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Christopher Cook's avatar

I want to hear the Phrygian influences!

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Tesstamona's avatar

You will SO SO soon! It's heavily featured on (unreleased) tracks like "God In Hell" and the album's title track "Ghost In The Machine". I'm obsessed with Phrygian modes so we're taking some liberties as we wrap up the final songs 🏴‍☠️

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Christopher Cook's avatar

Nice! It’s been ages since I played the piano. I am sure my brain is jello and my fingers are fish sticks by now. But I remember messing with modes. Phrygian is phreaky!

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Tesstamona's avatar

Oh holy shit. So first off that’s a dope story, but the fact that you mentioned house of the rising Sun is a trip.

My biological grandfather was an investigative journalist and at some point in his career, he tried to hunt down the true author of that song because to this day, I believe it remains unknown.

Then without knowing that, I find myself in a community college group voice class in 2010, which is right when I got sober and right when I began to sing — one of the first songs we learned was house of the rising Sun.

If we are ever in the same place, locationally, we will have to try to do a Collab or something. That’s if both of us can remember The song lol

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Christopher Cook's avatar

"My biological grandfather was an investigative journalist and at some point in his career, he tried to hunt down the true author of that song because to this day, I believe it remains unknown."

—I did not know that the author was unknown. I always figured it was The Animals. Looking further…Wikipedia is treating it almost like a folk standard. I had no idea! I take it your bio-gramps never found out?

"Then without knowing that, I find myself in a community college group voice class in 2010, which is right when I got sober and right when I began to sing — one of the first songs we learned was house of the rising Sun."

—Whoa, that's wild!

"That’s if both of us can remember The song lol"

—I would definitely need a lot of advance notice, to thaw out my fish sticks. And maybe to take some #$%@ing Prevagen 🤣

"So first off that’s a dope story"

—You want to hear a more personal memory association with that song? (Substack messages or email…)

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Tesstamona's avatar

omg i just saw that! Yes i will DM you

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Tesstamona's avatar

its so beautiful! my collaborator told me it sounded like a "gypsy conjuring" on one of the songs which i was doubled over laughing at cuz thats definitely the vibe. And I'm sure you would pick the piano back up immediately. I find it to be a very forgiving instrument regarding passage of time! you will remember! 🏴‍☠️

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Christopher Cook's avatar

I am looking forward to hearing the gypsy witchery you weave!

And I think I might’ve hurt the piano’s feelings, because I don’t think it will forgive me so easily 🤣

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Tesstamona's avatar

🤣🤣🤣 only one way to find out!

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Christopher Cook's avatar

I snuck away from a birthday party in a church basement about three years ago, and I found a piano upstairs in the nave. My fingers were fishsticks, but not terrible. The real problem was memory. I played the opening Bm of Great Gig in the Sky and just couldn’t remember where to go next, though I used to play it all the time. So then I figured I would just try something easy, like House of the Rising Sun. After a minute, I had reminded myself of the whole progression, but my brain was having difficulty keeping up with remembering the next chord in time to actually get there. So it was halting.

I am sure I could get some skill back with a lot of practice, but it’s definitely not like riding a bike 😆 (Plus, I was never super-awesome, so it’s not like I would be drawing on some stored repository of greatness. I was just okay.)

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Raquel 💫's avatar

“Truth seekers, survivors, heroes, sages, lovers, black sheep and budding post-apocalyptic warlords” 😆👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

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Tesstamona's avatar

I am glad you caught and appreciated this 😆 ❤️🙏✨🏴‍☠️

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SimonJJ's avatar

I've been using Bandcamp for years, it's a fabulous site.

I look forward to 'owning' some of your music.

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