D. Lee Jackson

Words and Music

New Music Collaboration In The Works

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Agony logoA contest has just concluded over in Facebook involving the Bass Guitar player from the San Antonio-based Nü-metal band Agony and myself. The Bass Guitarist, Alan Wehrmann, would toss out a one-liner from Duke Nukem 3D (specifically from E1L1, “Hollywood Holocaust”), and then I would post a riddle to accompany it. The idea was to point people toward what the two of us were cooking up: a secret collaboration between his band and myself on a Nü-metal version of “Stalker,” the music from E1L1 of Duke Nukem 3D. We declared a winner early this morning.

So now, the cat is out of the bag. Agony and myself are cooking up something we hope will be worth listening to, at least if you are a fan of the heavier of the heavy metal genres. It’s going to be very loud, it’s going to be very crunchy, and it’s going to be very growly – very much unlike the original “Stalker.” I’m stoked.

The whole thing started off when I saw Alan post something about music on Doomworld in the “Everything Else” forum. I learned that he was with a band, listened to their music, and issued him and his band a friendly challenge: remake “Stalker” in his band’s style. Agony talked it over, and Alan told me they decided to go for it.

Right now, my role in the new version of the song has been limited to consulting from afar. Soon, however, I hope to attend a rehearsal with my MIDI setup and possibly contribute to the sound. Maybe. They may not need me – only time will tell. Regardless, this is going to be fun, and I hope you will enjoy it, too.

An Audio Silver Lining

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SoundCloud 300x300 CloudmarkFor the first time in quite some while, things have started getting musically busy around here. Since my last entry, I’ve finally started taking advantage of my long-neglected user account over on SoundCloud and have been busy posting some of my albums and other music over there. Three albums are up, although one (Derivations) is missing an Album Commentary track (the free SoundCloud account I have limits how much you can post by total time, and I hit the limit before I could get all of Derivations’ tracks up.).

Here are the links to the albums that are on SoundCloud:

I’ve also posted a couple of single pieces of music, although one of them is technically one track with four pieces of music in it. More on that later. The first single is a piece I did in 2002 for “Duke Nukem Forever,” and it’s called the Lenoman Theme. The piece is an intro to an in-game late-night talk show. If you play it, try playing it on loop a few times. I think you’ll like the results.

The other track isn’t an album or game track at all. Instead, it’s something from my history – 1984, to be precise. Back in that summer, I was a member of a Drum and Bugle Corps out of Houston, Texas called the Nighthawks. During a rehearsal stop at Hixon High School in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the mallet percussion section (bells (me), xylophone, marimba, vibraphone) recorded our repertoire for that year’s show. We played four pieces: “The Sinfonians” by Clifton Williams, “From Mighty Oaks,” a drum feature called “Classical Drag” by Vincent Paredes, and music from the motion picture “Somewhere in Time.” I wrote the mallet parts for the first piece and co-wrote the mallet parts for the second piece. You’ll also hear a couple of voices on the recording: mine is the first voice you’ll hear (the other is our xylophone player, Steve McDonald, speaking for his own tape recorder).

I invite you to listen to all of the pieces I’ve put online. If I can ever scrape together the money for their “Next Pro” annual subscription, which comes with more storage time, I’ll upload more works. If you want to contribute to that cause, either buy some of my music from my Bandcamp page or make a donation via my Paypal.me page. I would greatly appreciate either one. Thank you!