User:Zaph
From This Might Be A Wiki
| Babel
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| SV
| This user has rated the following songs.
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| SHO
| This user has attended the following shows.
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| FAN
| This user became a TMBG fan in 1994.
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| This user plays bass.
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So, the userboxes pretty much say everything, but I suppose there's a story behind everything, too. I did become a fan in 1994. I had remembered hearing Istanbul, Dead, and Particle Man on the school bus around the time Flood came out, but at the time I was too embarrassed to ask who the band was. Eventually, I did find out, and a friend made me a double-sided tape with Flood on one side and Apollo 18 on the other. And then I bought all four albums and Miscellaneous T, and picked up John Henry pretty much the day it came out. It's still my favourite album.
My first of many shows was at Lisner Auditorium on October 18, 1994.
I play a bunch of instruments, and I've recorded quite a few TMBG songs in my home studio. I usually try to come up with arrangements that are different from the original - what would be the point of covering something if it sounded exactly the same as something that's already been done? I'm working on eventually getting some of these online.
The songs, in relatively chronological order.
- Metal Detector - I originally tried to play it straight, and just couldn't replicate the synth well enough, so I eventually went with a more acoustic approach, making the rhythm slightly swingier and upbeat. The current incarnation of this recording actually sounds like it might if Guster covered the song.
- Ant - When I first bought an eBow, I wanted to put it to good use, so I recorded the horn parts in this song with it, over an acoustic guitar, bass, and electric guitar. Not my best recording, but then, not the easiest song to adapt, either.
- See The Constellation - punk. Need I say more?
- Dinner Bell - I figured out that the refrain of Moxy Früvous's song, Johnny Saucep'n could fit perfectly over one of the verses of Dinner Bell, and recorded it that way. This song is incredibly hard to play on the guitar.
- Certain People I Could Name - Very folky. Not quite fingerpicked, because I suck at fingerpicking, but I've played the guitar with a similar riff to what the piano plays in the original version, and I've added violin (fake, because none of my violin-playing TMBG-fan friends have had a chance to record a real one for me).
- Dead - I asked a friend to name a TMBG song, without revealing my intentions. She picked Dead. About an hour later, I had a recording of the song with acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, and a little-too-precise programmed drum track. It's still one of my favourite TMBG covers that I've done.
- It's Not My Birthday - I recorded this, ironically, on my birthday in 2004. I had just bought a new banjo, and I felt that the song lent itself to bluegrass, so I picked away at it, then put down guitar, bass, and mandolin, and had my first, but not last, bluegrass TMBG cover.
- Whistling In The Dark - not a whole lot special about this, but the trumpet parts are played on accordion and melodica, and I've given it a much more 6/8 feel. Only problem is I'm a tenor, and this song is well below my range.
- All of John Henry. My most ambitious project, obviously, and still ongoing. I'm recording acoustic arrangements of all the songs - at least, there will be no electric guitar or organ. My basses are electric, and I've still programmed drums. The rest of the instrumentation is acoustic guitar, acoustic 12-string guitar, mandolin, banjo, melodica, and accordion. The horn parts are played mostly on accordion and melodica.
- When It Rains It Snows - I had this stuck in my head for a very long time and thought it would sound good with banjo. It does.
- Rhythm Section Want Ad - I wanted to go for a Guster-like sound here, too, figuring I could sequence in some really fake hand drums, but I found that playing the accordion solo on the guitar was pretty much impossible, so instead, I decided to play this the way TMBG do, fake drums and all. It came out rather better than I expected.
