Songwriting & Guitar Guidance

I like working directly with those of you that are interested in learning more about my approach to music and playing the guitar. Learn more about my Songwriting & Guitar Guidance, sign up for a free introductory session by sending me an email at mwpindeepmusicarchive@gmail.com, or visit the shop at the In Deep Music Archive website to book a session.

Missing

This is my stolen 1965 Rickenbacker 12-string, serial number EB157. If there's any chance of this guitar coming back to me before I go to meet my maker, then that would be wonderful. Please contact me if you have any information.

Song Of The Week

Watch this space for your weekly dose of Marty's music, including side projects and surprising collaborations. 

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I wanted to write a song that questioned the wisdom of the idea that the radio was the place to go to listen to, discover and ultimately appreciate music. When I wrote Forget The Radio from Hanging Out In Heaven (2000), commercial stations were enjoying world domination. In recent years there have been many internet stations, playing all kinds of styles from Glam to Classical and with playlists you really can create the radio station you want. Your own choices at your fingertips. BUT many people that go to the airwaves for their musical pleasure use the radio to simply hum along to the latest easy on the ear Pop tunes and want them picked by others and also use the radio for company, the local weather and the drama of news. I am happy to have people tell me about, play me and direct me towards music but although it’s not mutually exclusive, commercial radio might be making or basking in an artist’s success and of course success as such isn’t the marker for quality and certainly not for taste. Plus success is relative: I just went to see First Aid Kit here in Dallas - they were amazing, the songs, the harmonies, the performance a mixture of joy and seriousness wrapped up in two highly talented sisters and a great band. It was a big place and a lot of people came out on a Wednesday night. Still, I can’t imagine they are all over commercial radio but they are still popular and at the least totally appealing to all types of people, music nerds and even the tone deaf - even they couldn’t fail to hum and tap along to their tunes. I understand that not everyone wants to hear an emotional attack every time they hear a song, they don’t want to be pummeled into submission or be made aware of the tragedies of the universe - or do they? Country music seems to often deal with breakdowns, sadness and the pain of unrequited love. Take Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You sung by the tragic Whitney Houston, one of the biggest hits of the last few decades, hugely successful and terribly sad, but presented in a polished production that moved millions to buy it. They didn’t buy it because it was rubbish, they bought it because it affected them emotionally, they really felt like it meant something. Allegedly Celine Dion manages the same trick, clad in expensive gowns and armed with an angelic voice. I suppose it’s hard for me to expect Amon Düül ll to be on breakfast TV, but how come This One Goes Out To The One I Love by REM was a big hit and Fall To Love by Diesel Park West wasn’t? Well, easy to explain apart from the fact that one band built their following in the US and the other in England and somehow Michael Stipe ‘talked to the kids’ and John Butler didn’t, but in the end they are both great lead singers with a catchy song, about the same age, equally good looking (even relevant on the radio), but exposure, so promo, so money didn’t get them noticed - nobody played the DPW song enough for it to catch on. So, I decided to write a song that tried to redirect your ears and reclaim your taste as decided by you. In the late sixties music radio was vibrant, eclectic and at some point it was taken over by the bland corporations that controlled playlists and had “the tail wagging the dog”. Now one hopes with your ability to create your own musical world through playlists and recommendations from like-minded people we would be able to break the strangulating grip that has suppressed great bands that we know the public would like if they just knew they existed (don’t make me make a list, you make it).