Project 2: Five Song Playlist Challenge

Each person created a 5 song playlist. Each person then picked 2 songs from the playlists that other people shared. We posted the songs. That’s it.

Noah Warren’s covers for Project 2: Breakdown by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Theme From A Summer Place originally  by Mack Discant and music Max Steiner

Tom Petty is so cool. It is very apparent to me that I can never be Tom Petty. There’s a slight undercurrent of mania in this song that I thought would be worth exploring in an upbeat bluegrassy cover. The project file I created got corrupted and I had to salvage what I could from it and plop it into a country bar environment (with hopes that it would sell a hayseed version of this song).  Maybe someday I’ll find a banjo loop and be able to rebuild this. At any rate, it’s only a minute of failure, preserved forever on what Senator Ted Stevens calls a series of tubes.

-Noah Warren

I used to hate this song but now it just sounds like The Shinning to me. One morning, I woke to the sound of a pterodactyl dying right outside my bedroom window, so I grabbed my iPhone and recorded it. I later found out it was a leash of foxes having a happy conversation. The sound of crying you hear in the beginning is a modified version of their merriment. 

I really wanted to use a Theremin for this, but every Theremin app I tried wouldn’t work. I settled on a synth that was good enough for government work. The voice you hear at the end is William Shatner. I found a vinyl recording of him reading Isaac Asimov’s Foundation on YouTube. He is a national treasure. 

-Noah Warren

Barrett Haroldson’s first cover for Project 2: Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

We picked up a piano at the beginning of quarantine for the kids to learn and it’s become my great diversion from work and news and everything else. Hearing the acoustic version of Maps made me dig into a pure piano cover. I tend to do rather minimal piano covers of songs, partially due to my abilities, but also I just love the simplicity of the melody. The tone ended up sounding eerily distant and lonely which made it feel relevant for now.

-Barrett Haroldson

Randy Dever’s covers for Project 2: Superstar, covered by Sonic Youth who presumably were covering Karen Carpenter and Nobody But Me by The Human Beinz

I rushed this one a bit. 

It really captures the spirit of the original, except I discarded the verse, the bouncy feel, any joy, beauty, hope, or melodic elements.

Mournful wailing by Master from Beyond Thunderdome. “NO!” courtesy of Solomon Grundy from a Super Friends cartoon. Other vocals from the original version. 

-Devetron (aka Randy Dever)

I adore Sonic Youth’s version of this and the .mp3 I have of it is over 20 years old. 

I am a big fan of putting a little mischief in audio production.

I learned a ton in making this and definitely needed the practice at using a DAW. Many tutorial videos were watched. 

I made an honest effort of singing it “naturally”, but... maybe next time. 

I have purchased a new synthesizer and it rules! Maybe you can hear it in my track! 

I’m very hardware oriented and as such, I’m compelled to share a list of gear used:

Yamaha MT-400 cassette 4 -track

Prophet Rev2 synth

Elektron Digitakt sampler/drum machine

Yamaha SU700 for some effects

A Squier bass

Reaper DAW

Reaper Vocoder Plugin

-Randy Dever

Chris Danforth’s covers for Project 2: Some Things Last a Long Time by Daniel Johnston and Tired of Waiting For You by the Kinks

I'm pretty sure a few of us in this crew have the Interactive Cat Piano by B. Toys at home. Maybe you bought it for the kiddos... or for yourself... or both! It has a great look and some really funny sounds. I took this opportunity to do something I've wanted to do ever since we brought the keyboard into our home; Limit myself to just the sounds and rhythms on the Cat Piano in a recording project. For better or worse, I did it. Enjoy the meowsic! 

-Chris Danforth

I’m getting old. Sentimental too. I interpreted this tune as a love song honoring past creative projects and an ode to the glory days. Covering it was my chance to pay tribute. In honor of Daniel Johnson’s aesthetic, I kept it (digitally) low-fi using the voice memo function on my phone to record. Old cassette tapes were sampled, and toy instruments and found objects were played. I had a blast making it, and I’m so glad that Neil is spearheading this project. Long live Basement Sketches!

-Christopher Danforth

Michael Grey’s first cover for Project 2: I’m on Fire by Bruce Springsteen

I won’t lie to you, “Born in the U.S.A.” was the very first Springsteen album I was exposed to. I was 7 years old, and my older brother purchased the cassette but really wasn’t into that much, so I kind of stole it from him. At the time I had no education on Springsteen’s previous releases, which is kind of cool if you think about it. I seriously loved this album from start to finish, and to this day consider it one of his best. That being said, there was one track in particular that really stuck out, and that was “I’m on Fire”, which is the song that concluded the first side of the album. It’s a short but mighty song, encompassing some of Springsteen’s very best lyrics, along with a studio performance that really captures the emotions of his words. It was a no brainer to choose this as one of my cover songs, and so I grabbed my acoustic guitar, pressed record and performed it in one take. I feel like that is the way The Boss would have wanted me to do it.  

-Michael Grey

Matt Rahaim’s first cover for Project 2: Just What I Needed by the Cars

JUST WHAT I NEEDED is the ultimate fuckboi anthem. Ric Ocasek is no romeo. All he can think to say to this woman who makes him lose his mind ("kind of") is that he DOESN'T MIND when she blesses him with a booty call. He proclaims again and again that she is merely the fulfilment of a need, with such a triumphant attitude that I for one, as a teenage Cars fan, was fooled into hearing "just what I needed" as a really sweet thing to say. The original rocks so hard that it dazzles our usual sensibilities. So in covering it, I tried to peel away the glamorous exuberance, slow it down, and draw out all the heartsick loneliness of a life lived only for one's own needs.

-Matt Rahaim

Eric Scott’s covers for Project 2: Children of the Grave by Black Sabbath and Clean by Taylor Swift

I have loved Sabbath since high school.  I haven't listened to them as much in the past twenty years but not because I stopped appreciating them.  When I listened to this song, the lyrics really struck me in a way that they never had before.  I feel like I had never actually noticed the lyrics before - focusing on the aesthetics and sound of everything else - I mean, that's what makes Sabbath Sabbath.  The lyrics are all about peace and love and overcoming oppression and fear.  Timeless and timely and beautiful,  and to be honest I was shocked that Black Sabbath had lyrics like that.  I knew I had to do a folky sort of cover.  It's pretty different from the original, but I feel like it works and I'm proud of it.  

-Eric Scott

I  wont lie.  I love Taylor Swift.  I hated her back when I was cool.  Then I'd hear a random song that would wiggle its way into my head and I'd learn to live with it.  Then 1989 came out and was really good, but I was ashamed to admit that I liked it.  I stopped caring by the time Lover came out and had fully embraced whatever had come alive or died in me that made me like her.  It's still not the genre of music I feel kinship with, and there really aren't any of her contemporaries that I listen to, so I don't know.  My daughters love it, which isn't a good excuse either because they also love Boris and Slowdive.  Anyway, she's a good songwriter.  

I chose Clean because I thought it would make a great indie-rock sort of cover.  I had The Weakerthans in my head, something like that.  I whittled the song down a bit because Taylor does have a tendency to drag songs on a little longer than they need to.

- Czahr

Tom Stromsodt’s covers for Project 2: Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers and Cruel Summer by Bananarama, plus bonus cover You Are No Good, written by Clint Ballard Jr and covered by many including Dee Dee Warwick and Linda Ronstadt.

Back in the days before PG-13 and NC17, the movie rating system was a lot more of a crapshoot. My grandmother and step-grandfather took me to a series of questionable movies between the ages of 6 and 10 at the South Forks Plaza .  This included Johnny Dangerously, Six Pack, Rhinestone Cowboy, Frances (really?), and The Gambler.  This is where I fell in love with the sweet gravely magic that was Kenny Rogers. Coward of the County soon followed as a CBS special a short time later and my parents, being a bit more rationale in retrospect, wouldn’t let me watch it. I was so mad. I believe that covering this song let me put all that behind me.

My friend and I tried to create a "Summer 2020 Fever Dream” version.  Jason plays ukulele and sings.  My daughter also helps.”

-Tom Stromsodt

BONUS COVER!

I realized that both of the covers this round ended up being over 5 minutes and that’s ridiculous so I did a short one.  Have you ever wondered what it would sound like if a Neil Young-less Crazy Horse covered Linda Ronstadt in a world with no reverb?  Now you don’t have to!  My friend Jason played the solo and sang backup.

-Tom Stromsodt

Neil’s two covers for Project 2: Long Division by Fugazi and I’m Going To Go Back There Someday by Gonzo

I was so stoked to see this song on Czahr’s playlist. I’ve always loved the songs from the Muppet movie and have recently been able to go back and enjoy them again now that my son Warren is old enough to appreciate music. This is such a somber song for the Muppets. I guess Gonzo always was the sentimental one of the gang, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise coming from him. I feel like there’s something oddly timely about this song; a nostalgia for something that either isn’t here any longer or is yet to be. Maybe Gonzo knew this was going to happen all along.

I bought Steady Diet of Nothing on CD at the St. Cloud Electric Fetus when it first came out, having had limited exposure to Fugazi up to that point. Living in the small town of Paynesville, MN, I have virtually no direct exposure to underground or independent music. I often bought CDs if someone who I considered “cool” had ever mentioned the band and if the album art looked cool, of course. I’d seen references to Fugazi in an old issue of Thrasher, so I knew they were an important and well respected band. I’d maybe heard Waiting Room and a few songs off of 13 Songs from some band kids from a neighboring town, but this was the first Fugazi album I bought for myself. Long Division jumped out right away. I think it was the interplay of the guitar and the bass that hooked me.

For this version, I play an acoustic guitar to accentuate the pluckiness of the guitar line. I also, as you will hear, take liberties with the vocal melody to make it more my own. Tom Stromsodt was kind enough to create the drum tracks, as I was struggling to generate a usable computer generated drum track. Check it out. I hope you dig it or at least find it interesting.

Check out all of the Project 2 Playlists