This page contains some of the music composition, songwriting, and audio production we’ve done over the past few years. For more information about licensing and copyright, scroll down.

THE SONGS:

Songs with Vocals

John Velghe - Long Face

A song for my upcoming solo EP.  Due out on Eventually Records.

John Velghe - Anna Rose

Another song for my upcoming solo EP.

John Velghe - Closing Your Heart

I wrote this song (music and lyrics) for my last rock band, The Daybirds. It’s written around a jazz guitar riff I’d been playing with for a while and an accordion line (yes, the squeeze box kind) I’d been playing since I first got my Hohner Tango. I just really liked the way the chord voicings worked with the accordion. Once I recorded the guitars and Dean sang the vocals writing the flute and bass lines were easy.

Instrumentals

John Velghe - Tenzing

Composed and recorded in late 2007. The production of this song is inspired by Matt Wilson’s words: “the sun is coming to cold places.” Yes, they’re real drums, real guitar and real amplifier. Yes, it’s a real accordion, and a real toy piano.

It was about 29 degrees when I recorded this song. My drum room isn’t very well heated and I had the heat turned off in the iso booth (where the guitar, piano and accordion were set up and miced.) So everything has this kind of chilly feel to it.

John Velghe - Clyfford Still

This song appears in the documentary film, The Next American Dream.

Having spent the last 20 years trying to compose the perfect 3-minute pop song for three instruments (guitar, bass, and drums) I was growing tired of the format. I thought maybe if I went for a longer format I could learn somethings. So, I spent about a year working on long-format songs without lyrics. This was one of the better ones I came up with.

John Velghe - Five Dollar Coffee Maker

This is my most recent composition. I wrote this for our silent short, Five Dollar Coffeemaker. It’s sort of a 3-minute popsong meets something other than a 3-minute pop song. My favorite part is the french horns.

Clients and Band Songs

The Daybirds – My Love

Back in 2003 and 2004 JoHn played in a band called The Daybirds along with Dean Woods, Jon Sweetwood, and Jon Yeager (now do you get the capital “H”?). My Love was from the demo sessions for what was to become the Daybirds’ major-label-debut-come-Pablo-Honey. In true major label fashion, the management deal with the Celine Dion Agency was scuttled by music-industry politics. JoHn co-produced/composed and engineered this song, wrote parts, performed guitar and backing vocals.

The Daybirds – Say It’s Alright
Another of the Daybirds’ songs recorded and produced at August Hour for the Celine Dion Agency.

The Silver Shore – The Little Foxes

Not too long ago the Kansas City music community held a sort of battle of the bands, with a twist. The bands didn’t know they were a band when they entered. A bunch of individual musicians entered their names into a hat and randomly pulled out four names. Those four people chosen were to form a band and write new songs and perform them. The winning band got some money and a free recording session with August Hour.

The winning band was The Silver Shore. This iteration of the band was Mike Wade on Drums, Chuck Irons on bass guitar, Tony Irons (yes, his brother) on guitar, and Shay Brookerd on vocals and keys. Coming in I was really happy to get to record these guys as they are all great musicians in their own right. Once I strung up the mics it was pretty clear why they won – they gelled and they wrote some thoughtful arrangements and played them all well.

From engineering to production The Little Foxes was my favorite song to work on. Mike and Chuck find this really sweet off-signature groove which gives Tony a lot of breathing room. And Shay’s chanteuse delivery and tidy, subdued keyboard lines lend themselves perfectly to the content of the lyrics. Given all of this, how could I not pour a little more eng-élan into these songs?

I think the results speak for themselves. The Little Foxes is at once tender and spacey (right after his last ride hit – after this big crescendo – you can hear Mike collect his sticks into one hand). And that’s pretty much The Silver Shore in spades — tender and spacey.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING INFORMATION

All of the songs are Copyrighted and covered under ASCAP and BMI songwriters performing rights. These songs are not licensed for use beyond personal enjoyment. Any unauthorized use or reproduction is prohibited by law. If you’re interested in receiving license to use any of these please email our licensing administrator.

Provided you properly credit the artists, you have permission to share these songs for non-commercial purposes. You may not alter them or use them commercially without express written permission, under penalty of applicable laws.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

If you would like to learn more about music clearance and music licensing, click here to read a very good music clearance primer.