A Sailing Adventure
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!
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
😉
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
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.
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’!
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 😉
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
