SUPERCOMET - Final Approach

Over the years I have had the pleasure of knowing and sometimes working with some amazing musicians. Benjamin Kammin featured in the last post is one of those. Here is another.

Supercomet is Eric Olson. Better known as the guitarist in the blues band The Spectaculars. This is a side project he recorded in the early 2000s. It is more in the style of Pink Floyd with a touch of Black Crowes with solid songwriting and introspective lyrics. There is some amazing production here for being a home recorded project. Eric is one of those natural musicians with an ear for just the right sounds and the ability to achieve them with seemingly minimal effort.

I purchased my first mixing board from Eric when he upgraded his recording equipment before recording this album.

Tracklist

01 Days
02 Ascension
03 Laurie
04 Shades of Grey
05 Nuts
06 ECG Day
07 Words
08 Malaise
09 We Know
10 Power (Bonus Track)

Reality Notes

Eric comes from a musical family. Growing up in northern Wisconsin his father (my wife's uncle) grew tired of playing in regional country bands and taught his kids how to play so that he could play the music he liked. Eric took up the the guitar and his brother Mike the drums. Both are impressive multi-instrumentalists as well. I assume that is Mike on the drums here but both have the ability to switch roles with ease so without a "who did what" list I can't be sure. For all I know Eric might be playing everything.

I never had a physical copy of this album so I had to grab the songs from his ReverbNation page. I had to do some minor editing to smooth out some of the track transitions but other than that, this is how I found them.

The last track is an alternate version of a song from the recent album by the latest incarnation of their blues band The Spectaculars. I've always liked this song and I have a couple different versions but this one is my favorite. There have been a few different line-ups of the band over the years but the core has always been the father and sons trio. The current version is the first to have an album released and available for purchase (Let's Hear Us, Now!). Find it if you can. I have a live tape that I ripped from a video I took of a previous line-up. I posted that on my Sybil Records blog a long time ago and just updated the download links there.

In their early days they had a side band with an augmented line-up called Think Floyd. A Pink Floyd tribute band that did shows around the northern Wisconsin circuit. The first time I saw them perform was at a music festival as Think Floyd followed by a club show as The Spectaculars in my hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin. A great day and one of the first "dates" with my future wife.

The original cover was a non-text version of the cover used here. I added the band name and title.

ReverbNation

The Spectaculars
ReverbNation
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YouTube
Apple Music

Ben Kammin - seventunes&threesongs (2001)

[This is a slightly edited repost of a post from my original Sybil Records blog. The links there were down and I have not posted anything there in quite some time. I've been wanting to reshare this album for a while now so a recent message from a reader asking if the album is still available was the nudge I needed to finally put it back up. I have updated all the links there if you want to check it out. It's a bit messy but I hope to clean it up soon.]

I've been wanting to post this album for a long while but because I had nothing to do with this project I needed to get the OK from the artist. Ben Kammin is a fingerstyle guitarist in the style of Michael Hedges and Leo Kottke. I first ran into Ben many years ago when he was playing at a Barnes & Noble bookstore. I ran into him a few more times before striking up a conversation with him. There was a lot of common ground between us as musical influences go and I really wanted to work with him in some way. It took a few years but I finally got him into my basement studio to do some demos. These are not them but you can find those here.

Tracklist

01 Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring -J.S. Bach (Arr. David Qualey)
02 Amazing Grace -Traditional (Arr. Randy Scruggs)
03 Solitude -Ben Kammin (Chorus By William Blake)
04 The Happy Couple -Michael Hedges
05 Too Much Saturn -Francis Dunnery (Arr. Ben Kammin)
06 Dreamsketcher -Billy Mclaughlin
07 Ojo -Leo Kottke
08 Let Them In -Anonymous (Melody based On an arr. By David Wilcox)
09 Song For Robbie -Peppino D'agostino
10 First To Go -Leo Kottke

Reality Notes

What we have here is Ben's first CD. Recorded and released in 2001 it predates our demo sessions. This CD is sold out and long out of print with no plans at this time to reissue. I wanted to share this for many reasons but mainly to give more people access to this album. More often than not I have had to listen to Ben tell inquiring fans about the unavailability of this CD. So with Ben's approval I am putting this up here for all to download and enjoy.

If I could have one complaint about this album it's that Ben does not sing enough. As a guitar player first I'm sure that's where he wanted the focus to be but he has such a nice voice as well.

For more information about Ben go to his website. He doesn't perform very often these days but he is far from inactive.