The Oystercatcher's Escape

< Originally posted on my music blog - 24/02/10 >

Just when you thought it was safe… I’m back. It’s been a busy couple of weeks but I finally have a new track for you all to check out. I say new track but really it’s another older track I revitalised. It’s called The Oystercatcher’s Escape which to be honest sounds like a bit of a pretencious title to me now but there is a story behind it. I’ll reveal that later on

It’s another track I recorded while in France and I’ve marked it as a demo version because there’s a few things I’m not happy with. Mainly it’s the drums, I had to program them and they sound too precise or mechanical I think. It’s a pretty jazzy/blues tune or maybe that should be bluesy/jazz who knows Anyway, it needs a more free flowing syncopated drum style I think and if only I had a drum kit, about 10 extra microphones, stands and a lot of space, I’d play it myself but for now the computer drums will have to do. I wrote the song over 10 years ago now on my battered old acoustic and I have a strange relationship with it. Sometimes I like it and we get along but at other times I think it’s a bit too cheezy and I don’t like it, I tend to be my harshest critic.

(The Bay at Polzeath, click to enlarge)

The reason it’s called the Oystercatcher’s Escape is not because of some profound and deep meaning, it’s actually more of pun than anything. For a number of years I went on summer surfing holidays with my family in Polzeath, Cornwall. We used to stay in a pub called The Oystercatcher up on the hill above the bay, lovely place and I had some great times there. I used to go out on my surfboard for 7 or 8 hours at a time and a few times the life guards had to come out and check I was still there, I haven’t been in years but someday I’ll get back there. I used to sit out on the fire escape of the pub watching the sun go down over the water and play my guitar, that’s where I wrote this song. So it had to be called The Oystercatcher’s Escape

Hope you like the track, let me know what you think

Dan