| Curriculum Vitae ASB (Andrew Shipway (piano) and Simon Baker (vocals)) were formed at school after I heard Simon playing his own songs and decided that I must be able to do that myself. Simon was one of life's true characters, and I like to think we became great friends, although to this day I don't know if that's what he thought. We were offered a 3-year recording contract that fell through, partly because I wanted to go to university, and partly because we secretly knew that we sucked. After many false starts, I don't know if Simon ever finished school, and the last time I saw him he was selling stuff out the back of an estate car at a music festival sometime around 1992. The songs were recorded in a large variety of places, from school, carefully on a reel-to-reel to at home, quickly on a cassette recorder. The quality therefore varies too, but remains generally bad for all of them, even after touching up. Some of the lyrics can be found here. |
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CD Graphics
Front: Shows us playing in the main hall at school during an impromptu practice session. Inside: Track list and the ASB logo. Back: The view out of the work room window at my house in Bristol. Click on the images for large versions. |
| MP3s Available for Download: | |
| Hazel Eyes | This is a great song, Simon's best. It's pretty simple and borrows a lot (as did Simon generally), but doesn't suffer from it one bit. Possibly our worst recording, though. |
| Fantasy | My first ever song (although Simon wrote the lyrics). |
| So Scared of Being Alone | If anyone could get away with simple words, simple misic, and a large dose of plagrialism, it was Simon. Done here in true style. I only wish he had managed to het his head down and study a bit; learn some more chords; find his own inspiration without borrowing. Simon had an amazing talent that he never allowed to reach its full potential. |
| I Want to Write a Letter | Simon's first great song, except that it is terrible, if you know what I mean. Like so many of these recordings, the structure was made up on the fly - we rarely played the same song the same twice. I think this was the first time I played this one in this key, and the existance of the piano solo surprised both of us. I have never met anyone I could play with so intuitively as Simon. We somehow know what each other was about to do and could act accordingly in advance. |
| Four Hands to Hold You | A rare late collaboration on the lyrics, although I wrote the music. I was experimenting with some new chord structures I had found. I was always experimenting, but Simon's 3-chord tunes always seemed to please the ear. |
| Emma | Simon was one of life's daydreamers. You never knew how much reality there was in what he said (usually not much), but it was always compelling. This song is a 'true story'. |