OIL ON THE WATER


A song I wrote about the BP oil spill from the Deepwater horizion oil rig and the events surrounding it.

Guitar is live most other tracks are BB/RB.

Enjoy

Nice work Herb!! I'm guessing that's the "Dire" guitar patch. Very cool feel-a little Neil Young in there! Keep it up. Take care. Greg

Like this Herb. A working man/industrial type song with a dark atmosphere. Cheers.

Really like that guitar picking Herb, was that you or Dire?


Josie

Thanks for listening. I had to listen carefully to this on my mp3 player to answer the questions accurately.

Drums and bass as well as dobro are from BB/RB

The acoustic guitar is me strumming in the background. I also play the electric guitar with the lead parts. So yeah, all the guitars in this is me playing them. Mark K from Dire Straits was a picker who had a major influence on my playing style. Notice my forum name? I try.


Perhaps I should consider making some of those there things called "User Tracks" with my lead picking...... in this style...???? Actually that's been something I've had on the back burner for some time..... it's more of a matter of getting the time to sit down and do it.

Glad you liked it.

Hi Herb,

great guitar playing.
Nice production.

Guenter

Nicely sung and very well played. Yes you're wearing your DS influence on your sleeve but I see no harm in that. If there's one of your various crafts that would need developing then in my view it would be that of lyricist.

Nice production, the bottom end is filled out quite nicely:)


DA...

Excellent song. The oil spill was an eye opener for everyone. Can't forget these catastrophe's and allow complacency to set in. Excellent sing and playing....

Herb, Good story song on an important subject. Very good vocal and the mix is spot on. Nice picking also. Tom

I didn't know what aspect of that event was worse.... the initial disaster and spill, or the politics played regarding the bungled cleanup attempt.

It was the frustration of seeing the politicians use that disaster for their own political agendas rather than placing politics aside, working as public servants, and getting the situation under control and cleaned up as quickly as possible, that resulted in the concept to write this song.

People on the streets simply wanted it stopped and cleaned up while the pols were playing games and letting the oil flow unchecked for weeks.

So I did what I could and wrote a song about it.

Herb,

Sounds good. Well mixed. I think you would have been better off without the Mark Knopfler imitation - it is such a distinctive style you can't hear it without thinking "he's doing Mark Knopfler.." the doubled solo and the guitar fills after that are not derivative - so they aren't distracting from your message - so I think they work better for the song.

There is a real Neil Young quality to the lyric - stuff pulled from several different directions and those kind of shotgun accusations without real explanations so the listener has to fill things in or make up their own story - worked for Neil... a lot of interesting images along the way..

A good flow to the sound (although that last chord cuts kind of abruptly)

floyd

Floyd, thanks.

I didn't really set out to imitate MK. It may have turned out that way but that wasn't part of the plan. I was simply trying to create a part on the guitar that would fit and be a bit haunting in it's feel. Hence, the reverse bends in a few places.

I read an interview with MK in GP mag. A comment he made really stuck with me. Something to the effect that it's not so much what you play, although that is important, but what you don't play, that really sets your playing apart and imparts feel into the music. That has stuck with me and I try to be tasty with the licks as opposed to packing as many notes into a given limited time as is possible....although I do admire the pickers who can shred the fretboard.

I was into the twin leads thing when I recorded this.... still love a sweet twin, but have backed off a bit.

Yeah... I was just trying to tell the story as I saw it from my POV.

Thanks for the listen.

BTW: Be watching, I'm writing a new one now, lots of cool things in it (licks on tele and taylor) and some production things that you don't hear very often in this forum.... I tried a few new things and they are working pretty nicely..... Still actually in the writing stages, but I have a mock up of the song done... but I'm not releasing anything until the writing is done and it's properly recorded. It could be epic..... or not. We'll see.

I like that MK quote. My favorite bluegrass rhythm player once told me "it took me 2 years to learn all the runs and 20 years to learn when not to do them."

It was sad watching the spill fiasco play out in the news. I finally gave up on the talking heads and started reading local papers on the net -- real folks' stories of how they were affected, etc. That really brought it home. And, I suppose the environmental damage will take decades to play out.

I enjoyed the song and agree with floyd re the Neal Young vibe. Great mix too!

Herb,
Great song! Thanks for writing it and performing it so well.
This hits pretty close to home for me because where I work. Let's just say the story your telling is right on the money.

SD

That one hits close to home here too. I was working on a levee project just below New Orleans when this happened. (As fate would have it, that community, Braithwaite, was completely flooded by Hurricane Isaac in 2012.)

Later on in 2010 I was involved in surveying some marsh and coastal areas, oyster beds, etc. Also started to pen a song, but never got far.

I enjoyed this all around. Another heavy topic you tackled.

Hi, Herb !:))


This was really nice !
Everything seemed to
function so smooth on
this track !:)) Just great !:))
I liked your vocals best !:))


Cheers
Dani