The "CHALLENGE" thread.

[rayc]

But which Shipbuilding? Costello (lyrics) & Langer (music) wrote it with Robert Wyatt in the frame then Costello realized how wonderful it was & he did a version.
Of the 2 the Wyatt is the more plaintive though the Costello has the Atkins trumpet solo.

 

[rayc]

Lemmy uses his Marshall Murder 2 (modded Superbass MkII) at full crank with treble at 0, bass at 0, presence & mids at 10.
He plays a few simple chords, hits it hard and they sound like round wound strings.

 

[robgreen]

I challenge you to cover the Robert Wyatt cover of Elvis Costello's Shipbuilding.

But which Shipbuilding? Costello (lyrics) & Langer (music) wrote it with Robert Wyatt in the frame then Costello realized how wonderful it was & he did a version.
Of the 2 the Wyatt is the more plaintive though the Costello has the Atkins trumpet solo.

Hmm, I do think it's probably closer to the Robert Wyatt version. I always preferred his, and I'm not a huge fan of Costello anyway. The Chet Baker trumpet part is great, but I don't know any trumpet players

It's probably not that faithful to either in truth - I don't have the patience/ability to learn how to play any songs faithfully. I've not heard the mix in a while, so it probably needs a bit of a spit and polish before I dig it out from the attic.

I challenge Elvis Costello to cover a robgreen song.

Ha, I PM'd him, but he's apparently got other stuff on. Dude only really posts in the cave anyway these days...

 

[NotThatBright]

Isn't Elvis Costello just a poor man's Joe Jackson?

Who's got the chops to cover Rush's "Anthem"? Doesn't have to be sung in falsetto. I would challenge Greg but he's got an entire Disney soundtrack to crank out.

 

[rayc]

Isn't Elvis Costello just a poor man's Joe Jackson?

Woah, dangerous statement. I must say I enjoyed Joe's 1st LP = Get Sharp. It was sharp but was also very Clone Costello & then he went jazz/light/MOR/AOR (Joe not Declan).

 

[NotThatBright]

Woah, dangerous statement. I must say I enjoyed Joe's 1st LP = Get Sharp. It was sharp but was also very Clone Costello & then he went jazz/light/MOR/AOR (Joe not Declan).

I meant it as a joke, sort of... I am probably the only guy on Earth who, to his knowledge, has never heard an Elvis Costello song, but is familiar with most of JJ's catalog. I think his first two albums are great. There were a couple good songs on the third, then he got a little weird, and then, well, I guess he stayed weird. I first tried to cover a JJ song about a year ago. It may have been the first song I tried to cover other than pre-Rollins era Black Flag and just about every song from Bad Religion's Suffer. When I was looking up the lyrics to "I don't wanna be like that" I learned that he was (and this is my characterization) essentially regarded as a "poor man's Elvis Costello". I'm too young to really remember any of his stuff when it was out, but some of his weird shit from the early-to-mid 80s, when I listened to it as an adult, I knew I'd heard it before. Probably from walking around shopping malls with my mom when I was 7.

No more work until 2015... I was able to play the drums from my "challenge" song before and I'm cranking out the rest now. Given my lack of perfectionism in recording, I might be able to finish this before the sandman gets me.

 

[Bubba po]

No more work until 2015... I was able to play the drums from my "challenge" song before and I'm cranking out the rest now. Given my lack of perfectionism in recording, I might be able to finish this before the sandman gets me.

Woohoo! It'll be next week before I can start on mine! I wish I'd been given "Ace of Spades", though!

 

[rayc]

JJ's is a good song writer - he just decide to write for a different audiance & I didn't follow.
Is She really Going Out With Him? KNocked on the top 5 in Oz & Sunday papers is great, as is most of LP1. LP2 - so so. My girlfriend at the time preferred JJ to EC. That was 78 I suppose, maybe 79.
I'm OLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. Keep banging out the track mate.

 

[NotThatBright]

Well, I finished the recording and fell asleep shortly after writing that, but since I was drinking Coors Light during the recording, my bladder woke me up after a little over three hours. Nature's alarm clock. Did you know that the Indians used to drink a lot of water on the nights before they'd go on early morning raids so they'd get up early? I learned that from a Simpsons episode. That's right, I'm also here to teach!

A few notes- first, I tried to record this in 24-bit, but my DP-24 machine seems to have a problem with that... so this is 16-bit like everything else I've done. Second, this was the first recording I ever did using the "recorderman" overhead mic method. Hopefully I didn't screw up anything with it. I can't detect phasing because I don't know what to listen for, but I'm sure someone here can tell. Third, it seems I used the wrong preposition in the lyrics. I was singing "shot BY both sides" as opposed to "FROM" both sides. Didn't realize that until just now. Either way makes sense, as far as I can tell. Hopefully Bubba isn't too much of a purist with his Magazine covers.

You succeeded in at least one of your goals, Bubba... I do like the song and I am glad to have been introduced to it. So thanks for that. I forget what the other goals were, so the hell with it, here's the song.



I did another vocal and switched the links. That first one was pretty bad.

Had some free time yesterday so I screwed around and did a Motorhead cover. It's sloppy, yours should blow it out of the water. Badass song, though. That can't be denied.

https://soundcloud.com/user92696274096/we-are-motorhead1/s-yO8ru

 

[NotThatBright]

Woohoo! It'll be next week before I can start on mine! I wish I'd been given "Ace of Spades", though!

You gotta look beyond Ace Of Spades with Motorhead! That's not even the best song on that album- "The Hammer" is. Iron Fist is a great song, at least as good as Ace of Spades. This is more of a treat than a challenge.

 

[NotThatBright]

JJ's is a good song writer - he just decide to write for a different audiance & I didn't follow.
Is She really Going Out With Him? KNocked on the top 5 in Oz & Sunday papers is great, as is most of LP1. LP2 - so so. My girlfriend at the time preferred JJ to EC. That was 78 I suppose, maybe 79.
I'm OLDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD. Keep banging out the track mate.

How could you let such a girl get away? She's a genius!

"Is she really.." is not one of the better songs on that album, as I recall. "Happy Loving Couples" and "Got the Time" were my favorites, though I pretty much liked them all.

I remember how I ever listened to him in the first place, now. Anthrax covered "Got the Time" when I was a kid and it was the best song on that album, so I checked out JJ.

 

[Bubba po]

A few notes- first, I tried to record this in 24-bit, but my DP-24 machine seems to have a problem with that... so this is 16-bit like everything else I've done. Second, this was the first recording I ever did using the "recorderman" overhead mic method. Hopefully I didn't screw up anything with it. I can't detect phasing because I don't know what to listen for, but I'm sure someone here can tell. Third, it seems I used the wrong preposition in the lyrics. I was singing "shot BY both sides" as opposed to "FROM" both sides. Didn't realize that until just now. Either way makes sense, as far as I can tell. Hopefully Bubba isn't too much of a purist with his Magazine covers.

You succeeded in at least one of your goals, Bubba... I do like the song and I am glad to have been introduced to it. So thanks for that. I forget what the other goals were, so the hell with it, here's the song.

https://soundcloud.com/user92696274096/shot-from-both-sides/s-nmF1Y

You must spread some reputation around before giving it to NotThatBright again.

Well, that's fucking awesome, my friend. No boxiness in the sound, a very good interpretation of the song itself, a very, very good drum sound and much tighter playing than usual. If I have any crits at all it's that the kick seems a bit loud, but perhaps that's because it's as punchy as hell, and that the stereo spread of the toms is uncomfortably wide for me. Bass is great, with a good warm tone and the embellishments are nice. It is Shot BY Both Sides, btw - you got that right.

You've set a very high standard, for the first response to a challenge.

By the way, if you "Go Advanced" on the post editor there's a little orange cloud icon which puts soundcloud tags round your link - it's easy to miss your post without it.

Brilliant.

 

[NotThatBright]

You must spread some reputation around before giving it to NotThatBright again.

I don't know what this means, but I'll take it as a compliment.

Well, that's fucking awesome, my friend. No boxiness in the sound, a very good interpretation of the song itself, a very, very good drum sound and much tighter playing than usual. If I have any crits at all it's that the kick seems a bit loud, but perhaps that's because it's as punchy as hell, and that the stereo spread of the toms is uncomfortably wide for me. Bass is great, with a good warm tone and the embellishments are nice. It is Shot BY Both Sides, btw - you got that right.

You've set a very high standard, for the first response to a challenge.

Thanks... as I have said before, you're a swell guy! And I don't know why the hell I thought it was "from".

The last few songs I've done I cut at least a little bit at 450Hz from every track except the guitars and the snare... I think that might have helped with the boxiness.

 

[fat_fleet]

Well, I finished the recording and fell asleep shortly after writing that, but since I was drinking Coors Light during the recording, my bladder woke me up after a little over three hours. Nature's alarm clock. Did you know that the Indians used to drink a lot of water on the nights before they'd go on early morning raids so they'd get up early? I learned that from a Simpsons episode.

Isn't 'water' an old Indian word for 'Coors Light'?

 

[NotThatBright]

Isn't 'water' an old Indian word for 'Coors Light'?

Well, it would explain a lot.

 

[madmush]

Hey where's my challenge?? It's only for myself to show you guys how great I am, obviously. So I'm quite keen

 

[NotThatBright]

I noticed your offer the other day and meant to ask you about that. What kind of music are you normally into? The precedent that has been set so far is that it should be somewhat outside your comfort zone, but not a hell of a lot.

 

[Bubba po]

I hit up a so-called friend yesterday for a borrow of his Rickenbacker to do my challenge, and he turned me down flat! "Sorry, Bob", he says, "I have a "no lend" policy on my better guitars, I'm sure you understand". Well fuck you very much. I want to play it in my bedroom for ten minutes, not gig it round the world for three months!

 

[NotThatBright]

Well, this calls for some sort of revenge, obviously. Can you fuck his wife?

I was assuming you were kidding before when you said you planned to acquire a Richenbacker to do this song. I don't know that much about guitars. Are the sounds really that different between different them? Isn't the amp more important when it comes to tone? I was able to find a decent Motorhead knockoff tone on the one I stuck under "Shot by both sides" the other day. I mean, for our purposes here, anyway.

I did take note that you mentioned a tendency to overdo things, though. I call that going "balls out" and regard it as a good trait. Of course, as the topic is Motorhead, we must refer to it as OVERKILL.

 

[NotThatBright]

Also, madmush, what instruments do you play? I think I'm the only one on this site who doesn't know how to play guitar, so I guess I'm asking if you play your own drums or if you're using a machine.