Yup. Got a brand new page for 2026! Where all my tunes go to die. Or not. Most I have to reconsider mixing again or changing the structure of the song. I salvaged these from my tune trash bin. Every musician has a secret folder with tunes that may never see the light of day. Hey, good title for a song, of which I’m sure there are plenty of. Although the question remains – since I am the person that wrote these, and at the moment have my finger on the permanent delete button, shouldn’t we (musicans) let the listener decide? Maybe a tune that makes me cringe or cry makes another listener happy and glad? Or maybe not. Still bundling these tunes for the copyright office as unpublished tunes just in case I rework them.
I get lots of criticism about my tunes sounding like they written in the 80’s and 90’s. And, well, they do. Because that’s the era I grew up in. So many of my tunes are dated. No apology there. It’s the way I write. When I finally go to the great studio in the sky (SITS) maybe this style will have a huge renaissance? Eh, maybe not.
So, hard decisions I know. So, I came up with a temporary solution. Based on an old tune I had written called “Fall in Love” which I found years ago in a windows 7 trashcan. After transferring the tune to a new DAW, and changing a few parts, I uploaded it here. Started to grow on me. I am still kinda ambiguous about it, but redid the tune again and released it to streaming. There’s that.
All for a tune I had trashed. Now it’s time to to give other tunes destined for the trash bin, a chance to survive in the world. Starting with 4 tunes now and any additional misfits that land here.
MEMORY LANE
Many years ago before there were supermarkets and vhs video stores, I was in a band called “STRAY RAVEN” which I loved and left the band – don’t you always leave the things you love? Anyways, I recently came across some old tapes and managed to redo a few, kinda. They sound fairly close to the originals. At the time the band was a trio that consisted of Me (guitars) Brad Trier (bass) and Wendy Smith (drums). I have no idea where they are today as I went to San Jose after I left and joined a band up there. Which didn’t last very long. And it’s also when I started playing bass. Which is another story – soon.
Until then, these are crazy instrumental tunes from that time period (around 1978-ish maybe?) I took a few liberties recreating them best I could – although the drums are very close to Wendy’s style of continuous rolls. He was a very energetic drummer! Below is a band flyer from the 70’s which I barely remember playing! The band’s name was a combination of STRAY and RAVEN. And $3 at the door was a beautiful price for the time. With concert tickets going in the $100’s now, it’s amazing there’s still a market for them. Opens in new page…
The originals are on a cassette tape player with a built-in microphone from the 70’s placed in the middle of a room. So, yup, I updated them while keeping the songs true to the musicians. So, Brad sounds like Brad and Wendy sounds like a crazy roll drummer, I sound like me etc. bad leads and everything on some of the tunes!
Stray Raven
Stray Raven