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The River Gang (Aka: The Rivers)
Music Videos
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24th April
I’m uploading artwork I did when I was a student, some of it’s from school. I did painting, graphics, drawing etc. I’d not looked at it since then but seeing as I’ve put my films and music up I may as well put that up to. You can see it in ARTWORK.
I’ve also uploaded all the storyboards from my short films. The one’s from Torquemada are quite good actually, there’s also storyboards for The Game, The Silent Dagger and Fit For A King. I did a few more advert storyboards which I’ll put in the Artwork page with the paintings, etc.
Torquemada
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14th April
Having a break from the music videos. I’ve written a new song though.
This is a rough demo version of it:
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6th April
I’ve finished the website more or less.
The articles from Fox Droppings are now in Archives so everything’s in one place. The Scrap Heap, Abort Mission, Pizza Related and some others have been re-written and updated with full page layouts. Jihadi Birds Of Death was an unpublished one which is now up in Archives along with Fire In Paradise and Crunts which are in The Scrap Heap. I’ve made some backups of the older videos on Youtube and Rumble and re-done most of the cover images which didn’t fit the new theme I’m using.
I can get back to the music videos now. Once I’ve done Dream On I might publish a post with the first 5 videos in it so I can start a new Latest News. There’s 14 songs in all so I could split the videos into 3 published posts otherwise this thread will go on forever.
The new mixes I’ve done so far are on the music player in Music From The River, the old versions are still on there on the main page so I’ll update it at some point. I’ve trimmed the dead air from starts of the new mixes.
Original mix of Dream On which has been re-structured to fit the piano solo in
This is what’s been added on the new mix: Double track vocals, louder Bass and Piano
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24th March
Been having a few issues with my website.
I’ve had to start re-designing it again after losing the theme I used when I originally set it up. I’m experimenting with the new look and might put Latest News on the front page.
Anyway once I’ve finished the blog I’ll get back to doing the next video which is Dream On. Here’s the new mix:
Dream On [with piano and double track vocals]
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18th March
I’ve finished the piano on Dream On and it sounds a lot fuller now with double track vocals as well so I’m working on a video for it using The Man With The Golden Arm (1955) the Frank Sinatra film for the visuals. Sinatra is known as a great singer but he was also a great actor with a lot of acclaimed roles including this one. Kim Novak’s in this too and it has one of those famous Saul Bass opening title sequences. For some reason this film is in the public domain but the imagery in it seems to suit the song quite well.
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7th March
New mixes:
Take A Little Longer [with Vocals]
Tender Me [with louder bass]
I’ll update the Music From The River page with these and other new mixes when I’ve finished the videos. I’ve done a better mix of The Things I Say which needs a glitch removing and Dream On which needs the piano finishing.
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5th March
Tender Me set to The Sadist (1963)
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28th Feb
Next I’m doing Tender Me set to The Sadist which is a great low budget exploitation movie based on the Starkweather case. It’s got top notch directing and cinematography plus a mesmerizing performance by Arch Hall Jr. in the title role. The film is basically one long scene set in a car repairers in the middle of nowhere with Arch hamming it up big time as he toys with his captives.
I managed to get some bass on the song, it’s still quite low in the mix but you can actually hear the bassline now compared to the old version.
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20th Feb
I accidentally deleted the source video for the rough edit of On You before I uploaded it to Vimeo which requires a smaller sized file (max 500MB) this forced me to have to complete the version with the highest quality footage which I didn’t like as much but the other one is now gone.
I’ve uploaded the new maximum pic quality version to Youtube (and to Vimeo on a smaller file size), the new one is virtually identical to the rough edit but with a better picture. I’ve kept the old version up on Rumble (and Brighteon). See post below for link.
So, this is the new version with maximum picture quality:
On You set to The Amazing Mr. X (1948)
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17th Feb
I ended up using the rough edit, it seems to look better without a sharper image for some reason.
On You (original rough edit version)
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15th Feb
I’ve done a rough version of the On You video which needs re-editing with better quality footage. This is a real tricky one to do because the song is emotional and matching it to images from an unrelated story is difficult to achieve without interfering with the song itself, but I’ve just watched it and it seems to work OK.
There’s no photo’s or video footage of the band that exist (to use in these videos) but I’ve managed to squeeze in a band-related “subliminal” into this video. I say subliminal, it’s pretty blatant tbh, our singer’s name was Paul if you’re wondering.
The film itself has a silly plot about a husband who fakes his own death and gaslights his wife (with the help of a medium) into jumping off a cliff so he can steal all of her money. Yes, that old chestnut. I mean who HASN’T thought about doing that before!? 😎 hehe. The cinematography in the film is stunning though with a dreamlike quality which suits the song well.
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9th Feb
Next up I’m doing On You set to a Film Noir Mystery film called The Amazing Mr. X (Aka: The Spiritualist) which has some great cinematography in it by Film Noir legend John Alton. This is a love song so I’m going for some romantic imagery in this.
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6th Feb
Take A Little Longer (with vocals) set to The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
I managed to isolate the vocal from a band rehearsal tape and graft it onto an early mix of the instrumental track, I think the melody suits the song very well but wasn’t written in time for the demo recording.
I set this one to The Hitch-Hiker (1953) who’s Director Ida Lupino was born in Herne Hill, London which is where the song was written. I didn’t know this until after I’d chosen the film, spooky huh?!
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1st Feb
I’ve joined Rumble and Brighteon [links to my channels]
My short films and a few more recent videos are on Rumble at max picture quality and I’ll be uploading my music videos on these channels as well as Youtube and Vimeo.
All my videos are on Vimeo including some of the older ones like Going in Circles, etc. Youtube still won’t let me upload The End, it’s being blocked by Disney but not The Doors. It’s on Rumble though at max pic quality. I had to re-upload Shining because I found ONE frame of film that shouldn’t have been there on the edit. Anyway it’s done now.
I’ll finish mixing Take A Little Longer with vocals and Dream On with piano and do those videos next. Once I’ve finished all the videos I’ll publish them all in a post and then might do a full length video of them all joined together in the correct running order.
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31st Jan
The first ones up. This song was recorded at EMI Studios when we had a recording session with them after they liked our first demo. We tried putting some vocals on it but it didn’t work out well, it was written as an instrumental and sounds best that way.
The footage is from Shock (1946) a psychological thriller / film noir which is in the public domain.
Shining set to Shock (1946)
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30th Jan
I’ve done the video for an instrumental track called Shining, it just needs the Title font finishing then I’ll upload it. I’ve used a film called Shock for the video from 1946 starring Vincent Price who isn’t in the video! I’ve used two minor scenes and combined them.
I’ve nearly completed the new mix of Dream On with piano on it and have nearly finished Take A Little Longer with the vocals. I’ve started on the videos for both.
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20th Jan
I’ve put Take A Longer on hold but know what I need to do for it, I’m doing this whole thing as a big project. This is because since learning how to isolate vocals and bass, drums it means I can do better mixes of the songs. I’m working on a restructured version of Dream On and have a film in mind for the video.
When I mixed the songs a couple of years back all the vocals and instruments were on the same track and couldn’t be mixed very well for example the bass guitar was lost in the mix, the new structure of Dream On flows a lot better and has piano on it with an instrumental section, double track vocals and louder bass the current version repeats too much and meanders, this one sounds good with the piano really filling out the sound. Hopefully I’ll be able to do this with some of the other songs too and lift them up a bit.
Once I’ve done Dream On I’ll start the next song and gradually do the videos as I go along. I’ve watched probably over a hundred of these public domain films and have about 7 or 8 in mind with a bunch of others for consideration. I’m trying to match films with at least vague themes and visuals which suit the songs.
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16th Jan
I’m using The Hitch-Hiker for the music video. A film noir from the 50’s set in the desert. The fonts for the song titles will be in the style of the film I’m using.
The band name will be The River Gang which is taken from another film noir called T-Men, the River Gang are a group of mobsters the detectives go undercover to catch. I’ll be using T-Men for one of the other song videos it’s got some great cinematography in it.
The song still isn’t mixed properly yet and I’m about half way through the video. I’ll use City Of The Dead for something else this film suits the song quite well.
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11th Jan
I’ve been mixing a new stripped down version of Take a Little Longer with vocals. Although the sound quality isn’t good I’ve managed to isolate a vocal from a band practice tape and mixed it with an alternate version from the 1st demo. It’s a take from before the samples and effects were added. I’ve restructured the song in a lower key. The melody and lyrics were done after we did the demo recording.
I’ll make a video to go with the song probably using City of the Dead. Although I’m not sure yet. The instrumental had samples from Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner on it but that film is copywrited so I cant really use it.
The band were called The Rivers which is a crappy name but I can’t think of anything else.
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3rd Jan 2023
I’m going to make some music videos for my Music From The River songs using some old public domain movies from the 40’s to 70’s, The films I’ll be using are obscure but have no copywrite on them. I don’t want to distract from the songs so the clips won’t be edited in time with the music but will just provide some nice visuals.. I’ll upload them to my Youtube / Vimeo channels.
There’s some great films available for use like Film Noirs, horror and sci-fi. I’ll have to see which ones fit the music the best.
The City Of The Dead (1960)
thephantomknocks.com 