2024-Dec-21 - Asteroid Field
This week's randomly selected song Asteroid Field is track #5 from disc #3 of my triple CD album It Was All Just a Dream.
Asteroid Field first appeared on my 2019 album Electric Sky. It features a brilliant, well-crafted, and well-executed guest guitar solo from my friend Chuck Keller. There are several aspects to Chuck's solo that I've admired from the very first time I heard it. The solo fits the vibe of the song perfectly, it's very catchy and memorable, it breathes like a sung vocal line, and it tells its own story complete with a build up and release of tension that flows right into the final chorus of the song.
The song itself was inspired by my childhood love of sci-fi and fantasy movies like Star Trek and Star Wars that featured harrowing dog fights and chases through labyrinths of massive drifting space boulders. While I know from working at an astronomical observatory that actual asteroid belts are nothing like what we see in these movies, and in reality, the individual asteroids are separated by unimaginably large amounts of space, it's still fun to imagine oneself as the hero in the cockpit of a starship, deftly maneuvering around a sea of tumbling space rocks.
For the final It Was All Just a Dream version of Asteroid Field, I ended up re-recording most of the guitar parts -- pretty much everything except for my original guitar solo (and of course Chuck's solo) was redone for this version. I felt like I could nail the parts a bit cleaner and clearer, and I'm glad I made that decision. I think the new version is a step up from the original with cleaner articulation and timing on both the rhythm and lead parts.
I played the rhythm guitar parts on my Ibanez J. Custom RG8571, Ibanez S5521, and Sully 624 Conspiracy Series prototype all through my Mesa Boogie Mark V:25 using the IIC+ voice for the crunch tones and the Fat voice for the clean tones. I played the verse and chorus melodies on my Sully 625 US Custom, and I played the guitar solo on my Ibanez RG5120M, all through my Mesa Boogie Mark V:25 IIC+ voice.
You can listen to this song as well as the entire 44 song collection right here on the website! If you love what you hear and want to support the music I make, please consider purchasing this album on CD or digital download. I will gladly personalize and autograph your copy.
https://chrisstark.com/it-was-all-just-a-dream
Keep an eye out for next Saturday's song spotlight, and as always, thank you sincerely for all of your support!
Love, Aloha, and Rock!
❤️😎🎸