All Eyes Out For You

Ramblings Demo - "Mary" (by Patty Griffin)

In honor of Patty Griffin's new album Children Running Through (due Tuesday), I spent a large chunk of Saturday recording my version of her song "Mary" (from the album Flaming Red).  It's pretty rough, due mainly to the fact that I haven't touched my digital recorder in months.  But I tried to cover it up with some keyboard parts, which I hadn't tried out before.

Download Mary_02.03.2006.mp3 (right-click to save)

Ramblings Demo - "Goodbye"

Here is my recording of Steve Earle's "Goodbye", probably the best song Steve has ever written.  This is, according to him, the first song he wrote after jail and rehab.  I remember listening to Emmylou Harris's album Wrecking Ball and was just blown away by the song, only to be further blown away that it was written by Steve Earle.  I quickly tracked down Steve's version on Train A' Comin', and my version is sort of a hybrid of his version and Emmylou's.  The guitar solo is certainly inspired by Daniel Lanois' solo on Wrecking Ball.  Just in case you were wondering, Emmylou's version of "Goodbye" is one of my favorite recordings of all time.

For this recording, I recorded a scratch guitar and vocal, using the metronome on my Boss BR-600 (I lose time pretty badly when I fingerpick).  Then I overdubbed my SJ-200 with the fingerpicked part.  I added the shaker, then the electric part (using the "JC Metal" amp model, of all things).  Then I recorded two strummed acoustic parts, one on the SJ-200 (no capo) and one on the Hummingbird (capo'ed fifth fret, same as the finger part).  Then the vocal, and that's it!

  Hope you like it... Download Goodbye.mp3

"Return of the Grievous Angel" demo

This was actually the first track I recorded with the Boss BR-600.  It's a little more fleshed out than "Juanita" (posted below) - this track utilizes the bass simulator (via a Telecaster), which actually sounds pretty good.  Another Gram Parsons song...

Download Return_of_the_Grievous_Angel.mp3

UPDATE: Or compare it to the "mastered" version - pretty subtle, but I guess I can hear a difference:

Download return_of_the_grievous_angel_mastered.mp3

"Juanita" - Ramblings demo

Yours truly recently got himself a groovy piece of gadgetry called the Boss BR-600.  It's a little digital 8-track recorder with a guitar modeler and built-in stereo microphones.  I gotta say, it's about the coolest thing I've ever come across, and even a hack like myself can pull together a little home recording with very little effort.

I've posted my first "demo" below - it's a cover of Gram Parsons & Chris Hillman's "Juanita", and it still needs a bit of spit and polishing, but I figured what the hell.  You can do a lot of mixing and mastering right on the unit, but I am considering buying a $100 PC recording/mixing package to maybe simplify the process a bit.  But the recording functionality is a snap, and I really like the guitar modeler (the electric parts on this demo are my Telecaster plugged directly into the unit).  The stereo mics are also surprisingly rich - that's my acoustic just played with the unit sitting in front of it.  There's also a pretty good drum machine on board, but I've not dug into it too much yet.

So here ya go... Download Juanita.mp3

No nasty comments about how I upset your dog or made your ears bleed.