Difficult Music

Freddie, four-tracking, and free food
Jetbot noted recently how much she hates that car commercial where people sing along to the Barenaked Ladies. Well, I always want to hide behind the couch whenever the “We Are the Champions” Viagra commercial comes on. As a Queen fan who’s been embarrassed by that song ever since it became a sports arena anthem, hearing it as the soundtrack to a Viagra ad doesn’t exactly give me a boner. I honestly hope that the estate of Freddie Mercury is donating all that dirty pharmaceutical company cash to a worthy cause. If Roger Taylor’s getting a cut to buy a new carburetor for his Ferrari, I’ll be pissed.

I should inquire about licensing “Another One Bites the Dust” for my mouse-trapping services. Except that song sucks, too.

I was back in the basement for some more four tracking on Saturday. I’m still floundering around for quality ideas, so I decided to rerecord a Jackass Has Haybreath song from scratch.

I started with drums. I didn’t mess around with getting good sounds. I just took my two PZMs, hung one high, hung another low. That setup always makes the drums sound brittle and small, but still very listenable. I like it. However, I wasn’t sure it would cut through the din of overdubs to come, so I stuck my SM57 on the snare. Voila—the kit sounded killer.

I tore everything down after the first complete take and moved on to bass. Again, I wasn’t too fussy about sounds. I tuned up, plugged in, dialled in the SansAmp and hit “record.” Boom—three tracks of sketchy Odometer rock for future reduction, with no blisters, no knocks on the door from Flanders, some lunch, and a shower. I’d call that a good afternoon’s Muling.

After that, the belter and I took off to Maple Ridge for a private Catholic school fundraising trivia night. I tell ya, the Catholics can put on a show. The school gym was packed with over 300 people, there was free smokies, potato salad, dessert, beer (not free), a silent auction…all kinds of wholesome charitable whatnots. A friend recruited us to be on her team, so we did what we could. The belter nearly won the True or False round, while I contributed the correct answer to our final Jeopardy question (we’d wagered our entire point total, so I was shitting bricks about that one). We still were only good enough to finish eighth (out of 30 teams). I think that the “Sunday School” category was our undoing. We’ll get some Bible tutoring and kick ass next year.