Andrew Nicholson

Hey all,

Been away for ages from the site. Finally now I am posting the full second Bruce Springsteen tribute album online. It had been complete since around September last year, how time flies.

Hope you enjoy listening to the songs. I have quite a few spare copies so if anyone wants one, just let me know. They are free, I only charge for the shipping. Get in touch with me at the usual email address andrew@ — this domain —

Cheers,

Andrew

Andrew Nicholson – Driving All Night: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen Volume II (2009)

Recently taking a lot of time out to master the 2nd Bruce Springsteen tribute cd (almost done, I promise!) I was pleased with some of the results I got, hence I thought it was worth to see what I could do mastering some of my older music. The Jim Steinman fan album submission I made in late 2006/early 2007 always lacked a bit of grand full sound I was trying to create. I felt the orchestra and drums were slightly underpowered. Well what a bit of mastering can do. It took me just around an hour to get this right…. The new vocal was recorded earlier this year but not used till now.

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I’m busy with the final touches of my new Bruce Springsteen Tribute Album but all the basic recording is now complete. I’ve managed to put together 15 songs for a 79 minute album:

Andrew Nicholson – Driving All Night: A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen Volume II (2009)
1. Growin’ Up
2. New York City Serenade
3. Thunder Road
4. Darkness on The Edge of Town
5. Drive All Night
6. Reason To Believe
7. Tougher Than The Rest
8. I Wish I Were Blind
9. I Ain’t Got No Home
10. Streets of Philadelphia
11. Hearts of Stone
12. Further On (Up The Road)
13. Devils & Dust
14. When The Saints Go Marching In
15. Long Walk Home

Whilst I was recording it became clear I was recording one song from almost each of Springsteen’s studio albums, so I was thinking of continuing that trend. However it would have had to be a double cd considering the amount of studio albums and thus taken me a lot longer to complete (I have been busy recording this album, starting with demos back in February). In the end I am happy with the song choices and although some gems I was thinking of recording such as “Queen of The Supermarket” / “Downbound Train” and “Land of Hope and Dreams”, I can always do those songs at a later stage for Volume 3 perhaps?

The flipside is that I have now done 25 Bruce Springsteen songs back to back thus I am looking forward continuing with my own music for the next couple of years at least.

I will be working on the artwork for this album over the next couple of days and hope to have it all complete by the weekend so that copies should be available well before mid September. Will post an update when ready.

Peace,

Andrew

..still recording songs for the second tribute cd.
At this stage there is a possibility it may turn out a double cd, which would be great if it did.
I am about halfway through recording the songs and it seems I am picking a song from each of Bruce Springsteen’s studio albums

Hopefully be done with the recording towards the end of August after which I will put the songs up in the cds/albums section of the site.

I have quite a few photos to add to the site from a Bruce Springsteen concert I went to in June and from my holiday in Disneyland Paris. Will post them soon.

-Andrew

I was sad to hear Michael Jackson died this week. Although I did not have tickets for any of the O2 shows (they seemed to have sold out in minutes as far as I could see) but I was hoping he would do well and give a new generation an insight as to the excitement of watching him perform live. Whether or not he could have pulled those shows off well I am not sure but I certainly was hoping he would make a come back. I had always been disappointed with the lack of new Michael Jackson music since History/Blood on the Dancefloor and although Invincible (2001) features some great tracks (Unbreakable / 2000 Watts / You Rock my World) it seemed to lack the creativity and productivity which I am sure he was capable of. I guess I was a bit of a fan of Michael in the 90s as I had bought all his cds and was always looking forward to seeing his new music videos.

I was lucky enough to have seen Michael Jackson perform live on Monday September 30th 1996 in the Amsterdam Arena. It was the second of a three night stand there. He came back for a further two nights in 1997. He toured all throughout Europe for around a year I believe without doing any shows in the USA. I am guessing that had to do with the bad press he was starting to get in the mid 90s. What I personally remember really well from the show I attended was the excitement of watching him perform, the amazing dancemoves, the custome changes, the great use of the huge screens, waving of the Dutch flag by MJ and especially the marvellous CGI style introduction (quite ahead of its time back then) played on the big screens which was customised for each city on the tour after which Micheal Jackson stood still on stage for minutes to the huge roar of the crowd. The concert introduction from that tour can be found in various YouTube clips online and I have posted one of the better quality ones here.

I found a couple of instrumental MJ tracks I did years back on a tape which belonged to my nan. I cannot fully remember the list of equipment I used to record these tracks but I think I did these using a Technics KN1000 keyboard along with the Yamaha MU100R sound canvas and a 4 track taperecorder. I used a lot of sequencing back then so the songs are more mechanical sounding than anything else I’ve done but I thought it would still be interesting to make some mp3s out of them and post them online to share. The date of the tape is 31st of October 1997 and thus the tracks must have been recorded before then. So from the vaults as a little homage to Michael Jackson here are “We are the world” and “Will you be there”.

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Hi again,

I had a question come through about if people can buy the albums on this site. You certainly can. Just send an email to andrew@ (this domain) and I can sort something out. All cds come with proper artwork and professionally printed cds.
I only charge for cd materials and shipping costs as I’m not into music to make money out of and do not hold copyright of songs I have not written.

Currently taking a break from recording but will be putting up the 2nd Springsteen tribute cd over the next few months along with one filled of Bob Dylan songs.

In the long run I aim to complete “Thunder” around the autumn, an album filled with my own songs again.

Thanks and peace,

Andrew

Another Bruce Springsteen cover I put together a few weeks ago. It’s “Thunder Road” with just piano and vocal… Not incredibly impressed with my version, think I could have done better here. I will see how it pans out in amongst the other songs on the second tribute album. If I still don’t like it then I will rerecord it.

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I just read a sad report that singer/songwriter Gregg Fulkerson, the composer of the beautiful song “A Date With Destiny” passed away on Tuesday (April 14th). Gregg was only 44.

More information about Gregg and his music can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregg_Fulkerson
http://www.myspace.com/wwwmyspacecomgreggfulkerson

“A Date With Destiny” was in fact rumoured to be a contender song to be on “Bat out of Hell II:Back into Hell” (by Steinman/Meat Loaf), it has remained unrecorded by any big named artists up until now. A gorgeous song in my opinion which has a very “Thunder Road”/Bruce Springsteen feel to it.

I recorded my own version of the song in 2006.

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Rest in Peace Gregg….

Another song for the second Springsteen tribute album.
This is a very simple version of a Woody Guthrie song which Bruce Springsteen performed a few times in the past during some of his tours and he has also included it during some shows in his current 2009 tour as well.

Interestingly to make the song more current I’ve read that Bruce Springsteen changed the lyric “The Gamblin’ man is rich while the working man is poor.” into “The Banking man is rich while the working man is poor.”, so here it is with that lyric change as well.

I chose for a simple arrangement with just a warm synthesizer pad as backing and the vocal. It will probably be the only track on the album with an apparent electronic backing as I am going to keep the rest more acoustic sounding (guitars and piano). I think it is a slighly eerie/empty sounding version but hopefully interesting because of that and will probably stand out as a bit different in amongst the rest of the songs on the final album.

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Well sooner than I thought I am working once more on some Bruce Springsteen songs which I will probably turn into another full album. Here is my version of the title track taken from the 2005 album Devils & Dust by Bruce Springsteen. I changed the arrangement quite a bit by settling for Piano and vocal (which I actually think will form for a large part the basis of the full album). I have tried to express the emotions in the song by including contrast both in the vocal (low to high range) and in the piano part (starting very low and ending with a high improvisation part). The original I think is a brilliant song and one of my favourite Springsteen songs from recent years.

Here is my version which will also be the first song on the new tribute album which I hope to complete within the next few months.

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