an 8 channel mixer, and a couple of cheap microphones. All of the music equipment I used was quality stuff, though. Gibson guitars, vintage Fender amps and guitars, a Hofner bass. A couple of nice pianos. It was a great luxury having 8 tracks because I had stepped up from a 4 track casette recorder. Either way you have to be very organized because of the limitations. So I would start with a beat machine and record a guitar or piano and a guide vocal. Then I would record drums and start layering other instruments and voices and at some point the original beat machine would be recorded over. Sometimes I would mix tracks together if I needed space. All that takes a while if you are doing it all yourself. Over time I would put up a reel and try to mix and the sound wasn't like it was at first. The actual tape was flaking off - and it was good Ampex 456 tape stock. So I had to "bake" them and transfer them digitally. I knew much more about recording than songwriting back then. These days it's a little more even. CDB - How would you sum up Violet Fair? I think it's a decent album. It's unique compared to other homemade albums in that there are no breaks between songs - one naturally flows into the other. It's not an album I would make now anymore than "Please Please Me" was an album The Beatles would make in 1969. You grow and move on and learn and I accept it for what it is and that's all. It has flaws and it has awesome moments. I'm glad I rescued it from the deteriorating tapes. It's a fun little listen.