murder ballad - the first new song horsemouth has written in a long time. as usual he has had it sitting around for ages but has never got around to finishing it (until now when he needs to record it). horsemouth wanted to record a murder ballad but an up-to-date one, to go with his thieving song (gentleman john) and his collection of folk sayings (the devil song).
horsemouth plays it through on the nylon string guitar for howard but he's not got it so well nailed with all the bits that he thinks he could get it down to click and he wants to record it to click because he doesn't want it speeding up and slowing down (the main point of the tune is the lyrics).
record four minutes 20 seconds of the main riff over and over to click.
then, and this is where horsemouth made his first mistake, adding the first crack at the vocals assuming that he can remember the bar lengths of the instrumental breaks. what this means is that the vocals end up all present and correct but the instrumental breaks end up of variable lengths (oops).
oops. ah well. various percussion-y things added. various backing vocals sung (highs and lows). instrumental break guitar parts laid down (based on satie's gnossienne no.1) but because horsemouth has miscalculated the bar lengths it never plays in full.
a little yelling in french and a backing vocal on the payoff lines. ok job done. sounds more like stereotype than ghost town (oh well).
dinner - posh beans on toast and apple juice (cheers howard).
set up reconfigured to record vocal and guitar simultaneously.
'something's on your mind' (made famous by karen dalton but actually written by dino valenti)
first take decent. second take slower and better. recorded with howard's hohner 6 string.
an attempt to double the harmonics at the start with the telecaster copy fails. horsemouth does a telecaster style guitar part for the whole song. (mostly he's keeping it very sparse and trying not to fuck up). which comes out well except for one bit (which can probably be lost). horsemouth always knew that guitar would come in handy.
howard adds a nice reverb to it.
horsemouth then he doubles up the main vocal. result! probably the keeper from the session.
'if you have ghosts' (roky erickson)
again recorded with howard's hohner 6 string.
the run-down as per the original roky record then the song taken slower and lower (around C and not entirely correctly). vocal doubled and then a whispering vocal added. have to have a think about how to bring this on home.
'sometimes our dreams (they float like anchors)' (william eliot whitmore)
a tune horsemouth learnt from minty. he thinks this was recorded on howard's yamaha. recorded without incident. no attempt to double the vocals. perhaps try an organ on it.
'you and your sister' (chris bell of big star but made famous by this mortal coil) well horsemouth attempted this at howard's urging but he was too out of practice to get to grips with it.
the end. tidy up.
go to the pub (wetherspoons - sorry sacked youth). horsemouth had one pint. howard two. two packets of crisps. end of day.
horsemouth will wait and see if howard gets the chance to put up a demo mix of any of them on soundcloud.
otherwise the theory is to be back at it on friday (exhaustion permitting). this is why horsemouth is getting a crack at his songs over recording howard's songs - howard is just knackered from work. howard has requested you and your sister (so horsemouth will work this up) and he'll have a hunt round in his notebooks for other possible tunes.
back at the gaff one of his housemates has come down with covid (oh no). this will necessitate some re-arranging of plans. horsemouth actually thinks the housemate has had it before but this is the first time he's actually tested positive for it (because the tests are a bit shit and because nobody liked sticking things down their throats).
that said horsemouth has no desire to be a typhoid mary and spread it round his family and friends - he loves you all dearly but he doesn't require you to share his ailments.
it's a beautiful morning outside. horsemouth will wander up the allotment and have a ponder.
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