Dave Alexander

Decided to upload and share some demo tracks. I used to play with a bunch of friends in a self indulgent band called Bake the Cake... We didn't last that long but we played good stuff from Michael McDonald, Rush, Steve Lukather, Living Color etc. It was pretty challenging for me personally as I was at my max technically and vocally - I was playing  guitar, keys and even both, with a pedal board (Rush style) as well as singing all the lead vocals. The other guys were excellent players - better than me... I've always been a utility man and just had enough to fill the gaps. Anyway, we needed a demo tape to pass round for gigs so I just laid down 4 tracks on my own and we cracked on it was the band. In fact I did all the instruments and vocals on my old 8 track. The stuff is way better than when I played it live. It's easy to punch in and fix those mistakes and hit those notes. However, I thought it'd be good for those who are curious to have summat to scrutinise.

The tracks are covers from Satriani, Journey, Cheap Trick and Magnum. I don't do these tracks in my solo show - I used to play the Satriani tune but not regularly enough that it would stick in my head - maybe I'll drag it out again one day. The Journey track is in D (down a tone from the original) and I used to play keys on that. The guys in the band used to drop their bottom strings down to D just for that one track and then tune them back up afterwards... but it's still tough for me in that key and I've wrestled with the idea of dropping it down even further... I dunno. The Cheap Trick tune... I'd probably do it if I could find the master multitrack and mute the vox & guitar... I dunno where it went. The Magnum tune is nice but probably not popular enough. The quality isn't amazing and that's cos I was trying to make it sound a bit like an actual band demo :)

I have some live solo recordings and I'm gonna plough through those to see if there's anything worth uploading as well. Stay tuned!