David Alan Wright

Written: 2006 / Nashville, TN
First Recorded: 08.01.06/ Nashville, TN / Justin Saunders’ Studio
Appears on: Previously Unreleased

The Irving Sessions // Vol. Four: Untitled #3
02.23.2009 / Minneapolis, MN

Video:

Untitled #3 (The Irving Sessions) from David Alan Wright on Vimeo.

Audio:

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Hello, and happy Tuesday. And what a good Tuesday it is: The Cavs just beat the Grizzlies and the Buckeyes took care of Penn State a little earlier on ESPN. A good time to be a sports fan from Ohio. First, a few updates to the site…

One: I came across an awesome plugin for the blogging platform Tumblr called Streampad as I was browsing Aaron Jamison’s blog With A Shout. The plugin looks for MP3s within a site and references the links for collective playback at the bottom of the page. Thinking to myself, “how cool would it be if this were available for Wordpress,” I soon discovered while reading their blog that, sure enough, a beta plugin was just released. So, I’m happy to say that you can now stream all of my music via the play button at the bottom of the screen, or, if you prefer, you can open the player – we’ll unofficially call it dWriTunes – in a new window while heading elsewhere on the Web (special thanks to Dan and Gregory for getting me all setup).

Two: You can now download MP3s of the songs for easy iPod listening here. Just right click on the links that say “MP3″, select “save link as”, and you should be good to go. Rock out to acoustic guitar-based tracks while working out! On the go! Or, while at work!

Three: I’ve added a page with some links to artists with whom I’ve either had the privilege of working or are friends of mine that you should definitely check out.

Four: I bought a new microphone and I’m pumped to see where my recordings can go as a result (recording these sessions live and trying to get together a basic mix on the same night can be a bit of a challenge, so every little step helps).

With our updates out of the way, that brings us to Vol. Four: Untitled #3, a song I wrote in late spring/early summer of 2006. It was written either shortly before or after an incredible three-week trip to Europe, and right around the time of my graduation from Belmont. Though I originally intended to add words to this composition, this song is special to me as is, as an instrumental piece. I wrote this song on a guitar that was given to me as a gift in remembrance of my grandmother (my dad’s mom), and shortly after it was written it turned into a song to celebrate the life of my grandpa (my mom’s dad) as I performed it for his Memorial on July 22nd, 2006. It’s the only performance during which I remember not being able to tell my hands what to do as they shakily made their way up and down the fretboard. It’s something I’ll never forget, and as a result, this song will always be special to me.

Two weeks later I sat down in Justin Saunders’ Nashville studio to record an acoustic version to send to my grandma (my mom’s mom; that version is below), and it hasn’t been recorded or performed live since. This song is about reconciliation to me. About paths that re-converge and the journey we take to reach that point. I also find the melody to hint at hope.

On a side note, the shirt I’m rocking in this video is from the company I helped start prior to joining Target, Speakerheart. Our invite code during our beta phase was “Orange” and you might see an artist or two sporting the same model out and about in Nashville.

Version 1 / Recorded 08.01.06, Nashville, TN

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Version 2 / Recorded 02.23.09, Minneapolis, MN

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We have seen a 20% pickup in state activity since last Tuesday as the domestic reach of davidalanwright.com has now equaled 34% from coast to coast.  This brings us to the part where we announce the winner’s from last week’s inaugural contest.  We saw incremental visits from, in order, (15th) Arizona, (16th) Oregon and (17th) Louisiana.  The lucky winners who correctly guessed the next stop on the David-Alan-Wright-Digital-Manifest-Destiny-Train are:

Jennifer Jaworski and Krissy McKay who both correctly guessed Arizona, and James Pierce, who guessed Canada while browsing from his BlackBerry, which, although technically not a state, was the next region to send a visitor my way.  He of course was said visitor, but there is no penalty for creativity and as a result I’m letting him share the crown.

This week’s map breaks out visits by city (the grand total of which is now 49, as a side note, thanks to Google finding about seven ways to classify the Twin Cities) just to mix things up.  And, no, I won’t try to pass these “How Many States?” updates off as volumes within the Irving Sessions collection.  Vol. Four will be headed your way later this week.

Visitors by City as of Feb 16, 2009

Here’s a new little segment for you called “How many states?” that we’re rolling out tonight as a test run.  I’m happy to announce that 28% of America has now been introduced to the lovely melodies and hilarious banter that can only be delivered via davidalanwright.com (hey, I’m an analyst, I speak to the numbers).  That’s right, as of February 9th, 2009, our servers have been (very mildly) rocked by visits from sea to shining sea, as we’ve received hits from 14 states.

Visitors by State as of Feb 09, 2009

Now comes the interactive portion where you get to guess which state’s constituents will be next to feel the beat and stomp their feet. Introducing…

Written: 09.14.05 / Nashville, TN
First Recorded: 2005 / Nashville, TN / Acklen Ave.
Appears on: Previously Unreleased

The Irving Sessions // Vol. Three: Contact
02.06.2009 / Minneapolis, MN

Video:

Contact (The Irving Sessions) from David Alan Wright on Vimeo.
Audio:

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Vol. Three brings us to an interesting place complete with a new milestone.  My birthday was three days ago, and to mark a quarter century worth of living, I opted to wear a different sweatshirt (which, as it turns out, happens to be a thoughtful birthday present).  Besides being generally cleaner this time around, I also come bearing a song yet to be debuted to the world.  Though not a new composition, I couldn’t find an archived set list with this song included.  I wrote this song in September of 2005 and recorded it shortly afterward, but I’m not sure of the exact date as it was captured on my standalone Boss BR-532 and I no longer have the original session.  I know I dumped it into GarageBand in July of ‘07 to get rid of an unusually long introduction, but it was recorded much earlier.

I never played this song live because it’s one of the more difficult ones to get right.  In fact, until recording this version for The Irving Sessions, I really didn’t have a good grasp of how many measures to use in certain places.  Nor could I figure out whether it was better to play with a click track or without.  I decided to go sans click for the new version and I think it turned out quite alright.

There were a few firsts for Vol. Three that I’d like to call out:

(a) I ended up keeping my first take, which definitely fits the spirit and purpose of these sessions.  My goal is to record the sessions live – audio and video – and avoid overdubs altogether.  Though I try to start and finish each volume in one night, the first two songs required a few attempts before I got them right.  Improvement on V3?  Perhaps.  Laziness overflowing?  Hard to say, but see (c) below.

(b) I had a few technical difficulties that resulted in a stop at Target on the way home from work and a trip to Guitar Center before the session was officially underway.  See, I have yet to invest in a couple of solid microphones, which makes recording live tracks a bit problematic.  For “Contact” I decided to run my guitar through a 1/4″ cable directly into the recorder but I was soon thrown off by a low humming noise to which I couldn’t quite pin down the source.  Unable to locate my spare 1/4″ cable, I decided to pick up a new one (hence the Target run heading home from the office).  Problem unsolved.  Next, after consulting my friend Justin, I decided a DI box might just do the trick.  Realizing I couldn’t make it to Guitar Center by the time they closed their doors for the night, I called ahead and they set aside a Radial ProDI for me and, believe it or not, agreed to wait a few extra minutes for me to arrive.  (They just turned me into a loyal customer and advocate).  Excited to give the new setup a whirl, I plugged everything in…and…the buzz was still there.  Next I borrowed a ground lift from downstairs – the $.99 solution rather than $99, mind you – and still, a buzz.  Baffled, I swapped guitars and sure enough, that did the trick.  So, two hours later I was ready to rock n’ roll after discovering I might need to take one of my guitars into the shop.

(c) I fell asleep on my office floor while mixing the song.  Though, as noted in (a) above, just one take was required to capture the song, I managed to wear myself out enough to fall asleep on the hardwood for almost an hour.

So, what you find here is a two-day effort, which, I believe makes it all the more special.  Below you’ll find the rough demo version I recorded sometime in 2005 for the sake of comparison.  The tempos, structure, etc. are fairly similar, but hopefully you feel the ‘09 version is a bit more polished and complete.  I would love to hear your thoughts on either take.

Version 1 / Recorded 2005, Nashville, TN

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Version 2 / Recorded 02.06.09, Minneapolis, MN

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