1. Taxman covered by Neil Fasen

There’s a twitchy pulse to Taxman. It’s like jerking awake again and again in a rhythm. It’s the way I’d like to think David Byrne dances at weddings. Slowly swaying but with a snap.

I like the stripped down, old-school shape of this song. It lends itself well to simple technology. Somewhere between Buddy Holly and Speak and Spell.

2. Eleanor Rigby covered by Barrett Haroldson

I've always thought of this song as really sad but the tempo of it and the string arrangement really makes it such an amazing, almost upbeat song. I decided to go for a super sparse take on it. I wanted it to feel more isolated and contemplative to match the lyrics. I'm also looking to push to get more noise and ambience into my tracks to take the digital edge off, so did some layering of buzzy synths to give a bed that feels like crickets or cicadas in the summer. With the original recording, the strings were mic'd up very close to the instruments which gave them more of a raw sound, I liked how this piano had a similar vibe where the person playing is present with the keystroke sounds. I'm also fond of how The Beatles used the Mellotron, so I substituted that for one of the one string parts.

This is made with a mix of Felt Instruments' Lekko Piano, various LABS products, Arturia Analog Lab's Synclavier and a few GarageBand synths. This performance of the song is incredible.

3. I’m Only Sleeping covered by Noah Warren

4. Love You To covered by Bill Fricke

I was so thrilled to get this song to cover. It's my favorite on Revolver and when I first heard it at like 10 years old, the sitar and tabla drums immediately made an impact on my psyche. It was like having lived it before and the music felt at home.

I listened to as many cover versions as I could find, and the common theme was to keep with the raga/Indian music vibe. I did that too. I was very excited to finally get to use tablas, sarods and sitars!

Several demos were in that vein. It almost seemed too easy. Then, I re-aquired an E-bow, having lost my previous one years ago. It reopened noise and sound that I had been missing for awhile.

Plus, I wanted atmosphere. So, dialing up some synth sounds from GB, adding E-bow and lots of reverb, came up with the soundscape. Still had thoughts of tabla, but a happy accident with orchestral percussion setting

and hitting a wood block sound unintentionally, created a clock sound. From there, the concept of time passing, speeding up, urgency and then ending became the theme. And no tabla was harmed in the making of this cover version.

5. Here, There, and Everywhere covered by Bill Fricke

This was not one of my favorite songs when listening to the album, but having to learn it made me appreciate the subtly complex chord structures. Listened to dozens of covers and they were all MOR ballads. Made numerous demo in different styles trying to find something that I liked. Finally had an idea to try a "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" approach and creating a base on which to put vocal recordings over. Recorded the phrase "Here There and Everywhere" in several different languages, and also complete lyric verses in German, Icelandic, English, Bengali and French. They appear in different sections throughout in snippets.

The process led to completely abandoning any musical similarities and using only the lyrics as the connection. It turned out to be akin to a little David Sylvian and Bete Noire era Bryan Ferry in terms of production and style. The E-bow reared its head again, and that kind of joins Love You To with his. I didn't realize that they were sequenced together on the album.

It was quite the journey. I learned so much and explored areas that I never had thought of with both songs.

6. Yellow Submarine as assembled from miscellaneous contributions from Neil, Czahr, Tom, Bill, Colby, and Jeff Kearns

This was an experiment in group collaboration. After sharing a basic outline, I took whatever tracks people shared and tried to weave them together.

Yes, I realize that I omitted the middle part with the samples and instead tacked on the intro and outros sections from Bill’s “Life in a Submarine.”

7. She Said She Said covered by Jeff Mooridian Jr.

I love this song, glad to do it. It’s a bit of a rocker though I feel it has a certain depth that kind of sends you, too. Not that that the moods have to be mutually exclusive (quite the opposite, in my experience). Unfortunately for me, this is mostly due to the vocals and lyrics, and also how JL sings them. So that was a challenge. Also, I did a disservice to Ringo by not elaborating the drum parts more but there were other things to do and explore.

8. Good Day Sunshine covered by Eric “Czahr” Scott

There are very few Beatles songs I skip past, and Good Day Sunshine is one of them. It's not a bad song, it's a good song, it's just one of those where the repetition irritates me. I feel like 80% of the song is just "Good day sunshine" repeated too many times. This actually made it really fun for me to cover because I knew I would never do a straight cover and instead go for a reimagining. I have been listening to a lot of My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Thurston Moore and Dino Jr. lately so I went with that flavor. Clearly a very, very poor shadow of any of the flavor those particular masters of noise have crafted, but it's a sketch.

In my head there are pros playing guitar, real drums, crunchy bass, swirling noise, etc. What you'll hear is just me playing a strat through a portable Honeytone amp, thumping my hand and some markers on a card table, and trying not to sing too loud lest I rouse the four year old from her dreams of world domination. Enjoy.

9. And Your Bird Can Sing covered by Jeff Kearns

10. For No One covered by Andrew Charon

For me, covering the song "For No One" turned out to be the most challenging cover for Basement Sketches. I mean, it's the Beatles. Though Revolver was completely groundbreaking when it came out, I've connected more with Abby Road, The White Album, Let it Be so it was really nice for me to spend more time with Revolver and I've been listening to it often over the past month. Originally I was planning on doing something completely different with guitar and some really raw rhythms however I just couldn't get it right. Or, I really couldn't do Paul McCartney justice with this....not that I did with concept two but this concept was way more stylized than playing this song on guitar. It's amazing how this little french horn solo in this song stands so much on it's own. For me it got tricky for interpretation because the music itself sounds so upbeat yet it's a breakup song. But it's so incredible to me that the lyrics were articulated because of an event like an end of a relationship. None of this emotion is reflected in my version of the song however it was really meaningful to me to spend time with it.

11. Dr. Robert covered by Tom Stromsodt

12. I Want To Tell You covered by Colby Heston

“I Want to Tell You” wasn’t my first choice for this project. It was in fact pretty far down the list. Not necessarily inspired with any ideas, I decided to try a "traditional" approach to the song. After I figured out all of the parts and started tracking, some inspiration for different variations started to come to me but I was already too deep to go back. Nevertheless, I'm fairly pleased with the results.

I keep learning something new every project and this was no exception. Each time it gets a little easier and sounds a bit better. I can't wait to hear everyone else's.

13. Got To Get You Into My Life covered by Tom Stromsodt

14. Tomorrow Never Knows covered by Randy “DTRON” Dever

DOWNLOAD ALL OF THEM HERE!

Here’s the track listing:

1. Taxman by Neil Fasen

2. Eleanor Rigby by Barrett Haroldson

3. I’m Only Sleeping by Noah Warren

4. Love You To by Bill Fricke

5. Here, There and Everywhere by Bill Fricke (bonus song, thanks Bill)

6. Yellow Submarine by everyone (details coming soon)

7. She Said She Said by Jeff Mooridian Jr.

8. Good Day Sunshine by Eric “Czahr” Scott

9. And You Bird Can Sing by Jeff Kearns

10. For No One by Andrew Charon

11. Doctor Robert by Tom Stromsodt

12. I Want To Tell You by Colby Heston

13. Got To Get You Into My Life by Tom Stromsodt

14. Tomorrow Never Knows by Randy “Devetron” Dever