Keep Your Hands to Yourself (Sketch 1a) (Georgia Satellites cover)

This — and not my post from a year ago — was actually the first sketch of my cover of "Keep Your Hands To Yourself". Be warned, this is not pretty, more like a scribble on a wet napkin than a drawing. It's first-take everything, rushed, and I think it was my first stab at using GarageBand. (Everything before that had been made with Audacity or 4-track.)

This was recorded October 12, 2011, and the other one was recorded March 20, 2012. (Basically, I mislabeled the other post!)

This started out in my mind as reggaeton, and swerved quickly into "Cramps meets the Goofy Blues Band in somewhere not in Texas" territory as soon as I hit "record".

a) I recorded one guitar part first, with a reggaeton beat in my head. Then I pretty much doubled what I'd just played on the second track.

b) The drums I added next were the nail in this sketch's coffin. No way was this take the reggaeton I was looking for. Nor was I in sync with the guitar. Next time I'll use a clicktrack!

c) I added bass just to finalize that this was indeed The Goofy Blues Band version, and in no way reggaeton.

d) Slather in whipped cream and do a bad impression of Elvis/Lux Interior. YOW!!

So it was an interesting exercise in how a song can sound magnificent in your head, and the frustrating experience of not being able to come close to realizing that sound. Practice makes better, I suppose!

I am way overdue for another stab at this song.

• play
• pause
• min volume
• max volume

posted by not_on_display (2 comments total)

I kind of liked it, actually. Your vocal is great.
The guitar is really pretty good.
I had to laugh though, at one point you're singing gets so ahead of the rhythm, it almost laps it. But it works in a demented way.
You could totally just strip away the drums or record a live drum track to this, or some minimal percussion, and it would be perfect.
posted by chococat at 8:38 PM on March 8, 2013

Thanks, chococat! It's sometimes hard to realize that some ideas are salvageable when I don't have any feedback about them besides my own. I like this demented little take, but agree that I could totally do with another shot at the drums.
posted by not_on_display at 9:28 PM on March 11, 2013