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The title comes from a rivitingly inspiring TV series on public TV called "Millenium" (soundtrack CD by Hans Zimmer). Each segment of the series deals with different indigiounous tribes around the world. One in particular dealt with the "Wodaabe" tribe in Africa, who lead a difficult nomadic life. For 11 months of the year, they travel in search of food and water for themselves and their animals and a lot of them die in the process. On the 12th month of the year they all gather at a specific place and party their booties off! One ritual of interest is that the men (who consider themselves the most beautiful in the world), dress up in the grandest garb and tribal face paints and dance for display at night. The women sit back and watch and choose which one`s they`ll take. I think this is a ritual more cultures should adopt!
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I started this one back on the Dangerous Tour in `92. I just had the main groove for a while which made me visualize elephants walking. I`ve obviously watched too many Tarzan movies as a child. There are a couple spots where the guitar emulates a trumpeting elephant (using Digitech`s Whammy pedal). The elephants in the intro are REAL however... it was a bitch getting them to speak. Sit boy, sit boy...now speak...
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This is the bone chiller of the record. It`s is one of my favorites as it was dredged up from the depths of our collective emotional-tribal spirit. Very exotic and hypnotic. Ricky recorded himself while I was doing a guitar clinic and upon my return, I heard his stuff and said "it`s perfect! Don`t change ANYTHING!" His bass growls with an incredible fierceness. I actually got to play this in October 97 (during Michael Jackson`s HIStory Tour) for some Zulus in South Africa during a guitar clinic! That was never in my wildest dreams when we wrote it. I also got to see a Zulu family perform--very inspiring.
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This one began as a groove the guys came up with while I was on one of my many month long clinic trips to Europe. It`s very `majory` sounding and I really dug it as I tend to lean toward minor sounds when I write. When I returned we got together and the tune seemed to come together very fast for the most part. This is also a dreamy soundscape as is "Zulu Wedding", but in a very different, lighter way. It seemed natural to combine bagpipe sounds with steel drums
though they come from different parts of the planet. When it was done, it only seemed appropriate to tap Chris Tervitt for the intro, (a guy who I`d met on the Bad Tour in `87) for his thick--assed accent, since he grew up in Scotland (I never could understand much of what he said!) I used a Roland Guitar synth for the steel drum solo in the middle. In the bagpipe breaks I try to emulate a bagpipe by 2-hand tapping on the strings.The solo is divided into 4 sections and each is a different sound. The 1st is just the steel drums, the 2nd is a split between guitar and steel drums, the 3rd is guitar between the bridge and and middle pickups and the last is just the lead pick up. The song ends with Glen going OFFFFF!!!!
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I did a video for "Flight of the Bumble Bee" in `92 for my 1st record where I was covered with 100,000 live bees. (DON`T TRY THIS AT HOME!!!!) I also got a bee tattoo to commemorate the event. The main guitar melody is all two-hand-tapping in an effort to emulate an exotic mid-eastern instrument. Ricky came up with this bee swarm sounding bass line that is relatively `untranscribable` and I loved it--(he`s an odd bird). So perhaps bees are a trend for every record!?? We split up the bass sound to go direct as well as miked, on 6 tracks; 4 fretless and one fretted, and got a very big "MondoCongo" sound. The direct sound always went through an Anthony DeMaria direct box.
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This is another moody one. I used the Digitech 2101 to get a "12 string" emulation in the melody. Ricky did an awesome solo on the hypnotic tag (including his "drop kick" bass technique...I told you he was an odd bird...) He dropped his bass on the floor several times during the record because he likes that sound! The main melody was actually inspired from my trips to Japan and the song was
originally called "Kyoto".
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This one was a title long before it was a tune. Not that everything won`t change next week, but so far, I refuse to go off on the trendy rage of playing all my
electric stuff unplugged! I`ve heard way too many cool tunes destroyed that way in MTV`s marketing push....and then of course winning Grammys... So this is a complete satire with the Heil talk box in the chorus saying Unplug...THIS! I sampled myself unplugging the guitar in a few spots as well as adding a "Joan Baezy" acoustic hippie guitar strum at the very end.
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CD Information
