Collaborations

I don’t get out much. You’d think that the internet was made for someone like me, that I could make all sorts of friends and participate in a variety of creative projects. It’s a nice idea. Still, somehow, I don’t seem to get out much.

I might be involved in numerous “collaborations” without my knowledge, where someone has downloaded my recording and added it to their own. I’ve always requested notification and the right to post it myself but not everyone respects others. (I do know of one instance where a German DJ copied one of my compositions and added it to his set. It wasn’t available for download. If he’d have asked I would have given him permission.) After posting on SoundCloud for a couple of years I made all my recordings available for download.

My only fear, and it could be totally irrational, is if the other artist were to have the collaboration distributed by a record label and I would somehow be blocked from doing so myself. When it comes to greed my imagination knows no limits.

I suppose the most active collaboration I’ve been a part of is with Charles Schlee (Sordid Business, loops)  in 2005-06, when we did “Hungry Eyes”. I supplied some beats and my voice. He played guitar and bass. Then I added a little synth and remixed it. I really liked the process of taking turns and would like to do this again, with him or someone else, especially it went from artist to artist.

Hungry Eyes, draft 1.4, by Charles Schlee and Michael Myshack, September 15, 2012:

 

In 2010 another coworker in the office furniture business (who’s had the sense to move on), Alex Bacon (SoundClick, SoundCloud, Facebook, Metal Archives…Alex is more savvy regarding social media than most of us), asked for some of my words to add to an instrumental recording of his. Initially I tried doing an ad lib but nothing clicked. Then he asked for the vocal track from several of my own recordings. He used parts from “Always Prodigal” (excerpt), “Coverage”,  and “Blue Bodies” (excerpt). (You should be able to hear the instrumental version on at least one of his links.)

Endgame, by Alex Bacon and Michael Myshack, 2010:

 

Another one already discussed on these pages, 2012, is “The Wish”, originally “Ghosts on the Kaskaskia” by Hank Tilbury (Flickr, SoundCloud, Bandcamp). I added one of my poems and wind sounds to his slide guitar.

The Wish, by Hank Tilbury and Michael Myshack, draft 1.2, September 27, 2012:

 

The final addition is from an Argentinian musician living in Germany, El Fulminador (check out his record label). Via SoundCloud he’d asked about using one of my poems from Essay, “Heat”, and then sent me a rough mix. I don’t know that he’s had time to get back to it to tweak it. (Compare this with my own interpretation of the poem, “Night” , from 1997. “Heat” is the original text as found on my ceiling, or an early variant, back when I lived at my mother’s house in the early 1980s.)

Heat, by El Fulminador and Michael Myshack, September 2013: