What? Something "original"???

After recording Give It Away, I actually got my new guitar and spent some time just jamming alone and practicing, enjoying my guitar and my amp.
I also got a magazine with a very good interview of Tom Morello, where he was giving a few tricks away. I knew a few but that was still very interesting.
And that got me into trying to have a bit of fun with delay.

I was trying to get that kind of helicopter sound he does and I managed to find a few "interesting" sounds, something quite fun that I thought I'd record.

So that's how I did this, that I would present as my small tribute to Tom Morello...
All sounds made by guitar (in one take, 1 track).

Tribute to Tom

Give It Away

That was a quite big challenge. I mean that song is again quite a monument.
I didn't work on it too much because I kind of knew I couldn't get too close to the original anyway.
So I got to the point the 1st solo was king of OK, did a voice take where I wasn't mumbling too much (!!) then moved on.
Still it was fun!

The 1st solo was always going to be a problem because in the original track Frusciante got his sound by playing it backwards and then reversing it to include it on the track. So it's not live playing.
But I wanted to play it live. So I fiddled around with volume effects and my Wah to hide the attack of each note. It kind of does the trick.
I couldn't be asked for doing the 2nd solo so I just improvised it. The final take was the 2nd one... Not very neat but I didn't want to spend too much time on that.
Voice-wise, I think that considering the difficulty of the lyrics, I've done OK!

So it's a bit like Wake Up, it doesn't quite work, it was never going to, but I still had to do it! ;)

Give It Away

Maggie's Farm.

That's a Bob Dylan song, as it's been covered by Rage Against The Machine in their excellent cover album Renegades.
A cover of a cover. Only with less invention...

Maybe I could have worked a bit more on sole delay & Whammy-tastic solo, but I'm still happy with it.

Maggie's Farm

Do.

I love the White Stripes.

I thought it could be a good band to cover as it's always rather simple (although never simplistic).
But as I've found out before, more simple means can't do any mistake.

There's not much that's right with this one. My voice is too whiny and my guitar sound not great. But it'll take a lot to discourage me!! ;)

Do (The White Stripes)

Oh Me.

I felt like doing something a bit more quiet.
This song is originally by the Meat Puppets but I got to know it like pretty much everyone else when Nirvana covered it in their unplugged album.

Simple song, straightforward.
I got the singing not too wrong here...

Oh Me (The Meat Puppets)

Glory & Consequences.

3rd cover of Ben Harper. That's a great song.

I was prepared to go all the way and also cover the indian sounding bridge near the end, but believe it or not I got to the limit of the drum machine! I can't use more than 100 different segments on it... So I had to simplify the track and drop that part.
Again, looking back, I think my lead guitar sound is too aggressive. I should have cut down on the wah...
Otherwise, I'm happy with it!

Glory & Consequences (Ben Harper)

Year of the boomerang.

Beginning of January 2006.
Almost a year since I've started this!
Time to attempt an RATM cover again! :)

This one is not the most complicated song I could choose, but it's one of my personnal favorites from them.

With my brand new Whammy, I could get closer to the original riff. Not quite there, but I think it still sounds "Tom Morello-y".
Same for the lyrics, no complicated phrasing here, so I had less trouble to make it sound OK... All in all I'm quite happy wth this! :)

Year Of Tha Boomerang

Don't Panic.

This one I also used to play with my former band.
Song by Coldplay. Strange how I don't generally really like what they do but once in a while I kind of click with one of their songs...

Anyway.
Main problem here was... The voice. I tried teh high-pitched "yeah we do" a couple of times then decided against it and opted for a more low-key approach... :)

Don't Panic(Coldplay)

HT.

This one I've taken from the OST of an anime again (Trigun).
It's quite fast and I wanted a challenge.
I was an opportunity to try my newly bought Whammy pedal!

Otherwise, the usual: not perfect, but not too bad in my opinion.

HT (Trigun OST)

Effigy.

This song, by Creedence Clearwater Revival, contains one of my favorite-solos-of-all-time (TM). It's not about mad shredding, it's about sound and power.
How could anyone resist the urge of covering one's favorite solo when it's within one's technical scope? :)

I made it an instrumental because I couldn't be arsed to even try singing this one. And I think that's better for everybody.

Obviously I had a ball doing it. Retrospectively I think my main guitar sound is too aggressive. I should have gone for a rounder tone. But it's done now, so...

Effigy (CCR)

Superstar.

This song is originally from a French band called Superbus.

Again, this is a mixed bag.
I've been toying with it for some time. That's the only one I've kept and redone several times because I just can't sing it.
But I still wanted to do it because I like it! It's good straightforward rocking song...
So on this I can clearly say that my voice is shit. That's why I've tried to bury it with the rest. But it's not enough...
But the rest was fun to make...

Superstar (Superbus)

Another Lonely Day.

Straight after the last song (that's the end of October 2005), I recorded this one.
Again, something simple, quickly done. 2nd Ben Harper cover.
2 tracks only, 1 voice, 1 guitar.

The problem with this kind of simple things is that it needs to be more or less perfect to stand. You can't hide little imperfections of 1 track with the other when there is no other... Needless to say that this is far from perfect.

Another Lonely Day (Ben Harper)

Breakfast.

I had spent so much time (in my opinion) recording my RATM extravanganzzas that straight after I felt like doing something simple. No drums, just guitar and voice.
So I chose Breakfast, a song by K's Choice again, which could give me another opportunity to do some voice harmonies (which are particularities of K's Choice music).

Well I kind of struggled on this one again. I couldn't really find the original 2nd voice, so I thought I'd just wing it.
Again it's not great, but here you go.

Breakfast (K's Choice)

Wake Up call.

After a series of fairly satisfactory tracks, I had to do something I was not happy with. That happenned when 1st trying to cover one of my favorite bands, ie Rage Against The Machine.
It wasn't I actually the 1st time I tried: I had almost finished Killing In The Name when I did an error that deleted it...
So I decided to do another one instead of redoing what I had spent 2weeks to do.
So I took Wake Up.

This was at the time the most complex drum patterns I had to make, the rest being quite hard also...

What to think of the finished track?
Well the first thing is that unfortunately I'm neither Zach or Tom or Tim and my drum machine is definitely not Brad... But that's old news.

It doesn't really work.
It might be mainly down to my weak rapping skills. It's actually quite hard to properly shout when you're in a room in your house that echoes a bit and when you think the neighbours could call the cops at any minute for domestic violence... (^_^;
I'm a bit too self conscious...
It's already hard to really let go and shout.
So I tried to still put energy without shouting and didn't really pulled it off.

The guitar sounds are not quite right either (not crisp enough), especially the end solo that is awful: I didn't have an actual Whammy pedal at the time so I had to use my Korg AG100 to emulate it, to poor result.
I still managed to pull a few tricks here and there I'm quite happy with and on the whole I can't really hate it... I'm too partial. ;)

Wake Up (RATM)

I've added this version that doesn't feature my voice... ;)
Wake Up (Instrumental version)

I Could Have Lied

Now time to do some Red Hot stuff.
I figured it would be better to start with a more quiet one (and one I have practiced for some time as well). More importantly one with a bass line not too complicated... (^_^;

I'm very happy with the result! Again my voice is not quite there but still OK, but I nailed the solos... :)

I Could Have Lied (RHCP)

I actually recorded another version because the 1st time I attempted the 2nd solo, I actually had no clue of what to play and I improvised one. And I think it sounds cool! It's one of those "happy accidents"... :)
So I remixed it with my final track. You can hear that I've patched it onto the "good track". So it's the exact same song but with an alternate solo at the end.

I Could Have Lied (RHCP) - alt version

Am I out of my mind?

Now to prove that I have no shame.
The Pixies are a sort of monument of rock and to cover them could seem indeed some sort of blasphemy. Oh whatever...
Where's My Mind it is then! :)

Again I had to shift the key quite a lot to be able to sing.
My then girlfriend made me realise that when she asked me at first if I was strangling chickens... To be honest that quite upset me at first... But then again she was right!
So I had to actually scramble the cords a bit and I ended up doing this upward progresion. It's a bit different.
Same with the main riff. About the same but not quite.

All in all, I' very happy with the result.
It's especially the 1st time that my voice comes confident like that.

Obviously it's not perfect (the heavy guitar is a bit too "muted") and doesn't compare to the original, but still I'm quite proud of myself!

Where's My Mind (The Pixies)

Green River.

Carrying on my exploration of the vast world of rock'n roll, now its Creedence Clearwater Revival's turn.
Tricky one on the voice (again), so I had to change the key. I was a bit lazy to transpose everything on the guitar (again to keep the riff the same) so I just used a capo, but that's why everything sound quite high pitched (because it is).

I didn't forget to put some bell sound on the drums... :)

Green River.

Carnival.

Now this is it.

It's a song by The Pillows, a great Japanese rock band. Anime fans should already because them because they signed the music on FLCL.
If you're an anime fan and don't know FLCL, please do yourself a favor and get to see it. Otherwise, listen to The Pillows. They're good. Really.
Anyway, I love this song. The original. The main riff is excellent.

I recorded it in July 2005.
I made it an instrumental because it's quite hard to sing in japanese. At some point I tried to translate the lyrics but gave up.
More importantly it's just quite hard to sing. Not in my range and I wanted the riff as is.
The Pillows made an instrumental for FLCL anyway.
I think it works (it's only normal to be a bit partial to his own work...) , I kind of rock on this one. ;)
Not mentionning I actually get a proper solo this time!
It's not perfect obviously, especially the sounds at the beginning and at the end which are a bit too aggressive.

But overall, I think I didn't slaughter this one too much.

Carnival

Excuse me mister.

Ben Harper.
I actually can hardly believe it has taken 6 songs before I get to cover one of my major influences on guitar (on accoustic at least).

This one's quite simple.
I had a better hang on the drums at that time and got to do something quite similar to the original. The bass (although this is a guitar) is also standing out quite nicely.
I got to use my harmonica again, I thought it would be a good idea not to try vocalising at the end. That would have been stupid... ;)

Excuse Me Mister

Aux sombreros de la mere...

Again, this is a song I used to play accoustic.

This is by Noir Desir, who could be the best rock band in French history.

When doing it, I was struck by the importance of the bass line. I started as usual by programming the drums, in 3/4 and did a quick guitar track on it, to lay down the structure. It was all quite dull.
Then I recorded the bass track and suddently the song started to swing...
It was all in the bass...

I got to use my harmonicas as well. I didn't actually really listened to what they were doing in the original track (I think they use a different type of harmonica anyway), so I just improvised. It's quite easy to do with that instrument and it's more fun.

Aux Sombres Heros De L'Amer