Music recordings from the 1980's...
Instrumental Tracks
Words & Music by Scott Goodfellow
These tracks were recorded in the 1980’s using what ever technology I could get my hands on in those years. Sometimes the constant building and reworking of the custom recording “Rig” became as integral to the “sound” of the music as the music itself, and on this page are some of the tracks that came out of that brief period, recorded to Teac / Tascam 4 track open reel and cassette tape decks.
My upper “goal” in those days, was to move to Toronto and win a coveted Record Contract, based on the demo tracks included on this page. I had hoped to record these demos “for real”; in a dedicated studio with real musicians and release them with the help of the Record Company, to ultimately then be played on the Radio… just like Billy Joel.
It all seemed totally doable at the time… because as it turned out, I was coming up through a "golden age" - a time when music had "scarcity" and even "purpose".
Eventually the Big Day arrived; I was offered an actual Record Contract. I was there in the Toronto office of the Record Company and I had read over the fine print in their contract. I asked how I was ever going to pay back the cost of recording, touring and promotion from the few pennies per dollar stated in the contract. He pointed to a pile of paper on his desk and flatly answered; “there are so many more behind you; you either take or leave it”. I left it.
By then Robin King at Sheridan College had introduced me to the Internet. No one else I knew had even heard about the internet at that point in the early 80's, and I thought I was in on a secret (!) When I saw this David Bowie interview in 2000, he confirmed enough for me back then to think that artistic independence was achievable on the Internet. Independence was definitely the primary reason GoodMedia was built for… and David Bowie, well, he was awesome… and is still missed.
Vocal Tracks
So instead of recording songs every day, the goal of GoodMedia gradually had to evolve into building the machines and network infrastructure to independently distribute and sell my own tracks world wide from a Toronto data center, using my own rack of server machines.
Toward that end result, GoodMedia has a huge capacity, but also then; the very same technology has enabled us all to share music files for free… and end all "scarcity".
It’s been a very long journey and during that time most everything about the “Record Industry” has completely changed. While the Server machines has taken on many forms over the years, audio recording and playback technologies have more radically changed; all the physical recording equipment used in the recordings and images on this page are now brilliantly modeled and simulated as 64-bit plugins running in Logic Pro, LUNA and Pro Tools on my Apple computer.
There are even plugins to simulate the dreaded tape hiss and saturation of the tape recorders that people used.
I now have the processing power and technical freedom to record anything that I can possibly think of, and so too of course, does everyone else, all over the world…
Music is now a commodity; Spotify, Apple and the like, now offer over 75 million songs available to stream anytime, from anywhere, and as many times as you want.
Not so long ago, the only way to hear that one recording that totally rocked your world, was to buy it, along with a dedicated audio system to play it on, or wait beside an AM or FM radio for hours until it played on the local radio station's rotation… this change in scarcity has been a massive change; equally wonderful & destructive to the craft of music itself.
At this writing, the entire recording process that once required very expensive Recording equipment in a dedicated Studio, can now be simulated, synthesized, recorded and mixed on just a simple iPad.
The Beatles recorded "Sgt. Pepper's" using an 8 Track tape recorder. Current Apple computers can record & playback over 10,000 Tracks, in Logic Pro.
Music is not all about track counts, of course… however; a certain technical "saturation point", has been reached in just a few decades; where now a lot of current recorded music sounds very similar… to me.
Each must now reach out for their own niche audience, in this Brave New Digital World.
Scott Goodfellow Band
1982 was my graduate year at Grant MacEwan University, in Edmonton, Alberta. This was the first year the school offered an 8 track recording course, and the new faculty needed functional bands to test out their shiny new equipment… so I saw an opportunity to start a temporary “pick up band” from the very best players in the school, and since I couldn’t play Billy Joel songs anymore, I wrote and recorded my own charts for this band…
Live To 2 Track were some of the rehearsal tapes recorded as gradual practice for the multitracked versions and live concert recordings, also all recorded as student practice… The “band” was only ever “together” for a few practice days, so everybody had to read charts to remember their parts; and it was a very cool chance to learn live recording for some incredibly cool music students, in the 1980’s…
We rolled a lot of magnetic tape and made a whole lot of happy noise… Blink, and it is all now a fond, fun moment in our past;
Keyboards & Vocals: Scott Goodfellow
Guitar: Len Rosenfeld & Guy Saddy
Bass: Mark Kotaska & Gary Myers
Drums: Michael Sabourin
Sax: Dave Babcock
Background Vocals: Laura McDougall & Pat Lancaster
Words & Music by Scott Goodfellow
scottgoodfellow.com
Toronto ON Canada
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