Intermission Theme (from 'Zone')

Written and Recorded in 1991

This tune was written for a project of students’ theatrical performance called Zone, to which I was deeply involved during the autumn of 1991. In its initial phase, we started off with gathering random ideas for the project and I wrote some original tunes in accordance with the basic scheme provided by the director, who was my close friend at that time. This tune was one of them.

Ideas I proposed for the performance included to write and play an operetta consists of songs written by me and other prospective performers and this tune was supposed to be the closing theme of the operetta. As the scheme progressed, the idea was dismissed by the director and the tune was never used in the actual performance. 

For making this video, I decided to treat this tune as the intermission theme of the Playlist version of Zone in my YouTube channel. Images and footage I used here are picked up for previewing the second half of the performance. Needless to say, this tune is almost identical with the Opening Theme in the Playlist, because originally these tunes were meant to be the opening section and its reprise section within an operetta. A subtle but important difference between these tunes is the way they end. Whilst the opening theme simply ends as it ceases to repeat its final section, this reprise version slows down to be connected to a new section – a variation of National Anthem, another tune I wrote for this project. This was caused by the initial scheme, which held a scene located at the fictional government’s headquarters soon after the operetta. In other words, when I was writing these tunes I was not sure what would come next to the Opening Theme, therefore I left it to end as it does whilst I made a twist at the ending of the reprise so that it would suit to the next scene we held at that moment.

Jailbreak Runaways and a Village Girl (from 'Music for a Story-Telling')

Written in 1991 and 1994 / Recorded in 1995 and 2012 (lead guitar part)

Basically, as far as the music concerns, my conceptual work titled Music for a Story-Telling is a collection of re-workings of my past compositions written in 1991; either works I wrote for a band that couldn’t exist long enough to perform it, or works for a students’ theatrical project that failed to feature the whole works I wrote for them when it was performed. The chorus section of this tune came from the former, whilst other sections were newly written – or largely adapted from I Can’t Explain by The Who - in 1994.

In the concept, this tune features The Peasant’s monologue, which gives the account of how the jailbreak runaways – Kelp and Suetrea - come across with a village girl called Mikhi, in a bit comical way.

This tune was one of my favourites to play with my band called Culotte in those days and we had lots of fun jamming this thing especially in the final days of the band.

Opening Theme (from 'Zone')

Written and Recorded in 1991

This tune was written for a project of students’ theatrical performance called Zone, to which I was deeply involved during the autumn of 1991. In its initial phase, we started off with gathering random ideas for the project and I wrote some original tunes in accordance with the basic scheme provided by the director, who was my close friend at that time and this tune was one of them. Ideas I proposed for the performance included to write and play an operetta consists of songs written by me and other various performers and this tune was supposed to be the opening theme of the operetta. As the scheme progressed, this idea was dismissed by the director and the tune was never used in the actual performance.

For making this video, I decided to treat this tune as the opening theme of the Playlist version of Zone on my YouTube channel. Images and footage I used here are picked up for summarising the first half of the performance. 

Lunch Time News Bulletin (from 'Music for a Story-Telling')

Written and Recorded in 1991 and 1994 / Remixed in 2012

Basically, as far as the music concerns, my conceptual work titled Music for a Story-Telling is a collection of re-workings of my past compositions written in 1991; either works I wrote for a band that couldn’t exist long enough to perform it, or works for a students’ theatrical project that failed to feature the whole works I wrote for them when it was performed. This tune consists of pieces from both occasions; brief intro from the former and the main body from the latter.

For presenting the story efficiently, I thought it would be convenient to feature a form of news reading at the beginning of the Part Three of Music for a Story-Telling. In doing so, I thought it would be crucial for a news programme to have a suitable theme music to begin with, so I picked up a piece from the said past work and arranged it in this way. It was a bit fun to arrange my own work for a specific purpose like this.

The main body of this piece is merely a repetition of two chords and, needless to say, this piece is not written for listening entertainment. For making this video, I used a couple of different takes I recorded in both occasion; the demo recording of Music of a Story-Telling in 1994 and its initial attempt for the students’ theatrical project in 1991. The earlier demo was meant to be used as background music for an idea I have suggested, which I called The Talk Session. The idea was dismissed by the director and it never performed nor even rehearsed, but since the tune was originally meant to accommodate spontaneous conversations, when I came up to the idea of news reading, I thought this might be the right tune to re-work on.

Noise effects were all somehow created and recorded by myself in 1994, for a different purpose.

"Baby I Love You" from 'Zone'

Written and Recorded in 1991

This tune was written for a project of students’ theatrical performance called Zone, to which I was deeply involved during the autumn of 1991. In its initial phase, we started off with gathering random ideas for the project and I wrote some original tunes in accordance with the basic scheme provided by the director, who was my close friend at that time and this tune was one of them. Ideas I gave for the performance included to play a medley of songs written by me and other various performers in a form of operetta and at that stage, I supposed this tune to be the climax of the operetta, performed by a band of boys all dressed in female clothes. As the scheme progressed later, the director dismissed the idea of the operetta but took up the idea of clothing and he gave me a role of the singer for playing this tune as the climax of the entire show.

Footage of this video was taken from the actual performance that took place in December 1991. As you can see, we all dressed in female clothes with make-ups on – actually, the drummer was genuinely a girl though – and it is me who’s playing the role of singer. By that time, I wrote a provisional lyric for the tune and called it Baby I Love You, which was a typical but suitable crappy thing for a Rock’N’Roll tune like this. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately), the audio track of the original videotape was too horrible to be presented here and my singing part was almost inaudible.

For making this video, I mainly used the original demo recording I made by myself to replace the horrible audio track of the filmed performance. I also used a couple of brief sections of another recording performed by the band in the footage; the bridging section written in the time signature 3/4 in the middle and the finishing off section, in order to make them heard a bit.

Somebody to Love (Reprise) from 'Music for a Story-Telling'

Written in 1991 (music), 1994 and 2012 (words) / Recorded in 1994

Basically, as far as the music concerns, my conceptual work titled Music for a Story-Telling is a collection of re-workings of my past compositions written in 1991; either works I wrote for a band that couldn’t exist long enough to perform it, or works for a students’ theatrical project that failed to feature the whole works I wrote for them when it was performed. This tune was the first thing I wrote for the latter occasion, as its main theme, and its acoustic variation was used in the actual theatrical performance.

For converting past materials to the said conceptual work, I simply re-used these things without making any changes in neither structure nor arrangement: the un-used main theme as the main theme whilst it’s acoustic variation as Reprise of the main theme.

As for the tune’s function in the conceptual work, both the main theme and this Reprise are designed to accommodate Kelp the protagonist’s monologues, in which he expresses his personal desires in general. In Reprise, it is more focused on his sexual desire due to the situation where he is facing to a young and attractive village girl. The author also added seemingly wise but almost meaningless words to the protagonist’s wooing in order to enhance this character’s shallow but deceptive and canning character.  

This Means Nothing to You

Written and Recorded in 1989

I wrote this tune just for myself so that I could enjoy playing the lead guitar part genuinely. I put some of my habitual guitar licks into the melody line so that I would not need to practice for playing this tune much. Everything worked quite well at that time and I even managed to play it live with a newly formed band called The Intellectual Gnomes by the end of 1989, within a few months since I have written the tune.

Even while I was playing this with my band mates, my basic notion about this tune was the same as what its title says: This Means Nothing to You. I wrote this just for myself. Therefore, regardless of whether this means something to me or not, this should mean nothing to anyone else including my mates, friends or whosoever, let alone the prospective audience. Even though actually I took the phrase from Frank Zappa’s remark on stage addressed to the audience featured in an unofficial CD of The Mothers of Invention, I thought it was very true to call this tune in this way and I still think it is.

For making this video, I tried to synchronise the audio, which is my personal demo recording, with the footage of our sole live performance of this tune, captured in December 1989. The live performance itself also went quite well but, to my disappointment, the house engineer there failed to capture the audio at good quality.