Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The red light is on...

In honor of the Police reuniting*, I have posted a version of "Roxanne" to my MySpace page. This was recorded by Green Craig and myself in his old boxcar apartment on a day when we clearly didn't have a whole lot to do. When we recorded stuff there, we often had to wait until nobody was doing laundry in the building, and we always had to disconnect his toilet. It just made too much noise.

We were playing around with something else and Craig said we could turn it into "Roxanne" by changing one note. We changed the note, and had a little bit of fun until we realized that neither of us knew all of the lyrics.

We sat much nearer to each other than was customary for these types of apartment demos, so that we could both see the sheet of lyrics we had downloaded. My crappiness with a bass is more evident than normal on this one, and Craig mercifully faded out before my larger blunders could begin. He added some vinyl scratches when he mixed it down.

We always had a rule about not doing covers that were hit songs, but this one was just so much fun to play that we brought it to the band, and we turned it into a very dynamic full-band rendition based largely on the mellow feel of this recording. During the breaks at the end of verses, the drums used to go nuts.

It was chaotic and wonderful, and I wish I had a decent recording of the whole band cracking this song open, lapping up the basic idea and turning it into something new.

Anyway, I really enjoy this tiny, impromptu recording of a classic song, and I hope you will too.

*This really doesn't have nearly as much to do with the reunion as it does with me stumbling across this recording last night and remembering how much I loved making it.

5 comments:

Caroline said...

What a perfect start to my day!
*swoon*

Ms Melancholy said...

Mr Moon, this is very beautiful. I love this song anyway, and you have more than done it justice. I love the guitar harmonics at the beginining and the scratchy record sound...

If I weren't already married and betrothed to YellowDuck, I would ask you to marry me. (Proposing to people is a habit I need to curtail, I think...)

basest said...

Maht....
i really...really....really....love this. That "cover no hits" rule was sort of stupid, anyhow.

The Moon Topples said...

Caroline: Thanks muchly. As you can tell from the scratchy recording, we did this one way before the Police got around to it.

Ms. M: I'm beginning to worry about your compulsion to propose marriage in blog comments. Let me know if you need to talk about it...

Basest: I still agree with the principal of the "no hits" rule, but love exceptions to rules just as much. Especially in this case, where there was so much fun to be had. Glad you enjoyed it.

Ms Melancholy said...

Iknow. It's a problem. Promise I will stop soon.... I missed the bit at the beginning of this post about The Police reuniting. Bad idea. In fact they should have split after the first album. Regatta de Blanc was crap. And if Sting goes any further up his own arse he will require surgically removing.