'Recordings' Category
The Cruel Mother - version 1
I thought it might be an interesting exercise to record several completely disparate versions of the same song, and as I played a version of “The Cruel Mother” at the Traditional Song Session at the Midland Arts Centre last Thursday, May 3rd, I decided to go for that one.
It’s an unpleasant little tale, that’s for [...]Download - Head For The Country
Who said folk songs had to be quiet, anyway?
This is a song I wrote a couple of years ago, which, now that the Telecaster has been dusted off, I thought I’d revisit with guitars turned up to 11. I normally play this song on concertina, but this version is just electric guitars, a drum loop, [...]Download - Cuckoo’s Nest
I’ve fallen in love with my Telecaster all over again - the tele has a crunch to its sound that no other electric guitar possesses, especially when the action is set up for really heavy gauge strings.
And then there’s my equally-lapsed love of drum machines. I used to use electronics quite a lot but [...]Interesting dulcimer soundclip
Here’s a really interesting recording - by a member of the EverythingDulcimer.com forum known as “DulcitTones” who had only been playing the instrument (and, indeed, any musical instrument!) for 7 weeks and decided to have a go at playing a Raga on an appalachian mountain dulcimer. The result is pretty impressive and very hypnotic. It’s [...]
Download - Mercedes Benz
Here’s another song I’ve recorded just for the fun of it.
It occurred to me that I seldom, if ever, bother to record songs that I sing without any instrumental accompaniment.
So I thought it was about time I did.
I never really understood why “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz” was [...]Download - Black Country Chainstore Massacre
Not long ago I treated myself to the CD86 compilation, which brought back loads of memories of the C86-generation guitar bands who were around when I first started buying records.
It also reminded me of what a great band Pop Will Eat Itself were (to my ears) before they went all electronic and stopped [...]Dulcimer tune - notation, tab and recording
Close The Windows, Lock The DoorsHere’s a tune I’ve written on my recently-acquired 1950s Jethro Amburgey dulcimer. I’m very grateful to the folks on EverythingDulcimer.com for giving me lots of historical information about the instrument.
The instrument only has half-frets - and therefore can only be played in the traditional melody-plus-drone style - and as a result I began [...]Recording and dulcimer tab - Arglwydd Dyma Fi
In recognition of St David’s day 2007, I had a go at recording a Welsh hymn tune on the dulcimer.
I learned a couple of things from doing this - namely that even really thick double-glazing is no defence against boy-racers with noisy exhausts (clearly audible about two minutes in!) and also that when close-miking [...]Recording - Just Like Heaven
Just Like Heaven is a gorgeous song from the mid-1980s by The Cure, a group who had an undeserved reputation for being miserable, much like The Smiths. A lot of people didn’t see past the eyeliner, gloomy demeanour and straggly hair - if they had, they would have found any number of songs [...]
Recording - Who’s Going to Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet?
A great example of a song with floating verses that end up in all sorts of other songs, this version of Who’s Going to Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet? has a lovely liting melody.
I’ve learned it from the Everly Brothers’ LP “Songs Our Daddy Taught Us”, on which they paid tribute to the [...]