Reading · In the studio with The Static Dive

Bajo Frio Five was born as a voice memo on my phone. I create these daily to capture inspiration when it strikes.

The recordings are insane. For whatever reason, my subconscious mind views that little red button as carte blanche for crazy.

The current-day screenshot of song-titles below is indicative of the stream-of-consciousness ramblings, nonsensical singing, and sloppy out-of-context guitar riffs contained in my phone’s audio recordings.

Despite its title, ‘Hey, bitches’ is neither a misogynistic rap song nor a Charlie XCX-style gurl-anthem, but a cool blues groove in desperate need of lyrics.

A method is born from the madness. If you throw enough spaghetti at the wall, someone will eventually call it art. Or something like that.

It was while writing the songs that became Bluelight Sessions, Vol. 1 that I learned to trust my more unconventional ideas and embrace a less inhibited compositional style. My sound was never mainstream, but now it had become its own thing.

You go through a lotta crazy before being welcomed to the blue light. As evidence, I present my decades-long obsession with Loverboy’s 80’s hit Working for the Weekend.

It should be noted, I am not now nor have I ever been a Loverboy fan. Although I did attend the band’s 1985 concert at the Glens Falls, Civic Center, I was there to see the warm-up act, The Hooters. I still love them.

Disinterest in Loverboy aside, their best-known song has been living rent-free in my head for over 40 years. Here I am, recently recording myself as I sing the song in a poorly executed, cheesy lounge style.

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-0:29

I’m sure the obsession could be easily explained by a licensed therapist. But, why record it? Over and over. It’s not booze. I quit drinking years ago. I’m just nuts.

There are hundreds of these. There will be hundreds more.

But, I digress.

The spark for Bajo Frío Five was the discovery of a memo recording with the innocuous title, Cool bass line.

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-1:07

Bajo frio is a loose translation. It really means cold bass, or in the cold, depending on context. Five (5) was the iterative number appended to the file name of the final audio mix (bajo-frio-5.wav) used in the video short .

Although I call for a bossa nova beat at the beginning of the voice memo recording, the end result has more of a Blondie/Cardigans Caribbean pop vibe.

Here I am recording the bass line.

Watch the full video many more on my YouTube channel.

How about a beat? Here I am figuring out what to do with the drums.

Middle-aged man discovers the wonders of wireless technology in 2026.

Kontakt

Behringer U-Phoria UMC404HD audio interface