John Sammers

Hi Everyone – just a reminder that unless you SIGN IN – you’ll not be able to see the demo tracks and Outline tracks.

And that goes for every time…….so if you want to hear the new songs you’ll need to sign in…

John

Hi everyone – knocked out this tune yesterday and got it down today so please go to the demo section to hear it or join up if you haven’t already.

The tune just came to me because I love the colour Carmine Lake and also know a lot of people who have been hurt and it has stopped them from moving forward into another relationship for years – they unconsciously feel the emotional pain of the breakup is greater than the emotional pain of being alone. It was recorded at 10am with a bit of a head cold on an Eastman Guitar through a modified Epiphone Valve Junior amp direct to a laptop, so it doesn’t do my voice a whole lot of favours but I don’t care too much, just wanted to get the story down and the guitar sound is pretty good. The lyrics recorded are the first draft. Changes will occur.

Hope you like it

Jx

I just finished and acoustic demo of a new song (with a big kiss to the blues) straight onto the computer…

Its called, It’s Too Late and its for all the people who are tired of being enslaved to the ever-growing laws, statutes and taxes……

Go to the demo section to hear it!

J x

A lot of people who don’t write songs ask me, well, how do you work out what to write songs about?

Its a tough one to answer. Some songs flow out in a stream of vowel sounds and laments about an emotional situation that’s troubling you and you only need to tweak a few things and it’s there. Whether it is a great piece of authorship sometimes doesn’t matter because its not meant as a literary exercise, more of a moan/observation to an imaginary friend.

Some songs want to be ‘written’ and from the learnings of bits I’ve studied and songs I’ve admired, I spend more time on authoring and seek to evoke more images in the words. When you think of songs like Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds – it’s all about evoking imagery. ‘Cellophane taxis appear at the shore…..waiting to take you awaaayyyy….’. But you’ve already been taken away by the the cellophane taxis appearing at the shore. Free was like that. I knew what I wanted to say but spent a bit of time developing the words.

I generally write songs about what is happening to me emotionally. So, at the moment (and always) there is love and loss of love. Whether it’s me, those around me or the general public mood – there’s a hell of it going on. Also, I am into freedom and notice that more and more the ‘state’ is enslaving us and forcing us to pay more for less, without any real say. Since then I have found out that the Australian Commonwealth, the UK, the British Government and all the Courts and Police Services are corporations – and the Australian Judiciary totally ignores the Australian Constitution’s section of the right to trial by jury you start seeing this mad urge to tax and bill the people of the western world is simple capitalism and nothing to do with democratic governance.

When it comes to finding inspiration I never really have a block – I stop because I can’t find the time to record all the ideas. Although recently I’ve asked Chris Stafford, who wrote much of the lyric of Animal to write the lyrics for a very old song that has kind of gotten stuck in my thinking, so I always think it’s a good idea to let some things go to someone with fresh ears and great skills.

Yesterday I just free wrote for a while and sought to let the words come as they wanted (with some pauses for the flow to catch up to the song) and ended up with some half decent stuff. Thank god for Audacity (which allows you to turn your computer into a hard disk recorder). I can just be strumming away with the laptop to hand and as soon as something decent forms, start recording.

I’ll clean up some ideas and put them in the demo section for ya and come back to the topic of how I write songs in future posts no doubt.

Namaste,
John

Ok – some shameless self promotion here but Facebook’s bosses the CIA have told it that they want timelines so they can see what all the musicians are doing – probably so they make sure their buddies the IRS get their pound of flesh and so I need you to like me like crazy………:-)

So, please like me and tell all your friends to like me and tell all your friends to tell their friends to like me (and so on).

They don’t even have to like the music – just me will be fine. Lol! I told you it was shameless……

What can I do? I’m unemployable………

Hi – this could be a really boring post so I’m sorry if it is BUT, I was at a top music management course yesterday and met some wonderful budding young managers and musicians.

I figured, seeing as I’ve been a bit slack when it comes to self promotion, that I should change that and, where else would I get to meet a number of young managers but at a Music Management Course…….

All the presenters and contributors were top shelf industry and associated industry people, so legal, insurance (looks like NO meerkat toy….only UK folk would get this) and general management tricks were all covered.

Watch this space…….HA!

Hey friends – I asked my friend Carl Bryan, who is a filmmaker and producer, if he could help me know up a video for this track. So I compiled some different bits from You Tube, borrowed a camera from the lovely Elina (you’ll be able to tell which ones are done with my camera), took photos of girls eyes at salsa and during a walk around London (a fine chat up line I was told, “Can I photograph your eyes for a music video?” ) and we ended up with this. Hope you enjoy it.

The site is up and running again and I have an announcement soon. So watch this space…..

Nice to be back!

Jxx

Hi folks – firstly, many thanks for my first donation. You rock!

I have just uploaded Dispense With It for all you old Outline fans. This is one of my favourite tunes and a fantastic line-up. You’ll find it on the Demo & Live Page but you must register to download it.

I also want to add that the original idea for this site was that the Demo & Live page would only be for registered fans, but I couldn’t work out how to do it without having a separate password, so I’ll be working on finding out how to make it private today.

So, remember your login details if you want to see/access it.

J

Hi everyone – I’ve had an email from a friend/fan who is having trouble donating.  She’s using Windows 7.

Could I ask you all to click a donate button ($1, $2 or $5) and see if that sends you to a Paypal page? I’m not asking you to donate, just check that the buttons work so I can fix them if necessary.

Thanks,

J