Skip to main content

BEAM ME UP, SQUATTY

Ian C Stewart "Beam Me Up Squatty" MP3

This one is too sloppy to live but too funky to die. Wow. The song is named after the squatty-ass guitar tone that is just purely raunchy. It's nothing to do with Star Trek, don't worry. This is from the 4 Track Fallout mixdown tape from 1997, one of the last things to be recorded in the basement at my mom's house. The drums sound pretty sweet, actually everything sounds pretty sweet for a change. I think I had Ray's little Radio Shack mixer and a few extra mics.

Let's see, it sounds like the drums were recorded at half speed on the four track, a trick which Dweezil pointed out you can't do in the digital realm. I made a percussion loop on the drum machine, which was blasting out of my little Peavey practice amp. The ambient mics picked up the drum machine which mingled with the live drumming.

And the riffs still sound like the Beastie Boys or Rage Against the Machine to me. Like, anthemic. But they don't translate to the real world for whatever reason.

Come on, that guitar definitely sounds like it's taking a squat.

Comments

Darrin said…
1) Nice little groove on that one.

2) I had black tennis shoes once. I had to have them for marching band or something. Though, I seem to also remember having to wear crunchy rented white shoes which after every parade at least 12 people would have blood stained socks. So, I have no idea why I had black tennies.

3) There's a pic of some guy to the right of the drums. It's either Bo Brice or Bruce Dickenson with a headband on. Did I get it right?

4) I still have the white casio keyboard if you would like to reminisce with it. The Stereo Flanger, as you recall, became the Drunken Sailor Flanger and cannot be returned in it's original case.

5) Is that the same Peavy that we used to record Gourley's punk solo album? SKANK! SANDWICH!
Ian Stewart said…
1) cheese mang

2) the black ones replaced my red leather Reebok high tops.

3) Nope, it's Fish of the band Marillion.

4) Don't worry, you can bend it all to heck & back!

5) I believe we recorded Gourley's solo album with my Peavey bass amp (which I also hated). This horrid little piece of fecal matter was my first guitar amp. The Peavey Backstage Plus! 35 watts of smeehguughghghhghghhghhhhghhghhh.

Popular posts from this blog

Unknown Samarkand track circa 1999-2000

Judging by the drum & bass loop I'd say this recording predates any PC multitracking attempts. I was definitely in the zone with the guitar, though. It sounds like an old Cure riff that was abandoned at birth. Maybe it was, who knows. Ian C Stewart - 1999-2000 Unknown Samarkand Track MP3 The other side of the cassette is labeled CLUB AUTO NARRATION SOURCE. My Tokai and BC Rich guitars, circa summer 1987. Posed seductively on my bedroom floor.... in the basement.... Speaking of basements, anyone who came over to my house to jam from 1989 onwards would've had this low-hanging ceiling light to contend with. By contend with I mean leave skin and hair cells upon. The number of times I and everyone else smashed our heads on that thing was quite funny, thinking back.

THESE CHORDS ARE LIKE FAMILY TO ME

Ian C Stewart "These Chords are like Family to Me" MP3 From the 2003 made-to-be-made-not-made-to-be-heard album I Don't Know Why You Think I Won't Kill You .... this is the last song. This was the beginning of my dabbling with intentional randomness in songwriting. The lyrics for the whole album were compiled from albums by other artists that I enjoyed a lot, such as Adrian Belew's Twang Bar King , The Cure's Pornography , Voivod Nothingface , Mercyful Fate Melissa etc. I wrote out entire lines of their phrases and chopped them together. I think at the time I described it as 'sad psychedelic love songs about satan' overall, which is really being too generous. The music was also randomly chosen from tablature found on t'interwebs for favorite songs of mine. In general I played the chords in reverse order to the original songs but I can still kind of tell in a couple of places what the songs were. The titles were my own, obviously. Although I did cho...

EXGIRLFRIEND

SAMARKAND FRENZY WEEK, DAY THREE Samarkand "Exgirlfriend" MP3 This song is from the limited release cassette Sensitive , which was issued in a handpainted edition of 10 in January 1993. Naturally. Sensitive was 60 minutes of almost entirely brand new material, only one or two songs were recycled. It was recorded during what I thought would be my winter break from Berklee in 1992. Of course that turned out to be my permanent break from Berklee in 1992 since the cash had completely run out for my tuition. All the songs were recorded on a borrowed 4-track, possibly Ray's Porta 05. I also had my uncle's massive Carvin PA, Sennheiser mics & Ludwig drums in my basement. All of which feature prominently on this here release, along with the brand new Zoom 9002 effects. Which was an amazing combination at the time, I really felt like the boundaries were down on the equipment end of things for the first time. "Exgirlfriend" is a riff recycled from Domestik Quarrel...