I Write The Songs...No, No I Don't
Most of what I do is punk covers of older songs, to amuse myself..here's a few examples:Baby, I'm an Anarchist! - Denise, Sara, and Jesse are, too. This is not exactly punk, even when Against Me! did it first.
Jump Around - Word to your moms, I came to drop bombs. This gets downloaded a lot by Chinese kids who think they're getting House of Pain's version.
The Logical Song - Heavier. Originally by Supertramp. As I understand it, they don't like their songs being covered, so...sorry!
MacArthur Park - Goth Metal version of the Richard Harris/Jimmy Webb schmaltzfest.
Pressure - Somewhere, Billy Joel is wishing he had done this version. Not real happy with this one, but I'll put it up anyway. What the hell!
Sea of Heartbreak - A cover of Johnny Cash's cover of Don Gibson's song of loss and woe. Full of meaty straight-up punk goodness.
Sister Golden Hair - Happy pop-punk/ska version of the happy pop-folk America song
Sonic Reducer - Punk standard by the Dead Boys, later Pearl Jam.
Learning Acid - Something I spit out while learning to use Acid. The name came to me in a dream.
Wait, What?
Between fall of '93 and summer of '96, I was in a band in Knoxville, TN, called Revolution Block. We did mostly originals that were "an eclectic mix of funk, punk, and hardcore". I played guitar, and sang (term used loosely) on one original, Role Model and one cover, Bring the Noise. After that broke up, I needed a new outlet for all this burdensome creativity (term also used loosely), so I started my own little side project, endearingly titled Burning Liquid Fish. I have a little home studio, consisting of:
Of course, I rarely use most of that stuff. I record everything through the Behringer mixer into a Live!Drive. I can't tell you how many soundcards I fried by hotswapping the line-in port...the Live!Drive is a godsend. If I'm recording guitar, I go through the Pod into the mixer. Vocals sometimes get patched through the Alesis compressor and the Virtualizer (although that's typically bypassed unless I'm using distortion on the vocals), but are usually just done raw these days, with compression added afterwards. Reverb and EQ effects like high-pass filters get added post-recording.Hardware
Behringer Eurorack MX 802A 8-channel mixer
Fostex X-28H multitracker, which I ignore
A 2.4GHz WinXP computer, which is what I really record to
Alesis Mk2 studio monitors
Alesis RA-100 power amplifier, for the monitors
MXL 2003 condenser mic (main vocal mic)
2 Behringer C-2 matched stereo pair condenser mics
3 Behringer XM8500 dynamic mics
Alesis SR-16 drum machine
Zoom 1204 Studio effects processor
Alesis 3630 compressor
Behringer Virtualizer Pro 2024P effects processor
Zoom ST-224 SamplerGuitars and Such
1994 Gibson SG Standard guitar
1994 Taylor 812-C acoustic (built on Halloween, no less)
Epiphone Les Paul Special
Gretsch G5120 Electromatic hollowbody
Oscar Schmidt hollowbody electric
Late 80's Ovation acoustic/electric
Some dark purple Washburn electric from about 1987
Dean ML XM, bought on a whim. It's f'n metal.
1974 Gibson Ripper bass
100-watt KMD half stack
Crate PowerBlock 150-watt amp head
Line 6 Pod 2Other Instruments
Morgan Monroe "Rocky Top" banjo
1970's Conn trombone rescued from flea market for $30
Olds "Ambassador" cornet, ca. June 1971
Yamaha DJX keyboard
Miditech MidiStudio-2 midi controller keyboard
Some cheapo violin I bought on eBay
Story & Clark upright piano (approximate weight: 3 tons)
$7 handmade ukelele, hand-delivered from the Phillipines by my friend Sara
Two Walton's D penny whistles, one hand delivered from Ireland by Sara
An ocarina I picked up in some hippie store. It's not magic.
A nice little Mandolin whose brand escapes meSoftware
Sonar Producer 6.0
Sony Acid Pro 5.0
Sony Sound Forge 8.0
Native Instruments Kontakt 2
Native Instruments Battery 2
Native Instruments Guitar Rig 2
Gary Garritan's Jazz and Big Band
About 30GB worth of samples
I used to record with Sound Forge, and then mix multitrack with Acid Pro. Lately, I've been doing everything in Sonar Producer instead.
Drums were at one time done as entire parts in the SR-16, i.e. a verse rhythm, a chorus rhythm, etc, arranged into an entire song. Later, I took to recording one hit of each drum and setting up the drum tracks in Acid as individual tracks - a track for the kickdrum, a track for the snare, and so forth. This takes a little longer at first, but it lets me adjust the levels and EQ of each drum individually, and it's easier to edit them later if I feel the need. Nowadays, I do most of my drum work using Native Instruments Battery 2.0.
