My Newest Recording – The Changeling
June 9th, 2010 . by Alexander Fisher
The Changeling is pretty much autobiographical. As a teenager I used to spend a lot of time in my room with my headphones on and some sort of thing in my hands, as my guitar, playing in front of packed imaginary auditoriums. I grew my hair down to the middle of my back and read Rolling Stone, Creem and Circus magazines dreaming about being a rock and roller when I grew up. I thought I was ready and destined for fame. I had the hair, I just needed a real guitar.
It is also about not having much support in my circle of friends for that dream. Once a “friend” told me I’d never learn to play guitar. I guess he thought that only he had the gift and that I should just give it up. It is also a reference to a song by the 1970’s progressive-rock band, Be-Bop Deluxe and their song Sister Seagull. A changeling normally refers to a child that has been switched at birth with another baby, on purpose or by mistake, sometimes by a fairy or a troll. I always felt my early performances of that song were of a changeling of sorts. Confident that I had what it took before hand, but too scared to perform without being so wasted, pitch went right out the window. I realize now that stage fright is not curable by any chemical courage, it only degrades your performance. It also would have helped to sing Sister Seagull and other songs in my key, not Bill Nelson’s. Not being a student of music at the time, I didn’t know any better.
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The acoustic guitar I played was a Takamine. I played the electric guitars on a Fender Stratocaster. The bass was a Rickenbacker 4001. The drums were Ludwig’s. I also played tambourine as well. I recorded this performance right after performing it live at my 25th high school reunion in about 2002. There’s a video tape of that out there somewhere. It originally had a creepy Hammond organ part in it that I left out. I recorded all tracks on my Fostex VF-16 digital multi-track, then transferred them to my computer. I processed the audio with Cakewalk Sonar v8.5 Producer and Sony Sound Forge v9.
