Roman Edirisinghe

I was having a bad day. Or rather, my mood was rather foul. It was my lunch break, and I was walking through Grand Avenue mall in quest of a culinary delight. I chanced upon a sight that made me uncomfortable at first, because I didn’t know where to put my eyes. A kissing couple. As I got closer, I kept watching them, and how they were trying to walk together while kissing. The woman was walking backwards, and the whole sight somehow really cheered me up. By the time I passed them, I was beaming a glorious smile.

After I got my lunch, I was walking back to work and noticed two seagull turds just miss me by a foot or two. How fortuitous. I felt so lucky.

I feel a deep void inside, like peering into a deep well at night, and you can only see darkness, and maybe, maybe the reflection of a star in the dark water, deep, deep below. I try to fill this void, to avoid feeling the darkness and the loneliness, but nothing ever seems to fill that void. Not people, not things or possessions, not travelling to other places, not even music.

The loneliness that I feel is an absence of spirituality.

Malian blues musician Ali Farka Touré succumbed to bone cancer on March 7th. He was 67.

Quoth Ali: “I am a mechanic, technician, chauffeur, and farmer—all that is before music.”

via Harvey Taylor, The Village Voice, Tikun Olam
Photo by Damian Rafferty

I’ve been recording one of my tunes the past couple of days. It’s been quite rewarding, and I’m definitely feeling more fulfilled about my music. Progress is slow, so don’t expect any releases in the near future.

For those who care, I’m using a I’ve got a Focusrite Octopre patched into a Behringer Magician, into the Digidesign Digi-002. Software is Protools 6.9.2, Mac OS X, Tiger.

The song is called “Wind In Your Shoes” (although I’m not so sure about the title – another good candidate is “Don’t Lose The Rhythm”), and I’ve presently got the following recorded:

• acoustic guitar track, using an old Harmony acoustic (I always felt like a loser with my Harmony, but I just found out Jimmy Page used a Harmony to record “Stairway To Heaven“)
• bass guitar – late 70’s Fender Musicmaster thru an Ampeg B1R
• electric guitar – Gibson ES-135 thru an old Silvertone Tube Amp
• electric guitar – Brian Moore i2.13 thru an Electro-Harmonix Small Stone and a vintage Memory Man direct into the Octopre (talk about watery, the sound reminds me somewhat of The Edge‘s guitar in U2‘s “Mysterious Ways“)
• a broken shekere with the beads intact
• a broken tambourine with the jingles intact
• a vocal track (scratch)