Category: Actor/Musician

28
Feb
2022
18:52

Hollywood Babble-On Theme Songs

I’m a long-time Kevin Smith fan and as such I’ve been listening to the Hollywood Babble-On podcast with him and Ralph Garman since the beginning. It’s certainly not for everyone or the easily offended but I love it. From time to time they feature various things created by listeners and many of their segments now feature theme songs written by listeners such as myself, so I thought I’d chronicle my works that have been featured and few exclusive easter eggs that have not! Firstly, most of these segments are incredibly hard to explain and you would just have to hear them in context to really get it.

A few that are still being used almost every week are Inappropriate Toys where they feature ads for kids toys and such that are, as the title implies, inappropriate. They also have a segment where they play these two German characters they made up one episode, so I made a theme for The Germans. Another segment talks about bizarre things from Japan called WTF Japan? As you’ll hear here, my original version had a clip from Kevin’s “Clerks: The Animated Series” which was cut for use on the actual podcast.

Some from the past segments which eventually they stopped doing were a segment about upcoming reboots they found unnecessary called No Thanks, We’ve Already Got One and one called Hitler In The Movies where people would mock up fake parody posters inserting Hitler into them with altered titles.

Then there were some I sent in which were never used. For example, Kevin likes to tease Ralph about having “8 impressions” (Ralph is actually really great impressionist) so I made this theme. Ralph also used to do Arnold Schwarzenegger singing various songs that listeners had requested, for which I sent in this unused theme. And then, during the pandemic when they weren’t doing shows, they started doing “Caped Commentaries,” watching the original Batman series with Adam West and commenting on it.

It’s fun to be part of the show and I’m glad a few of mine are still running!

23
Feb
2022
1:04

Do Ya Wanna Taste Al?

I still plan to get to more requests, but this one is going to be hard to beat, though I do regret filming it in portrait orientation. My friend Jennifer suggested I do the #Peacemaker theme song in the style of one of my all time heroes, “Weird Al” Yankovic. It immediately formed in my mind.

19
Feb
2022
18:49

Do Ya Wanna Taste It?

It all started (as so many things do) last Thursday with me being silly by myself. I was singing “Do Ya Wanna Taste It?“, a song by Wigwam which has become extremely popular as the theme to the great show, Peacemaker. I was singing it very properly with acute enunciation because it amused me. I then decided to make a TikTok of it.

@heathallyn

Smith’s Lament #Peacemaker #DoYouReallyWantToTasteIt

♬ original sound – Heath Allyn

Then as soon as I had posted this, I thought to myself, “Actually, this would make a really good dark, moody, stripped down ballad with an underlying sinister feeling to it,” and I immediately started working on that. Somewhere around 6 or 7 hours later, it was done. Or so I thought.

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01
Nov
2021
19:07

Medeli AKX10 Review

Recently I found myself needing a live gig keyboard. I have my trusty M-Audio Keystation 88 in my studio that I use with all my soft synths, and on the rare occasions that I’ve needed a live keyboard, I’ve taken it out with my laptop running my soft synths and it’s been fine, but as I’ve started to play more keys in a few projects I wanted a simpler solution. The thing is, I’m still mostly a guitarist and bassist and so that, combined with the fact that I was only playing some keys and I did still have my MIDI controller and soft synths made it hard for me to justify a high end Nord, Kronus, or the like.

That’s when my friend and bandmate David Houston introduced me to the Medeli AKX10 which he had just ordered for the same reasons, as he hadn’t played much keys in a while and had just taken on a keyboard gig. Now like a lot of musicians, I initially had my doubts about this keyboard for several reasons. One it’s sold as an “Accompaniment Keyboard” for one-person band type situations, like bistro singers who want to be able to have features like one-finger left hand chords and backing accompaniment that can follow your chord changes in various styles and arrangements. That plus the fact that any keyboard with built-in speakers, to my experience was mostly a low level keyboard that would make pros would turn their nose up. I found myself falling prey to some of these biases as well. Though to be honest, I do like some of the frills like the pulsing colored lights on the sides of the keyboard and the different color schemes you can choose from for the buttons. I just needed a big variety of great sounds, good feel, and a great usability, so why would I want to pay for a bunch of extra stuff I’ll never use like the auto-accompaniment and such?

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29
Oct
2021
1:30

A Moment Of Gratitude In Honor Of My Past Self

As I get ready for some upcoming gigs, rehearsing, organizing sounds and setlists, I had a random moment of extreme gratitude aimed at teenage Heath. I remember as a budding young musician lusting after guitars and equipment that was so far out of my reach that it might as well have been a million dollars. I remember this amazing multi-effects unit, the Roland GP-8 that I wanted so bad. I remember my amazement when Scott Eddy brought over his Roland JX-3P synth and it was like magic to me.

Now I’m a professional musician with 5 amazing high end electric guitars, 2 acoustics one of which is made of carbon fiber, 2 amazing basses, a keyboard that makes that JX-3P seem like a toy, digital models of thousands of synths, effects, guitars, amps, cabs, mics, etc. at my disposal.

I would say I’m living young Heath’s dream, but that’s not accurate as I don’t think he could have dreamed this big or known what would one day be possible and in his arsenal.

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