Lloyd Cole and the Commotions Cover - Charlotte Street 'Speedtracked'

[chuckduffy]

So I continued my summer of speedtracked covers for fun, practice and personal amusement. Did this one mid August - Drums, bass, acoustic, electric, vocals and BG vocals. Triple tracked the lead line to get a twelve string kinda thing going. Recorded and mixed in about 2 hours. No edits, videoed and played each part live. Put together the video and uploaded to youtube in the next hour. This is one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite artists. Hope you like it. I know this is the MP3 forum, but I don't really do mp3s of this stuff. The audio is a 192kbps stream in HQ mode, more than enough to tell whether something blows chunks or not.



Takeaways were mic mic is dying, and I seriously need to work on my drumming. I'm holding on for dear life at this point and can't really work the hat or do fills very well. I do think my tempo has gotten a lot better since the beginning of the summer. Who knows....

 

[heatmiser]

I think this sounds great. The bass in mixed more prominently than some prior recordings and it works for me. Your electric is perfect for this sort of tune. Vocals are really nice. I like the super-reverberated thing on this personally, but suspect some might find it to be too much. If so, they're wrong .

A tempo flub around 1:18 threw me off for a sec, but nice recovery.

The expressions during the periods of inactivity are priceless. Was someone in the room next you during the vocal take? It seems like you're looking to someone off to the side...I think maybe you need to tone down the showmanship in your performances. It's a little over-the-top.

You may be the most mellow drummer I've ever seen.

I haven't heard this band in ages. Frankly, I'd forgotten about them entirely. A bunch of my musician friends in high school really liked them. I think I found them to be too mellow or poppy or something, but really, it's a nice organic pop sound that is not overly superficial. Interesting lyrics too. I can hear the influence now in your own music. Keep 'em coming chuckD.

 

[chuckduffy]

Hey man. Thanks for checkin it out. I think this was my 30th recording of the summer lol. The verb level is pretty faithful to the original, maybe a bit longer tail. His vocals were always pretty swampy.

Def hatin that tempo flub man. I'm still holdin on for dear life on the drums - thus my mellowness

As far as the hamming it up - just cracking myself up really. No one else in the room My only other variation is looking like Im in the mortuary I record so late, but maybe I can find a happy medium lol

I think this sounds great. The bass in mixed more prominently than some prior recordings and it works for me. Your electric is perfect for this sort of tune. Vocals are really nice. I like the super-reverberated thing on this personally, but suspect some might find it to be too much. If so, they're wrong .

A tempo flub around 1:18 threw me off for a sec, but nice recovery.

The expressions during the periods of inactivity are priceless. Was someone in the room next you during the vocal take? It seems like you're looking to someone off to the side...I think maybe you need to tone down the showmanship in your performances. It's a little over-the-top.

You may be the most mellow drummer I've ever seen.

I haven't heard this band in ages. Frankly, I'd forgotten about them entirely. A bunch of my musician friends in high school really liked them. I think I found them to be too mellow or poppy or something, but really, it's a nice organic pop sound that is not overly superficial. Interesting lyrics too. I can hear the influence now in your own music. Keep 'em coming chuckD.

 

[robgreen]

Ha, this is really cool chuck - the expressions throughout are indeed priceless. Having so many Chuck's on one screen made me think of Dominique Pinon in City of Lost Children if you've seen that film.

I'd never heard of the song or the band before, but I like the song a lot and your rendition has a great jangly indie sound. Your voice reminds me quite a lot of Ian McCulloch's - which is no bad thing, even if the man himself is an ass. I can hear you're battling right on the edge of keeping control a couple of times as you mention, but it doesn't detract and adds to the charm.

I had a listen to the original on spotify - don't like their drum sound at all, but the song is good. Nice one chuck

 

[chuckduffy]

Man - I gotta thank you and the heat for listening, times are hard around here As far as the expressions - I'm just a ham at heart. I haven't seen that movie yet, though my wife has several times.

Def had my share of Ian comparisons over the years. My old band used to cover killing moon and a couple others. As far as the sounds on the original - the production does from a few typical 80s transgressions. Anyway - he's a pretty literate, intelligent guy and I enjoy the Commotions quite a bit overall. . I was never as big a fan of the solo stuff.

Anyway - I'm about done with this practicing phase, now on to some writing Oh - and I'm playing live in OCT - First one about 20 years lol!

Thanks for the listen/look man! I am hotel limbo on facebook and plan on starting to post there regularly.

Ha, this is really cool chuck - the expressions throughout are indeed priceless. Having so many Chuck's on one screen made me think of Dominique Pinon in City of Lost Children if you've seen that film.

I'd never heard of the song or the band before, but I like the song a lot and your rendition has a great jangly indie sound. Your voice reminds me quite a lot of Ian McCulloch's - which is no bad thing, even if the man himself is an ass. I can hear you're battling right on the edge of keeping control a couple of times as you mention, but it doesn't detract and adds to the charm.

I had a listen to the original on spotify - don't like their drum sound at all, but the song is good. Nice one chuck

 

[robgreen]

Man - I gotta thank you and the heat for listening, times are hard around here As far as the expressions - I'm just a ham at heart. I haven't seen that movie yet, though my wife has several times.

Def had my share of Ian comparisons over the years. My old band used to cover killing moon and a couple others. As far as the sounds on the original - the production does from a few typical 80s transgressions. Anyway - he's a pretty literate, intelligent guy and I enjoy the Commotions quite a bit overall. . I was never as big a fan of the solo stuff.

Anyway - I'm about done with this practicing phase, now on to some writing Oh - and I'm playing live in OCT - First one about 20 years lol!

Thanks for the listen/look man! I am hotel limbo on facebook and plan on starting to post there regularly.

You certainly got a handle on the best side of 80s indie - love all that The Church, Echo & The Bunnymen, Cure, Smiths sound.

Good to hear you've got some originals coming up soon chuck. Covers are fun, but ultimately nowhere near as satisfying in the end. Look forward to hearing them man.

 

[chuckduffy]

You certainly got a handle on the best side of 80s indie - love all that The Church, Echo & The Bunnymen, Cure, Smiths sound.

Good to hear you've got some originals coming up soon chuck. Covers are fun, but ultimately nowhere near as satisfying in the end. Look forward to hearing them man.

Yeah it's true, nowhere near as satisfying. They are great practice in between songs. I don't play golf, or go to the gym or collect stamps and I don't sleep much anymore - so I occupy my time by trying to record a couple a week. I've been playing so much, of every instrument and moving so fast that I find when I stop to record one of my own it feels almost effortless now. The time I used to spend endlessly messing with mixes I spend playing, and then quickly mixing. If one mix doesn't turn out so hot I know I have a shot on the next one within a day or two. I'm learning a lot of new chords, and how a decent bass line is constructed, and slowly picking up drums, so on and so forth. You named a lot of 80s bands I love It's so funny cause people like to take pot shots at how bad 80s music was - but man.... That stuff and the Clash, Stan Ridgeway, Police, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, New Order, Depeche Mode - the just list goes on and on all the great punk stuff - so much good music. And I hear echos and outright copies of it in so much modern music - I mean Killers for gods sakes - who haven't they aped or ripped off lol..... Anyway - Im starting to sound like an old man, and I have to be up for work in 5 hours so - nite man. Catch up with you soon.