ShortScale.org

After finishing up the tracking for an EP with a band of mine that's replaced the on-hiatus Remi Greene (it's yet-to-be-named, so we'll call it Laser Piss for now [—edit: it's Bright Nights!]), we decided to spend a night on a cover of XTC's "Making Plans for Nigel". I believe it was one of the final recordings done at the farmhouse studio that my good friend/Laser Piss's Bright Nights's bass player has operated for ten-plus years.

http://soundcloud.com/avj/03-2

Some liberties were taken, but I think it's pretty faithful. There's an extra couple of measures in the intro that need to be chopped out, and it's only roughly mixed until we finish moving the studio equipment this week. I'm playing Moog and singing on this one, but not the screamy backup vocals.

The other songs from the EP are also up there, but they are also an in-progress shambles and not yet ready for mass consumption. This one was a relatively sparse arrangement, so not as much is currently hosed and the song is probably a little more relatable.

I'd love to hear any thoughts.

edit: updated link to finished version of song

Critical point: tempo is a couple beats slow, making it a little draggy.

Outside of that, I'm really digging the cover; it's pretty faithful, but has your own slant. The mix is pretty decent all in all, I'm not sure what I'd change in the mix to make it better. The Synth could maybe go back in the mix, but, I also kinda dig it up front... it does work pretty well.

Would LOVE to see this played live

Thanks! Yeah, we just kind of naturally fell into whatever tempo felt right for the drummer. I may have also boinked a few words (work/world), but I couldn't find a definitive answer in the short time I looked. I generally hate covers, but we did it on a lark and actually enjoyed it.

The mix is nothing special, as I don't think any EQ has been applied anywhere except the drum mix yet and the vocals are completely off. We'll be starting proper mixing next week after the equipment has been moved.

I'm shitting my pants thinking about a live performance. I sang this one because no one else wanted to, but thankfully the synth parts are simple.

Sounds great avj -- recording deetz?

Thanks buddy!

An old friend of mine that is the bass player in the band here (and on the Remi Greene record in my sig) operates a fairly modest studio out of an old country farmhouse. It has a nice, proper booth and a treated dead room (which is also our rehearsal space), and the whole place is wood floors and empty rooms that make for great acoustic spaces. We recorded the Remi Greene record and countless other things there, including the rest of the EP that Nigel will go on. Unfortunately, he recently had to give up the place, but we're moving the equipment to another house this week. Not nearly as great, but life goes on.

Anyway, it's a Pro Tools rig centered around a Digi 002 rack unit. There's also a Vintech Dual 72 pre and a homebrew SSL compressor clone that were used on pretty much everything, and a big ol' Allen and Heath board was used for the drums. Off the top of my head, mics used on everything were some SM57s, an Audix D6 kick drum mic, a couple of modded Oktava SD condensers, a Sterling Audio ST-55, a Neumann TLM-103, and an MXL R144 ribbon mic.

The fun part was we didn't really have much of an idea about the arrangement until that night. We just kind of winged it.

There are four of us in Laser Piss Bright Nights: drummer, bass player, guitar player, and me on guitar and synth. We recorded the drums first in the living room, then laid down other dude's guitar parts. He was using an early-'90s Strat straight into a Peavey 5150 clone and no-name 2x12. (I doubled the chorus parts with a CP Jaguar, SD-1, EHX Germanium OD, and Vibrosonic amp, but potted them down for now because we have a tendency to ridiculously overproduce things and I thought we should keep this one simple.) The bass then went down, and that's a '90s MusicMan Stingray HS going direct into the Vintech and SSL. I then gave the song a few listens while playing along on the Moog and came up with the simple melody verse part and apeggiated chorus part. That was also direct in.

Oh, and the little part a few seconds in is just me doing a filter sweep on the POG2 with the Jag, which I'll likely have to do with a wah for live play.

I then did the lead vocal—which is a first for me on any of this stuff—and the falsetto parts at the end, and then other guitar dude did the screamy parts. I also did the ridiculous cat-call shit during the verse, which can hopefully be salvaged somehow. I used the MXL ribbon and he used the TLM-103.

This is probably way more than you cared to know, but I looooove talking about this shit.

edit: fixed details and added a few more instances of the letter 'o' to indicate just how much I do indeed looooove talking about this shit

Thumbs Up!! the slowness adds to it being your cover and less a brit punk copy, kind of atmospheric too.