"Grey Gardens" on the way: 3 versions of "David Darling"

Hey all-

Well, there are a few new, old and perennially delayed things on the docket, as ever.  Likely next up will be a multi-part posting from "Tollstock '15", but this posting was in the chamber already, so listen away if you're interested.

The posted song ("David Darling") is from a fairly recent and big bunch of thematically related songs, which...  I dunno... comprise a "cycle" or something?  Nothing linear as a rock opera, that's for sure.  Anyway, the parties involved are Roady and Dillo, and the songs are based on the fairly famous "Grey Gardens" history, as largely lifted from the two Maysles brothers documentaries as well as the fictionalized HBO version.  You may know the story: Wealthy mother and daughter, of the Bouvier family, retreating many years from society and living in squalor amid the remains of their Hamptons estate?  Abandonment by husband/ father, mental and physical deterioration, legal troubles, at least one financial rescue by Jackie (by then Onassis), famous documentary ensued?

So, yeah, this particular song is directed from "Little Edie" Beale to David Maysles.  Just to give an idea of how the sausage is made back at the Great Island Music Works, you've got the initial acoustic demo I recorded for my partners in crime (Roadkill, Dillo).  Second is a version in which the backbone (bass-drums-guitar) were recorded a month or so later in quasi-studio demo format at Sei's place in Penn Station North (or whatever the designation is), Baltimore, with subsequent overdubbing of the usual nonsense.  Third is a live-in-studio version with only the three of us from a year or so later, at the newer practice space in  Butcher's Hill, Baltimore.

jk

David Darling (acoustic demo):        
https://app.box.com/s/bj5g9tf21733u3y2e7fcs5cwtd72u65n



David Darling (full electric/ studio):  
https://app.box.com/s/8e3xoap6n3bs6sz94edqadgodz42nkl2



David Darling (3 pc rehearsal):          
https://app.box.com/s/g62pcft3nfcw3f8dvc0wh4anmssakfvl

Basement Shakedown 2014: Warren Zevon and Cheap Trick covers

Hey alls--  I've no new news for you on the production front, except for these here couple of recent covers that've been sitting around in the can, waiting on getting posted.  They're from the same basement test-drive sessions as the Stones covers from the other week, and similarly off-the-cuff but packed with lovin'.

Keeping it brief, first off is one of my perennial favorite Warren Zevon tunes, "Mohammed's Radio", off his self-titled debut from '76. Second is "Oh Candy", the first Cheap Trick single, off of their self-titled debut from '77. Total pop heaven, far as I'm concerned.  No idea what "Mohammed's Radio" is about.  I used to think "Oh Candy" was about an ingenue lost to drugs and heartbreak.   Then I realized that they were singing "he" and not "she", and it turns out (via the Wiki and Cheap Trick bio) that it's about the suicide of a friend of theirs with initials M(&)M.  Still learning about life, we are....

I'd hoped to a/b the Cheap Trick song with a cover of the weird, boxy, non-anthemic, guitarmonied, piano-laden, finger-snapping version of "I Want You to Want Me" off their second album "In Color" (a.k.a. one of the versions they probably hate).  Also maybe a/b the Zevon song with a version of "Tule's Blues".... or maybe I'll save that one for some Jackson Browne-ian action... dunno....  A million possibilities and only 168 hours in a week....

jk

Mohammed's Radio:  https://app.box.com/s/rpyzsrpsunk61sz2i7d44m595vceo67a


Oh Candy:  https://app.box.com/s/0km4hw3lpc6u3ocj6z0jdjzzrba8h3ns

Basement Shakedown 2014: Stones covers

Hey Friends!  So, yeah, the slow RKBS Industries output lately has been on account of two unrelated factors:

First off, and most exciting, is that we've been continuing to work on a couple projects that may or may not eventually dovetail to a small extent: A set of new "Grey Gardens"-based songs with Our Man Dillo , and a mixed bag of older "Honcho"-style songs with Our Man Adam.  More on this later or hopefully sooner...

The second Gummer of the Works, now fairly long resolved, was last year's basement renovation at the Harpswell Estate.  All the gear was packed and stacked at the other end of the basement for a few months, and it took forever to get everything up and running again, but last fall or so found Roady up in the Midcoast and we were finally able to take things out for a test drive.  Things are sounding even better now, but the room sounded quite nice from the get-go. It was a last-minute thing and the session went down really fast, necessitating a lot of audible calls, relentless eye contact and such, but it was good fun to knock out a couple pairs of old classic rockers. 

The others'll go up next week or so, but I figured we'd start you off with some Stones, both off of my still-fave "Exile On Main St.": a good stab at "Torn and Frayed" and a pretty rough go at "Tumbling Dice".  Enjoy!

JK

Torn and Frayed:  https://app.box.com/s/jdcdyi0ekqi8k3yu1vdxgumayb628927


Tumbling Dice: https://app.box.com/s/iufebomzig5byoqj08kqddsuiltw9u6q

Happy St. Pat's! Another round of Pogues covers on me!

Hey alls--  Yeah, as I've mentioned before, St. Patrick's Day is not one of those holidays that I go out of my way to celebrate.  Too much of the ol' fake cheer and hollow commercialism, same as most other aspects of public life?  Maybe.  But I remain a sentimental bastard and I do note St. Pat's when it rolls around. It brings back some very good memories from across the vast spread of years, and lately I've been trying every year to bang out at least one cover song for anyone who's interested.   For instance, here's last year's post, with links to a Pogues cover and one from Great Big Sea:

http://roadkillbuttsteak.blogspot.com/2014/03/happy-st-pats-rum-and-whiskey-covered.html

This year, mid-March snuck up alarmingly fast among all the work and winter and all, and I almost dropped the ball but managed to get things recorded over a couple sessions, mostly last Sunday.  It was again good fun and a great excuse learn these songs, to dust off the banjo and bouzouki and, lord help us, accordion and such, and to work on my even dustier skills on those instruments.  Strangely, the hardest part is probably when laying down the vocals, trying to stifle the impulse to mimic Shane's slurry brogue, but these sound pretty American to me.  You be the judge.  As usual, I mixed things down far too rapidly, and on headphones, but I'm hoping the fidelity is passable.  There's a cover of the Pogues own "If I Should Fall From Grace With God", and a meta-cover of their definitive version of Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town".

Anyway, please do read James Fearnley's recent Pogues memoir Here Comes Everybody.  It's really unbelievably evocative stuff, and in the running for best music writing I've come across this year (and I read a lot of music writing).   Like St. Patrick's Day itself, there's a lot wrong with the rigamarol that's become associated the Pogues, and especially Shane MacGowan, over the years, but there is so much right as well.  Before he really revved up his slow-motion public suicide in earnest, the man wrote the ugliest and funnies and most achingly beautiful songs, and the band was a wonderful aggregate of individual personalities and contributions.  To me, "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash" and "If I Should Fall From Grace with God" are absolutely perfect albums, and the ones on either side no slouches either.

As a dear, departed friend of mine would say, "Slàinte y'all"!

jk

If I Should Fall From Grace With God:  https://app.box.com/s/kt1zlyeyjtqqyqcvh2wo489ogm2jh17k


Dirty Old Town:                                  https://app.box.com/s/eng240gfxs0g0xbhdp707xqew2scqh2c

"It Could Be Rock n' Roll" b/w "Your New Thing"

Ah, sweet recidivism!  Though coming from the same recording session,s these here songs are the flipside of the previous sensitive and introspective post.  Whatcha got is two rock songs.  First one is the self-referential "It Could Be Rock n' Roll", yer typical paen to the curative powers of Rock.  Second is "Your New Thing", in which I call into question the recent vogue of bass-lass combos... because somebody had to.  And... go!

https://soundcloud.com/johnk-rkbs

JK

It Could Be Rock n' Roll:        https://app.box.com/s/5nvx40u9wj74642m4kn7


Your New Thing:            https://app.box.com/s/weom03ng3bqj88s2ir2n

"Mercator Projection" b/w "Give Me a Sign"

Hey alls-

First off a reminder that you can stream goods over here if you want:
https://soundcloud.com/johnk-rkbs
And also can revisit the first post from this session here:
"Mary, Mary" b/w "Wrung Out"

Otherwise, yeah, we're back to a couple solo efforts from the basement.

First one is a nice, sweeping instrumental called "Mercator Projection".  This one could've gone about a hundred different ways, but it ended up in the kind of Giant Sand/ Calexico soundtrack territory that takes me back to my Tucson days.  The drums are brushed.  The Gretsch is heavily delayed and as heavily panned right and left. As part of the obligatory Ennio Morricone nod, the baritone guitar is in there, sometimes run through the Hummingbird super-fast tremolo (a combination that I've come to really like and will no doubt run into the ground in short order).  As another nod to spaghetti westerns (and simultaneously to the Zombies) I dialed up some Mellotron strings on the keyboard.  Anyway, I'm fond of these type of numbers.  Maybe should dig up a couple of the old ones and lend them a new gloss with all my mod production skillz and fancy gear....

"Give Me a Sign", on the other hand, is cinematic more in the sense that it kept managing again and again to crawl off the scrap heap.  I dunno.... I still don't feel I've arrived at the right destination but didn't want to sweat it out any more.  Maybe I'll look back in a few months and the right hook/ riff/ melody/ etc will spark to mind...  In the meantime, that's what they made B-sides for!  Just figured I'd include it with the post to see what anybody else thought of it in the current state.

Yers,

JK

Mercator Projection:   https://app.box.com/s/okdfkm70bid0mzj5ktgc  


Give Me a Sign:  https://app.box.com/s/87luf4lt7dee6qutnmmr

Happy Goddarned Christmas 2014 from the RKBS family!

Hey all-- First off, a reminder that the SoundCloud option for originals is here: 

https://soundcloud.com/johnk-rkbs

Second off, your ol' Cousin Roswell and Uncle Butteford are wishing a Happy Goddarned Christmas to all a you!!  Make it as atheistic, Judaic or BabyJesus-soaked as you want, we figure.... We like to treat it (literally as well as figuratively) as a build-your-own-holiday bar!

As to the tunes, though the Great Island Basement Workshop at the Harpswell Estate was off-line for a long, long, long while before, during and after the fancification project down there, the first delicate green sprouts of music have been followed by a burst of rockin' out.  It also turns out that a couple formations of elves have been busy down in Baltimore working on some projects (more on that later), but the lil' devils also have managed to get some output out of Home Base.

This post consists of a couple tracks I wrote last year, and only managed to get last-minute acoustic versions posted.  This year, the electric versions were equally rushed, but ended up closer to the intended target.  I was down in Charm City a few weeks back, at which point we got Roady's drums recorded.  I downloaded the e-tracks from him this past Saturday and then spent a good part of Sunday down in the cellar hammering  out the details. 

"Time for Christmas" remains sweet, wistful and chimey as ever.  The Rickenbacker 12 string on the right does the heavy lifting, and that's the Gretsch over on the left and the Gibson J45 acoustic straight up the middle.

"Old Fashioned Christmas" is the next in my short line of boozy holiday songs, "old fashioned" in this case not being an adjective but a noun.  The music-hall intro is old-timey, sure, but the rest is a roof-raiser and reminds me of our old Dillo/ Pourbillies days down Baltimore way, even it I don't know that my old self would've come up with as good a middle eight (1:47) as this ended up with.  For completeness' sake, that's still the Gibson acoustic, with a Les Paul on the right and a Telecaster to the left.  The P-bass on both songs, btw.  (Turns out I do have one lyrical bit to dive back in and settle-- a bit about "Who needs a bar when they've got a jar and they're adding whatever you bring"-- and will get to that sooner or later...)

Merry/ Happy!

jhk for Your RK/BS Industries

"Time for Christmas":    https://app.box.com/s/ttjzioccw17zqd74wh4r


"Old Fashioned Christmas":   https://app.box.com/s/qq0rg9wa2g5pxwawqwkp