2014 October | Jen Schaffer and the Shiners

Fate Line Friday October 17th

October 18, 201410/18/14

Simon here with another FATELINE FRIDAYS post…in the run up to our album Fateline release party on the 15th November at The Jam Factory Co.

The Incomparable and Major Dude Neil Young with his haunting song Mr Soul. ( Originally a Buffalo Springfield tune)
I am constantly inspired… surprised…amazed by this great artist…a truly great man of our times. A prolific gifted songwriter , guitarist and singer who easily straddles the decades with integrity and honesty…serving at all costs “the music” . When making our album , which is the kind of record I had never produced before, I was guided and inspired by Neil Young’s approach which to me always has soul, a groove …a mystery about it… Here in this acoustic version his guitar voice and harmonica is so compelling.
To me he defines what an artist is: relevant, honest, mysterious, surprising….

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Fate Line Friday from September 12th

October 15, 201410/15/14

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Simon came up with this fun friday fixture on our Facebook band page – Fate Line Fridays! Here is our first post from September 12th… from our funkiest Shiner: Every friday until the release of our album Fate Line on Saturday November 15th at The Jam Factory one of the Shiners will post a favourite tune and a description of why it has been an inspiration for the making of this record. So to kick it off…well, it was my bright idea:-)…I’m choosing this ‘ere haunting song. Beautiful rich harmony singing, strange whimsical, intriguing lyric…wonderful weaving acoustic guitars, bass and drums soulfully and funkily flowing beneath… and the overall production, well, just gorgeous!

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Fate Line Friday from September 19th

October 15, 201410/15/14

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Jen here – last week Simon weighed in – guess it’s my turn – and being a twin I’ve chosen two tunes for your listening pleasure. They are both sounds and songs I love! Straight out of the 70s, an era of music I grew up with and has surely influenced the music we’ve made on this record. There are the more obvious influences for me, sourced from my parent’s record collection: The Band, Jimmy Cliff and Ry Cooder. But today I wanted to share two sweet things (or thangs) from Shuggie Ottis and Chaka Khan – soulful songs whose vibe and groove really get under my skin. I reference Chaka’s “Sweet Thing” in “Learning to Dance Again,” a one-drop tune from our up-coming record. So please, taste the sweet and perhaps new to you – and enjoy!

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Fate Line Friday from September 26th

October 15, 201410/15/14

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F A T E L I N E F R I D A Y S!!

Simon here with a gem from Robert Nestor Marley no less!

On our album Fate Line there is a song written by Jen – “Learning To Dance Again” that is based very much around the rhythm Bob Marley refers to in his song ” One Drop”

In Jen’s tune the lyric even mentions it,
“Oh.. from solo to paso doble
Oh.. Feeling the one drop!”

Pretty sure its also the world’s first reggae tune with a bluesy pizzicato viola solo in it…beautifully played by our own virtuoso soloist Jonathan Marks!

I found this excellent description of the beat in wikipedia:

The One Drop Rhythm is a drumset playing style of reggae, popularized by Carlton Barrett, long-time drummer of Bob Marley and the Wailers, created by Winston Grennan, in which the backbeat is characterized by the dominant snare drum stroke (usually a click produced by hitting a rimshot) and bass drum both sounding on the third beat of every four, while beat one is left empty.

Thus, the expected hit on beat one is “dropped,” creating the one-drop effect. A good example of this drum beat is Bob Marley and the Wailers’ song “One Drop”, which talks about this rhythm.

Heres the Master Blaster doing it Live in ’79.

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Fate Line Friday from October 3rd

October 15, 201410/15/14

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REM’s “Sitting Still” was the Fate Line Friday contribution from our own good Dr. John: I spent a lot of time in the late 80s and early 90s learning REM songs, so it is not a surprise to see that influence creeping into my guitar parts. The janglyarpeggiated section in the verses of this great song is an obvious model for several of the guitar parts on the album. The idea of running triplets of eighth notes over a section of 4/4 time was obviously not invented by Peter Buck, but it was likely here that I learned this specific technique. The arpeggiation pattern I use in the first chord of the chorus for After a Fall is exactly the same one as in Sitting Still. A similar motif crops up in A Story’s End.I’m not sure anymore where I learned chord shapes which leave the high E and B strings open (it might have been from Bela Lugosi’s Dead by Bauhaus), but I love this use of a high drone and the extra textures and dissonances it produces. Anyway, I would have used them also playing along to this song (in the chorus “I-I-I can hear you”). So you will also hear these crop up in my playing, such as in the bridge for He Once (“How many times…”).

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Fate Line Friday from October 10th

October 15, 201410/15/14

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Jen here – so it’s my turn again and we’ve discovered that our Fate Line Friday posts bespeak our personalities – or at least according to our resident psychiatrist Dr. John. So unlike John, I’m no music nerd, and unlike Simon, I’m no muso equivalent of the Happy Buddha, but I do know what I like. What creeps into my brain and soul and gets me every listen. Here are (yes again) two songs that do it for me. And while I agree that it is “all about the bass” – I think, for me, above all else in these songs or any songs, it’s all about the voice!

The first tune is from a band of young men from New York I saw a few years ago – Vampire Weekend. I have been hooked ever since and their most recent album has become a staple in my house or on a long drive – and this song, “Hannah Hunt,” a favourite. It draws me in with its melodic simplicity, sparse production soundscape (that reminds me of the opening bass slide sequence to The Eagles’ “One of These Nights), odd harmony and haunting piano (not unlike the piano part played by Carmen on our tune “Your Touch is Deep”). But what really gets me, what I wait for every time, is the ending when the song goes epic, he jumps the octave and looses it ever so slightly in his desperate plea for love.

Another ear worm of late has come from the 70s again, and The Faces – a band whose production sound we’ve tried to emulate on this record – trashy roomy drums and jangly flat picked and hammered guitar. “OOh La La” has me from the opening strum of its loose but vibey rhythm. But the rarely heard young Ronnie Wood’s voice (pre-Stones), scratchy but still musical and ever so characterful, is what draws me in with his own hooky mournful plea about the wisdom of the ages or aged! “I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger” indeed!

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