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All of Your Wise Men
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This is based on a song written for Omnium Sidarum, but includes a musical nod to our first cassette driven projects.
pop rock
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pop, classic rock, old pop, beatles
In my teens, I wrote songs like a madman. In one year, when I was 16, I produced 11 albums worth of material. During the 6 year period between my 16th and 21st year, I produced approximately 700 songs. I have a hard time believing that figure myself, but at one point in my early twenties I counted them up and it came out to something slightly in excess of that figure. Since I've long since lost all the recordings and most of the written documentation, I can't go back and check the figures any longer. Now, admittedly, much of the material was truly, utterly terrible! It had to be; I started writing with a guitar in hand before I knew how to play chords! In fact, the first four albums were all noise, some of it very interesting noise -- at least we thought so. I say WE because I wasn't working alone; my best friend Steve MacKay was my partner in musical mayhem. Our band was called Garbage and that pretty much says it all. In fact, we knew we were horrible and reveled in the fact. Our attitude towards our music was interesting. We thought we were geniuses, but we also were scornful. The attitude was similar to how we felt about movies. We loved cheese. Japanese horror movies, Charlie Chan flicks -- anything horrible, we loved. As to our recordings, I knew every nuance of sound on those early tapes intimately well, because I listened to them endlessly. The first track we recorded was called Toilet Symphony. It had three principal parts. The first involved these soaring electronic sound effects we had recorded at The Ontario Science Centre; the second part involved sounds and music speeded up four or five times, so that it sounded like the flickering tinkling of a wind chime. The final portion was a native choral group chanting. You can see why that track -and indeed most of those tracks - are not now in existence.
Song Info
Charts
Peak #228
Peak in subgenre #14
Author
W. Cameron Bastedo
Rights
W. Cameron Bastedo
Uploaded
January 02, 2021
Track Files
MP3
MP3 5.4 MB 320 kbps 2:22
Lossless
WAV 23.9 MB
Story behind the song
For the most part, the songs Steve and I did in our teens were separate efforts: distinctly his or mine. There were, probably, some 30 or so that we co-created. I want to avoid those tunes and tracks as I don't have sole copyright, and though I've tried I have no means of contacting Steve these days. Having said that, I want to acknowledge what Steve and I did together without infringing on copyright. This track is an attempt as it represents two things. First, in its tonal qualities its very, very similar to the types of tracks we produced on our first cassettes. A word about those songs: typically they were created with guitars and a very limited supply of gimmicks. First, there were speed up tracks; secondly, there were reversed tracks; thirdly, there were distorted tracks. Many tracks blended two or all of those. Later, there were hand wound tracks, where we manually wound the tape while the record head was engaged. We also liked to interfere with the playing speed of the cassette machine. If the tape had a flexible window, we would prod it with a pencil while the machine was playing back, and record the result. This created a variable playback speed and some really odd sounds. So, as mentioned, this track has strong similarities to some of that work. It sounds like any of several tracks off of and . In particular, it sounds a bit like Toilet Symphony our very first cooperative effort. However, the melody and words are from a much, much later track. Im actually not sure which project it dates from, but I think it was something called Omnium Sidarium All the Stars. Steve was involved in playing of this, but not in the writing of it. I'm sure of this, because I found an entry in my diary saying that I had written it. Even when I wrote the songs, however, Steve often dreamed up the leads. I wrote this song on Dec. 6, 1975. I was 19. The lyrical content is approximate, for while some lines are exact, I can't remember all of the lines. I do know it was a litany about how useless human ideas are. We were always very sweeping in our condemnation, including basically anyone that didnt happen to be us. :)
Lyrics
All of your wise men Who never saw anything Anyone wanted to see. All of your wise men Who never were anything Anyone wanted to be. All of your wise men Who never said anything Anyone wanted to hear. All of your wise men Who never dreamed anything Anyone wanted to share All of your wise men Who all in moment will all disappear!
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