After all the excitement of doing an actual GIG for the 20th Anniversary of JOYZINE, I forgot to mention that they have also unleashed a compilation album called 20 Years Of Joy: Volume 1 to mark the occasion, available on Bandcamp.
As you may have GLEANED from the title, this is the first of SEVERAL such compilations which I believe will be released over the course of the year (four altogether I think). The one what I'm on features a HOST of excellent acts like Scaramanga Six, Burning Hell, Piney Gir, and Deux Furieuses (as watched on Sunday) alongside the traditional Many Many More.
My track is a cover version of What A Wonderful World (AKA That Louis Armstrong Song, You Know, It's In James Bond). The remit for the compilation was that all the songs should be something to do with JOY and, after a while trying to think up a new song I eventually realised that this was my opportunity to COVER one what I've been piddling about with for literally DECADES. I have a big folder full of SONGS copied from Songbooks over the years, a large number of which were written down in the last century whilst visitng my dad in Cornwall - he has LOADS of these songbooks, so I would sit in his spare room trying out all these other songs, and one of my all-time favourites was the aforementiond "What A Wonderful World". It took me quite a lot of figuring out and transposing to get it into a format that I could actually PLAY, after which I have spent many many years strumming it in the privacy of my own home in a fairly gentle, cautiously sung version.
I've never played it LIVE because I don't have the confidence in either my singing OR guitar playing to do it, but thought that I would probably be able to get it pretty much right if I too several goes at recording it. Friends, I have to report that I was INCORRECT and even with modern Jiggery Pokery I was unable to get it taped in anything LIKE a publically acceptable way.
CHASTISED I decided to have a go at using the MAGIC OF MIDI to do something else, and over the course of a couple of days it MUTATED from a gentle strum through a beautiful classic to something that sounded as if SKYNET was taking a break after OBLITERATING HUMANITY and was all of a sudden wondering if that had been entirely the right thing to do. This was, of course, also taking place in a universe where SKYNET has a noticeable East Midlands accent, and I guess that would mean that the TERMINATORS would have been similar recast. "Oi'll Be Back ME DUCK" possibly?
Anyway, I think it turned out all right and even if it didn't there is a whole HEAP of other GRATE stuff on the album, so why not give it a listen and then also PURCHASE it? GO ON!
