Paris

For my little niece Jenna, lovely catching up with you today.

Getting back
Seems I can always write more when I've been away form my guitar, this track was basically a case of getting home from a 2 week break, hitting record, and going for it.

Sign / Dark / Quote
Three single word titled tracks, who knows why! These are to cover the last few days I've missed while celebrating a birthday.

Straight Laced
This is one of the first songs I was relatively happy with starting out solo, fun to batter out acoustic and lots going on in the recording.

A Plan
This is likely to be one of the last straight acoustic guitar tracks I upload here, there are a number of fully recorded songs that should be played instead, stay tuned.

Pave
Not sure how much of this one was made up on the spot, but it's seems to find a structure of it's own somehow.

Wisdom teeth
This was the original riff that became a song called 'Dig Around' with a previous band of mine, Redhearts. If you like just say - I can post the band version.

Vesuvio / Button Down
Frank Black wrote a few songs where the first letters of each line spelt something out, I suppose 'Vesuvio' is a little tribute. Button Down is apparently a 'rough edit', but listening back it's probably one of the most produced versions of any song I have.

Days
When this was first recorded a friend and I were musing on how good it would be to create a 'spare' day in the middle of the week for doing something different, or nothing at all, a mid-weekend. This was years ago now, but I think I could use something like that a hell of a lot more these days. Presidents and Prime Ministers really don't understand the extent of the power they actually weild do they?

Right side
This one's just fun to play,

Bowler
Something new,  all recorded on first takes though so it's a little loose.

Stripes
Sounds a little like an sad acoustic version of a Pavement song, with a mischievously detuned top string.

Pick me up
A swift riff this evening, I got to get to the bowling alley!

W3 / Jumper / Weekender
3 to make up for the recent silence. Think the last one has some legs on it, will try to develop.
Thanks to all who have been tuning in, if anyone out there has any suggestions for new riffs I'm always keen to give them a go. Pick a key for the song and some kind of theme and I'll have a play...

Florence
A cute old track, I haven't got the energy for anything more!

Carnage
This is a work in progress, mostly influenced by Cap Your Hands Say Yeah, fantastic band.

Eleven / Indigo
One missed yesterday so two for today, both straight forward acoustic riffs but using some detuned strings...

Silver Lining
An old recording originally named 'needs a good beat', anyone got any ideas? 

Keys rip
A quickly constructed one, with a bit of a bounce.

Clock
This one's just all over the place.

Its Hard
Titled so due to Jonny coming in at the end of the recording to ask if his mango was ok to eat!

The Race
A full song! This one sat in the stages of production for a long time, refusing to budge. I've decided to just release it as is, so enjoy.

222
An old 'recording over a recording', a sweet little tune.

The Devil You Know
I really like this one, it's an unplugged version of one of the band's songs, but sounds very different. Send to a friend!

Late
Another gentle one,

Momentary Feeling
This an old demo of 'the last lost song' of my former uni band. I still see the singer from time to time so who knows, maybe one day it'll be saved.

Turn For The Worst
A track that I was thinking the band might try out at some point.

Fielden Avenue
The end section of this shares a riff from another track that I may have already uploaded, not sure though! So many songs flying around on this laptop that I sometimes confuse them.

Broken Boxes
Another Garage Band track which I like parts of but unsure on the whole thing. The band's found a singer so hopefully we'll be getting some rockier tunes up on here soon.

Premiere

Think this might be the first Garage Band track I recorded/produced...

Rink
You may find this tune popping up at www.youtube.com/weirdftw , go check this freak out, he uses quite a few of my tunes in his videos...

z15
Not much to say on this one.... so there.

D's wander
A gentle meandering tune in D for today.

Open Road
This ones kind of big, lots of different sounds and sections. Make sure you've got both earphones in coz this one moves around.

Pond
I think I may have written this one around the time I started getting into Nick Drake, learning 'Road' from Pink Moon and wanting to come up with something similar.

A level instrumental
In the move I stumbled upon an old CD of work I'd submitted at college, here's the finer track of the batch.

Dusty
Ooh this is an old one, I'd been playing this for a few years, always struggling with lyrics that fit. Maybe it was always meant to be instrumental. You like the reverse intro?!

Fall extras
This was a real record-while-you-figure-it-out track, I'd started listening to the Fall and thought I'd try a riff that stays quite constant, and see what I can add over it. 

z17
An electric guitar demo today, mostly made up on the spot. 

Reliance
I started writing lyrics for this one, which we'll hopefully find completed, but in the meantime here's just guitar parts.

D Improv
What it says on the tin,

Emca
Not many tunes I really get to rock out on acoustic, this is a fun one to play.

Last Beat / Ramen / Elm
I'm moving this weekend so internet is scarce, so to make up for missing a tune yesterday, and in preparation for not rustling up any tomorrow, I'm loading three tracks today. The first two are acoustic, and mostly improvised, Elm is a funny treat for anyone listening. It goes out to my old flatmate Jonny who makes a great vocal debut. The song itself makes me think of Beck playing Ninendo.

Solitaire
Awesome. This is my band 'Four Banks', (formally 'Triceratops' - myspace.com/triceratops1), and I think this is my favourite one of ours so far.

Spin
An old demo, perhaps a little frantic in parts but it works.

143 AMR
A phone recording which I keep going back and listening to. I think I just like the way it keeps changing...

OMGBBQ
It's so beautiful outside!!!

Untitled
Another quiet one, tomorrow's will be upbeat I promise.

Everett
This is a little tune I never had a name for, but always makes me think of the small, dented, classical guitar I wrote it on at Everett Road.

Different Lines
It's a song with words and everything, hope you like it.

Z27
Just a gentle melody today, sometimes it's all you want.

Academy
The second is kind of an 'epic' improvisation using sitar-style tuning.

Experiment
Once again the internet failed me and I missed yes-todaysriff, so here's two to make up for it. The first one is an experiment to see what I could build from an initial two note loop.

77 amr
This is a weird one, played on a cheap guitar, through an even cheaper amp, and recorded on a phone. Doesn't get any better than that. But it's the Boss Compression Sustainer that makes this one sound like something you'd hear in an 80's arcade I think. Just keeping it fresh kids.

Active
This one came together yesterday, between moving house and running around playing theatre games.

Spook
Love this one, going to try and make a song out of it if possible. 

Echoer
This one meanders. It just kind of happened, and happened well, so here we are. Sometimes you try really  hard and it sounds like James Blunt with a hangover, and other times you don't try at all and the notes flutter out like Fantasia. On that day I felt like Mickey Mouse!

Teenager
An experiment in looping drums and guitar parts.

Got Out Alive
Here's a work in progress. I started writing some words but they seem to get in the way rather than enhance the thing. So perhaps it can be used as background music for something.

Vaquero
Another rough recording with the band (Four Banks). We're in need of a singer/songwriter, let me know if you're interested!
I've got a few quiet ones coming up in the next few days to balance out all this noise, as well as a looping experiment, and perhaps even some vocals to be included here or there.

W31
Just a work in progress.
For anyone tuning in - I am more than happy to try writing something based on your suggestions. Just give me a key, a 'tone' for it, whatever you like. I'm limited to guitars and drum loops though so I won't be writing any operas...

A Spark In You
This a very rough demo of a new song recorded today with the band. We're called 'Four Banks', formally 'Triceratops' (http://www.myspace.com/triceratops1).

W36
I missed a day :( Well it wasn't for lack of songs or effort, rather my ISP's outage. Regardless I'm making up for it with a double song for yesterday, and another for today.
W36 - we have the slow original and a fast version, but which one sounds better?

This is a simple tune which never really required words. Before uploading this one I dragged the file into GarageBand to edit it and for some bizarre reason it came out twice as fast. I’m not too sure which version I prefer.

Maxine

“I love you to the Max. Let’s not kid ourselves, it gets really really bad” - Silver Jews.

The home front has been continued source of stress and we’re finally on our way out, moving into a fantastic flat and we can’t wait. This tune seems to reflect this transistion so I’ve named it after our new tomato plant - a housewarming gift which we named Maxine.

Solomans

Another old track, actually a recording over a recording, so apologies for the ‘tinnyness’. This one grew up to be ‘Photo Booth’, which you can hear as a full 'band' recording at: http://soundcloud.com/trainbusker/photo-booth .

Balcony

I’ve got a brand new place,

Look at that storage space,

It’s got a balcony,

It’s got a CD player (player, player, player….)

Z10

Back in university a friend of mine gave me this plastic, coin sized microphone you could plug straight into your computer and record, it turned out to be an absolute treasure. Thank you Dave T! What a legend.

This is one of the many old rediscovered tracks, and I can’t even remember recording it. If you can bear with me on the ‘working out’ phases, I think it has something.

I'm 4U
Today's song comes from the mind, and voice, of Danny Price, of Kermit's fame. A new song by old band mates.
Words by Daniel Price, music by Alex Walker.

Welcome to todaysriff.


A few months ago my brother, a youtubing sensation, approached me stating that he was always in need of music for his videos. I’d been writing and recording for over 15 years and had somehow managed not to notice the sheer multitude of sound I’d compiled over the years. I ploughed through nearly 500 tracks of lo-fi amateur rough cuts, only a handful of which had ever blossomed into actual songs. 
The shame I felt.
Music is made to be heard! I had truly neglected these old wav files, these children of mine, left to fester on my old Dell hard drive. As a birthday present to my brother I presented 98 unfinished songs, to use however he pleased, and decided to send the best of the rest out into the world. I write songs, but really I’m a ‘riffist’ – a guitarist who can come up with a new wordless tune almost every time he picks up the guitar. I struggle to finish songs, and struggle to like the ones I complete, but the tune is always there and it’s wasted without an audience. Hence the blog - a new track, everyday.


There may not be much in the way of singing, full band production or even structure, but for these things I make no apology. The point is here that something is always being made and at some point, for someone, some of it might actually be worth paying attention to.


Wish me luck, and thanks for listening.