Father Time
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12/25/2023 12:53:03 PM
well, lemme tell you, and I know that of which I speak here, because I was in a band with him and we made one absolutely amazing record (with like 17 songs on it) imo.
The Coming of Age
Leslie, or as he's known now, Jesus Oldman, is one artist out a very few I've met in the indie world who is a certified genius. I call him the Phil Spector of indie. He's produced my songs to shockingly good results and just being able to sing some of his better ones was a huge honor for me.
So why did I throw him off this site? an honor only brought to a tiny group of people, most prominently that asscrack Ray Porter? Well he was just too much at the time. He was too big for the room you might say. and, you might be surprised to know we are still friends to this day. ha ha
Now, about him channelling the Beatles, I believe he is. Funny this came up, serendipitous in fact, because the same day Mortimer posted this thread, I was recording vocals of a cover song of a late friend and am quite sure i channelled him. Believe whole heartedly in this, it''s happened several times to me in fact.
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The Jay Dyall Project
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12/28/2023 1:51:47 PM
---- Updated 12/28/2023 4:40:19 PM
I agree with the comments above, about whom some have known as Leslie, now as Jesus Oldman, but I knew him first in 1993 (wow, it's been 30 years now), under his actual name, which I won't state here in case he reads this and he truly hates the mention of his birth name now, lol, but yes, the man is truly a musical genius. An extremely talented multi-instrumentalist, he can do almost anything musically. His musicianship on several different instruments is awe-inspiring if you've ever been in his presence during a session! I had often told him years ago he could've gone on to become a professional session musician at major recording studios and from there an actual recording artist, either as a solo artist or in an actual band. He could have been world-famous! But he detested the idea of working for a living, lol
Lyrically speaking he has some gems, especially a lot of his early material in the 90s. But as time went by, a lot of his lyrics make no sense, or are just too personal for anyone to relate to, in my opinion. He hated the fact that his wife once stated after one of our sessions that I was a better lyricist than he in regard to many of my songs being more relatable emotionally than his lyrics. He still insists he's a better songwriter than me. His approach as a songwriter was Quantity over Quality. That's why he's been able to record and release songs on an almost daily basis for years. I think for every one of my songs we worked on, he had like 10 of his own done.
He was the one to introduce me to digital uploads and music sites around 2004 and transferred all my early recordings from cassettes to MP3s in order to upload to sites. We started The Jay Dyall Project together in 2005.
Speaking of early recordings, many of which later became part of the TJDP song list, he and I worked on many of my songs, starting in 1993, and we must have recorded about 40 of my songs in the 90s and early 2000s. (With about 2 or 3 cover songs as well. He tried getting me to do more covers but that was not the direction I was aiming for back then). Even his late wife Vanessa sang on a few as a backup singer and marvelously sang lead on one, "This Poor Girl's Heart".
This was years before he morphed into Beatlesex and ALJ, and then into Jesus Oldman.
But as I progressed as a musician/producer, I began to work less with him, especially when he tried to make major changes to what I had in mind. And of course, due to his somewhat volatile rants and behavior. He tends to be a perfectionist, as am I at times. But oftentimes he just gets too extreme with how things should get done. Suffice it to say, we clashed a lot. We even clashed once here on the Pipeline because I did not mention his name on one of my releases here and his rant with me got us warned about posting personal stuff here. But that's how he was, and it was apparently with several others here as well that eventually got him banned. He is who he is though. He got banned from Soundclick as well a few years back, but now under the name Jesus Oldman, he's back on it.
Now and then in the past few years, we would work on a new song here and there sporadically. He covered a couple of my songs a while back. One of them, "Dragons", was done completely differently, and a bit much with his shouting style of singing. I wasn't too pleased with it, but, what the heck, it's a new version, so that's ok.
Another was "Heart For Sale"; he took that to higher heights and in a more 80s New-Wavish style than my 60s psychedelic rock-style original, and I loved it and think it's a better version. Both versions are good, but his stands out a bit more.
I in turn took one of his songs which he did (or tried to do) in Spanish.
"Amo A Tu Hermana" (I Love Your Sister). His version was a light rock style which I re-arranged and re-recorded in a Mariachi style and was able to get an actual mariachi singer in Mexico to sing on. Mind you, upon listening to my version (with an accompanying humorous video), he was blase' about it. There's no pleasing the man, lol
Bottom line, I do owe a lot to him for helping me get off the ground with these online music sites.
He and I are still in contact every now and then, and we still consider ourselves as friends. His health has declined a bit in the past couple of years, but he still makes records, as he likes to say!
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