Last Thing At Night

[RedLeo]

I am a confirmed hard rocker coming from a classical/prog rock background. I don't do jazz or blues - they're just not in my DNA. So I was surprised to come across this when I was trawling through some old cassettes recently. It's live off the mixing board, warts and all, from the SFX Hall in Dublin back in 1987.

The intro was a DX7 and D50 MIDIed together, and the main "organ" part, as well as the pad on the outro fade, was my trusty old Juno 60.

Enjoy the guitar work of the hugely talented Pat McManus.

• Last Thing At Night live - new edit.mp3

Edit - found some pics to go with it. Shades, spiky hair and A-frames - those were the days!

HIGHGIG3.JPG (72.75 KiB) Viewed 3048 times

HIGHGIG1 PS.jpg (79.81 KiB) Viewed 3048 times

[bdodds]

Are you going into "Sexual Harrassment in the Workplace" at the end there?

[RedLeo]

Are you going into "Sexual Harrassment in the Workplace" at the end there?

No, it's a song called "Lonely Soul", but it is pretty much the same basic chord structure.

[bdodds]

Yeah it's definitely a different key, but sounds so uncanny.. Good stuff, regardless - didn't mean to insinuate anything negative!

[RedLeo]

Yeah it's definitely a different key, but sounds so uncanny.. Good stuff, regardless - didn't mean to insinuate anything negative!

Not at all, the writing was nothing to do with me, so no worries.

[bdodds]

Besides, comparing you to Zappa is hardly an insult, imho..

Man the d50/dx7 certainly brings you back, huh? Fantastic guitar tone too, considering the era..

[RedLeo]

Man the d50/dx7 certainly brings you back, huh?

Yes, the D50 had just been released, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven...soundwise, it was streets ahead of anything else. Actually, I started using mine again just recently, it still does some unique things, and I find its top end cuts through a mix really well. I hated the DX7, the secret was to get your hands on the best available sounds - I had an Alesis Datadisk and everywhere I went, I used to sneakily copy sounds from every synth I came across. Producers and session players' synths left lying in studios yielded sounds far better than the general public could get their hands on. With the right sounds, the DX7 became very usable.

Edit: Actually, I think the Datadisk came later, at first I photocopied blank patch charts and laboriously copied sounds I liked parameter-by-parameter. 147 on a DX7 if I remember correctly. I must have been mad.

[BravoJr]

So smooth! Loved the pads... And one hell of a guitarist!

Thanks for sharing

[Hanon_CTS]

Yes, the D50 had just been released, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven...soundwise, it was streets ahead of anything else.

yep, Staccato Heaven to be exact
I love the song and gig photo.
You are hereby inducted into the Eighties' Big Hair Hall of Fame.

I quite agree about the DX-7.
It seems as if there were only a small group of successful programmers out there.
Top of the list was John Chowning, Bo Tomlyn, Brian Eno, Wendy Carlos.
Bottom of the list was me and some guy in outer mongolia
In all fairness, if guy in outer mongolia had actually seen, or even cared about the DX-7, he'd have risen several rungs above me.

Thanks for sharing
Cheers, Hanon