Tom covers “Forever” from TV’s Full House

My daughter loves Full House so when I saw “Forever” on the playlist I knew it would be a good way to con her into recording another song. We didn’t really Ripper it up, staying closer to The Beach Boys. Basement Sketches- bringing families together!

-Tom Stromsodt

“Walking on a Thin Line” with a little help from my friends

I’m a loud motherfucker. You know this. Frankly, my recent vocal deliveries have been a little out of character from the classic Neil approach of “belt-it-out-with-feeling.” While it’s probably made my pandemic music more palatable than my earlier work, I’ve longed for the chance to let it rip. When I saw a Huey Lewis song on Danforth’s playlist, I didn’t have to think twice about my first cover choice.

As with my Long Division and Summertime Rolls covers, I started by enlisting the drumming talents of Tom Stromsodt. He was able to create an amazing drum track over what I considered to be the world’s sketchiest scratch track. I was then able to layer on multiple baritone ukulele parts, different bass lines, and some midi keys. Then I waited until my wife and son were out on a walk, set up my laptop in the bathroom and quickly sang the songs through three times in a row before they got back home. I now had most of the elements with the exception of the solo part, so I reached out to Matt Rahaim to add some of his magical “korgitude” (technical Landlovr term). Matt’s microbrute alchemy really brought it all together. In the end, I took my mix and sent it to Tom, who ran it through his system and created an even better mix. It was a great collaboration.

Thanks for working on this with me, Tom and Matt!

Czahr talks about covering “Just You”

I remember watching Twin Peaks in high school and 'getting it'.  I didn't even care what the plot was back then, or if there was. plot.  It was a purely aesthetic pleasure for me.  The visuals and the sounds worked together to make a rich, odd experience that put me in that weird world between dream and nightmare, between pleasure and anxiety.  When I saw this song on Noah's playlist I immediately heard my own version in my head:  Noisy and a bit unpleasant yet with the pretty melody and saccharine words.  I knew the Stylophone had to be in there since it's an odd instrument that I can never decide if it sounds nice or sounds terrible.  It was a fun song to record.

-Eric “Czahr” Scott

Eric “Czahr” Scott covered “Just You” off of Noah Warren’s “TV on the Radio” playlist.

TV on the Radio, Noah’s Playlist for Project 4 explained

This playlist started out as a list of hits from fictitious sitcom bands. It evolved into original(ish) musical moments from TV. I had to hone it down to covers I’d like to hear. The last two songs kind of break the playlist rule: David Bowie is real and Zou Bisou Bisou is a real song (I think). However those two songs feel true to the moment in the show. Ricky Gervais’ failing career inspiring David Bowie to create a cruel song on the spot at a hip party was one of the most transcendent moments I’ve ever experienced from television. I hope someone covers it.

-Noah Warren

Noah reimagines “Clay Pigeons” and “Sex and Candy”

Unlike pretty much everyone else involved in Basement Sketches, I don’t believe Noah Warren has ever played in a band. He’s produced musicals and plays, written numerous novels, and created short films but never officially played in a band. Regardless of his lack of band experience, his creativity and inventiveness are clear in his contributions to Basement Sketches.

Noah’s version of “Sex and Candy” is minimal in structure but punctuated with dramatic vocals reminiscent of musical that builds into what sounds to be a physical collapse at the end of the song. It both pokes fun at the inherent cheesiness of the original, while also introducing an joyous boldness to the delivery.

My favorite is his reinvention of the Blaze Foley classic “Clay Pigeons.” John Prine may be credited with revitalizing this song, but Noah Warren took “Clay Pigeons” from a country ballad to a galaxy far far away.

My favorite part of Basement Sketches is how this brings out creativity in so many different ways and in so many different styles, and Noah Warren truly brings his own unique voice to these projects in a way that’s refreshing, bold, and fun.

-Neil Fasen

“Let ‘Em In” as interpreted by Dtron

Here is a submission. I almost scrapped it a few times, but Brenda encouraged me to finish it. I tried everything I could think of to avoid actual singing. 

It seems that when I do these projects, my mind does a deep search of music with similar phrasing, intervals, chord progressions, etc. and I am compelled to include my findings in the covers.

I recorded this in Reaper and then did some final utility work in Audacity (which is MUCH more intuitive).

Drums by the Casio RZ-1 and Electron Digitakt.

Synths: Korg Poly 61, Sequential Rev2, DSI Evolver. 

P bass

Effects and some samples from the Yamaha SU700.

-Randy “Devetron” Dever

Chris Danforth talks about his cover of “Box Elder”

D’s Moog Werkstatt

The hardest part of this cover was figuring the herky-jerky, syncopated vocal delivery of Stephen Malkmus. I kept screwing up and forgetting words… so I just kept some of them out. I also I loved the bravado and COVID irony of the lines “I got a lot of things to do. A lot of places to go.” Not during quarantine, buddy! 

I kept it simple and just used my Moog Werkstatt, plus a homemade stethoscope mic and SM58 to record my vocal tracks. The stethoscope mic has a crispy, crunchy sound that helps give character to my dull, stupid voice. 

-Chris Danforth

Jackass — Cutting Room Floor Mix

This cover started and ended in very different places.

My original intent was to make an all mallets, percussion and bells version of this song as a nod to my days in percussion in the school band. Sitting with it for a few days, I realized with just mallets it wasn't a very listenable experience but didn't want scrap some of the recordings and chose to layer in elements that fill it out a bit more. 

Thinking about Beck, I assume that the studio is a very messy and experimental place and much of what we hear takes much more restraint. I wanted to treat my final cover as if it was an instrumental version pieced together from everything that was left on the cutting room floor when recording a song like this.

The final is a mix of bells, glockenspiel and celesta recorded from our piano. Those are layered some of the same parts done with midi for a fuller sound. Drums are a mix of sampled shakers and the main beat is a faux 808 drum machine in GarageBand meant to sound like the drum unit in an organ with a bit of swing and some ridiculous fills that made me laugh. The bells were far too clean so I layered in some psychedelic backward flute and backwards versions of the same bells to mess that up a bit.

-Barrett

Czahr’s Strange Invitation

I've been with Beck since the beginning.  Mellow Gold was my first exposure, and from there I bought all of the 7" releases I could find.  At some point before Odelay came out, I chanced across a bootleg CD at Cheapo in St. Paul that had an early version of Jackass on it, called Strange Invitation.  Its not so different from Jacakass, just being a little more of the standard junk-folk that Beck did in the earlier days.  It was my favorite track on the boot and I learned it right away, adding it to my repertoire of songs that I enjoyed playing for myself.  

For this version I wanted to do something a little different.  I had the idea of an old cowboy sitting by a campfire under the stars, perhaps a little high, and telling a story.  My old man voice is more "Mike Patton doing RV" and less authentic grizzle, but it'll do.  I didn't use anything fancy,  just a Dean acoustic guitar, Honer harmonica and Garage Band.  

-Czahr

Neil explains his covers for Project 3

Summertime Rolls by Jane’s Addiction

Though I love the song, I will admit that Summertime Rolls was a dicey choice. In my opinion there are 2 key hooks to the song: the baseline and that crazy-ass Navarro ascending guitar solo. Spoiler alert, there’s no way in hell I could do that solo, certainly not with a baritone ukulele. I do love the feel of the pulse of the song, so I focused on that.

My theory was to not overthink it or get too cute. I used my Kale Ka-Be Baritone ukulele, my accordion, my Mustang bass guitar, and got some drum love from Tom Stromsodt. Whatever I created would have to sound significantly different from the original just by using that line up of instrumentation, right?

Well in the end, maybe it didn’t land as far from the original as I thought it would, but, it was fun to make even if it’s not my most creative re-invention ever.

All of the credit for the good parts of this cover goes to Tom. He was kind enough to not only provide amazing drums but also remixed it for me and breathed new energy into it. Thank you, Tom!

-Neil

Ocean Man by Ween

In case it’s not obvious, I will admit to you all that I made this one very quickly. I wanted to submit 2 songs for this round, so I cranked out this slow accordion version of Ocean Man last night.

Jeff’s overview of Xanadu

I guess I picked this one because I wasn’t as familiar with it as I probably should be.  Having spent some time with it – I can now confirm that both the movie and song are the worst.  I obviously left a bunch of stuff out but I did my best at packing it full of unnecessary garbage like the original.

Using Ableton here with all soft synths this time around: Dexed, SH-101, CR-78 samples, Polysix, MS-20 and a handful of dumb samples I found online.

-Jeff Esterby

Danforth summary of his cover of “So Alive”

Well... My attempt at covering this tune created the sonic equivalent of a cantankerous old goat. Four cassette tape loops, a window AC unit, a white noise machine, and a three stringed guitar I found on the curb helped me get it there. Fortunately, I was recording when the tape loop with the drum beat on it broke. Listen for it at the end of the track. 

-Chris Danforth

Tom talks about his Project 3 covers

So Goes Love by Carole King

I really just wanted an excuse for Jay to come over and record his autoharp. He also sings half of this sweet duet. I’m convinced the first “so goes love” is impossible to hit right. 

-Tom Stromsodt

Sex and Candy by Marcy Playground

I had a fairly hard time picking songs this round. I have been recording a batch of original songs and I wanted to use the same general tones on one of covers. Why not try it on the hometown heroes one hitter? I also tried to make it reasonably creepy and feel like it was somewhat successful. 

-Tom Stromsodt

Randy Dever covers “Into the Night”

Heh. “Into the Night” proved to be more complicated than I had originally bargained for. Here’s what came out. Decisions were made. Things were recorded, then stopped working on it.

I used Audacity this time. 

Sound sources are a micro-cassette dictaphone, my P-bass, Samplers: Elektron Digitakt (drums, loops) and Yamaha SU700 (effects, radio blerps), Synths: Sequential Rev2 and Korg Poly61. 

The story goes that Benny was defending the honor of his 16-year-old neighbor girl (in a school uniform, no less) against ogling and lewd suggestions from his business partner when he spoke the opening line “she’s only 16 years old. Leave her alone…”. He claims that he was helping out a desperate family who lived in his building by paying the kids (a lot) to do errands for him. The husband and father left them for a young chorus dancer girl. If all this is true, the song landed in a very different place than all that, lyrically. I suspect he wrote some creepy lyrics, the song blew up and Benny had to answer for it in interviews. So, they cooked up the story to endear people to Benny and make him look benevolent and contrast him with his creepy partner and a deadbeat homewrecker. They “flipped the script”. Parts of the story are probably partially true though. My 2 cents. Benny Mardones died of Parkinson’s June 29, 2020 at the age of 73.

-Randy Dever

Czahr’s Summer Playlist for Project 3

Years ago I made a mixtape for friends called Summer and it contained, of course, songs about summer.  It was one of the most well-recieved mixes I ever made and I always wanted to make a Summer 2.  This playlist is a mix of songs from that first mix tape as well as other songs I've soaked up since then and plan to put on another mix, if and when I ever get around to making it.  Summer isn't my favorite season (Spring/Fall tied, Summer, Winter is how I roll) but there are a lot of excellent songs out there dedicated to the season, and it’s summer now.

This playlist begins with an often overlooked Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass track that Herb sings on - something that didn't happen often.  I've been listening to the TJB since high school.  Back then, as a prank, I would put on one of my parent's TJB records right before friends would come over so I could enjoy their "What the fuck are you listening to?" reactions.  Suddenly I realized I actually really liked it and it stopped being a joke.  I didn't come across the TJB album Summertime until 1995 when I found the vinyl, still sealed, at a Salvation Army store in West St. Paul.  Until the song Summertime, I had never heard a TJB song that had vocals. It kind of blew my mind, made me wonder what other TJB surprises there were, and kicked off a desire to find every TJB album on vinyl - which I succeeded in doing over the course of a few years (sounds easy because TJB is ubiquitous at thrift stores, but only the popular albums - it took forever to locate most of the releases from 1969-1973).  

My friend Christian Fritz, who some of you probably know, turned me on to Lee Hazelwood in the early 00's.  I had never heard of him.  I also wasn't really familiar with Nancy Sinatra aside from These Boots are Made for Walkin', and even then I was more familiar with the Crispin Glover version of the song.  Lee and Nancy's duets are filled with delicious 60's cheese. Like certain cheeses it's not something I'm always in the mood for but when I'm in the mood it is so good.  Lee's deep, buttery voice works well with Nancy's slightly acrid and harder edged voice.  Whether or not it was intentional, I have always viewed The Handsome Family's song Far From Any Road as an homage to Summer Wine.  

"It's Summertime, and I can understand if you still feel sad."  The Flaming Lips.  What can I say?  They're absolute heroes of mine in terms of lyrics, soundscapes, instrumentation, art installations and album packaging.  It's Summertime is a simple and pretty little song from Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the album that had the great misfortune of following The Soft Bulletin.  I like the album just as much as Soft Bulletin these days, but back when it came out the general consensus seemed to be, "I like it, but it's no Soft Bulletin."  

Janes Addiction were so cool when I was in high school.  Being a kid that went from listening to hair metal and thrash metal one summer to Bob Dylan/Beatles/Doors/Dinosaur Jr./Sonic Youth the next, Janes Addiction (and Faith No More) helped bridge that gap and fit perfectly into where my tastes were at the time.  Summertime Rolls almost felt unremarkable back then.  It was the song that sounded best high in a bedroom with friends, during those moments where everyone was pretty much done for the night and just sort of digesting munchies and staring into the abyss.  Today it's my favorite Janes song.  

The Tree of Forgiveness is one of John Prine's last albums, and he did it after having part of his lungs removed.  After so many decades of creating great songs, he was still pretty much doing the same thing he always did right up until the end. Whether you like his stuff or not, it's inspiring.  It's not really the performance or his singing that strikes me with Summer's End, so much as the melody and the lyrics.  The melody gets stuck in my head and I've wanted to cover it myself.  It's summer right now and we're still in the midst of Covid, which is what took John Prine's life.  It seemed a fitting song to end the playlist with.

-czahr

Gear chat

Part of the fun of Basement Sketches is hearing the different ways people create music. Randy Dever is a synth master, while Danforth favors children’s instruments, tapes, and records on his phone. Michael Grey can knock out a banger cover just with an acoustic guitar, while I fumble around with accordions and baritone ukuleles.

What’s your set up include? What do you like to record with? We’d love to hear more about what you use and how you create your music.

Future Project Ideas

Basement Sketches began as a way to reduce the barriers of creating and sharing music by experimenting with a simple premise, cover a few songs, and a constraint, do it at home using whatever you’ve got available. Now that we’re starting to bring more people together to participate, we would like to explore a variety of themes that engage people’s interests and encourage them to create and share their ideas. What are some possible future projects you might like to see featured at Basement Sketches?