Chocolate Jesus

This is a Tom Waits song off of Mule Variations. It's a classic. He sings it through a megaphone - you can check out a video of it on the Tom Waits post I did after we saw him in Jacksonville. At any rate - I noticed the other day that Garageband has a megaphone effect you can put on your voice and this cover was born. Also, I discovered there are "master track" effects that will be put on all the tracks in the song. So I used one of those as well - it's called "Old Movie" and it makes everything just a bit more grainy and lo-fi sounding. So this recording sounds pretty rough - but it's supposed to be that way! Just trying to capture the Tom Waits sound.

Great lyrics by the way - It's about an immaculate confection. I think my favorite line is "Pour him over ice cream for a nice parfait." Good stuff.



[Update: Apparently the blogamp thing doesn't show up in google reader - so most of my recording posts don't make much sense unless you actually visit the blog]

Walking the Cow

This is a Daniel Johnson song. If you don't know who Daniel Johnson is then I highly recommend you check out the documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston but in a nutshell he's a singer-songwriter from Austin, TX who suffers from bi-polar disorder. He's pretty lo-fi and his music is only semi-well known because alternative rock stars like Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder have promoted and covered it.

So, as you've probably already guessed, I've covered the Eddie Vedder version. Daniel's version is much more... spastic. Eddie turns it into a really sad, but beautiful, song. I've always been amazed by Eddie's ability to translate a song like this from Daniel Johnston's version to his version. There are a few other covers Pearl Jam does that are like this. You listen to the original and you're like - "how did they hear this?" Not that I dislike Daniel Johnston's version...

At any rate, this one was pretty simple - used my Strat with Garageband's ultra clean settings then it was just a matter of recording the vocal. I still need a better mic but I think this one came out pretty good.



[Update: Apparently the blogamp thing doesn't show up in google reader - so most of my recording posts don't make much sense unless you actually visit the blog]

My Grey Dove

Had some fun this morning playing one of my new electric guitars (I'll dedicate a post to that later) and recording a cover of "Pigeon" off of Stone Gossard's solo album. This is pretty much my first electric guitar recording and I probably went a little overboard. I doubled up the guitar track and put a garageband effect (Heavy Blues & Grunge) on each one. That gave the guitar a pretty cool sound. I didn't really care for my vocal that much because the song is way high for me - so I recorded a double track in a lower register. So there's this weird chorus effect that I don't think is in the original song but it's kinda cool.

I don't think I'm very good a mixing the volume - so there are probably improvements that could be made there. Also, the bridge isn't that great but I didn't feel like being a perfectionist.

I've gotta say, it's pretty fun working with a bunch of tracks like this. I was actually thinking today, "Wow, I need a bass guitar" but I've spent so much money on guitars lately that I think Hannah would kill me if I randomly bought a bass.




[Update: Apparently the blogamp thing doesn't show up in google reader - so most of my recording posts don't make much sense unless you actually visit the blog]

Blue, Red & Grey

Inspired by the VH1 Rock Honors The Who tribute concert the other night I've been listening to the Who nearly nonstop for the past few days. So this past Saturday I recorded my attempt at a cover of "Blue, Red & Grey" off of "The Who By Numbers". It's a great song and only one of like 3 songs I know on the uke.

It's a little above my vocal range but I think it's good enough. Also, I actually recorded the uke and vocals on separate tracks this time. Maybe I'll play with it later and add some crazy effects to one or both of the tracks just for the hell of it.

The Who kick ass!



[Update: Apparently the blogamp thing doesn't show up in google reader - so most of my recording posts don't make much sense unless you actually visit the blog]

Broken Yolk In Western Sky

Another attempt at recording. I really should get a better setup - right now I'm just using the mic built into my old iSight - it's supposed to be better than my Powerbook's built-in mic (which I've also used in the past) but neither are really that good. I find that on most recordings I really don't like the way my voice sounds - it's far more nasal sounding than I want it - makes me paranoid that I sound like that in real life but Hannah assures me I don't.

Also, my version of recording generally consists of hitting the record button and bashing away. I know I can get better sound if I record the guitar and vocals on separate tracks but that adds a lot of work. Garageband has some pretty cool effects you can put on the recordings - but you can't take advantage of it without using tracks. I'm just lazy I guess.

So here's "Broken Yolk In Western Sky" - a cover of Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie). Not sure if it's his song or not - don't think it's on any Death Cab albums and I don't know if he has solo stuff released or not. I heard it on Burn To Shine 5 in Seattle. Great DVD - a lot of really great music - highly recommended.

Wish I could get the guitar a little louder. I moved the mic farther away from me to try to get my voice to sound better - which it did a little - but now the guitar is really quiet and kinda muddy.

Testing Audio Services

I'm kinda interested in posting some recordings from time to time so I'm testing out embeddable audio player options. Two popular choices appear to be Gabcast and BlogAMP. So far I think I like BlogAMP a bit better.

Here's my cover of Nirvana "Opinions" as the test music.