... and from our multitude of friends from alt.guitar (and elswhere), below are recordings of songs
that Keith contributed to in some way.... Sometimes lyrics, the occasional harp part. I've asked
everyone contributing a song to also gimme a little background or a snippet of the nature of the
creative process. They will surely be heartfelt and probably somewhat unorthodox... just the way
Keith would have liked it.
There will no doubt also be photos of some of the guitars Keith has built over the years. As was his
way, he never sold one in his life. He gave them to those he thought would put them to good use. I'm
one of those lucky people.
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You can find several songs that Keith and I wrote together on the SONGS page of this site. I won't
waste bandwidth by duplicating them here. I will however include two that don't get posted very
often.
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Now She's Gone: A hillbilly screen door slammer. Keith's lyrics...
my music.
A Little More Time: Rethought my second contribution here,
and decided that the last thing Keith and I did together would be
best to post... this is the song based on the set of lyrics Linda
(Keith's forever companion) sent to me the day after Keith
passed. She asked if I'd consider adding music to the lyrics, and
then perform the song at Keith's service. Keep in mind he wrote
this in 2005...
From Lewis Ray Cammarata
From Les Cargill
Blue Turns to Black: Les' comments to follow.
From Steve Kotsopoulos
Burn Mission: We didn't realize this until after the fact, but "Burn
Mission" came together as a 3-way alt.guitar collaboration
between Keith, Project-43 and dvaoa. An alt.guitar first? Who
knows...but after asking Keith to come up with some lyrics on
censorship and book burning, there was an email waiting for me
the very next morning with exactly what I'd asked for. The man
was inexhaustible when it came to inspiration. And wise-crackery.
Lyrics by Keith, production & rhythm guitar by Steve Mann, vocals
by Antti “DeeAa” Heikkinen, lead guitar by Christopher Bell-
Boudreaux, drums by Scott Wallace, rhythm guitar-yours truly.
A Little isn't Enough: Two songs in one, really…an Incubus-
influenced melodic lament about jumping into the abyss sight
unseen without regard for consequences. Near the end, the
song takes a left turn into a hyper-charged rocker…did the
protagonist jump, or is she glad she caught herself just in time?
Lyrics by Keith, vocals by Antti “DeeAa” Heikkinen, bass by John
Millholland, strings by Livvy, guitars/drums by yours truly.
Violence and Greed: Funky, hot and steamy, Keith writes about
our times today. Civilization, enlightenment...onward ho! Lyrics
by Keith, vocals by Antti “DeeAa” Heikkinen, guitars/bass/drums –
yours truly.
Rise Up: For anyone who doesn’t think Keith had a wicked sense
of humor, just think of him sitting down with his shotgun to write
lyrics about the undead rising up…”Rise Up” was used as the
soundtrack theme for Jeff Campbell’s indie zombie gorefest
“Mittens Melville: Zombie Ass-Kicker“. Not a major release by
any stretch, but I hazard to guess he never thought his name
would ever be associated with a scull-crushing zombie
disasterpiece. Lyrics by Keith, vocals by Antti Heikkinen,
guitars/bass/drums by yours truly.
From Dee (Crankenhaus)
Bet You Burn Someday: This was the last one we did with
Keith's lyrics. He sent me a whole bunch of lyrics in the fall of '08,
five or six of them, and I still haven't put all of them to use. It's
such a powerful phrase, bet you burn...that it ended up as the
name of our release, even though the song wasn't the strongest
one on the release. The lyrics have a magical something that
makes them open to more than one interpretation I think, without
alleviating anything, just effortlessly and naturally. They have a
sort of inbuilt duality which often occurs in his texts.
Come December: This was one of the first songs we did with his
words. If ever there was a complete novel in one song, this would
be it. It'd be possible to make a full motion picture based on just
these few lines - it gets my imagination going, indeed remarkable
how a few choice words can paint a whole picture in the reader's
minds - a picture again worth more than a thousand words.
My Rage: On this one I removed a few lines from the original text.
Iusually changed Keith's lyrics only in minor details, omitting a
word here or there to fit the music, or duplicating some phrases,
but on this one I omitted a full verse I think and paraphrased a
sentence. With his approval of course. He always said I was free
to edit his texts, but I seldom had to. The original words however
were too religious-related to suit the song and the band. But the
main body and the story are still intact IMO.
Smile: The amazing thing about Keith's lyrics usually was that if
we had a new song, we'd just pick up two of the lyrics he'd sent
us, and one would feel just right and fit perfectly right off the bat
but also the other one would work. He couldn't have written a lyric
that didn't lend itself well to music I'm sure. Crank singer, Tony,
was always totally into his words. This one as well; we just played
the song and the words just changed into a melody just like that,
effortlessly as ever.
I couldn't fit everything that was submitted onto one page, so hit the "Keith Continued" button to the
left when you finish up here. There's more on page 2.
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