Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifters

First track off our new album, "Heirloom." I'm playing fiddle an jawharp.

The banjo player came up with this after hearing the tale of Radiator Charlie and his fantastic tomatoes.
We recorded in an old barn.
More about us here.

(Get Flash to see the track player.)
posted by Baby_Balrog (8 comments total)

Love your fiddling. And those hearty, go-for-it vocals are, as always, wonderful.

One thing: if I was mixing it, I'd have pulled that jawharp up just a hair, and pushed that fiddle's level down a wee bit, especially when the vocals are in. Somehow the fiddle seems a little too separate from the rest of the band.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:27 PM on June 4

Your singer sounds a LOT like Ben Kaufmann from Yonder Mountain String Band. This is by no means a bad thing. I always enjoy a good pickfest. Bluegrass just doesn't get enough credit for being as awesome as it is. I have to agree with flapjax, there, on the mix. The fiddle feels a scosh too...present, as it were, in the mix. Then again, I'd probably run it through distortion and delay, then Ring Modulate it with the banjo. Now THAT'S good old-fashioned bluegrass! Right? Right?
posted by askmeaboutLOOM at 7:50 PM on June 4

Yeah, on the last Music podcast thread you mentioned you were going to post the new songs, and I was just about to post a Meta callout saying "hey, you promised!"

I love your band, man. I've said it a million times before. And this new record sounds really, really good. Thanks for posting it.
posted by micayetoca at 12:35 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]

Great track. Can't wait to hear the rest.

I think the issue with the fiddle is that you can hear an empty barn on the track. If you had a room mic on it that could be dialed back. But really that's just nitpicking, it sounds great.

Oh yeah, and two posts with "Charlie" in the title today. This is the superior "Charlie" post though.
posted by dagosto at 5:29 PM on June 5

This is really great, and man this is totally inspiring an Askme about how to find an inexpensive and yet fit fiddle. (I'm dying to get one in hand/s.)

Thanks for posting this!
posted by snsranch at 7:05 PM on June 5

YEEHAR Yeah! This was fun! Thanks for posting it!
posted by Effigy2000 at 11:25 PM on June 10

For the record, the whole album is great, and everyone should try to buy it from Baby_Balrog. Also, if you are in Michigan, go see them, it's a lot of fun.
posted by mai at 11:35 AM on June 15

This is fantastic, thanks for sharing!
posted by spiderskull at 11:29 PM on August 25