Heroin

This is side two! If you want to play the record from the beginning, then please turn over. Do not play this side, if you want side one. This is side two!

I’d like to think this is what Bruce Springsteen would sound like, if he played mandolin (poorly), and Max Weinberg played Korg sequenced synth drums.

Instrumentation:

Timbill – Korg DS-10 sequencing, Mandolin, Harmony Vocals
Tréteque – Lead Vocals, Jingle Shaker

(Get Flash to see the track player.)
posted by askmeaboutLOOM (7 comments total)

I suppose I should post the added lyrics in the refrain.

lyrics:

heroin

posted by askmeaboutLOOM at 9:54 PM on July 13

I love the added lyrics, the harmonies, and the overemotive vocal. The mandolin is excellent, too.

I think this is the most versatile song on the album - even Lou Reed changes the melody and cadence all the time.
posted by The World Famous at 10:04 PM on July 13

Thanks! We decided on the chords ahead of time, but the delivery and melody were totally improvised on the spot. We knew we wanted harmonies on the refrain (which I felt it kind of needed...it's a very wordy song without any real breaks), but decided after the fact as to what they would be. I've still never heard the original (by design--I haven't listened to any of the album, except for Femme Fatale (my originally assigned track) once).

Side note: The fade out (already ridiculously long at 31 seconds) wasn't going to be there...it degraded further for almost a minute more until we just couldn't continue without cracking up. Man vs sun kept trying to kill it, but I couldn't seem to stop.
posted by askmeaboutLOOM at 10:27 PM on July 13

This is great.
posted by COBRA! at 8:19 AM on July 15

I love the idea of you guys going; "Hey, let's bang this out." "Ok." BANG BANG BANG BANG.
"Oh, wow, that kicks ass!"

This is fun AND good!
posted by snsranch at 5:02 PM on July 15 [1 favorite]

"Hey, let's bang this out." "Ok." BANG BANG BANG BANG.
"Oh, wow, that kicks ass!"

This sort of conversation happens pretty much every time we get together. And believe me, most of the time we're just as surprised that is isn't total garbage.

There's some garbage, sure. But that percentage is generally lower than we expect prior to pressing the big red button.
posted by man vs sun at 8:49 PM on July 15

I love the idea of you guys going; "Hey, let's bang this out." "Ok." BANG BANG BANG BANG.
"Oh, wow, that kicks ass!"

This is fun AND good!

That's exactly how it works, 89.7035% of the time (roughly). The whole "project" of doing the whole album started Wednesday morning, like this:

(10:13:27 AM) William A. Corder: Since Melissa's not going to be there, shall we be PA tonight, or just not really do anything?
(10:13:43 AM) Trey Beauregard: do you have anything you want to do?
(10:13:55 AM) William A. Corder: not in particular
(10:14:49 AM) Trey Beauregard: heh, we could do the entire VU album in one night
(10:14:58 AM) William A. Corder: yeah
(10:25:38 AM) Trey Beauregard: do you want to attempt it?
(10:25:48 AM) William A. Corder: I kinda do
(10:26:02 AM) Trey Beauregard: let's do some brainstorming then

By the end of that hour, we had half the album figured out, and we started recording that night. We went for about 2.5 hours, hit another 2 hours on Friday, then 4 on Saturday. I mixed on Friday and Saturday. That's it. Done. Next album.
posted by askmeaboutLOOM at 9:09 PM on July 15