Spin Tunes 18 Round 3 - Tell Me What You Want

[DutchWidows]

Here are some breathing exercises...

Thanks Cybronica - that’s such a helpful reply! I shall give that a go!

[Chumpy]

This time around the Jerks are joined by Leonie of Hot Pink Halo, we run down all the songs and shadows from SpinTunes #18 Round 3!

Some deets:

• Download or point your browser directly at the mp3
• Point your podcast software at the feed
• View the podcast on iTunes

INDEX:

• 00:00:00 - Intro Song
• 00:00:45 - Beginning-of-podcast blather
• 00:13:42 - Chas Rock - Job Interview
• 00:20:13 - See-Man-Ski - Climb Up The Leaderboard
• 00:29:15 - Brian Gray - My People
• 00:36:10 - The Dutch Widows - Trapped
• 00:41:45 - "BucketHat" Bobby Matheson - Goerfeldt's 3rd - Keep The Band Together
• 00:49:53 - Jim of Seattle - I'm Not One of Them
• 00:57:08 - Stacking Theory - REAPER MAN (EVERYTHING CHANGES SO WHY CAN'T I​?​)
• 01:08:07 - Cavedwellers featuring BSS - I Want to be ME
• 01:14:50 - Phlubububub - Olimar's Theme
• 01:23:38 - Daniel Sitler - Miracle
• 01:31:46 - Sober - Leave the Ladder
• 01:37:56 - Governing Dynamics - Home
• 01:43:33 - Third Cat - Techno Man
• 01:51:11 - Timothy Patrick Hinkle - The Stars Overhead (SHADOW)
• 01:56:39 - Jocko Homomorphism - Rose-Lit Keep (The Lighthouse) (SHADOW)
• 02:02:17 - Jealous Brother - I Need You Jake (SHADOW)
• 02:06:15 - Brother Baker - On That Day (SHADOW)
• 02:10:06 - Dr. Lindyke (ft. Denise Hudson) - Spread My Wings and Fly (SHADOW)
• 02:13:32 - Menage a Tune - Jackass Annie (SHADOW)
• 02:16:56 - Cybronica - Banshee (SHADOW)
• 02:24:03 - Jocko Homomorphism - Rose-Lit Keep (The Lighthouse) (SHADOW)
• 02:26:58 - Closing Thoughts
• 02:33:47 - End-of-podcast blather

This is probably not what you want.

[glennny]

Dear Jerkatorium,

If you think the bass line to Walk on the Wild Side is just 2 notes, you have missed the genius of it. It is 5 notes. It is double stops sliding in contrary motions. The recording is an electric bass sliding in one direction while the Upright Bass is sliding in the other. I was first impressed by this when Will Lee of the Late Night with David Lettermen wrote an article in some bass player magazine on how he tackled playing both bass lines simultaneously when Lou was on the show. This link explains it rather well:

https://www.talkingbass.net/walk-on-the-wild-side/

[crumpart]

Dear Jerkatorium,

If you think the bass line to Walk on the Wild Side is just 2 notes, you have missed the genius of it. It is 5 notes. It is double stops sliding in contrary motions. The recording is an electric bass sliding in one direction while the Upright Bass is sliding in the other. I was first impressed by this when Will Lee of the Late Night with David Lettermen wrote an article in some bass player magazine on how he tackled playing both bass lines simultaneously when Lou was on the show. This link explains it rather well:

https://www.talkingbass.net/walk-on-the-wild-side/

I found this cool video on it the other day that I looked up after we’d talked about it on the podcast. (Meanwhile, the baseline from my sample in the Stacking Theory song is just two notes. I’d been working from Love Thy Will Be Done by Martika which has just one pedal note in the bass, and thought I’d spice it up a touch….)

[Cybronica]

Hey everybody, listened to everything. Lots of interesting things that this cruel, cruel challenge brought forth! If you are interested in any feedback, PM me and happy to go into however much detail you are interested in. Thanks for the fun hour!

Hey Jim! Even though I’m a little late, I’d love to hear what you have to say about my song Banshee!

[Jim of Seattle]

Hey everybody, listened to everything. Lots of interesting things that this cruel, cruel challenge brought forth! If you are interested in any feedback, PM me and happy to go into however much detail you are interested in. Thanks for the fun hour!

Hey Jim! Even though I’m a little late, I’d love to hear what you have to say about my song Banshee!

Well sure! Listened twice this evening and have some thoughts but I want to pay it fuller attention.

[gizo]

Stacking Theory: Hey baby, take a walk on the wild side. Super vibey, very cool things going on in every section. I am very much annoyed with your kick patch, and how it's the exact same sound at the exact same velocity over and over. Humanize, randomize, something pls. Maybe a less natural sample would be less grating. Drums are so far back when the big reaper man chorus finally comes in, but I'm kind of ok with it. This deep-cut 90's Oasis vibe is something. Ah, ok so at the end you embrace the Lou Reed thing with the doot doots. Neat I guess. Arrangement is definitely the strong point here; you clearly put a lot of thought into section-by-section instrumentation, and it keeps things interesting. Would like to hear with a modern mix and more attention paid to drum programming.

Hey Sober - thanks muchly for sharing your thoughts. I really do appreciate it, and most of it makes sense.

One things that I don’t understand is ‘modern mix’. What exactly does that mean? I did a Google and it sent me to a page from 2006, so…..

I would really appreciate if you could elaborate for me / you’ve got a very strong production capability and I’d love to understand more of what you’re thinking about here.

Tanks a mill.

[Sober]

One things that I don’t understand is ‘modern mix’. What exactly does that mean? I did a Google and it sent me to a page from 2006, so…..

I would really appreciate if you could elaborate for me / you’ve got a very strong production capability and I’d love to understand more of what you’re thinking about here.

Tanks a mill.

I admit that I'm not knowledgeable enough to explain, and I'm probably wrong about what I think I mean anyway.

But my gut instinct is that if we were to A/B your mix against popular releases from different decades, this would probably fit in best with the 90s mixes. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, given the style of song you've written, having a punchy kick and snare that cut right through the mix might kill the vibe you've created.

[crumpart]

Tanks a mill.

Very Pleased that you’re learning some Irish.

[gizo]

But my gut instinct is that if we were to A/B your mix against popular releases from different decades, this would probably fit in best with the 90s mixes

Ah right - I understand what you were saying now. Thanks

I reckon you’d be right on that, my ears betray my age….

[Jim of Seattle]

So Cybronica, I have gone through Banshee half a dozen times now. I think it's pretty cool, and when listening I found my imagination starting to go hog wild on it, which is a good sign in my book. I don't think it reaches nearly its potential, which is high.

Right away, the verse hook that comes down from that high E is nice and catchy, and your vocal register is exciting up there. So that's half the battle. This song could almost have been eligible for Round 4 as it sits on Em and C most of the time. I think there's a ton of opportunity to explore some more harmonic ideas, because you are repeating that same tune a lot, on the same two chords. It's not terrible, but it feels like you are chopping an potentially exciting song off at the knees. It's already pretty exciting, so that's pretty cool. But, as you will read, this song could completely work with just those chords if other things were happening.

Btw I don't really have any comments about the lyrics, and I think that's because the music kept my attention and I kept getting distracted. From what I did pay attention to, they seemed fine. I don't think this song is about the lyrics though, so if you do, and are non-plussed that I'm going to only talk music, then that's a problem right there, because I just couldn't focus on them for whatever reason .

If I were producing this song, this is what I might suggest:

Take all the reverb off the piano. At least once the rest of the band is playing. It sounds cool at the beginning, but it just muddies up the mix once everything else is going on. The combination of the muddy piano and the humming background singers makes for this sort of gray wash. Keep the vocals in there and let the piano do what it's good at in a mix - adding rhythmic interest.

I think once you did that, you might come to realize that a lot of rhythmic possibility is being left on the table, because the piano is just playing straight 8ths the whole time, and the drums aren't playing off that rhythm either, so this dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut-dut effect will suddenly be noticeable. Here's where you can perk up instrumental interest though, by starting to change up the piano and/or drums, like throwing in something unexpected, a little syncopation, stuff like that. A little dusting of rhythm guitar might be appropriate too, though you'd have to try it out at the time, maybe not.

So like I said, your high register is exciting - it has a lot of power. (Ironically, the song is lyrically sort of about that power.) I would maybe suggest you try saving anything up in that register until the chorus. As it is, when you sing that you scream like a banshee, you really are singing the exact same thing you've been singing all along, just a little more intensely. So it's not as big a moment as it might be. If the verse started down lower and slowly made it's way up, then you only sing that high E in the chorus, it will have a lot more punch, and the G and beyond you manage to zap so well would be even better. (Another trick if you don't want to do that would be changing keys for the chorus, but that seems more expensive in terms of rewriting the thing.) I could hear this being one of those songs that starts out super quiet, just you at an intense bare whisper and maybe just the bass, and gradually builds to this huge sound by the end.

The other thing I thought was that the bass isn't doing anything very interesting, and is usually this really clean tone. There are moments I hear it do a little more in the second verse around 115-130, but I think that can go a lot farther, you could get dirtier with it.

I love that banshee wail effect! Works great for me. And that spooky bridge with the toms, very neat. It can also be dirtier.

I am reminded of the PJ Harvey album "Is This Desire?". An old fave of mine. I keep hearing this song as being another track on that album.

Thanks for asking! I love doing this. I'm totally hearing my imaginary uninvited version of the song in my head now.

[Cybronica]

So Cybronica, I have gone through Banshee half a dozen times now. I think it's pretty cool…

Thank you for taking the time to write this! I really appreciate it as I am going over it and reworking the arrangement and mix. I’ll post when it’s done!