| Note from Michael: This recording of "The Golden Sun" has never been heard by the public before. It is a ROUGH MIX. The 2 inch tapes that this song was recorded on are now over twenty years old, but it is my hope that they are still intact enough for me to be able to actually mix this song properly in the near future. (Many of our old tapes are damaged by time, and that is why sometimes, you may notice that a song seems to "start" as if some of the music was "cut". That's because it was...due to damage to the Master Tapes, or in the Digital Remastering process. ("Once You Get Started"..."You Just Can't Stop It" and are examples of where a second or two on the beginning of the song is "missing" which occurred during the Digital Remastering...and will hopefully be able to be corrected when I can get back into the studio with Peter Solak). Please try to listen to this song ("The Golden Sun") for its content... rather than as a "finished" product. In my opinion this is the closest to being able to hear what the original group was actually like "live"...that is available anywhere. This song was actually recorded "live in the studio"... in one take...at 3:00AM, after we had spent nearly eight hours in the studio recording our second single "You Just Can't Stop It". We were tired, but in good spirits, and decided to play this just to unwind. Unknown to us, Peter, who was the recording engineer who was working with us during that period... decided to run tape before we began playing, and the song you hear here...is the result. This song was a song I wrote and spent over five years arranging with two other groups before AVALANCHE even existed. All changes in tempos, accented hits, and chords, that occur during the extended instrumental section on the second half of the song are cued by the lead guitar. The solo on this section of the song represents hundreds of hours of taping rehearsals and fine tuning...over a period of years. What you hear on this recording is the result of all that evolution, and work. We played it exactly this way...everytime we did it live...and we ended nearly all AVALANCHE concerts with this song. It is kind of our anthem to "Woodstock Nation"...and seemed to capture the time. The entire song...as complex and varied as the parts sound... is really just an exploration of how much can be done with a simple three chord pattern. But most importantly, it is the best recorded example of just how tight and well rehearsed this original lineup was...it is one of my favorite compositions, and this is pretty much what the energy of this band was like live in concert....although most of our other stuff has more of a heavy edge. Vocals were dubbed in, and Piano and Acoustic Guitars were added afterwards by me as well, and although those instruments improve the song, the heart and soul of all AVALANCHE music was the total empathy we all had for each other's playing...and our total committment to what we were doing...and "The Golden Sun" is the best evidence of that fact, that exists from the original group. Although it is nearly fourteen minutes long...the song never seems to drag or stay in one spot for any real length of time...it just flows and moves with a life of it's own. I have always been grateful for that night in the studio, and the fact that...through sheer accident... this song was captured on tape. It was the last night the original band was ever in the studio together as a unit, and this song...like so many of our others...would have been lost forever...if not for Peter's quick thinking. This song is kind of like our "Freebird"...except this song was written years before THAT song ever existed. For maximum enjoyment...listen to the song as you read the lyrics...and TURN IT UP LOUD...and I hope you like it as much as I do! |