Hotel California (cover)

An abbreviated acoustic take on the done-to-death Eagles song, on uke, banjo, upright, and brushes. Another breakneck iPhone/FourTrack recording.

Being mostly acoustic, this blasts the levels on the iphone less than some of the other stuff I've done recently. Drums still distort significantly on the hits, but not by near as much using brushes.

I did a poor job of balancing the low lead vocal against the uke, so the vox are pretty buried—I should have been more careful about that, but I haven't really gotten used to planning out this only-four-tracks thing carefully yet. Plus it's hard to position an iphone compared to e.g. a mic on a boom stand.

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

posted by cortex (11 comments total)

Lines have been crossed here. Lines that should never be crossed.

Have you tried getting a mic clip to hold the phone (so to speak)?
posted by sleepy pete at 12:17 PM on April 27, 2010

man you are making me want to start doing pop music or something
posted by idiopath at 12:30 PM on April 27, 2010

Have you tried getting a mic clip to hold the phone (so to speak)?

I could do that, but it might sort of violate the no-fi spirit of this whole thing.
posted by cortex at 2:40 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

it might sort of violate the no-fi spirit of this whole thing.

I knew you were going to say that.

It's less than $5. That's not a violation.
posted by sleepy pete at 4:13 PM on April 27, 2010

Along with The Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston, Thank God I'm a Country Boy by John Denver and a handful of others, this song resides in my personal pantheon of Most Hated Songs of All Time. So, I like the buried vocals. I think they make the piece, actually.

That said, sleepy pete's suggestion is a good one: those spring-action type mic clips have a thousand and one uses!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:27 PM on April 27, 2010

That is one nice thing about covering something that everybody has embedded in their brains: the vocals don't very much have to be there. Just a hint every line or so is probably enough to keep the train rolling along.

Last time I was in a car with mathowie, Don't Stop Believin' came on. I'm not saying anything, here, I'm just sayin'.
posted by cortex at 5:18 PM on April 27, 2010 [1 favorite]

Have you tried getting a mic clip to hold the phone (so to speak)?

I could do that, but it might sort of violate the no-fi spirit of this whole thing.

You should go all Dogme 95 on this and publish a manifesto.
posted by burnmp3s at 1:02 PM on April 29, 2010

I know its blasphemy, but I hate the Eagles when I hear this song. This one, though ... this sticks with me.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 8:48 PM on April 29, 2010

I know its blasphemy, but I hate the Eagles when I hear this song.

Huh? Blasphemy? Just sounds like you got good taste, is all.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:29 PM on April 29, 2010

Ha, I had to force myself to listen to this and am now pleasantly surprised. This is some great low-fi fun!
posted by snsranch at 3:02 PM on April 30, 2010

This makes me want to get you drunk in my backyard in the best way.
posted by desuetude at 10:05 PM on May 13, 2010