This is a cover I did tonight of a Josh Rouse song called “Moving On.” Really it was a test of my iPhone 4 video and playing around with iMovie. Also I made a separate recording track on the iPad, a little closer to me with the FiRe recording app. I was testing syncing a separate audio track with video. Actually I want to record audio into Logic with a good mic and higher resolution but didn’t feel like moving my big iMac to the other room just for the test, but actually I think it came out pretty good.

Bola de Nieve - "Snowball" the Cuban "Louis Armstrong" wrote this little cabaret song, "Mesie Julian."

Download audio file (mesiejulian3.mp3)

Download/iPhone/iPhone link

This is an old Cuban song by the artist Bola de Nieve, but what I’m covering here is the Josh Rouse version which is off his latest album “El Turista.” The Bola de Nieve version is on piano and it’s wild! I can play piano a little, but I can’t imagine anyone could play it like him. He doesn’t even look at the piano when he sings. It’s like he, the rhythm, the piano, and the performance are one. Amazing left hand. No one can match it. It’s like the rhythm has a life of its own.

This is the first song I’ve sung in another language. Spanish. Although I think he mixed in a little French with it. I still have to work on the pronunciation, but at least I’ve gotten to the point where I can get through it, and its FUN.

Figuring out the chords has been hard. The verse is straight forward: B7-F#-E. But then it gets jazzy crazy. I don’t think I’m doing it exactly right. I’ve tried to look at some Josh Rouse videos of him playing it, but his fingering looks weird from a regular tuning point of view. He may be using an alternate tuning. I asked on his message board if anyone knew, but so far no one has responded. The chorus is sort of a weird B chord that flattens a note in one bar and then goes to E major 7 to G and back to B or B7. The second time around it ends with a C#m7 and Fmaj7 before landing on the root B chord. When I get time I’ll try to draw out the fingering I’m using. I’ll make a video too.

If anyone out there knows how to play for reelz please leave a comment and let me know!

I’ll keep working on this song and when I feel I can play it  a lot better I’ll make a new recording. I have a list of about 30 songs so far that grows every day, that I’m learning to play, so that eventually I can do a live show.

65 by spickeringlr

Summertime7 by spickeringlr (You can download these songs by clicking the ‘down’ arrow on the right side of the players above.)

These are actually “Cover” songs of Josh Rouse material. The forum community over at JoshRouse.com is a very tight knit passionate group. One of the star members named Will produces a podcast that usually features picks from the forum fans or bootleg material from Josh’s live shows, and artists similar to Josh and such. Well, the next podcast they are doing a special version of “Covers” of Josh’s material done my forum members. So these are the two numbers I submitted. Readers of this blog will have already heard “Summertime” as I did that on my own a few weeks ago just for fun, not knowing they were going to do this podcast. Nothing’s changed on that track, except I did EQ the vocals better. In that earlier version there were some spots where the vocals went into the “red” so to speak. That’s recording talk for too high of a level and the recording can “clip.” So I think the overall sound of this version is better, smoother.

“65″ is a bit of an obscure song. It’s older material off an LP called “Chester” that Josh did in his earlier years in collaboration with a guy named Kurt Wagner. Kind of has an Alternative Country R.E.M.ish feel. I’ve always like the song and the LP. Very raw compared to the smoother sounds fans of Josh Rouse are used to. Kind of feels like a few guys getting together, having a few beers and just letting it rip. The lyrics. What do they mean? Who knows. Who cares? They’re just fun. It’s like stream of consciousness. It’s like letting off steam. It was fun to make. Being from the South, I’m kind of partial to that R.E.M.ish southern country influenced alternative sound.

Summertime7 by spickeringlr

iPhone/iPad Link

Josh Rouse – “Summertime” Lyrics

Here comes the summertime, the feeling’s in the air.
I remember cigarettes, tube socks, sun burns and long blond hair.
Here comes the summertime, yeah it’s coming soon.
I remember living upstairs, drinking iced-tea and swimming pools.

And the feeling doesn’t last that long.
Before you know it, it’s up and gone, oh yeah.
The things we do…

In the summertime, yeah it’s coming soon.
I remember watermelon, finger banging, purple rain and being cool.
Here comes the summertime, the feeling’s in the air.
I remember drive-ins, soap operas, fireworks and county fairs.

And the feeling doesn’t last that long.
Before you know it, it’s up and gone, oh yeah.
The things we do…

In the summertime.(x4)

(end with scatting)

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Yet another cover of Josh Rouse’s 2006 album “Subtitulo.” I guess I could call myself “1972″ and become a Josh Rouse tribute band! Hahahahahah. No really, it is one of my favorite albums, and he’s one of my favorite artists, but really I was just in the mood for making covers lately, mostly just to practice Garageband. Oh just got a new Presonus Firestudio Mobile so I can record directly into Garageband. So I’m so happy, and it’s much more fun producing now. The only thing I’m dissappointed in is that I just realized that Garageband doesn’t support sample rates over 44.1k, and I was hoping to work with 96k. I guess I’ll have to move up to Logic, although at least it does support 24-bit depth rate, so that’s better than my 16 bit Boss BR-1600. The FireStudio also came with recording software that’s suppossed to be good and does support the full 96k, so I guess I’ll make my next song on it, but I do love the ease and fun of Garageband so much.

The only thing is that I still can’t get the recording levels right. It’s like when I’m laying down the track, it doesn’t sound loud enough, so I crank it to what sounds good, but then when it comes down to the final thing, there’s always some clipping during various parts, which makes the “Normalize” feature of Garageband render the tune way to low, or if you un check that, the tune is just blurry and overall unlistenable. Drives me crazy!!!!

I found one solution in the program called Wire Tap Studio, a Mac program that tries to accurately record exactly what is playing through the Mac Audio Engine, which makes it sound a little better. At least listenable. What’s weird is that within the program when you are playing all the tracks, everything sounds pretty good, especially through the high quality headphones, but when you go to export it, I guess it comes through the compression, everything comes out the other end sounding crappy.

Wire Tap helps because it tries to accurately record what’s coming out of the Garageband sound engine,  but you can still here a lot of clipping and distortion in at different points in the track. I’m going to have to really focus on my analog tracks, recording them maybe even a lot lower than what initially seems right. I don’t know. What’s so weird is that the professional loops, even the the wave ones, will barely have any level, but they will sound crystal clear, and plenty loud enough.

I want to be able to record those kinds of tracks!

Quiet Town by spickeringlr

iPhone Link

This is a cover I just made of a Josh Rouse song called “Quiet Town” which is the first cut off his 2005 album “Subtitulo.”

For some reason I’m in cover mode, or mostly just practice mode with recording and working in Garageband. I really have to get an interface for the computer. I can’t stand working with this BOSS BR-1600 anymore. The screen is tiny. But I do like going into the closet to record with the condensor mic. Feels like I’m going into the “studio.” Feels like I’m doing some work. It’s relaxing.

Wonderful by spickeringlr

iPhone Link

This is a remake I did just now of a Josh Rouse song called “Wonderful” off of his 2005 album “Subtitulo.”

Cover of a Cover. Cover of Josh Rouse covering “Cotton Eye Joe.” Damn, I keep forgetting to turn the iPhone sideways for video. Will remember next time. Vocals not very clear because P.A. is way in the background and the iPhone mic is picking up mostly the guitar. Oh well just a test. Not bad.

Damn, I also just realized I left out a whole verse!!! The one that goes, “I’ve been laughing in the sunshine. I’ve been lying in the rain. You know that living is easy, and I ain’t feelin’ no pain.”

Oh well, do over. And next time I’ll have the camera sideways, and maybe try to play picking with my fingers, Brazilian style, like Josh plays it.