Sunday, October 19th, 2008

{ Music }

Throughout my life I’ve always been a musician at heart. From piano lessons as a kid to the first Yamaha acoustic guitar I bought in high school … music has always been around me. As a kid I had 4 years of classical piano lessons. But as a youngster, I didn’t want to play Brahms or Mozart … I wanted to learn songs by the Turtles, the Monkeys or the Beatles. But when confronted, my aging piano teacher said NO! No rock and roll Joe! That’s when I said good-bye to her and to lessons.

I’ve always been trying to teach myself to play guitar.I tried guitar lessons here and there … but I never really wanted to learn other peoples music. If I did learn a few chords from a song, I’d take them and try making something of my own. By learning this way I came up with my own unique style. My playing is always rhythmic and percussive. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to “get quiet” … but these days I try. So finger picking ala Joe has slowly percolated into my music.

Over the years I played and wrote my own music in some form or another. I’ve played piano, trumpet, sax, and guitar. I always felt more comfortable with a guitar. When I bought my first good electric guitar, I bought this beat up old Telecaster. I remember one of the first things I taught myself was Elvis Costello’s “(I Don’t Want To Go To) Chelsea”. It was that singular twisted tense lick that drew me in. Plus it was easy! I just ate up that whole D.I.Y thing of the punk ideology. Get a guitar find three or four bar chords and just bash it around … no matter what came out. What fun!

I can thank my friend Gary Croslin A.K.A. Junior Smoots for teaching me minor bar chords some time in the early 80′s … on my trusty old beat up yellow Telecaster. Oh yes … the building blocks of reggae music! From there I was off to the races. A few years later … was the beginning of a serious creative streak and my band, The Human Element. And from there my recording studio in a Bond Street store front in Asbury Park, NJ. Many pots of coffee, packs of Newports, bags of ‘ganja’, late night sessions … oh … and let’s not forget my guitars, keyboards and other recording equipment …. and I was musically erect. Oh yeah baby! Those were exciting times.

This is where I’ll post most of my music from then and now. All of the tunes are demos. Newer stuff will posted towards the top of this page.

Enjoy!

Music: joSolo Music

Dime Store Toy

©2004 Joe Streno / Crazy Mother Music
lyrics.pdf

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I wrote this song for my Mom as a Christmas present in 2004. The previous year she bought me the Taylor guitar I played on this track. She asked me what I wanted for Christmas, and I jokingly said … oh … hmmm … how about this new $3,000.00 smokeburst Taylor C14-CE I’ve been drooling over. She said “… okay … Merry Christmas! I know what your music means to you, and I’d rather be alive and see you enjoy it.” Now that’s a sentiment we both could live with. :)

The picture on the CD cover is me at around 5(?) years old. I love that everything is color coordinated … my overalls and shirt, the wallpaper, and the blue chair with the metallic silver threads. How cools is that! And young Pony Boy was getting ready to ride his rave fave rockin’ horse. Hell I was a steady rocker even then! ;)

Music: The Human Element

Freedom

©1986 Joe Streno / Elemental Music
lyrics.pdf

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Freedom was the opening song of every gig we played. It always got folks attention! This version is an over produced demo version I recorded in my Bond Street, Asbury Park, NJ recording studio. It was originally recorded on my Akai 1212 12-track recorder. Demos were always mixed down to cassette tape …so we could listen to this stuff in our cars, or on a boom box to see how things sounded outside the studio. Many times I’d mix down instrumental stuff that was going on inside my head … and before too long I’d always get melody ideas and lyric fragments.

When I was writing these songs it seemed the hook and melody always came first. Even if the lyrics were still in “babel” stage most times I’d have the chorus hook in my head first … and everything else would follow. There would be times I’d wake up in the middle of the night … I’d walk up the stairs to the studio and fire up my equipment at three in the morning and lay down the idea that woke me up. That was the beauty of living in an Asbury storefront … you didn’t have to worry about neighbors. There were none! Those were the days!

On this track I’m doing all the vocals, background vocals, and guitar. Fred programmed all his drums on a Yamaha RX11 drum machine which was very “high tech” back then. Chris played bass direct to the board, and Chris’ brother Dennis played keys.

What Is Life Without Love

©1986 Joe Streno / Elemental Music
lyrics.pdf

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What Is Life Without Love … or as we use to call it … Tell Me was always the second song in a Human Element set. Blast them out of their seats with Freedom, then give ‘em a pop song. This has always been one of my favorite songs I ever wrote. There was always something about it that stuck with me. Whether it was the story telling in it, the melody, or how much fun it always is to perform. Hell, I even just reworked it for playing on my acoustic, and it still sounds good. When I record a new version I’ll post it here.

This is another overblown production. Hey when you have all that equipment in your own private studio on the ground level of a store front… and you’ve built yourself a full studio apartment in the basement … you can do anything at any time of the night. Let’s add this vocal. Let’s add this riff. More reverb? Sure. This was first attempt at guitar overdubs … A.K.A. …  Joe playing solo guitar & even my first solo. Before this … strictly rhythm. I also added this call response between the key riff & the guitar riff.

When we played Tell Me live … it was just guitar, keys, bass and drums. It still sounded full .. and hopefully tighter than this demo. I know it did! I was a practice tyrant. I had the guys in the band practicing almost every night. I was a slave driver. But hey .. why not. I never do anything half-assed if I can help it.

Get On With It

©1986 Joe Streno / Elemental Music
lyrics.pdf

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Every one of these songs were mixed down to cassette tape back in the 80′s. Just recently I borrowed a cassette deck from my friend Amy Roberts and digitized all I could before I gave it back. Some of the cassettes were in bad shape. One of these days I’ll get the original 12-track tapes digitized by this guy in California who still owns an Akai 12-12 and will digitize each track separately so I can remix them in Apple Logic. But I have to come up with the scratch first … there are always more important things when you own your own home. But I digress …

On this song … I had Dee a female singer friend of mine come in and do the most amazing backup vocals on this tune. She was also my vocal coach for a while. Or more accurately … I took a few lessons from her. I also added some of my own background vocals too. Sadly the performances recorded here are like the sound of things falling apart. People drifting in and out of time … you know … the human element. I always loved the “idea” of this version of the song.

Walk Tall

©1986 Joe Streno / Elemental Music
lyrics.pdf

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This was always the last song of every gig we played. It always got folks up and dancing … again. This one is no different … more Joe “wall of sound” … sadly not sounding like Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound… but my poppy ska version of a similar idea. It was always fun to play … but also meant … it was time to go home.

Don’t forget to tip your waiters!

This song, like a few of my other songs may have been the product of one too many sessions with my shrink. I was probably projecting all the things I wanted for myself onto the masses … except not in book form. ; ) But what the fuck … at least you could dance to it! Fuck therapy! Let’s dance!