Poopot's Cover Challenge #25 - the letter L

fnpt

@thecolourbox ;Urban Hymns coincided with my last year at college (yes, I'm that old) and I have very fond memories of those days. The Verve in particular were one of the soundtracks for the period after my wife passed away a few years back. For some reason, Richard Ashcroft has this ability to convey hope and a sense of tranquility.

fnpt

As an aside, I still wonder why some people reference Oasis as the ultimate 90's band when you had Blur, Suede and particularly The Verve which were all at a completely different level, both at song writing level and as musicians. 

thecolourbox

fnpt said:

@thecolourbox ;Urban Hymns coincided with my last year at college (yes, I'm that old) and I have very fond memories of those days. The Verve in particular were one of the soundtracks for the period after my wife passed away a few years back. For some reason, Richard Ashcroft has this ability to convey hope and a sense of tranquility.

Sorry to hear of your loss, that must have been so awful for you. I could just kind of feel there was something more to that performance than just doing a cover, at least my spidey senses aren't too awry. Well it's a great production and really well played/sang. As you say, Ashcroft's writing does have that kind of uplifting sense to it even when slightly down beat - Drugs Don't Work remains my absolute favourites, absolutely kills me every time I hear it though

flying_pie

@thecolourbox in the playlist again!

fnpt

@thecolourbox Jeff Buckley! Really? What a great, great cover. And the similarity in the vocals is outstanding. I did consider this one as well but though it was above my capabilities. Well done.

thecolourbox

Thanks fnpt that's very kind. I listen to Buckley a LOT (like, really a lot) so I've made quite detailed mental notes on the various little techniques he uses often, where to put my voice and the facial expressions to sing with to get some of the tones right on the twiddly bits. So I don't really have his accent or timbre but hopefully sounds like me doing some of the techniques and trills etc that he does. Also nodding head fast on the longer higher notes for his vibrato. Basically i'm obsessed I think. I do generally have to transpose his stuff down by a semitone or tone for it to fit in my zone as I did with this one, tuned down one semi tone.

Drums and bass I input bar by bar from drum/bass tabs, I just used the Cubase Groove Agent drum kits. Guitars were all me on my relatively new Squier Classic Vibe Thinline Tele, mostly in standard tuning but the crunch bit is drop D and the slide is open G (but obviously all a semitone lower). Amps are all Helix Native - the clean sounds are the Ventoux with or without a Timmy, the drive is a Marshall something, 2203 or something? I dunno. Love the Ventoux model. Helix Native also used to run my voice through an overdrive pedal and reverb on the last bit (it's overrrrrrr etc) for that Muse guitar sounding voice thing, I also seem to have nicked a bit from Muse's Hyper Music on my first "overrrrr" haha whoops

There were honestly so many songs in my L playlist that I was considering - Learn to Fly Foo Fighters, Let It Go James Bay, Last night I had the Strangest Dream, Lithium Nirvana, Last Request Paulo Nutini, Love is Blindness u2, and several others less well known

Habanero

@thecolourbox

I originally planned doing 'Little Dreamer' by Van Halen as a tribute to Eddie, with just a clean guitar and vocal and lots of reverb. However I concluded I wouldn't be able to simplify the solo into the same style, so decided against it.

I also considered 'Lick It Up' by Kiss.

thecolourbox

Aha yeah exactly, L is a strong letter for song titles! Just had a quick look through M on my Spotify liked tracks though and there's some crackers there too. 

I did busk out a very minimal version of The Smiths Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me but listening back to it I nearly died of misery so I et that one go

idiotwind

thecolourbox said:

Aha yeah exactly, L is a strong letter for song titles!

I did chuckle a little bit that the letter that made us implement the "The" rule was L, a letter which could sustain about 2 years worth of this challenge on its own

idiotwind

I've sent in another entry.  It's a bit silly and may take a bit of explanation.

In short, it's Livin' la Vida Loca by Ricky Martin, as if it were interpolated into El Paso (hey, that's sort of an "L" song right?) by Marty Robbins as performed by the Grateful Dead, sandwiched into Dark Star (as they occasionally did).

Basically I was thinking what if Feleena, the wicked girl who leads the cowboy to his death in El Paso was also the girl from La Vida Loca, so I weaved in between the two to make one story.  So I think Ricky Martin shoots a guy and then gets killed himself?  Anyway, there's a bit of a joke in Dead circles about them going from a massive Dark Star jam into El Paso and back out into more jamming, so I had to stick that in there.  Vocals are a bit rough as a) I can't sing and b) I wasn't going to sing all that twice.

Well, enjoy...

stratman3142

Sorry, but it's unlikely I'll get an entry in for this one. Just too much going on.

TTony

idiotwind said:

In short, it's Livin' la Vida Loca by Ricky Martin, as if it were interpolated into El Paso (hey, that's sort of an "L" song right?) by Marty Robbins as performed by the Grateful Dead, sandwiched into Dark Star (as they occasionally did).

Basically I was thinking what if Feleena, the wicked girl who leads the cowboy to his death in El Paso was also the girl from La Vida Loca, so I weaved in between the two to make one story.  So I think Ricky Martin shoots a guy and then gets killed himself?  Anyway, there's a bit of a joke in Dead circles about them going from a massive Dark Star jam into El Paso and back out into more jamming, so I had to stick that in there.  Vocals are a bit rough as a) I can't sing and b) I wasn't going to sing all that twice.

People always do the obvious ones …

flying_pie

@idiotwind in the playlist again 

thecolourbox

Absolutely bonkers Idiotwind, brilliant stuff. Very nice textures on your playing as well, had that kind of chilled retro vibe to it without being ironic (despite your song choice being i'm guessing at least slightly ironic?). Well done

IMC1980

Amazing amount of entries for this round, unfortunately I won't be able to submit one this time. Looking forward to giving all of them a proper listen and voting though!

flying_pie

Remember that entries close tomorrow night

mrkb

Have sent mine in - bit of a crap one this month as I kind of gave up on it, but chucked it together today to get in the habit of making decisions and finishing tracks! 

flying_pie

@mrkb in the playlist.

Entries close tonight around 11.30pm (or tomorrow morning if I go to bed early)

flying_pie

Entries closed