They say necessity is a mother, and that certainly is true. I've come down with the cold that ruined Eden's second week of spring break (documented in the coughing fit on the playout of "Egg Man") and about halfway through this recording I just couldn't be in the studio (living room) any more and had to go to bed. But I also had to finish the track. Not having the strength nor wherewithal nor Brian Wilson mindset to reconstruct the recording rig in the bedroom, I brought the laptop and the headphones with me and recorded the vocal into-- and this was inevitably going to happen anyway-- the condensor mic on the MacBook. So, like, sorry about that.
They also say that timing is everything. My friend Jeff has demostrated that singing with a headcold aids one immensely in sounding like Jonathan Richman, so this comes a day too late. My voice being messed up cuts into my upper and lower registers, so of course I double tracked myself singing in both, leaving the outcome to the law of averages. The feel of the cover is a bit ill-considered: it sounds like I'm doing the same thing as I did to the Rancid tune, taking a punk-rock composition and rootsifying it, but that wasn't my intention. I just fell into that swing feel while working out the chords. I was actually hoping to capture the spark of the coolest Buzzcocks cover I ever heard, ages ago when my friend KT Wiegman came over to my house and belted out "You Say You Don't Love Me" on an acoustic, at if anything a faster tempo than the one on the record. 'Fraid I didn't come close to her performance, and now, as the NyQuil kicks in, I'm left to wonder where the hell KT is anyhow.
Personnel:
Rex Broome ~ Everything
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POSTGAME ANALYSIS:
I've heard this recording a few times in my car over the past few months as I've reviewed the project, but until re-reading the text above I'd forgotten the circumstances involving my recording the guitars "properly" and the vocals upon my sickbed. Anyway, it seems to work fine and I don't have much to add in retrospect.
That's kinda freaky that you remember that Richman homage...man, am I going to have to call out a restraining order on you? You webstalking me, dude?
ReplyDeleteHey, Miles remembered the Fall-Spam pastiche.
ReplyDeleteHey... Fall-Spam Pastiche! New album title...