Song #330 of 9999
Title: Old Shanghai
Artist: Frank & Jeff
Year: 2013
Album: Beck's Song Reader, Songs 1-10
So....no song yesterday. I bet you didn't like that very much. Sorry.
Tonight, the Old American Songbook meets distorted guitars and an 808 (more likely some other drum machine but it sounds cooler my way). "Old Shanghai" is the song Beck has released to the masses for free so there are thousands of recordings of this one out there. As such, it's also the song I can legally share with you so you can see what we were working with—just click here to download.
In my opinion, it's one of the weaker songs of the bunch and for me seemed to lack the versatility of the others. Maybe I just don't have enough imagination but, in keeping with our goal to record what was on the page, we were beholden to the chart Beck laid out, which even includes transposed parts for trumpet, tenor sax, bass trombone and tuba! But rather than use those instruments, I recorded the parts on guitar and Jeff mixed them in to varying degrees with his MIDI keys and electronic drums. It's an interesting combination, I think, but not my favorite of our recordings by far.
Come back tomorrow for our tenth and final song!
This is the one Song Reader song I've got done so far (even though I do have the Song Reader set) so it's cool to hear your version of it.
ReplyDeleteI've been enjoying what you & Jeff/Add have been doing with these songs. Great stuff. I find it amazing you guys got 10 songs done in just 20 hours. I probably spent close to that much time on just "Old Shanghai")
Thanks again for doing the vocals for "Stating A Witch Hunt" I'm planning on spending most of today and tomorrow working on the backing.