A Sailing Adventure

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A Sailing Adventure

The fantasy of sailing thousands of miles at sea

to mysterious Islands

are portrayed in this exciting album!

 

Experience the soul of the Pacific

that has touch our souls from the countless but

never forgotten islands we have visited on our own

sailing adventures aboard our

Sailing vessel Hipnautical

 

With over 20 Voices and over

30 Instruments from Around the World

Each song tells part of an amazing story

as you are taken on a musical journey

that will Entice your Adventurous Human Nature!

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Mother Ocean

In a way, the ‘Mother Ocean’ is like a Mother

in the fact that our blood contains a

similar ratio of salt in our veins

Nearly all of us have a strong enchantment to the Sea. Perhaps it’s the possible opportunities

that lie across the horizons,

the idyllic dreamy Tropical Islands

or just the desire to escape the little world

as we know it

Before I could buy a boat I would windsurf obsessively,

I would arrive before the winds start,

windsurf until the wind stopped or got to dark to see.

Then I’d sit on the beach while the moon came out,

the moon sparkling over the water looked like

millions of diamonds twinkling in the night

I imagined how the sea would look while

Sailing thru the night on a full moon

Years later I spent many overnight sails on watch

under big moons with it’s diamond like reflections

sparkling over the seas while our boat’s wake

lit up in the green phosphorescence,

trailed idly be hind us…

In this song a line “Landfall in Moorea, there to meet my…” Well, nearly 20 after writing this song,

I find myself singing this song to

a boat-load of fellow sailboat cruiser

while anchored in Moorea

It put a tear in my eye to realize that my dream

had come true & I’m living it

😉

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Sea Dreams

I walked into the gentle surf near Malibu with my

Digital Audio Tape recorder & a pair of $1000 studio mics

to capture the relaxing sounds of the sea

 

You can even hear the foamy bubbles

as the wavelets caress the sandy shores

 

At times on my tippy toes &

holding the $$ mics out of the water

:-O

 

Take a moment to be taken away to this relaxing beach

Take in a deep breath, let it out slowly…

After you shake off the anxious twitch of the rat race…

Take a slow stroll down the beach…

There you see your world cruising sailboat anchored

in clear waters that glow like turquoise jewels

 

You’ve got ‘Permission to come aboard’!

So Let’s haul anchor & go sailing!

Sea Journey –

Former BBC announcer Lou Sexty narrates the story line of
sailing thru the countless islands of the south pacific then
journeys thru the Panama Canal and into the Caribbean.

The good ship & crew soon faced the hurricane winds of a
late season cyclonic storm. In the shallow waters a narrow
coral reef pass, storm generated wave lifts the boat higher
than usual then slam her down hard on the bottom, breaking
both rudders. The next wave pushes them out of the reef-
lined pass and out to open sea where they deploy a sea
anchor & drift safely away from the reef…

The storm builds it’s intensity & to portray the music of a
‘Storm at Sea’, our dear friend Dov plays quite a phenomenal
Violin piece with his virtuosic talents.

I had taken inspiration from an arrangement by

guitar virtuoso Steve Vie which he was

influenced by a Mozart piece…

then I transcribed this (nothing too) basic melody &

re-formed it into a frantic portrayal of

a sailboat out in the huge storm driven seas…

That was the easy part, I arranged this all on the computer,

it printed out the ‘score’ & played the ‘midi’ files thru

 keyboards which played a real sampled recorded sounds of

 violins, violas, cellos…

but of course lacked the real human feel

So often I arrange music on the computer

that just is not humanly possible to play;

this I feared the first time Dov attempted to

play the part in the studio.

I apologized & told Dov that I’d remove a swath of notes

to make the arrangement humanly possible to play…

but he takes offense when referred to as just human & reminded me that me that back on his home planet of

 Krypton that him & Superman played parts like this

all the time…

A week later he came back

& recorded that masterful violin peace

Our Super Hero Violinist friend Dov….

“Saving our Planet One Note at a time” 😉

The Story continues…

Dayz later the storm fades & our good ship & crew seem to be drifting towards a ‘friendly looking’ island…

But the island they were drifting towards was no resort,

instead it was the island village of a tribe of

old-world Caribbean religious worshipers

that in the past had been known to welcome their

un-suspecting guests for dinner….

ON THEIR PLATE :-O

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GOTTA VOO DOO

The song starts with a blood-curdling Scream

:-O

Our Wayward ship & crew manage to anchor their disabled

 sailboat off this picturesque island. With dark forebodings of

 the local village of old-world religious worshipers that never

officially denounced their cannibalistic ways, our crew

 contemplated how they would replace their broken rudders.

 

At night they couldn’t sleep on account of the loud tribal

 drums, chants, hoops & hollering going on at the village

 ceremonial bond fires. They nervously crept in closer to see

 what the villagers were up to but soon found themselves

surrounded by a mob of scary lookin’ island warriors, which

 danced a menacing jump, leap & lunge movement…

 

Just when they thought they’d soon be joining the big dinner

 on the chief’s plate….the big Kahuna told them…

“We don’t wanna eat cha, no mon we believe in Jah…

we’re vegetarians”

😉

Within days, the chief’s war canoe builders had carved

 glorious new rudders & soon they would be on their way.

 

I recorded a wall of drums by over dubbing my drummer friend Casey’s 4 tom toms numerous times,

each time I would change the speed of the

24 track 2” tape analog recorder slightly faster.

When recording these normal drums at a faster speed,

when played back at normal speed they have a

deeper & larger than life sound!

 

I was lucky to have found the perfect

‘Voo Doo Chief’ voice of Das

in true Rasta form he has

abandoned all but this ‘Rasta’ name

 

After seeing him perform with the percussionist

Jonathan Norton (whom performs his magic tracks through

 out this album) at a Hollywood venue I knew he had the

 perfect voice for the part.

 

Das has this very deep jovial voice a lot like the “un-Cola-Nut”

 man’s voice from the old 7-up commercial in the 1970 & 80s.

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Pirates

After the islanders help repair the catamaran’s

twin rudders, the crew gladly accepts the Chief’s

request for a passage to their people’s main island.

 

While sailing under a big full moon with the

crew & passengers all asleep,

Captain Rog comes across a broken looking boat

& pulls up to see if they need a hand.

 

Then five men jumped out & forced their way aboard.

While the pirates were pillaging thru the ship’s stuff

the Voo Doo Chief, with a bone thru his nose

& a spinal core neckless, he comes out with a

bang & a shout which causes the pirates to

flee for their lives like they had just seen the devil.

 

Soon the pirate leader recognized the ol’ Chief &

they hug like long lost friends.

 

The song ends with the whole gang singing

ol’ pirates ditties while drinkin’ waay too much rum

😉

 

Note the pedal steel solo by Mickey Wells

during the Malay…

Mickey was a top call country session player,

he didn’t have a need to trade studio time

so I scrapped up enough dough to

buy his talents for one hour.

 

I asked him to play his pedal steel instrument

thru a heavy metal guitar rig,

to get a big loud & over driven

 he thought that was a cool thing to try as he has never tried that sound before.

I told him I was going for that slide solo style

made famous (in certain rock circles) by

Pink Floyd….

but heavy metal, rock & roll & Pink Floyd

was completely un-heard of in his world….at the time…

 

I had previously set up a number of mics, pre amps &

 tube compressors so it didn’t take much time to dial in

the sounds & levels to tape.

So while he was getting warmed up by playing along

 with the track, I put him into Record & told him to just to

 explore the track while I set the final levels.

 

Turns out the levels we're right on

His riffs while warming up...

hearing the track for the first time

is the solo you’ll hear on this song Pirates.

I recorded a number official ‘takes’ but it was the magic that happened on that first warm up pass that really ‘slammed it home’!

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Can't Look Back

After sailing halfway around the world to the west

then another world passage to the east finds our

good ship & crew in the heart of the Caribbean.

 

I found this cool Rasta gal Celay jamin’ on the steel drums

& singin’ in da Reggae Style near the waterfront in

Marina Del Rey while on a bike ride.

 

Took her card & months later had her come over

and record these roots Reggae vocal arrangements

that prelude the song.

Magic happened when she got into her part

and soon was making corrections to my phonetics,

she changed a few words around to better

‘be’ in da tropical island vernacular …

Instead of I have been sailing…it now goes “I B Sailin’”…

 

I recorded Celay’s vocal arrangements on a new

24 track 2” tape.

When we were done tracking her vocals

I mixed them down to the two track-mastering recorder.

 

Now the trick here is to record this vocal track back on to the

 main 24 track tape session at just the right time to be

in sync with the song…

It’s generally a hit & miss process,

cue up the two track tape deck’s vocal part,

press play on the 24 track machine & the two track

then put the 24 track in ‘Record’…

At best you can only hope to be reasonably Close,

but some how

with the first try the vocals landed on an

un-expected ‘up-beat’ and our vocal arrangement of

‘Oooohs & Aughs’ now took on a very different

but swanky funk feel.

(It was more sort of a “one-e-and- a” timing)

 

Listen to this funky feel just after the vocal prelude part &

right when the steel drums intro in the main song.

 

Celay continues to belt out authentic

Caribbean church choir power Oooohs & Aughs’

throughout the song.

 

Steel Drums are played by percussion extraordinaire

Ray McMamara, whom shortly after got a cool gig

with Jimmy Buffet’s steel drum player.

Ray is a Cal Arts Grad & his virtuoso performance

on this song really takes you to the

hopin’ beaches of Trinidad.

 

In the Ska tradition I brought together a horn section

with Trombone, Sax & Trumpet

that really laid down the slamin horn tracks

make the song snap.

The Trombone & Trumpet play inter-woven solos,

followed by Ray on the Steel Drums.

 

Taking the long jam home…the long way… 😉

is Charles Hayes of Ike & ‘THE’ Tina Turner fame.

This guys’ got character & so does his sax,

if you listen real carefully near the end

you can hear his pad smacking when levered with gusto…

 left it in as part of the magic!

 

A midi keyboard sample of a real Hammond B-3 organ

was played by Bobbie Jo Curley &

recorded into the midi sequencer computer,

which ran in sync with the smpte time code

on the analog tape.

 

When the song was beign mixed, the output of the

B3 organ sound was plugged into a real

Lesley Rotating Speaker System,

mic’d in stereo & added to the mix in real time.

 

While mixing the song & pressed the ‘slow & fast’ buttons

to change the speed of the Rotating Lesley Speakers.

At the end of the song you can clearly hear

the Hammond B3 swirling with all it’s glory

during the fade out 😉

can-t look back credits
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Here we are sailing away from everything & everyone we know :-O

Note the new covers & a cover on the cover 😉

Ventura California, our home port has faded with our wake...

 

by Roger Curley (Bobbie'Jo's husband 😉

 

Bobbie Jo Sings backing vocal arrangements & Harp throughout the Album.

 

Produced by Roger Curley

Audio Recording Engineers Roger Curley & Darwin Briggs

Mastered by Hank Waring at FDS

Cover Art by Cathy Bitonio

Liner Notes by Catherine D. Curley

All Lyrics and Music by Roger Curley,

Except ‘Pirates’, Lyrics Co-Written by

Roger Curley & Tony Kariotis

All Sound FX Recorded Live in the Field

To Digital Audio Tape Recorder by Roger Curley

All Songs published by

Hipnautical Records with BMI

 

We Performed our Duet Live all over the South Pacific as

HIPNAUTICAL

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