Runaway Train (Soul Asylum cover)

The break-neck lo-fi fest continues with this cover of a song I just loved to death back in high school.

Like yesterday's Complicated, this was done basically as quickly as possible, using FourTrack on my iPhone. I decided to be a little more purist about the whole thing, so instead of bouncing to get some extra tracks (which I did for the Avril cover) I confined myself to literally four live takes, throwing vocals on with the uke and guitar and piano tracks.

I also experimented with a very simple gain-control idea for the drums: I threw some scotch tape over the mic on the phone. Result is a slightly less annihilated drum sound. I'd worry about the effects of the tape membrane on the response curve of the mic but I don't think we're really in the realm where enough signal is getting through cleanly and undistorted for that to really be an issue.

I am definitely liking this way-overpowered drum sound in general and will keep experimenting with it.

This is all and all a lot less fun of a song than Complicated, which is my biggest complaint. Beyond that, while it's a decent song, it's not very interesting in terms of structure and I'm having a harder time being impressed by it now than I was when I was half my age and learning to be a dude with a guitar.

• play
• pause
• stop
• min volume
• max volume

posted by cortex (7 comments total)

Oh man, fantastically weird.
posted by xorry at 7:55 PM on April 16, 2010

I never liked this song.
I still don't, but I like how disjointed this recording is.
It sounds like a recording of a guy singing along to a radio that's not quite all the way tuned into a station and is turned up too loud. Cool.
And is "i dropped my drumstick" some kind of nerdy update to I'VE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS?
posted by chococat at 8:52 PM on April 16, 2010

Maybe. I mean, I actually dropped my drumstick, though the recording is so fucking noisy that it's not as obvious as I assumed it would be.
posted by cortex at 9:44 PM on April 16, 2010

It just struck me as funny. Sort of a sad, resigned confession.
posted by chococat at 9:51 PM on April 16, 2010

Now we are talking. The same general idea, without hurting anyone's ears. With complicated I had to turn the volume almost all the way down and it was still painful.

And of course the drums stand out, and they sound like that sound that Dave Fridmann popularized in recent years, but my favorite thing here is the sound of the piano. Sounds a bit like those ancient Bola de nieve recordings. I might proposing you, your iPhone and your piano a collaboration, if you three have the time.
posted by micayetoca at 6:15 AM on April 17, 2010

(that should say "I might be proposing you...", of course
posted by micayetoca at 6:16 AM on April 17, 2010

We two would probably be available, yes. Heh.
posted by cortex at 9:25 AM on April 17, 2010