May 2008 Offerings Of The Month: "G-FORCE" Written by Edward Jerlin © 1987 & 2008 Everlasting Arms Records & Publishing - All Rights Reserved "Highlights" Written by Edward Jerlin © 1989 & 2008 Everlasting Arms Records & Publishing - All Rights Reserved This month's offering features a brand new recording of a 20-year old piece followed by another curio from the archives... "G-FORCE" was written in 1987 for a series of reunion gigs by my college band of the same name. The music is pure joy & energy from beginning to end. If one were to judge my (EJ's) music only by the reaction of others, then I would have to consider this the "best" piece of music I've written to date -- though I've also been told by more than one person that it would make a great TV show or movie theme. :-) Very catchy, fully melodic & fully prog, you can download & enjoy without the reading the rest of this if you wish, but as always, I'll elaborate & reminisce a bit... A year after graduating, "G-FORCE" (the band I played with in college), reunited for a series of gigs at the college. Rather than merely rehashing the songs we'd done previously, we agreed to mail tapes & music charts to each other of new original material & cover songs we each wanted to try (alas, there was no internet back then). We then agreed upon which ones we thought would work best & learned them from the tapes prior to getting back together. We each took vacation at the same time to accommodate & give us some time to rehearse & catch up with old friends. I wrote this piece of music as a tribute to the band, under the working title of "We Caught 'em, Now We Blast 'em", a title given to it by my sister. One thing about the band G-FORCE is that while we always took the music very seriously, we rarely took ourselves seriously & always had a lot of fun at our gigs, which consisted of an eclectic mix of originals & cover songs, difficult lengthy musical pieces interspersed with novelty joke songs, ballads & rockers from all eras... We would play an intense 10-20 minute prog-rock song like Genesis' "In The Cage/Cinema Show" medley, & follow it up with a song like "Ikey & Mikey". Thus, in keeping with the spirit of the band, the song, while being an intense progrock piece with plenty of polyrhythms & solos & the like, is also chock full of gimmicks & funny moments like the oblique references to "Deck The Halls" & the not-so-oblique reference to "Three Blind Mice" (in 7/8 no less), in addition to playing a 4/4 melody over a 5/4 ostinato figure at one point -- something that took quite a bit of practicing to get the band to do. (When we played it live, I would play the 5/4 ostinato with my right hand & cross over & play the lead lines with my left over the top. I still don't know how I do it; the right hand just kind of goes by itself without me thinking about it.) After years of listening to old live recordings of it by G-FORCE, Grin & Bare It" (a subsequent band I was in) & my own old lo-fi, drum-machine-ridden attempts at it, I decided recently to re-record it with all the new technology I now have (while adding a few new wrinkles along the way) & rename it "G-FORCE", partially in tribute to the band, but more importantly (though I hope not too irreverently), for the "G" in "G-FORCE", which always stood for God, which was a not-too-well-kept "secret" between the band members. Whenever anyone in the band was asked what the "G" stood for, it was an opportunity to give credit to our Creator. This piece will eventually end up as one of the main themes on our CD "Strands Of Life Suite". Though I'm playing all the instruments on this new recording, (one of the few you'll probably ever hear from me that does not include any piano on it), I want to thank Bryan Celano for a number of clever drumming ideas he brought to the table back in '87, Frank McGarry & Mike Kleiber, each of whom contributed some bass line ideas over the years which I incorporated, George Cortes, whose melodic sax playing & phrasings helped bring the melody to life, & of course, God, who not only provides me the toys, plus the fingers & ability to play them, but who also provided the Thunderbolt. Enjoy! I recently re-read the FAQ I wrote for the monthly offerings idea & realized I had forgotten about & gotten away from this bit that I wrote: My "vision", if one can call it that, is to try to offer at least one "finished" track per month, along with a "bonus curio" of sorts. The recording quality will vary greatly, but hopefully, it's all fun. Last month, I re-introduced the idea of including some of these "bonus curios" in the Monthly Offering. Picking the next one out of a hat... "Highlights" was a nifty little idea I began working on in 1989 but never finished & have yet to revisit. On this short little demo, I played the drum parts with four fingers on the small pads of the drum machine I had at the time. Though it's actually one of my better efforts trying to play the drums that way, the whole thing goes out of sync, ends up in a mess, & nearly breaks down at one point... still... it definitely has its moments... Someone told me this sounds it should be the background music for one of those sports highlights video shows. So I called it "Highlights". I should finish this someday & send it to ESPN or something... ;-) Enjoy! Comments & feedback are always welcome at our guestbook. Thank you & God bless! To download the music, RIGHT CLICK and choose "Save Target As": "G-FORCE" 7:28 "Highlights" 1:47