our first cover

T

thnmnt

New member
hey y'all, i thought some folks here would get a kick out of our cover of steppenwolf's classic 'born to be wild' - we wanted to do a version that was the polar opposite of the original. we swapped estrogen for testosterone and added sampled drum beats, downtempo female vocals, acoustic guitar and a string quartet (yes, a real one) - ok the cello is sampled 'cause i can't play one, but the violins and violas are real. anyway, cpck and i did this last weekend and had a blast. we're thinking of doing a similar treatment to motorhead's 'ace of spades'...maybe not.

http://www.mp3.com/stageandscreen

thanks for listening, and as usual please comment on everything -

gear for those who care ;)

alvarez acoustic
violin
viola
sampler
casio cz-101
roland jv 1010 (b&d expansion)
rode nt-1 mic
scratcher
pc / gina soundcard
 
Heh. Makes me laugh at the audacity!

Parenthetically, it makes me wonder at spending this much time and energy re-doing a cover you'd have to pay for when it could have been totally your own song just by writing some new lyrics.

But, to each their own. :)

I have to say that I enjoyed the listen and passed it along to a pal of mine. Well-recorded, especially the vocal. The whole thing reminded me of the Cowboy Junkie's cover of "Sweet Jane".

A great song to shoot heroin to.

:D

CT

"That's the way I like it baby, I don't want to live forever!" - Lemmy

[This message has been edited by CharlesThomas (edited 06-28-2000).]
 
Where did I miss you before? I love your music, really cool! Well recorded.

The cover was amusing, but I liked your original stuff better.

Are you the singer? If so, will you please move to San Deigo and join my band :)


ametth
 
No, move to Florence and marry me.

I dig it with a shovel!

p.s.-did you process your vocals with a bend or autotune?

AND: is that the Wonder Woman wongwongwongwngwngwngwgwgwg? cool!
 
Kinks: You Really Got Me
The Clash: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

With your silky voice and seductive strings, you can transform these into the same provocative shoe-gazing codeine lullabys.
 
Nice twist on that old dog.
The strings give it an "I am the walrus" sound.
I'm an mp3.com newbie.
Can you fill me in on how you go about getting permission to post a cover tune
at mp3.com?
 
I hate covers...particularly of songs I like....and you took this perfectly good song and turned it into something wonderfully awesome....y'all need a manager or something...this would blow the members of Step away, no kidding...they'll probably sue you 'cause this sucker is GOOD....the mix overall was very good, vocals where they should be...liked the strings and liked the bit of edgy dissonance occassionaly...drums, hmmmmm....they could be improved upon....there were some slightly inhuman timing issues for me with them...but hey that's just my testosterone-oriented drums ears probably....gibs
 
ohhhhweee... I like that. I particularly like when you kick into the chorus... kudoz for that cover...

What kind of reaction do you get when you do that cover when you're playing out? Curious.
 
thnmnt, by the way, I listened to Dixie Thriller quite some time ago - don't know if I told you, but I really dug that song.

For those of you who haven't heard it, it's a pretty damn good song.

Okay... I'm gone (poof)
 
hey,thanks for the nice feedback to answer a couple of questions the wongwongwong sound at the first break...was not from wonderwoman (although, good guess) it was actually the 6 million dollar man's bionic arm sound.

we didn't do any bending of the vocals but they are double-tracked so when they separate (which they do a lot) they kind of detune or bend or whatever which we didn't really mind so much.

drums, yeah, they're totally fake and drum purists will always comment, and hey, if i could a) play them and b) fit them into a tiny apartment and c) could somehow avoid getting killed by my upstairs neighbor - i'd put them on the damn recording!! :)

copyright permission, hmm..i'll be honest here. i went to harry fox agency (harryfox.com) and purchased the CD rights to the song, which for a sub 1000 run cost around 40 bucks (which i thought was pretty damn cheap). i scoured the site for anything to do with internet/mp3 but couldn't find anything. i emailed them telling them that we were totally small time and nothing to be afraid of and what would it cost to put it online but they never got back to me. so....i just stuck it up there and emailed mp3.com with the cd licencse and i guess they bought it. we'll see what happens i guess...we actually tried to do the right thing. anyone have any experiences with this stuff?

thnmnt
 
Hey, are you guys putting on any performances
in NY n-e time soon? I would love to come check you out!
 
I initially blew your post off when it said "cover" (nothing against covers, but I didn't feel like listening to one). I decided to come back and check it out, and man, very cool. I liked the Steppenwolf song, but decided to click on a few of the originals to see where you guys where coming from. Dixie Thriller is awesome. I've always loved the way violins and cellos sound when played against minor chords, particularly in a rock or blues style. Vocals are well done also. Anyway, great stuff, keep it up, very impressive.
 
I've heard so many hack jobs on covers... I was sure I'd hate it. Chalk up another pleasantly surprised listener. Dixie Thriller reminded me a little of old Lush in the chorus. Great quality, cool songs.
 
i know what you mean about covers - i have the same general feeling - "if you're not going to show me something new than don't bother". that's why we will never cover [insert list of bands we sound like or are in the same realm as]. the point was to choose something audacious and somewhat opposite to our sound and try and subtlely manipulate the square peg of the original into our configuration.

i'd actually like to try this experiment again sometime using some more unique voicings and arrangements. we'll see.

at the end of the day though, we definitely get a lot more satisfaction from doing our own stuff.

thanks for listening!

thnmnt
 
Nice groove for that song -- I have visions of a stripper doing the last part of her show with that -- good cover on the cover -- I'm off to see the peelers ...... :)
 
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