thank you all again for the great reception! the new little man and work have kept me away from here lately, so thanks too for keepin' the thread alive..
Anlso, using the MP3 download, I've split the tracks up if anyone is interested, although egon would probably rather choose where the splits were.
good idea.. here's a split version:
http://www.mediafire.com/?insev7i1w2o2njdtracklist:
01 - Our Prayer
02 - Gee
03 - Heroes & Villians
04 - Do You Like Worms (with H&V reprise outro)
05 - I'm In Great Shape
06 - Barnyard
07 - The Old Master Painter/You Were My Sunshine
08 - Cabin Essence
I have to ask - are you singing 'agriculture' or 'upper country'?
glad you noticed! i tried to be more reverential to the original recordings than BWPS wherever possible (with a few exceptions), so i sang "upper [or possibly open
] country" in IIGS.. and i replaced the second "barnyard" with "farmyard," as quoted in Jules Siegel's article and heard in the Humble Harv demo. that's also why i left DYLW's bicycle rider fade outro--with the gutteral chants on top, a la the first piece of "Heroes & Villains (Sections)."
Wow - outstanding. I agree with the comparison to Mike/Bruce voice-a-like oscillation, that seems spot on. Your understanding of vocal harmony is amazing. If there's a constructive criticism here - and is this picking nits (and may be a compliment in some ways) - it's that some (definitely not all) of the vocal deliveries (in Prayer for example) use the same approach as the touring group, i.e. a bit 'scoopy' in the chord changes, the result being a tad glee-club-eque. The more straight-ahead approach taken by the BBs is more to my taste. But...I'm comparing you with the BBs. How's that even fair??
5:45 - stunning. Stunning!!!
This is so impressive - well done!
thanks for the thoughtful comments. i know what you mean about the scoopy vocals--i tried to avoid it wherever i could, though i sometimes have a hard time hitting notes right on the first try and have an easier time bending up to them (if that makes sense). there are literally
thousands of vocal outtakes on my harddrive--they're why it took so long to complete, by far.
..by the way, all of these Bruce/Mike comments are cracking me up.
I would pitch your recordings to some labels and see if anyone takes you up on the covering of a complete album.
a very interesting thought. i'd really like to at least post it on Brian's board for some more publicity, but the more views it gets the more likely the copyright police are to make me take it down. i'm actually surprised this hasn't already gone the way of the Polly Tones cover.
thanks, dave--i haven't had any time to record lately so our little group cover idea kinda fell to the side, but we should still try to make it happen!
Excuse the above, just picking myself off the floor...
O man, this is so good. You and that Jacob Borshard fellow should maybe get together for the ultimate SMiLE recreation (and why not throw in the guy behing SMiLE A.D. also!)
Seriously, this kind of work reminds me (and forgive the pseudo-profundity) that human beings are so remarkable... to work so hard on something without any profit motive, simply for love!
And, also SMiLE's place in the landscape of culture seems, to me, to grow more exceptional. What other collection of music inspires such acts of dedication and imagination?
I still can't quite place my finger on why SMiLE is so special. It might be, in part, because it was generated at a particular turning point in Western history - perhaps when older, more rigid and traditional understandings of the world were giving way to more liberal visions, but at a time when western secular capitalism hadn't quite triumphed. So SMiLE gets a kick from the excitement of living on the verge of a new epoch ("The Age of Aquarius") while retaining an openness to spiritual values, without yet being blighted by the wholesale succumbling of popular culture to sex, money and sentimentality.
I don't know! (N.B. These musings are entirely derived from Ian MacDonalds opening essay in "Revolution in The Head"!)
Whatever the case. Thank you and hope you get Parts 2 and 3 finished.
i certainly didn't expect this to inspire such a dissertation--but i know exactly what you mean
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