Bradley David Lycan
An American Song Writer/Composer -- Piano and Synthesizer Keyboards
My website is for a global community -- everyone is welcome.
We posted a good March 2024 mix of song "Catch the Wind" (1988) to this album. Final mixes will come in May when we add Stan Kessler on trumpet (chorus climax part) and Don Carr on acoustic guitar added to electric guitars already there. Thanks Kat Bowser for your great vocals! Thank you to Eduardo Tarilonte and his sound designs, EastWest sounds online, BFD3 Drums, Groove Monkey midi drums patterns, Kurzweil, Sweetwater Music sounds, and Roland Corp. for their wonderful sound libraries for keyboards.
Song "Riding on the Starlight" was added to city skapes iv "street signs" audio player below. We feature Adriana Nikole (vocalist) with musicians Don Carr (guitars), Dieu Aime Nsikoh (bass guitar), Todd Wilkinson (saxophones), Stan Kessler (trumpet and flugelhorn), and Brad Lycan (keyboards).
Song "She Drives a New Car" will be here in mid-May 2024.
Mid May of 2024 we will add 4 new songs to city skapes iv "street signs": "Night City Moods" (1985) "Creatures" (1986) "Star Gazer" (1987) and "She Drives a New Car" (1987). In June add the last 4 album songs: "The Lone Wolfe" (1986), "Dance til Dawn" (1988), "You Light the Way" (2016) and one more. I wrote these 4 songs in Columbus Park. I will re-produce them here since they are colorful songs people will enjoy hearing. In 2024-2025 we introduce city skapes v "doorways" -- which will be another collection of our urban songs. In 2021 we introduced the city skapes i city skapes (an eclectic song collection), city skapes ii "the edge" (a Rock Classic-like collection), city skapes iii "somewhere" (mellow Rock ballade collection), city skapes iv "street signs" (the Fusion-like collection), and city skapes v "doorways" (our urban song ballade collection).
We feature Adriana Nikole (vocalist) with musicians Don Carr (guitars), Dieu Aime Nsikoh (bass guitar), Todd Wilkinson (saxophones), Stan Kessler (trumpet and flugelhorn), and Brad Lycan (keyboards).
In 2024-2025 we begin of vaz & wooden boxes, which will be from my eclectic collection of urban love songs & life ballades in Blues, in Rock, in Jazz and urban Folk -- with Lycan Studio contributing musicians. The song "Affairs the Heart" I wrote the summer of 1992 will be the very first song. I will then include in this collection my songs from years 2014-2019. of vaz & wooden boxes song collection is a cousin to the city skapes song projects directly below.
In late May 2024 -- we will add the song "2 Loves and One Heart" (Bradley David Lycan, 2016).
In late May 2024 -- Kat will sing the song "Sing to You" (Bradley David Lycan, 1988-89). This song is about those experiences we all share on earth in the magic of the cosmos, the moments in awe & wonder when spirit speaks to each of us, as wind and waves rush to shore: "Quietly listen in the night, like the glowing of the warm moon light...deeply loving as a star... forever shining through the skies -- eternity cries -- It will sing to you..." ( from song lyrics and 1993 music album "Sing to You" by Bradley David Lycan, 1988-89).
In March of 2024 song "Affairs the Heart" was posted here for listening. This song will begin our 2024-25 album song collection of vaz & wooden boxes (see directly above).
I wrote this song the summer of 1992, a summer of great change for me. I recorded this song with my friend Terri, who sang it beautifully at that time. Todd Wilkinson recorded the saxophone track on this song then. "Affairs the Heart" would mark the end of a certain artistic period for me and one of those crossroads in my life.
The summer of 1992 was quiet. I had just moved from Columbus Park to a basement apartment of an old friend, who owned the house. Things were unsure at that point in my life, except I was getting ready to record 2 new album projects. My job wasn't yielding much, and I was in depth a lot of money for me at that time. This was a time of deep reflection, unknowingness, re-routings of my life path, endings of old associations, silent walks, unsettling nights, new crossroads and choices, and new horizons and distant vistas. In short, my youth was ending, and I was to begin a new part along my journey in this world.
The song "Affairs the Heart" was a farewell letter to a life I had been living. Now, the song "Catch the Wind" (see audio player above on this page) would be a passport to a new life I was to soon begin.
Thank you again to Kat Bowser for her wonderful vocal tracks in this love song ballade. This song will be our first song in wooden boxes audio player below. Thank you to Dieu Aime Nsikoh on bass guitar, Don Carr on guitars, and Todd Wilkinson on saxophone.
Mountain Paths was conceived in 1986, but it was not until year 2013 that I returned to that music to re-record these instrumental pieces on this album project.
Then, Mountain Paths sat for another 6 years before I again returned to it in 2019. I then asked Todd Wilkinson to record soprano saxophone, Stan Kessler to record trumpet and flugelhorn, and Sara Niehiser to record violin for this project.
It is ideal for film and imaginative listening.
I will return to this project to complete Mountain Paths over the next 2 years in 2024-25.
With Eagles fly is developed and composed from 2 selected piano improvisation from my piano improvisations the Spring of 2018. I performed and recorded these piano improvisations back to back one early afternoon using Pro Tools DAW using Synthology Ivory Piano sampled soundware. In the late 2022 winter, I orchestrated these 2 piano improvisation pieces with EastWest, Native Instruments, Vienna, Eduardo Tarilonte, and Kurzweil keyboard synthesizer and digital sound samples. It was a time consuming process. Todd Wilkinson recorded his soprano saxophone tracks in his home studio -- a methodical process and artistic venture for him. His saxophone tracks are breathtaking as he soars along with the eagle of the cliffs. Stan Kessler recorded his trumpet horn tracks here in Lycan studio -- his horn reverberating through the ancient canyons. With Eagles fly project is complete here.
Nocturnal Sarai is developed and composed from selected piano improvisation from my collection of piano improvisations form 2015-2018. I performed and recorded these piano improvisations to Logic and Pro Tools DAW using Sweetwater music Kurzweil Piano Stratus and Synthology Ivory Piano sampled soundware. In the late 2022 winter, I orchestrated these 4 piano improvisation pieces with EastWest, Native Instruments, Vienna, Eduardo Tarilonte, and Kurzweil keyboard synthesizer and digital sound samples. It was a time consuming process. Todd Wilkinson recorded his soprano saxophone tracks in his home studio -- a methodical process and artistic venture for him. His saxophone tracks are stellar.
Stan Kessler recorded his trumpet horn tracks here in Lycan studio -- a unique and exhilarating experience for us. His stunning tracks add energy and lift to each song selection. We plan to return Nocturnal Sarai in December of 2024. We will add 2 more songs pieces.
city skapes i, ii, ii, iv and v ... are 5 separate album projects with collections of my songs written from 2015-2018. These songs express the nuances of my daily experience over the years and living in or near the city. We will be adding city skapes v in 2024-2025. In 2024 and 2025 years we will complete these project song albums.
In 2024-2025 we introduce city skapes v "doorways" -- which will be another collection of our urban songs. city skapes i was an eclectic song collection, city skapes ii "the edge" is a Rock Classic-like collection, city skapes iii "somewhere" is a mellow Rock ballade collection, city skapes iv "street signs" is a Fusion-like collection, and city skapes v "doorways" will be our urban song ballade collection.
city skapes v "doorways" will be a collection of my urban song ballades -- the unusual, yet obscure...the places and odd shops, less hidden than lost in the daylight, where they stand aloof and wait, where they walk and pass by, where streets come and cross, and tables perch and rest from years of wear and times from those who sit and glaze in rooms estranged, through doors a ways away.
Journey to Yore LAnd album project songs will remixed (with some new keyboard tracks and instrument arrangements) over year 2024. Journey to Yore LAnd album project began the Summer of 2019. We just experimented along the way; I just grabbed some song ideas and sent them to the vocalists Kat Bowser and Adriana Nikole -- they said, "Ok, I'll sing the songs for you." And, so they did. So, we have an eclectic collection of my songs here, written from 2016-2019. "These songs are about the Captain, Lu, Cinderellia, Sanchos, and the Wisemen; these songs are about a discarded Rose flower tossed into the cosmos, ever abloom, amidst the stars and space, affixed in deep and forever" (Lycan, 2023). Journey to Yore LAnd album project ends the Summer of 2023. I thank Don Carr for his incredible guitar work; Dieu Aime Nsikoh and Dave Martin for their solid bass guitar tracks; Stan Kessler for his fine trumpet playing; and Todd Wilkinson for his saxophone parts that are always an upliftment to my songs.
Lycan Studio March 24 2024
Song "Wonder Where You Gone" (2017) is me writing and playing this song in the hour it came, in the hour it was composed and recorded. Not really sure about the experience I was telling, my mind goes nil and my feel goes stray. I have a lot of these songs -- those uneventful non-commercial glyphs from daily life. Such songs express our moods and ponderings, our otherwise vacancies that never fulfill beyond notions and hunches, neither's and nor's, if's or but's...
Nevertheless, such songs express amidst our wanderings and voids that gather and clump into meanings from lostness.
These songs are from my New Age collection 1985-1990 in Columbus Park -- Kansas City, Missouri. All songs were performed by me on Helpinstill acoustic Piano, Roland D-250 piano, Yamaha DX-7 synthesizer, and R-100 Yamaha drum machine -- recorded to Tascam 8-track reel-to-reel tape machine. I also sing the songs. I also begin to integrate Midi with my digital DX-7 synth using an Apple 2-C computer with early DAW software.
This was a wonderful time in my youth for me. I was free and able to live my life with little stress or hinderances. Enjoy these music artifacts.
These songs above are from my album Players of the Dreamland, early 1990s in Columbus Park. All instrument and vocals tracks were recorded in my 3-room apartment in Columbus Park. I had just purchased a 16-channel Yamaha mixing desk and Tascam 16-track reel-to-reel machine with SMPTE. This was a magical time, yet a time of serious changes in my life. Please celebrate these people who played on this urban music project.
These piano pieces are from my early "improvisation piano" work from 1980-1981 in Kansas City, Missouri. I had lived in South town off of Wornall Road and then in Westport above the Country Club Plaza. All songs were performed by me on these pianos noted on this audio player, and then recorded directly to cassette tape. I recorded my work in each season -- winter, spring, summer and autumn.
It was during these early years of song writing in my 20's that I enjoyed the freedoms in my life, to just live each day to its fullest. And, I believed in my aspirations to one day bring this music to a world audience, which we share today via the internet.
Of course, my family at that time thought I was merely foolhardy, my friends just laughed and shrugged, and people who knew about or heard some my early music work did the -- "huh?" And, my colleagues in music thought I was missing a few cards in my deck, I was always a dollar short, and a day or so late. So other than that -- I felt that one day my madness would pay off: if not in money, at least in some kind of notoriety, which would mean that my music work would find its place in this world.
In looking back on this time in the 1980s and listening to these songs and this music once again, I can feel those experiences, the spirit of those years. At age 70 now, I can say that I am glad I took the time to live as I did -- to explore, to discover, to see. It was with the music that my life had some kind of focus and meaning, something much more than what a job or the day-to-day routines of the world could offer me. I knew this detour in life would one day lead me to where I truly wanted to be, that I would encounter many crossroads but understand which turns to take.
The songs of "Sail on Free" came the Spring and early Summer of 1982. I was living in Westport above the Country Club Plaza. We recorded these early band-songs at Stairway Recording studio in North Kansas City, Missouri with Mark Hubble, owner and engineer.
This small recording studio of Mark's was in a old strip-mall block off of Burlington road with other small businesses; the studio space had been perhaps nothing more than a garage or fix-it shop at one time. Yet, Mark installed a 16-channel mixer in that space, and an 8-track Tascam recorder with an Orban reverb/effects unit -- a great compliment for amateur and budding music artists. I sang my own vocal tracks on a traditional Sennhiser microphone.
This was my 1st attempt at multi-track tape recording of my song demos for the commercial popular music genre. I would like to have had Jazz artist Al Jarreau sing "Keep on Living." This was a truly a memorable time for all the young musicians that I knew at that time, a time of great hope and dreams, the Spring and early Summers of our lives.
Westport was a time of great inward growth and metamorphosis for me -- all within a 2-year period from the early Spring of 1981 to the late Spring 1983. These songs are from my youth of 27-29 years of age, years of change and transition. I was able to capture my experience at this time quite well. And, I am surprised I even survived this time of intensity and stress, unknowingness, and strife.
Yet, compared to the Wornall Road house, this new place along the way was a haven of sorts, a quiet restitute from my apparent life path as a young song writer, not living in poverty -- rather living week to week. My friends at that time were no different; it was our generation of artists, not as much fools as young men looking for something they could not yet fathom. Life was open to possibilities if we could but live long enough to see them.
And yes, the skies did open up that day to visitors from afar, and yes in the twilight mornings they did appear through windows from their worlds. But no, I did not leave that day under the autumn sun when we were coming back from our trek to see the ponds and dawn. And so, the myths of our journey was not mere fancy. That this world - - was not just merely rock and clay, air and water, day and night.
So, in Westport I could rest for a short interval in time along my way. I cherish this time, and here are some of my songs I played on those cold and dreary days, in that old house with its mildew and mice, with little heat in the winter months at all -- on an out-of-tune pianos I spent more money on than the automobiles I had at that time. And, the neighborhood never once told me to stop playing. They knew I would move along the road soon.
Much of my song work in these early days was, of course developing. It does, however, reflect the roots of what I accomplished in song writing from 2013-2019 -- some years later when I was a middle aged man. So, it was the Westport period that was the pre-cursor to my love-song ballades that would come 30 years later. These few song excerpts from the 7-8 albums I composed and recorded there at that time express my life then, what I was seeing: the loss, the desperation, the disappointments, the unfulfillment, yet the will to live.
When I listen back to these songs at this time in my life in Westport, I did not forget one song. It was in this place and time that I was gracefully moved forward in life. I truly had no other recourse but to follow the wind. For, I had nowhere to return to, nowhere to go, and no one to turn to. I only had me.
So, these songs here represent that experience during my youth with its void, little if any hope, the harsh winters and rainy summer days, the empty rooms, the long staring into the street below into the nights that etched along their ways.
I owned a Rhodes suitcase piano and a Helpinstill acoustic electric piano. Both pianos were quite heavy to lug around. I would strap the Helpinstill piano down in the back of my Van with seat belts. Stairway Recording had a early Roland synthesizer Mark Hubble would let me use when I recorded at this time.
All of these songs above were performed by local Kansas City club/pub musicians and up and coming artists of our youth: including Pat Morrisey on trumpet, Rich Ruth on bass, J.T. Lynn on saxophone, Stan Kessler on flugelhorn, Aaron Bradley Hockemeier on congas, Jack Diamond on flute, Kevin (last name) on guitar, and the gifted Israel Benton on drums, bass, and guitar.
I played the pianos and sang my own vocal tracks. My Helpinstill acoustic electric piano had to be tuned periodically; Jazz pianist and performer Pete Eye tuned this piano for me for several years.
from Columbus Park "song sketches 1983" began in May of that year -- a hot muggy summer was to follow. I was 29 years old. I had moved to Columbus Park at a moment's notice, but the wind was in back of me, so I docked there in a small, hot and musty 3-room apartment without cross currents or displacements. It would be here that I would develop my music and songs and approach some degree of "marketable" successes. And, I began anew once again building on what I had completed in the Wornall Road and Westport residences.
My recording studio consisted of a cassette tape player, two $25.00 microphones, a Rhodes suitcase piano, and the Helpinstill acoustic electric piano.
This was an unexpected time warp for me, but I set up shop and started to live a new life. My job of 4 years was ending, my old friends had moved on, and I was about to enter a new life experience: a life experience that would become the foundation set into place for me to stand on for the next 40 years of my life. Because of this summer of 1983, I am here today sharing this music via this website.
It all began with these simple songs here that gave me some kind of hope. I sat down that summer of 1983 knowing my world was going to change along with me in it, but I took the time in the evenings to do some soul searching. I had to mellow out, focus, and dream a little -- and that's what I did.
These songs here -- from Columbus Park apartment 1983 -- are me on the Rhodes piano playing/composing and singing these simple early pop and New Age ballade songs.
I completed 5 albums between summers of 1983 and 1984 on Rhodes piano. One album was record at Stairway Recording studio in North Kansas City, Missouri with Mark Hubble, owner and engineer.
Well, here we are now years later with an instrumental song "Let Me Dream" that we recorded and arranged in the summer of 2022 from one of my 2019 song idea. Featured here with me on piano are players: Don Carr (guitars), Dieu Aime Nsikoh (bass guitar), Todd Wilkinson (saxophones) and Stan Kessler (trumpet and flugelhorn). Jazz pianist and performer Pete Eye would say, "Sounds like a lot of cats jamming, Brad." This is what Pete said to me one day in the early 1980s when he came to tune my Helpinstill piano after I showed him some of my early songs that had been multi-track recorded during the Columbus Park period. That's right Pete, we're still jamming/playing.
This song "Catch the Wind" is on my only CD project Daybreak the Hour recorded at my Oak Park house apartment in 1994 at the time I met my wife.
All instrument and vocals tracks were recorded in my basement apartment in Oak Park. I had just purchased an Tascam M3500 mixing desk, DAT 2-channel recorder to compliment my Tascam 16-track reel-to-reel machine with SMPTE. This was a time of key decisions and directions, great investments, and life changes. Please celebrate these people who played on this eclectic Popular music project.
During this CD music project, I used Midi with SMPTE and recorded to 16-track audio tape. I owned Yamaha and Roland/Proteus synth modules that provided the keyboard layers on this CD. Vocal tracks were recorded thru the mixer mic pre-maps with an AKG C414 microphone. Side note: I was in depth $25, 000.00 for the studio, which at time was a lot of money for me. Long story short -- it all worked out.
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"You and I will fly through the lands of love. Begin this ancient flight -- in the mountain sky. There awaits our dream -- ride the wind.
Glide beneath the stars...to the end. Winter Bird so free -- flying high. Toward the sun we go -- to the sea.
There we meet again...I am free -- Winter Bird" (Lycan, winter 1986).
kat will be singing "Winter Bird" (1987) this Spring after the Winter season passes. This song "Winter Bird" is ideal for animated film genres. This song will also be add to my take me flying album ( see it below).
This album take me flying came as a surprise the summer of 2021 when I began to orchestrate piano improvisations I had composed and recorded some years earlier.
That hot Summer of 2021 I sat in the evenings in my Music Studio behind my Kurzweil synthesizers and EastWest sound libraries to color the original piano pieces as you now hear them here. I plan to add 2 more songs to this collection this Winter and Spring of 2024. The initial concept of this album came from 4 hours of piano-based song writing in 2017, an eclectic collection of songs. I will apply new Eduardo Tarilonte sound libraries along with the Roland Integra 7 and EastWest Forbidden Planet sound libraries to complete this album fairly soon.
This is me writing and recording this song "I Hear You" for the first time during the Winter season of 2018. I had never played it before; I was feeling my way through the experience in the momentary pause of that day. I was coming to the close of a 5-year song writing cycle -- the best in my life. I was working on songs from my Love Is a Gypsy album that culminates those 5 years of my song writing of ballades and that chapter in my life. This album was not all brooding and morose quandary, but musings in nights taking flight and fancy to illuminations and colored light. This song "I Hear You" will be on the city skapes "doorways" album we begin with vocalist Adriana Nikole this summer 2024.
The song "I Hear You" expresses the often dark and shaded rooms of human living, about those incongruent turns in our waking's each day, the inner dialogues we share with knowing's of secrecies and longings for else-where's to there's as they recede to hide and appear, to hide and re-appear along fixed continuums of roadways we travel to solitudes and reflections in dreamless faces and empty personages that perch and stride...