First Light - Track By Track

1990's promo pic

UPDATED, Feb. 2017:
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of my first CD, First Light, I'm going to go track by track with my recollections about the songs, the gear and the people that made this project a reality.

Track 1: You Ain't Right - This song features the album's core rhythm section of Angelo Cammarata on bass and Carl Hupp on drums. The three of us had a group together in the mid 1990's called XYZ, and had the rare good fortune to get a regular gig in which we were given carte blanche to play all our favorite instrumental rock and jazz fusion covers.

Ben, Carl and Angelo in the studio, 1996.

 And so we did, cranking out everything from Joe Satriani to Weather Report, with plenty of Jeff Beck, Eric Johnson and much more like that. (A video tape of us from 1994 has recently surfaced, hope to share some clips with you soon.) "You Ain't Right" was written based on a riff from Angelo that I developed into a completed song, did a demo version at home, and brought it back to the guys to learn and expand on. I was excited about the collaborative process, but we only got a couple songs done this way before Angelo and Carl got sidetracked by other personal and professional commitments. I had to continue developing the rest of the music on my own and with other musicians. But happily, the guys were able to still be part of the project, playing on this and several other songs on the CD.

"You Ain't Right," CD clip:


Later on, I played on a track from Carl's solo CD, Hyper Statue. To check it out click here.


Track 2: Three Wishes - Three Wishes is a completely different story. This track is a fairly faithful re-creation of one of my earliest recordings from the 1980's, back in the day when I had first got my home studio equipment and started making demos in the tiny living room of my first apartment.

Excerpt from home demo, 1987:


For the version on First Light, I called Barre Lankford, the bass player in my first band Spectrum and a good friend since high school, to play bass. Frank Young was recommended to me to do some drum tracks. Both guys were wonderful because they were able to remain true to the content of the original demo while adding tons of personal style and flair. The guitar parts are great examples of the crisp clear tones of my 1974 Fender Stratocaster.

Here's a clip from the final CD version with Frank and Barre:


Track 3: Chickenfish - This song goes back to the line-up of the first track. Written with XYZ in mind, it started with another Angelo bass riff. I joined that up with a melody from another very old demo of mine, and it evolved from there.

Excerpt from "Streets of the City," home demo 1985:


I was feeling a lot of creative freedom, which included being willing to deconstruct my old songs and integrate some of the ideas with new ones. It was exciting, and the finished track has a feeling I really like, a mingling of relaxed sophistication and playfulness.

Clip from "Chickenfish," final version from the CD, with Carl and Angelo:


I played my 1996 PRS Custom (practically brand new at the time) on this one, for that super thick lead tone, and whammy bar goofiness.

Hectic Red 1990's promo pic

Track 4: The Shadow - this was another song I had fully developed in home demo form in the 1980's. For the album, this one seemed perfectly suited to Hectic Red, the group I had already been with for ten years at that point (and is still going strong today!). Our keyboard player, John Suchy, also did all the recording and mixing for the entire album at his studio, Such Sound. The huge influence of Steve Morse on me is easily detectible by anyone who knows his style.

"The Shadow," CD clip with Such, Rich and Danny from Hectic Red:

Barre

Track 5: Horizons - the only cover tune in the project, came from an old album by Genesis. It was a lovely Steve Hackett solo piece that had been in my repertoire for years already. I had developed an idea for a multi-track arrangement, but the final result went far beyond my expectations. Besides layering multiple electrics, 12-string, steel string and nylon string guitars, I also asked Barre to add a bass part to it. He came up with some ideas on a fretless bass that were just stunningly beautiful; we were blown away.

"Horizons," CD clip with Barre:



Track 6: Hour Of The Wolf - This song was in an unfinished state until near the start of recording. I wanted to take this one in a slightly jazzier direction, and adding piano and percussion to the mix really helped to give it the right vibe. Brian Comotto played the keys and Hoppy Hopkins added the percussion. Another fine drummer, Brett Hayes, played on this track, and Angelo was on bass.

"Hour Of The Wolf," CD clip with Angelo, Brett, Hoppy and Brian:

Brian, Brett, Angelo, me

Track 7: Countdown - A very similar situation to Hour of the Wolf. I had an incomplete demo I had never been able to finish. But I got a ton of inspiration and motivation from how well the recording sessions were going, and I came up with what I needed to flesh out the song. Brett and Angelo again provided a superb rhythm section. The whole song was very much inspired by Joe Satriani, but I worked hard at investing the middle solo with my personal style and passion.

Early demo from 1987 with basic parts worked out:

Final CD version, new parts added:


Track 8: Nightmare on Church Street - This track was another one I had fully developed at home in the late 1980's, long before this album was conceived. I basically did it as an experiment in multi-track guitar overdubbing, which was a challenge back in the day when recordings were made onto physical pieces of tape. I had my Tascam Porta Two cassette recorder, a drum machine, a bass and a few other items like reverb and EQ. I went to work piling on the guitar tracks. I also was working with the timed echo concept to create the very mechanical sounding guitar parts that percolate through the song. I used super distorted tones, super clean tones. It was everything I could think of. Underlying it all, I had a very simple bass line and a repetitive drum machine part, just trying to keep out of the way of the mushrooming population of guitars going crazy.

Frank

When it came time to record it for the album, I did the bass myself because it was so simple. But Frank Young came in to do the drums for the song, and this was another case in which the part the musician came up with dramatically improved the song. And as I recall, he did it all in one take on the second try.

1987 demo excerpt:


clip from final CD version with Frank on drums:


Track 9: Last Best Hope - Now back again to collaborating with Carl and Angelo. Both guys took solos on this song, and really put all their skills and their hearts into it. You can really hear the intensity and emotion we all were expressing.

"Last Best Hope," CD clip:


Track 10: First Light - a solo acoustic instrumental in an alternate guitar tuning I had recently discovered: C G D G A D, or "C-Gad" as I like to call it. I have always pursued many aspects of guitar, because I simply love the diversity of sounds and expressive possibilities offered by different styles. Playing quiet finger-style on a steel string acoustic is a unique timbre, related yet very different from classical finger-style on a nylon string, as in Horizons. The unusual tuning further helped me drop into a very meditative, even spiritual zone. It took a while to get this track done, because I wanted the phrasing and articulation to be just right.

"First Light," CD clip:


In order to get going with this CD project, I had to get over the fact that several of the songs I planned to do were not finished. There is a saying: "leap and the net will appear." For a very long time, I just couldn't believe it, and so I remained stuck in a very frustrated state of wanting to do something, but not being able to get over a writer's block that was nothing more than useless insecurities and self-criticism. Thank goodness I finally found the courage to take the leap into the unknown. Once I committed to going forward, I found myself meeting and interacting with new musicians, all wonderfully talented, enthusiastic and creative people. They helped me find the inspiration to develop and finish those old unfinished songs, and their performances took the songs to new heights I never would have imagined possible. This was one of the greatest joys of making this CD.

Another stumbling block was the worry that my songs sounded too much like the artists I was influenced by. I was paralyzed by the fear that I was not original at all, but merely a good imitator. Again, I had to overcome what were really irrational fears and baseless self-doubt. Once I got the nerve to let go of worrying about it and allow my influences to show, I started to notice that actually, I did have a style and sound of my own after all. Well, what do you know...

Pick up a copy of First Light, or download MP3s on iTunes and from CD Baby.