Through The Rain

This one is really lo-fi as I don't have the master tape and it's a 21 year old rough demo -- and I do mean rough. :) Recorded Spring 1985 in dorm room A-1016, The Evergreen State College. (More inside.)

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posted by litlnemo (13 comments total)

It's three of us -- me, Charlie Campbell, and Dave Kucera. We were all Evergreen students at the time. IIRC Charlie had borrowed a Tascam 4-track cassette deck and we wanted to experiment with it. Charlie had a bit of a melody he had been playing with and we all wrote the song together from that. Then we recorded Charlie's guitar track, did the handclaps in the stairwell where it was echoey, and recorded the vocals (me and Dave). In fact we might have done the handclaps last, though I'm not sure. At any rate, this is not the best way to get the handclaps synced to the rest of the track. The whole thing was done in a few hours.

But despite the roughness and awkwardness of it, I always thought it had some charm. I redid this song in almost every band I was in for the next 10 years, with cleaned up lyrics and better recording, but I never came up with anything I liked as much as this dorm room recording.

Charlie went on to bigger and better things in the band Pond and later as a solo artist. I'm not sure what happened to Dave.
posted by litlnemo at 4:37 AM on July 31, 2006

I really like this - has a real 60s pop feel. It kind of sounds like something the Ronettes might thrash out as a demo.
posted by pollystark at 11:55 AM on July 31, 2006

Heh, I would never have thought of it that way. That gives me an idea for another approach to it, if I ever record it again. :) Thanks!
posted by litlnemo at 1:18 PM on July 31, 2006

Great.
I think half the charm is that it's a 21 year-old dub of a 4 track demo. It's one of those capture-the-moment things where the moment counts almost as much as the song. Nice!

I have found that sadly, in these situations, you often can't go back and make it better.
posted by chococat at 4:30 PM on July 31, 2006

That is so true. And the more you mess with it, sometimes the worse it gets.
posted by litlnemo at 5:18 PM on July 31, 2006

Yep, I like it just the way it is!
posted by snsranch at 5:51 PM on July 31, 2006

Beautiful. Definitely another one for the playlist.
posted by Savvas at 12:15 PM on August 1, 2006

Thank you everyone! I am thrilled that people are enjoying this song.
posted by litlnemo at 1:49 AM on August 3, 2006

This reminds me of Aimee Mann. I love it.
posted by Jofus at 4:12 AM on August 4, 2006

You should rerecord this!
posted by bim at 6:26 PM on August 4, 2006

Heh, I would love to, but rerecording it has never worked well yet. :)

Jofus, that is one of the coolest compliments I've ever had. Thanks!
posted by litlnemo at 3:38 AM on August 7, 2006

I'm about almost exactly 6 months late, but I really really like this. Playlisted and downloaded. Thanks!!
posted by ClarissaWAM at 3:15 PM on February 9, 2007

Just adding a cross-link here to the AskMeFi that has some additional info about some other music that Charlie Campbell has done, which you may have heard.

(And thanks, Clarissa!)
posted by litlnemo at 3:30 AM on January 3, 2008