Sunshine Superman

This is probably Donovan's finest moment.



Incidentally, I originally decided to start recording these things to get the hang of the improvements to BIAB and particularly to get over the learning curve with my little recorder. As someone who used to achieve flanging by using two reel to reels and putting my finger on the flange of the reel while rerecording the same track sequentially, it is a novelty to just be given the option of several flanging effects. You can hear it on this track, but I did resort to some cuzzoo noises to dirty things up a bit plus lots of guitar on top of the BIAB as well.

The plan was to write some songs that would be worth recording - hasn't happened. So I'll keep mucking around with the old songs. I should find a recent song worthy of desecration - I take requests!

Hoover Factory

This is a terrific Elvis Costello song. His recording of it does not do it justice although this fragmentary demo on U tube is better.




Toris Amos does a live version that is probably too etherial for my taste that you can find on SeeqPod. (I did embed this initially but it loaded the whole song everytime the page opened and that is annoying - oh well - still learning)



The lyrics of this song are superb and I actually try to be serious on this (usually this just makes things sillier). I was playing with real drums and soloists on BIAB and add some ukelele myself. Have a listen.

The Rain, The Park and Other Things

This song is deleriously loopy in the original from the sound effects at the beginning to the harp fuelled breaks where they catch their breath - it is a delight. The Cowsills share this heady atmosphere with the Mamas and the Papas and Spanky and our Gang but rarely was it put together so beautifully. On the other hand I suspect that anyone, who when asked how they are, says anything more than two "happys" is probably manic.








This is a song that I would love the Polyphonic Spree to tackle. Coming from a completely different tack, my version is much more aggressive and silly! It also shows I don't believe in pitch correction - alas I can't sing in tune either. Click on the title above if you dare.

Blinded by the Light

This song to me will always be the single version by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. I still have the 45 rpm 7 inch copy with Starbird No.2 on the flip side. It had so much excitement and class pumped into a tiny package that the longer album version on the cassette of Roaring Silence I bought in 1977 never seemed quite right.



The musical joke of chopsticks in the instrumental isn't as clever as I thought it was then but it is still fun and Chris Thompson's vocals are superb. My children only know him from his small part in Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds" and he sure looked different from the 70s when that show toured here last year. I tried hard to regard MMEB as dinosaurs when New Wave hit but I could never really give up on them although I did seem to buy all their albums as cassettes from discount bins. Most of these are struggling to function in the 21st century and have been repaired once or twice.

Now Bruce Springsteen's original was unknown to me until much later and it is the MMEB version that I am covering in reality. The only other version I've heard is the weird latin version Bruce concocted recently.

I tried years ago to make a Band in a Box file of this song and it sounded ludicrous. I recently played with it again and hit upon a mindless thumping that seemed to suit. Through the magic of the Boss DR 600 my 12 string electric sounds like a wah wah pedal out of hell was strapped on and the result is pleasingly chaotic.

If I've figured out Box.net you should be able to hear the thing if you happen to stumble upon this blog.

Life is too serious

Yes life is far too serious.

To that end and to the horror of my family I have resumed making music in my bedroom. This is an activity from my youth when it meant reel to reel tape and instruments like ukeleles, stylophones and cuzoos. In the late 70s and early 80s I was involved with largely mythical bands whose tapes were accurately reviewed as "redefining primitive and eccentric." We wrote our own stuff and were a dreadful preview of what would later be done properly by They Might Be Giants. The recordings exist and sound as bad as ever.

I also recognise myself as the last person on the planet to have a blog. The blogs I admire are serious, thought provoking and enlarge my perception of the world.

This one doesn't do that.

This blog is devoted to cover songs and in particular my flawed but fun attempts to do justice to my favourite songs. I am hamstrung by a voice that should have been drowned at birth and an attention span that determines that I work fast and sloppily. In the words of the great Nick Lowe, "bash it out" - although he would add "tart it up later."

I should note that my lifelong love of covers has been reawakened by the wonderful Brian Ibbot's "Coverville", which has become essential listening.

I'm might add that the versions I hope to make are not entirely serious. In fact, I have learnt to my ongoing astonishment that the more seriously I take an attempt the sillier it inevitably sounds and the more ambitious the song the more ludicrous the outcome. However, just as I have friends who enjoy to paint in the full knowledge that they will never be hung in the gallery, I will open the aural waterpaint tin and splash away.

As soon as I figure out box.net and all that I'll post a song along with commentary on why the original is so great.