Since Venus Hum is in an administrative mode for a few days I thought it would be fun to play you some audio that will give you an idea of my song writing process. Here is the evolution of a song called "Precious Bryant" from the spark of an idea to finished song demo. I came up with this chord riff on my guitar one day and quickly grabbed my handheld recorder so I wouldn't forget it.

A few days later I started to put some bones together to make a skeleton of a song. A groove was added and melodies started to form in my head. You can hear me humming some rough ideas and then I plugged in my vocoder, thinking that my fingers might go somewhere my voice wouldn't.

I finally started to get somewhere with the melody and the chorus was born. You can hear the phone ringing... probably some tele-marketer! One of the many dangers of working at home.

I sent this rough outline to my friend Bill Demain of the duo Swan Dive. Bill is a brilliant lyricist and we've written tons of songs together. I knew this one would be right up his alley. He sent back this great set of lyrics called "Precious Bryant". I was instantly in love with the title, even though I knew little of the blues legend who inspired it.

Our song was born and was ready to be demoed. Here's the finished demo that I did...

I hope you found that interesting.  I write so many things that never get heard I thought it would be fun to let some of this stuff out into the wild.  I should also stress that this isn't for the new Venus Hum record- just in case anyone was worried we were 'going in a new direction'.  It falls under the category of songs I write just because I can't help myself!

Tony