Comp CD finally hits Detroit

[RWhite]

Just received my copy yesterday, I was starting to get worried. I've been too frightened to play it yet, but I think I'll be brave enough to start previewing it in the car tomorrow.

My very deep thanks to the great high exhalted Master Of Slack, and the cast of hundreds, for pulling this all together!

[James Argo]

Love your song, RWhite !!!!

[dafduc]

You represented us well, R. Good job.

Daf (spent last weekend in Frankenmuth... )

[sm2k]

Sorry for the long wait man, yours was the one I dropped on my way out to the post office that first day

Slackmaster 2000

[DaveO]

RWhite, your song gets funnier and funnier every time I listen to it. The lyrics are fantastic. I love the sound you got on the guitars, too. Great classic, rock 'n roll crunch.

Nice job!

[Seanmorse79]

ditt-o. I'm lovin' the song. Excellent job

[DaveO]

Originally posted by DaveO
RWhite, your song gets funnier and funnier every time I listen to it. The lyrics are fantastic. I love the sound you got on the guitars, too. Great classic, rock 'n roll crunch.

Nice job!

Actually, the music and your vocals kind of remind me of a guy named Mojo Nixon. He got some notoriety around the mid-1980s for titles like Elvis Is Everywhere and Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant With My Two Headed Love Child.

[RWhite]

Thanks for the very kind comments all of you! A little bit about the song....

First, I agree the best part of the song by far are the lyrics, but alas I can claim no credit there. The lyrics are done by our singer/bass player Mr. Alan Shippey, whom I met in high school almost thirty years ago and who impresses me more and more every year with his great song writing. All I can say is that if you like that song, you will love our upcoming CD! The entire theme is about middle aged married men still trying to live like partying teenagers and failing miserably at it. Tales of drinking binges, divorce spawning lurid affairs, and hard suburban living abound. The CD is basically finished, its just waiting for me to get off my ass and finish mixing it.

Our lineup is typically Al playing bass and vocals, me on guitars and backing vocals, and Larry Finn on drums and backing vocals. Larry also is a talented lyricist, and on our CD he does a extended “rap” in the persona of Mr. Charles Manson which has to be heard to be believed. Al brings many of our tunes to us partially finished and the music is hammered out by all of us. In this case, it’s obviously a basic twelve-bar which didn’t require a whole lot of thought. While I do almost all of the guitar leads on the CD, on “Married” Al plays the intro lead. The original idea was to have a second short solo during the break. But during a rehearsal Al did that incredible little “cheese factory” rap which I loved so much that I lifted it out and pasted it into our final take. Al wanted me to play a solo behind it but that just didn’t work for my ears – why fool with perfection?

I must admit that I was a little fearful that our production would sound weak compared to some of you professionals, but I was actually pleased with the way it came out. We were looking for the pure balls-out, blow-up-the-speakers kind of rock sound and I think we achieved that. The recording was done by me in my studio, the setup for that tune was as follows:

Roland electronic drum kit with its own stereo output;
Fender Spirit P-bass miked with a SM-57 through a old Roland guitar amp;
Al’s overdubbed intro lead done on a Fender Standard Strat through same setup as the bass;
My background guitars done on a Les-Paul clone, Dimarzio pickups, miked with a SM-57 through a old Lab Series amp;
Vocals done with SM-58 and SM-57 mics (I’ve given up trying to get All to use my Rode NT-1);
All recording done into a Alesis Studio 32 mixer feeding a PC running Cakewalk Pro Audio 9. Recording done at 24bit/44.1 and then mixed internally down to 16/44.1. All effects are plug-ins, mostly an assortment of Sonic Foundry Direct X plugs from Sound Forge 5.

I’ve just started listening to the CD today, I am most impressed by the variety and quality of the work. Vastly more interesting that what I have been hearing on the radio of late!

Thanks again to everyone who made the CD possible. - R.White