STRANGE PLACES


Leon Alvarado

Leon Alvarado: keyboards, programming, percussion

John Goosall: guitars

Bill Bruford*: drum tracks

Produced and mixed by L.A.

Engineered by: Leon Alvarado, Larry Shaunce

Mastered by Andy Walter at Abbey Road Studios, London.

*Drum tracks taken from “Packet of 3”

Used courtesy of Bill Bruford Productions, Ltd.


This song represents my first endeavour in fusion. I had already decided to move forward from the GENESIS base into newer and more original material. By then I had secured Bill Bruford’s performance on the drum tracks, had his blessings to use them and credited him for his contribution. I carefully edited the tracks to fit my song, adding just a couple of fills to tailor the drums more to the events in the music.


I met John Goodsall through the internet. The timing couldn’t have been better, since I was already working on trying out various guitar players to do the much needed guitar parts. After a couple of weeks, it was clear to me that I needed to look somewhere else. It was then when I decided to contact John and propose that he play on the song. I sent him a rough cut of the song and he agreed to do it. Coincidentally, both Goodsall and Bruford had worked together in the past on some of the Brand-X recordings.


The song was originally inspired by the keyboard style of the late Peter Bardens from Camel. It eventually ended up as progressive rock and fusion jazz melded together with a small dose of “mellow”.  I am pleased with the final product and very excited about having the talents of two of the greatest musicians in their genres in one of my compositions.

BROKEN PROMISES

(extended version)


Leon Alvarado

Leon Alvarado: keyboards, programming, drums

Produced and mixed by L.A.

Mastered by Andy Walter at Abbey Road Studios, London.




The original version of the song was included as a bonus track on the “Plays Genesis and Other Original Stuff” album. I felt that the song wasn’t progressive enough and wanted to re-mix it to see if I could get it closer to my style of music. During remixing, I found myself re-recording pieces and adding a whole other half to the already exiting piece and ending with an instrumental about eight minutes in length.


I managed to change the drum sound from a conventional kit to an electronic set. I deliberately did this to create a more natural bridge between the songs on the EP. In “Strange Places”, Bruford used a Tama Starclassic Maple kit whereas on “Second Home By The Sea”, I stuck with a similar sound to the Simmons drums used by Phil Collins on the original song. For this version of “Broken Promises”, I started by emulating the Tama sound for the first half of the song but then switched to the Simmons sound for the second half. The trick was to make it all seamless to the listener. I was quite pleased with the final result and the overall flow of the record from beginning to end.


Many details had to be ironed-out during the making of the CD, but I think all the attention to such details paid off. The final is a balanced record with some very nice artwork and structure.

SECOND HOME BY THE SEA


Banks, Collins, Rutherford

IMAGEM music

Leon Alvarado: keyboards, programming, drums

Peter R. dos Santos: extra keyboards, extra programming

Produced and mixed by L.A.

Mastered by Andy Walter at Abbey Road Studios, London.



By the time GENESIS recorded the original version, the band had already changed direction to a more commercial sound. “Second Home By The Sea” was the hold out exception from the band’s progressive roots. It was still a contemporary and inventive form of progressive rock, yet it carried Tony Bank’s convictions of putting in a song that wasn’t necessarily tailored for radio play, but a longer and instrumental piece in the vein of the GENESIS of old. When I was working on the “Plays Genesis” album, I originally included the song but later dropped it because of my own insecurities with it. When I started on the piece, I thought that my point of difference would be to change the drum sound to a more conventional kit but the idea never worked and the resulting sound was not something I was pleased with. I then moved on to other pieces and by the end of the album, “Second Home By The Sea” was left out. It did bother me however, so I decided to go back and work on it some more. I completely changed my approach and stuck with more familiar sounds with minimal differences in the arrangements. The end result is a close representation of the original salvo for additions to the guitar solo and some sound effects at the beginning to set up the premise.


“Second Home By The Sea” is to me, in a way, a travesty of a song. It has a dated electronic sound to its drums and yet, the piece has aged well while still holding its own. The music also has a semi-commercial sound to it but, when dissected, it has the same elements found in some of GENESIS’ old instrumentals.