When I record solo material, I call myself "Braindead". When I record with my band, my sole bandmate used to call himself "Dave Cee", and I used to call myself "Cleotis".
Tonight's "Friday Night Pack" tracking and rough mix courtesy of: Xfer Records Serum, KV331 Audio Synthmaster One, Beatskillz Plugins Retrovolt, AIR Music Tech Hybrid3 and Mini Grand, SoundSpot Union, Samples From Mars vintage Yamaha PTX-8 drum kit, and the legendary Steve Stevens wailing guitars thanks to EastWest Sounds ComposerCloud, with some help from the incredible Polyverse Music Manipulator and Supermodal, all through the mighty Focal Trio6 BE mains. 🤘🤘🤘
New music is on its way... With a little help from Steve.
2 days in to a new Braindead track. About 60% there. OMG this one’s a banger! Having SO MUCH FUN with it! In the middle of composing a new classical piano break even though it’s a cover. Then, I’ll face my fears and track vocals myself. 🤞
In 2020, I was struggling with a mix of an Oingo Boingo song I was paying tribute to. I had been working on it for awhile. I couldn't get the vocals right when I tried to sing them myself, so I decided to hire a vocalist. Fiverr is always a great source of untapped and affordable talent, so I went there and found a vocalist with an impressive demo. He sounded amazing, and I wanted him for this track. I hired him.
What wasn't disclosed was the fact that his native language was Italian, and while he did speak English, his accent was so thick, it completely detracted from his singing. He was a gentleman and refunded me for the gig once I responded negatively to his thick accent, and I promised I'd never use his vocals in my final mix. I did not.
However, his singing was really, really good. His harmonies were spot-on. I never got the source files of his vocals, I only received this rough mp3 that he recorded and returned as a sample. His pitch is perfect. His harmonies are solid. It just sounds really odd because his Italian accent is so thick. Still, there's something about this scratch vocal mix that I like. He is clearly an accomplished vocalist.
I never did get the guitar parts right. Steve Bartek is a tough act to follow. And I never did finish tuning the bgv's in the final version. Danny Elfman is a completely underrated vocalist.
I have been wanting to break down Devo's Timing eXercise in the midi editor for awhile just to see A: if I could, and B: what the time signatures looked like, because they were so strange. It goes from 6/4 to 5/4, then back again a few times till the "chorus" when it's a few measures of 8/4, then it goes back into the 6/4 and 5/4 stuff. I thought about finishing this one out, but quantizing it would be totally cheating. It's not easy to play unless you practice as Mark and his fellow spuds undoubtedly did in the frozen basements of Akron. Oh, it’s also 260bpm!
Drums have always been a sore spot for me. Frankly, I've never been any good with rhythms. So when I can find a great dance track with a super simple kick, hi-hat and snare, I'm a happy guy. Air Instruments's Strike drum kit isn't the greatest, frankly, but it had a nice "Electro" kit of samples that I hand-played into Pro Tools's MIDI editor for this cover of "This Boy's In Love" by The Presets.
Even if only for fun, going back to old Braindead tracks shows me how rusty I've become. Thirty years is a long time to go between rehearsals! As someone recently told me, "It's simple, but it's not easy." This is probably the best song I ever wrote. I've considered re-recording it, but first, I have to re-learn how to play it. 😒 These tracks were recorded on August 21, 1988 at Second Rate Studios in Humble, Texas. Our house didn't have central air, but instead had a window unit in the front of the house. When I closed the door to my bedroom studio, the Texas summer heat would warm the room up pretty quickly. Therefore, I was probably dripping with sweat white recording this. Lyrics provided by an ex-girlfriend. Although they're nothing more than teen-angst poetry, I've always been rather fond of them. But as you can see here - that vocal track is muted the F--- out of the mix! I do love this song. It's called "Inside Me". At some point, I will definitely re-record it. Tonight, I'm simply trying to recall how to play those arpeggiated chords. I credit Phillip Glass for my affinity to broken chords.
Circa 1989... Recorded at "Second Rate Studios" on a Yamaha MT2X 4-track cassette recorder using an Ensoniq Mirage sampler, Alesis HR-16 drum machine, and the mighty Alesis Midiverb-II effects unit.
When I was young, my uncle Ray Dean would carry a tape recorder with him just to play with it. This was about 1973 or so. I've got an entire CD full of his antics that I archived from old reel to reel tapes and cassettes. He would prank call people and record it, he would wake them up in the middle of the night just to get a recording of them yelling at him and he would record real live farts and play them back over and over again.
My mom came from a family of 9 kids, and there was always something going on between the boys in the house. Bottling farts and unleashing them under the nostrils of sleeping siblings, urinating in bottles of orange crush, and waving crusty, sh*t-filled underwear in the nose of a napping neighbor are just a few of the antics that come to mind, all of which were captured with Ray Dean's tape recorder. It was like living at camp - all the time. It gets more twisted when you season the scenario with my grandmother - a warm, caring woman who was a half-blind amputee due to cataracts and gangrene brought on by diabetes.
One day, Ray Dean got mad at his brother, Jerry. It seems that Jerry got tired of Ray Dean picking on everyone with that tape recorder of his. So, Jerry stuck his hand down his ass crack, and rubbed stinky butt juice all over Ray Dean's microphone. The samples you hear in this song are taken from the actual tapes of Ray Dean when he discovered what his brother had done.
To make things funnier, Ray Dean had an extremely thick speech impediment.
And in case you're wondering, "hockey" is a colorful euphemism for human fecal matter.
There are so many cool, free instruments out there. I've been having a ton of fun with this one lately. Rave Generator from Wavosaur. It's a rompler loaded with tons and tons of instantly recognizable 90's house and techno samples. And to make it even nicer, it's somehow emulating those nasty, crunchy low-bitrate samplers these things were played through back then. You can even drag your own samples into it and go totally old school. Completely free! I'm loving this little thing.
Rotten To The Core (WIP)
I listened to a lot of music this week while traveling. I really want more time to work on music. I miss it so much when I'm preoccupied with life.
I'm going to post a few songs below, and I'd love it if you commented on the song you think I should embark on next. Comment by number, because lordymercy, there are a lot of songs I want to record. I love them all so much, I just can't decide. In a perfect world, I'd take three months sabbatical and hole up at Eponymous Studios and record them all, but that will never happen. So, maybe my eleven followers can offer some guidance on what Braindead's next track should be! Vote now! 😛
Reply with numbered comments below. What would you like to hear (if anything).
1: A new original Braindead track (rough mix of the WIP posted here), with a working title, "Rotten to the Core". This one still needs about half of its lyrics finished, but it will be Braindead's Devo tribute.
2: Calvin Harris cover, "Let's Go": https://youtu.be/LYZ6gXWZfZM?t=20
3: Code of Ethics cover, "Hey Death": https://youtu.be/PJAina43t0o
Those three above are my main current candidates, but below you'll find a few others I am hoping to dive in to some day. I welcome your preferences!
4: Barnes and Barnes cover, "Please Squeeze My Knees, Louise": https://youtu.be/hpL_vkcL70k
5: Fountains Of Wayne cover, "The Girl I Can't Forget" (incidentally, this is my single most all time favorite song but I'm not sure if Braindead could do it justice): https://youtu.be/o-erzGwxKN4
6: Barren Cross cover, "Going Nowhere": https://youtu.be/CkPR2Re__9o
7: The DEV2.0 cover version of "Jerkin' Back and Forth": https://youtu.be/0T31t17AcvM
8: Heart cover, "Mistral Wind" (another one that would be very hard for Braindead to do justice to): https://youtu.be/UOfQaYPYXSo
9: MUTEMATH cover, "Goodbye": https://youtu.be/iHKIpv1vE_E
10: Robert Miles cover, "Miniature World Critical World Remix": https://youtu.be/HyW33GP8Oxw
11: Steve Taylor, "Sin For A Season": htt
