Had a few months away from the music, doing some quick trips overseas to New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore! Always an amazing time that I thoroughly enjoy, but now it’s time to get back into the music!
As I speak, there are five songs mixed down for my new collection of songs (so far unnamed) , and while I didn’t tell anyone, I decided that when I got to this point with the mixing, it would be time to start putting them out one by one, while carrying on with the mixing of the remaining songs in the background. Dennis Leeflang has been doing an amazing job on these, and I totally can’t wait to have them out there! This morning I sent what will be the first song released to Mr Andy VanDette for mastering. Dan Verkys will also be handling the artwork, as is always the case. We’ve started bouncing ideas around for it already.
It’s a song called “Ride” and is a song I wrote in 2001 back when I was living in Hobart, but knew that I had to pack everything up to move away and start again – which I did in 2004, but that’s another story. It is interesting to look back on the song, and also hear it coming to life in this final version. It features Rob Lundgren on vocals, Dennis Leeflang on drums (and mix), and myself on guitars, bass and keyboards.
Aside from this, I’ve gotten back into the playing live thing, which felt really good to do! Here’s a few recent live vids:
Full length version of "Born" from Friday night at The Basement Cafe & Bar. A very personal song, but one I always dug from my second album "Resist to Exist" from 2014.
Posted by Chris Szkup on Sunday, August 13, 2017
(“Born” – Live at The Basement Cafe & Bar, August 11, 2017)
A song from my second album “Resist to Exist”. For some reason this was only the third time I had played it before. Always liked the song!
Full length "Slackers and Wankers" by Chris Szkup, live at The Basement Cafe & Bar on August 11, 2017!!
Posted by The Feckers on Wednesday, August 16, 2017
(“Slackers and Wankers” – Live at The Basement Cafe & Bar, August 11, 2017)
A favourite from The Feckers album “It’d Be Rude Not To”. One that I have been playing since even before the album was released in 2013, and one that is played at most live gigs I do. It had been a while this time, so it felt real good coming back to it!
Jamming the great Alice in Chains song "Down in a hole" with Dylan Beast last night at The Basement!!
Posted by Chris Szkup on Friday, August 11, 2017
(“Down in a Hole” – Live at The Basement Cafe & Bar, August 11, 2017 – with Dylan Beast)
Alice in Chains cover and wow, what a song!!! Dylan and I had started playing in a heavy band together that is still putting songs together on the quiet. We had also discussed other styles and possibly doing acoustic duo type gigs, which is how this all began. We do quite a few Alice songs as we both love them so much!!
Jamming the great Alice in Chains song "Sunshine" with Dylan Beast last night at The Basement Cafe & Bar!!!
Posted by Chris Szkup on Friday, August 11, 2017
(“Sunshine” – Live at The Basement Cafe & Bar, August 11, 2017 – with Dylan Beast)
Alice in Chains cover. See what I mean – we really love the band haha! What a song, and album!!
"Thank fuck it's Friday"!!(Cover of the great David Brent song from last week, Live at The Basement)
Posted by Chris Szkup on Thursday, May 25, 2017
(“Thank Fuck It’s Friday” – Live at The Basement Cafe & Bar, May 20, 2017)
David Brent cover. Being a huge fan of the British (aka REAL) version of The Office, I was absolutely over the moon when I heard Ricky was bringing back the Brent character and I always enjoyed his songs from the show, drawing that fine line between being a pisstake and actually being pretty bloody good! I’ve been doing a few of his songs from the soundtrack album live this year as I just think they’re really good songs. I haven’t met anyone in the crowds that has recognised them so far though sadly – maybe they think “that guy Chris writes really good songs” when I do it? Sorry Ricky – I always give you a plug when I do them haha.
Jamming some "Spoonman" last night at The Basement Cafe & Bar with Dylan Beast!! RIP Chris.
Posted by Chris Szkup on Friday, May 19, 2017
(“Spoonman” – Live at The Basement Cafe & Bar, May 20, 2017 – With Dylan Beast)
This was the day after Chris Cornell sadly passed away. What a SHOCK! We were both huge fans, and this wasn’t planned at all. I sent Dylan a message asking if he’d like to sing something by Chris and he was into it. Some people said perhaps it was too soon, but I don’t think there is a right way in these cases – you just do what you gotta do, which is what we did here. Real glad we did!
Snippet of the great Bumblefoot song "Drunk" from last night at The Basement Cafe & Bar!! (Who's idea was it to try and cover both Ron Thal and Robin Zander vocals with a tickle in the throat?!)
Posted by Chris Szkup on Friday, June 2, 2017
(“Drunk” – Live at The Basement Cafe & Bar, June 02, 2017)
Have been wanting to do a song by the great Bumblefoot for a long time, but I’m human in regards to my singing range and guitar abilities while he isn’t haha! So for a long time it didn’t happen, just cause I couldn’t find one I could do justice to! Here is my attempt at the great song “Drunk” anyway. Hope I didn’t balls up your song too much Ron!!
(Never thought I’d get to sing the lyric “I see your face in every drop of golden urine” at an intimate little acoustic gig some day in inner Melbourne though I must admit haha!)
Posted by Sash Bar on Saturday, April 8, 2017
(“Kings Highway” – Live at Sash Bar, April 08, 2017 – With Michael Hussey)
Tom Petty cover. I’ve done this song a fair bit this year. The “Into The Great Wide Open” album it’s from is just about perfect to me. Just great songs that are to the point, great melodies and playing, no one going off on any tangents trying to steal the spotlight or anything like that. Just great rock n roll – which is what Tom and The Heartbreakers have done for over 40 years very consistently. My mate Michael Hussey joins me here for some off the cuff jamming of the tune. Great fun to do!
The fifth in a “once a month or so” series of tracks from TCSO, a mellow acoustic song written by Chris in his Mount Stuart unit up in the hills in 2001 on the old Tascam four track, where he would sometimes write and record three songs in a day. Not having a job had some benefits.
