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
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
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 S
hould Fall From Grace With God: https://app.box.com/s/kt1zlyeyjtqqyqcvh2wo489ogm2jh17k
Dirty Old Town: https://app.box.com/s/eng240gfxs0g0xbhdp707xqew2scqh2c
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 S
hould Fall From Grace With God: https://app.box.com/s/kt1zlyeyjtqqyqcvh2wo489ogm2jh17kDirty Old Town: https://app.box.com/s/eng240gfxs0g0xbhdp707xqew2scqh2c
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
"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
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
Sunday, January 11, 2015
"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
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
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
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
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
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
"Mary Mary" b/w "Wrung Out"
First, a reminder to teel free to head over to the SoundCloud. Once there, you can stream and possibly enjoy some originals-only RKBS material:
https://soundcloud.com/johnk-rkbs/
Now, as to the business at hand, the time's flown yet again-- everything accelerating in the wrong places and evaporating in the other wrong places. But to hell with it, after all: Here are some modernized, if still rough sounds for your ears. Both songs date back to the just-after-Honcho-band days in Baltimore, as I recall.
"Mary Mary" was definitely a '90s tune, the "Mary" in question actually being Mary Bono, widow of ol' Cher'in', furry-vest-sportin', Phil Spector-hangin', Palm Springs-mayorin' and terminally-skiin' Sonny. She looked like a little lost lamb during those House Clinton impeachment hearings, Mary did, and thought I'd encourage her to lose that crowd she was hanging with. Anyway, it was and is a pop song, to my understanding, and always a bit rootsy. This go-round it happily took on a little bit of a street party feel, once the overdriven Wurlitzer hit, and the congos, guiro and all that. Best version to date, so this one goes into the "win" column.
"Wrung Out" clearly lands a more on the "alterna-" side of things, but it was the '90s, after all. It's definitely a B-side, but it's fun to revisit and re-work things: hard-pan the drums right and left, take up some bass guitar, add those long-needed harmonies, work out the guitar parts and all that... Of course I had to leave Nicholas J. Pootle's guest vocals at around 2:12. Gettin' lazy about all the mixing and editing, I am, but also it warms my heart to here a little "woof" here, some squeaky toy over there, or a collar jangle when you least expect it.
Mary Mary: https://app.box.com/s/cw75d5eb4wpxxe3ythmr
Wrung Out: https://app.box.com/s/vxn1zbpiv249x6ph7nnu
https://soundcloud.com/johnk-rkbs/
Now, as to the business at hand, the time's flown yet again-- everything accelerating in the wrong places and evaporating in the other wrong places. But to hell with it, after all: Here are some modernized, if still rough sounds for your ears. Both songs date back to the just-after-Honcho-band days in Baltimore, as I recall.
"Mary Mary" was definitely a '90s tune, the "Mary" in question actually being Mary Bono, widow of ol' Cher'in', furry-vest-sportin', Phil Spector-hangin', Palm Springs-mayorin' and terminally-skiin' Sonny. She looked like a little lost lamb during those House Clinton impeachment hearings, Mary did, and thought I'd encourage her to lose that crowd she was hanging with. Anyway, it was and is a pop song, to my understanding, and always a bit rootsy. This go-round it happily took on a little bit of a street party feel, once the overdriven Wurlitzer hit, and the congos, guiro and all that. Best version to date, so this one goes into the "win" column.
"Wrung Out" clearly lands a more on the "alterna-" side of things, but it was the '90s, after all. It's definitely a B-side, but it's fun to revisit and re-work things: hard-pan the drums right and left, take up some bass guitar, add those long-needed harmonies, work out the guitar parts and all that... Of course I had to leave Nicholas J. Pootle's guest vocals at around 2:12. Gettin' lazy about all the mixing and editing, I am, but also it warms my heart to here a little "woof" here, some squeaky toy over there, or a collar jangle when you least expect it.
Mary Mary: https://app.box.com/s/cw75d5eb4wpxxe3ythmr
Wrung Out: https://app.box.com/s/vxn1zbpiv249x6ph7nnu
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Stackpole-Dillo '13: Small Faces/ Faces/ Humble Pie
Hey alls, and how time does fly! Summer's 2/3 over and I have not been to this here site in a long time. In part that's on account of some major renovations to the Designated Rock Zone at the Harpswell Estate. In part it's account of summer being here. In part it's on account of some travels hither and yon. It's hard to focus on the music/ site when your gear's all stowed, when the weather's fine and there's work and play to do outside, and when you're faraways on the road. In any event, we hopefully should be back on track...
To break the fast, here's a "3-fer" of holdovers from the 2013 Harpswell sessions with Johnny Stackpole and Paulie Cardillo. We've already lapped ourselves, having just played and recorded some stuff last month down in the NY metro area, so this is all long overdue, but it's good stuff and also thematically related, pulling on the strands of some of my recent-years faves: the extended (Small Faces) fambly.
"Song of a Baker" comes off the Small Faces psychedelic classic "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" from '68. Though I prefer their amped-up R&B offerings, the Small Faces rarely let you down, and it's impossibly fun to try and recreate the vibes of so many giants, especially the ever-underrated Ronnie Lane (bass)/ Kenny Jones (drums) rhythm section. Add on some of those vintage Ian MacLagan keys and try your best Stever Marriott yelp and what more could you ask for?
After Marriott split, Ronnie, Jonesy and Mac persevered, picked up Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood from the Jeff Beck group, dropped the "Small", and proceeded to put out some of the best live and studio music of the mid-70's as (the) Faces. This here is one of Ronnie Lane's cuts, Rod the Mod only singing a bit on the bridge section. Ronnie was a master of both the good-timey and the bittersweet, and "Debris" is one of the latter, from 1971's "A Nod is As Good As a Wink... to a Blind Horse". Man, they could've released that LP with nothing but this song and their big hit "Stay With Me", and I'd still pay full fare.
The other former Small Face, Steve Marriott, ended up throwing in with some other gents and forming the quasi-supergroup Humble Pie in 1969 (Peter Frampton being the most famous of the other members). Especially after Frampton decamped in 1971, the Pie dealt in much harder arena-style boogie rock than the Faces' slop/ blooz/ rock/ heart-on-sleeve raveups. "30 Days in the Hole", released in '72, was maybe their biggest hit, and it gets to a lot of the overconsumption that would largely do Marriott in. Lordy, but it's a shouter! I had several runs at it, but it's just out of my range, and after each I just ended up woozy and frustrated. The vocal tracks on it are my closest approximation, so please accept my apologies, but I do hope you like the version.
More fine listeneables shortly!
jk out!
Song of a Baker (Small Faces): https://app.box.com/s/jtp1q4zx4dlnm2u3sm8b
Debris (Faces): https://app.box.com/s/xau1boyx20zo6np2iz1z
30 Days in the Hole (Humble Pie): https://app.box.com/s/0ych5k0qsa885mqffgph
To break the fast, here's a "3-fer" of holdovers from the 2013 Harpswell sessions with Johnny Stackpole and Paulie Cardillo. We've already lapped ourselves, having just played and recorded some stuff last month down in the NY metro area, so this is all long overdue, but it's good stuff and also thematically related, pulling on the strands of some of my recent-years faves: the extended (Small Faces) fambly.
"Song of a Baker" comes off the Small Faces psychedelic classic "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" from '68. Though I prefer their amped-up R&B offerings, the Small Faces rarely let you down, and it's impossibly fun to try and recreate the vibes of so many giants, especially the ever-underrated Ronnie Lane (bass)/ Kenny Jones (drums) rhythm section. Add on some of those vintage Ian MacLagan keys and try your best Stever Marriott yelp and what more could you ask for?
After Marriott split, Ronnie, Jonesy and Mac persevered, picked up Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood from the Jeff Beck group, dropped the "Small", and proceeded to put out some of the best live and studio music of the mid-70's as (the) Faces. This here is one of Ronnie Lane's cuts, Rod the Mod only singing a bit on the bridge section. Ronnie was a master of both the good-timey and the bittersweet, and "Debris" is one of the latter, from 1971's "A Nod is As Good As a Wink... to a Blind Horse". Man, they could've released that LP with nothing but this song and their big hit "Stay With Me", and I'd still pay full fare.
The other former Small Face, Steve Marriott, ended up throwing in with some other gents and forming the quasi-supergroup Humble Pie in 1969 (Peter Frampton being the most famous of the other members). Especially after Frampton decamped in 1971, the Pie dealt in much harder arena-style boogie rock than the Faces' slop/ blooz/ rock/ heart-on-sleeve raveups. "30 Days in the Hole", released in '72, was maybe their biggest hit, and it gets to a lot of the overconsumption that would largely do Marriott in. Lordy, but it's a shouter! I had several runs at it, but it's just out of my range, and after each I just ended up woozy and frustrated. The vocal tracks on it are my closest approximation, so please accept my apologies, but I do hope you like the version.
More fine listeneables shortly!
jk out!
Song of a Baker (Small Faces): https://app.box.com/s/jtp1q4zx4dlnm2u3sm8b
Debris (Faces): https://app.box.com/s/xau1boyx20zo6np2iz1z
30 Days in the Hole (Humble Pie): https://app.box.com/s/0ych5k0qsa885mqffgph
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