ALBUM: Mark McGuigan “Merry Axemas”
December 9, 2011
Hey y’all,
For the festive period and for a bit of fun I have re-mixed and released a collection of Christmas songs I’ve recorded over the years. Be sure to check out the band camp page for more details on each recording:
About six years ago I started a little tradition of recording a festive song every Christmas for a bit of fun.
This year I thought it would be nice to collate all of those pieces into a single EP that you see here, cunningly entitled ‘Merry Axemas’
The songs vary from solo acoustic to solo jazz arrangements with a little dash of instrumental rock thrown in for good measure. They were all recorded in a slap dash manner (I’d always run out of time to record near the Christmas deadline) so don’t expect any pro mixed high class recordings here.
Please do check out each song’s info for further details on the recording of each track.
Thank you for taking the time to listen and I hope you have as much festive fun listening as I did recording
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Big Screen Bliss – Footloose
March 10, 2009
As I’ve just blogged, members of the Six String Bliss community got together to compile an album of movie related covers. Here’s my contribution, a cover of the classic, tractor driving, high kicking ‘Footloose’ by Kenny Loggins!
Six String Bliss TV Themes Album ‘Stay Tuned’ released!
November 11, 2008
Six String Bliss, the totally rockin guitar related weekly podcast, has released a TV Theme album called ‘Stay Tuned’ featuring covers of classic TV themes performed by the Six String Bliss community.
This is it, the much anticipated Stay Tuned Album. The listeners have spoken with their guitars and given us all this fantastic album to share. The album is comprised of cover versions of TV theme songs. Please download this album and hear for yourself.
Upon clicking to download you will be downloading a zip file which includes: the full high-resolution artwork, the 16 mp3 files and the full liner notes written by PT, Pipes and each artist appearing on the album.
Thank you to all the artists who contributed. Thank you our families and the families and friends of all the artists who put up with the time spent locked in the studio knocking these tracks out. Thank you to Jim Russell for the fantastic cover art. It fits the project, and the Bliss, perfectly. Thank you to Larry ‘Laughinglarry’ Smith for all your help in spreading the word of this album. And finally, thank you to all the listeners of Six-String Bliss. Even if your name is not on the back cover, this is YOUR album. You keep us going, and your support helped build the community that produced this album. And who knows… maybe your name will be on the cover next time around!
I remember listening to the podcast when the seed of the concept was first put forward and instantly though it was a great idea!. In fact I already had a theme in mind. So I fired up Logic for its first major recording since getting the new iMac and got to work. And which theme I hear you ask? Well it *had* to be:
and from the CD liner notes:
Note from the artist:
“The A-Team was one of my favourite TV shows when I was younger. Brilliantly cheesy and over the top with its slo-mo fight scenes, The making of a tank from little more than a nail and some Gaffa tape to helicopters crashing into mountains and the pilots getting out unscathed at the end!
So when I spotted the TV Theme thread it I just had to have a go!
I recorded all the guitar parts using my fabulous Suhr Pro Series S3 and the bass part on my old Peavey Dynabass, both through Guitar Rig. Drums were programmed using the stunning BFD from FXpansion and the whole lot was recorded using Logic Pro 8 on an iMac.”
Note from Pipes and PT:
“We had not heard a track from Mark before, we weren’t sure what to expect. To say we were pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. This is a great companion piece to Magnum P.I. Mike Post was in on both and they are both highlights of this album!
This is another huge sounding track. We’ve got to learn the secrets of this big sound! As a side note, PT was not allowed to watch this show as a kid, so it was great to finally hear the theme music!”
The whole album is a great collaboration from a great podcast community and was great fun to be a part of. Check it out!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
December 20, 2007
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Guitarist Recording Collective October 2007 – “Alone”
October 16, 2007
Recording Collective October task was:
October’s task is to play solo guitar. No overdubs, it’s got to be one guitar from finish to end. You can record more than one take obviously but the one you put up has to be a ‘live’ recording of you on guitar. No drop ins, no fiddly electronic stuff.
With this in mind I went for my archtop again and wrote a short melody which I then harmonized solo jazz guitar stylee.
Gear Used:
Guitar: Ibanez AF105NT -> Carvin Legacy -> Rode NT1A Condenser Mic
Guitarist Recording Collective September 2007 – “IKEA Freakout”
September 24, 2007
New recording for the Guitarist Recording Collective. September’s task was to:
Create something original which pays homage to one of your favourite guitarists.
So I quickly ( cramming in some time for the collective! ) came up with the following song, hopefully not too hard to work out who I am attempting to pay homage to 
IKEA Freakout [ Download MP3 - 2.3 MB]
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Gear Used:
Lead/Rhythm Guitar: Ibanez Jem 7VSBL -> Guitar Rig 2
Bass: Peavey Dynabass -> Guitar Rig 2
Drums: Loops from Computer Music Mag
Guitarist Recording Collective July 2007 – “Reflection”
July 11, 2007
The July task for the Recording Collective was to:
Make a piece of music involving a palindrome, where the second half of *something* is the reverse of the first half. This can be the main melody, the riff, the chord sequence, whatever you want… but something has to be palindromic.
I started by taking a repeating two bar chord change for the A section with a B section consisting of a set of descending chords.
For the second half of the piece, I reversed the B section then swapped the two chords around in the A section, ending up with a structure like:
[A] [B] [A] [B] [rev B] [rev A] [rev B] [rev A]
Basically a mirror image hence why I called it ‘Reflection’ 
.
Also opted to do some filming again and recorded myself laying down the main lead guitar part on camera 
:
Reflection[ Download MP3 - 5.0 MB]
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Gear Used:
Lead/Rhythm Guitar: Ibanez RGA321 -> Guitar Rig 2
Bass: Peavey Dynabass -> Guitar Rig 2
Drums: Triphop Loops from eJay
