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Posts Tagged ‘classic-rock’

My Latest Album, ‘Betrayed,’ Has Hit The Streams

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on July 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

I am very proud to announce that Salon de la Guerre’s latest album has hit the virtual shelves. It’s called Betrayed, and it’s now available on Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, Bandcamp and Pandora, among other services.

Betrayed is a collection of dark pop songs on political and personal anxiety, obsession, jealousy, guilt and redemption. Yet it’s all pretty poppy and peppy, lest you get the wrong idea from all those scary nouns.

This time out I turned to some singing help from my friend Christina E., who contributes the wonderful lead vocal on my song “Latin Quarter Restaurant,” and whose harmony vocals and vocal counterpoints can be found throughout the rest of the album as well. When I wrote some of these parts, I realized that my voice just wouldn’t do, and I turned to Christina, who offered not just great interpretation but allowed me to visit more spaces in the sonic landscape and give the songs a different color and personality. Also, working with her was a joy. When you work alone so much, it’s a breath of fresh air to have someone else come in and show such enthusiasm for what you’re doing and lend so much positive energy.

I’m fairly proud of my production on these cuts … or at least as proud as I can be with a layperson’s understanding of sound engineering. Of all my strengths, I rank my arranging talents pretty high and my audio tech acumen pretty low.

I composed the music almost entirely on Logic Pro X this time around, though I also tucked in a solo here and there that I performed on an iPhone keyboard. (I haven’t picked up an actual guitar yet this year … but watch out for it. Sometimes I get itchy to play.)

As always, Betrayed is only available online in a digital format (which will be the case every time out until I’ve signed a record deal). The album was written, produced and performed by yours truly at my home studio from May to July 2025. Again, the background vocals on a smattering of songs and the lead vocal on “Latin Quarter Restaurant” are by Christina E. The color photo illustration on the cover is by CSA-Printstock.

Here’s one of the new tracks. Enjoy!

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Salon de la Guerre’s New Alt-Rock Album

Posted in Music, Salon De La Guerre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Aren’t you lucky, you darlings! Salon de la Guerre’s 35th album is here, and it’s a lot of fun!

The album is called Citizen Wet Smack and it features some hard-rocking tunes such as “Scooter Impossible,” “Fred Jr.,” and “Once Evil, Now Retired.” The songs cover familiar Salon de la Guerre ground, with vignettes of characters you might find in short fiction: small-time criminals, white collar scammers, spoiled rich kids and unethical philosophers.

As of this week, the album is available on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, Pandora, YouTube and Bandcamp, among other streaming services. You can also use my stuff to make TikTok videos, if you’re so inclined. (My old song “Funny Drunk” is evidently popular for that sort of thing.)

About the title: “Wet smack” is an old-timey phrase for “wet blanket” or misfit. I use it a lot in my novels when I can.

The instrumentation on the new album is weird (Salon de la Guerre fans should expect no less by now). I include a lot of original Fender strat guitar performances alongside prefab guitar sounds generated on my iPhone GarageBand. I confess, this app has a hard rock guitar timbre that I quite like, and which I can manipulate in Logic Pro X. I understand that some purists probably shudder at that thought. But as I’ve said before, I’m not a musical purist about anything. I don’t care where songs come from as long as I’ve got an instrument or machine that gives me easy access to my own melodic ideas. Sometimes for this reason I get some snickers about my production quality from friends and critics. On the bright side, I’ve squeezed out a few hundred songs by doing things my way (I’ve got three more albums dropping soon, and my total song count is now just under 500 titles).

I noticed after I submitted my music to a paid review site a few months ago that a good reviewer can spot my influences pretty easily. The critic who wrote about my last album, Even Toy Dogs Get the Blues, thought he could hear some Peter Gabriel in my voice. I accept that view, though I don’t mind stating my influences outright, especially for my latest work. It’s pretty much all Sonic Youth, Joy Division and the Pixies. So there you go!

I’m also responsible for the cover art this time around, since my preferred collaborator has been busy. The plaster bust photos were purchased from a photo wire and taken by someone named Parsadanov.

I will likely do this kind of album again in the future, but the three albums I’ve got coming up are all very different: one’s folk, one’s electronic, one’s classical.

But for now, please enjoy a sample of the new album below, and buy it if you’d like!

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