Dave Bradley

http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/classic-chords-9-all-right-now.html “All Right Now” was the big 1970 hit from the blues-rock band Free with one of the most recognisable but easy to fluff guitar riffs of all time. Unfortunately, for the budding axe hero, Paul Kossoff was not playing anything particularly simple on a single guitar in this song by bassist Andy Fraser and singer Paul Rodgers....

http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/classic-chords-8-the-nile-style.html The Hitmaker, Nile Rodgers, has stamped his mark on everything from Chic and Sister Sledge, to Bowie and the B52s, Dianna Ross and Madonna, Duran Duran and Daft Punk, and dozens in between and beyond. Always founded in the purity of jazz harmony and then punched up with the percussive funk the Nile style is instantly reco...

http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/classic-chords-7-the-manics-a-design-for-life.html This is another chord in the spirit of Lifeson, I'd say, given just how big a fan of Rush The Manics' Nicky Wire is. It's one of those non-standard chords where there are "added" notes that really shouldn't be there and if you strum it straight it sounds very dissonant, but arpeggiated it's really, really ni...

http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/classic-chords-6-the-beatles-a-hard-days-night.html It's hard to picture this as a chord because it's two different chords played together with a bass note, but that doesn't make it not a chord, if you add them all up it's just a Dm11 or an F6/9, but boy what a sound it makes played right!

http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/classic-chords-5-rush-limelight.html You will have to visit sciencebase to find out why no. 4 is missing. Meanwhile, as I mentioned, in Classic Chord no. 1, during my early teens I was chasing the dream of being the next Alex Lifeson, picking out the pseudo-classical intros to songs like “Panacea”, “A Farewell to Kings” and “The Trees”, later “Broon’s Bane”...

http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/classic-chords-3-the-hendrix-chord.html There’s one chord every wannabe rock guitar hero has to figure out at some point…we all listen to Jimi Hendrix, we all marvel at what he’s doing with that Strat, whether plucking it with his teeth or setting it on fire. But, what is it he’s doing exactly to get that E-major power chord that is something like a dominant...

http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/classic-chords-2-the-beatles-blackbird.html We all have songs that stick with us, the ones to which we’re the most attached, emotionally perhaps. “Blackbird” by The Beatles has to be one of those for me. The words are important, of course, but it’s really those chords and specifically the style and that chord at the top as he jumps up in the “dead of night”....

http://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/classic-chords-1-the-hemispheres-chord.html One thing I noticed as a teen teaching myself to pick out the wondrous chords played by Rush's Alex Lifeson by ear was that he used a lot of chords where the top two strings, the B and the E string were left to ring while a moveable chord shape, often a B major shape or more commonly an F major shape (but, not barr...

White Line Warrior White line warrior Heading up the Inca Trail Silkroad Surfer Hides behind electric veil Foothill courier En route to the promised land Fuelled with a bitter taste Torment is in her hand Global decimation One in ten, where worlds collide Find the taker nation A future lost for lack of pride Main line quarrier Digging up the dragon's tale Milk wet citizen Finds the time to read th...

My latest song, something of an insistent retro rocker inspired by the recent transit of the planet Mercury across the Sun and the thoughts that evoked regarding the message we might imagine it sends to us here on planet Earth. Mercury, the winged Messenger of Roman mythology has been there as a warning sign again and again, evolving, revolving in transition...the pressure is on, things are heatin...

For crying out loud Heaven-sent lovers chasing milk and honey Spend their time like everything's just so sunny No little hitches, taking all their pictures Still the feeling's healing with its homespun riches Never lets them down, keeps their head off the ground Rolling down saddled without a frown or a breakdown Come on strong, holding on so long Send the preachers back 'cause we're living like t...

Mucking around with some EDM/Dance loops and an arpeggiator for my Yamaha keyboard :-) Not quite the Nu Folk song I'd planned for the afternoon's musical outpouring...

Allégorie No. 1 by Dave Bradley

Well, as I enter my sixth decade I was going to write a new song about getting on a bit...but I already had one in my archives from the summer of 2013, so I recorded an entirely new vocal with a bit of a tweak to the lyrics, which seemed apt now that I'm finished my first half century. It's not actually about me though, although it's definitely a song about existential angst. The original song was...

Gravité No. 3 by Dave Bradley

Gravité No. 2 by Dave Bradley

Earlier this week, I was listening to BBC Radio4's Soul Music episode about Eric Satie's Gymnopedie No. 1, a piece of music I've always loved. I was going to arrange and record a guitar version of it, but got sidetracked by a delay effect that seemed to generate all this pulsing rhythm. I'd started with a sub-dominant maj7 and a tonic maj7(like Satie) but then rebooted it to just a simple Am to G...

My cover songs are elsewhere, this is just an intro and a snippet. So, head on down the tracks for my latest - The Doobie Brothers' Long Train Runnin' - http://j.mp/doobietrain Now available from Loudr.fm and all the usual outlets (iTunes, amazon, Google etc) https://loudr.fm/release/long-train-runnin/wMMns This is a passenger announcement. Dave is over on the sciencebase Youtube platform right no...

The day that Bowie died Woke crying at your side There was no call from the action man though he had a plan Took strangeness in his stride The day the Wall came down We were dying in our room There was no call from a higher ground, just a changing sound That echoed with the bloom All the roads are clear now... No message came in from Major Tom But a black star on the horizon taught us everything w...

0 2B Sorry 4? (Nothing to be sorry for?) It's a well-worn path we take each day The fighting maps our lives You cast a stone, the glass it breaks The home we had divides And time moves on we separate The pain it blights our lives You cast the steel, my heart it aches For a love we can't revive It's a careworn child that takes each day As if it were their last They cast the mould with risks they ta...

Time Lapse When you come right down to it, it was never going to last Days and weeks and months went by but years would never pass Words had never failed me...at least not until today But anger rose and doors were closed, seemed nothing more to say Just one thing...I really ought to touch So, sit right down, don't turn your head, won't beat around the bush There's angry words and painful deeds, it...

Stompbox drum machine on this extravagant, overindulgent, multilayered instrumental, with each guitar (Fender Telecaster, Ibanez RG and Yamaha bass) fed wirelessly (overdubbed one after the other) to my USB interface with the SmoothHound wireless guitar system. Now, this was a self-indulgent instrumental done purely to test the box, but I did a bit of remixing, added some new guitar parts and a vo...

As a teen, just starting out on guitar, I was quite obsessed with Al Di Meola, Paco de Lucia, any player with a "d" in the middle of their name...but also the likes of Robert Fripp (and Adrian Belew), Andy Summers, Nile Rodgers, Steve Howe, John Williams, Steve Hackett, and, of course, Alex Lifeson. I'm not sure whether any of their techniques ever trickled down into my finger tips, but here's an...

Indian Summer Seasons of mists and mellow They turn around You wonder where the time goes You still haven't found the questions For the answers that you know Seasons and living on the flow Too easy to watch them come and go Can't you make up your mind? Now the summer's gone, but, you just can't let it go Still looking for those questions To the answers you already know The trees are turning And yo...

Candles It all changed in the blinking of an eye And all it took was a little white lie The candle flickered and you stared at the floor She said "it's over" and headed for the door Regrets you have and a pound of insecure Those wasted years were never part of the cure If you had your time again you'd get up off the floor If you had it all again you'd have boarded up that door When you see that yo...