The Sunday Concert: Halloween!
Here’s the 2 hour and 20 minute recording of the concert I did yesterday for Halloween on Metaplace. It’s all covers, and there’s plenty of awkward silences between the songs, because you can’t hear and see anything that the audience said and did while I was playing. You only get what went up the stream. Some of my answers to text chat may seem out of context. 🙂
No download link — it’s almost 200MB. 🙂 Edit: here’s a download link for the concert broken up into individual MP3 tracks, in a ZIP file. It’s around 170MB this way.
Before anyone asks, this is just me singing and on solo guitar, plus a harmonizer pedal. Most of the songs are fingerpicked, actually, but I used a flatpick on a few that asked for more of a strum. The recording setup is moderately complicated — mic and guitar into a harmonizer pedal which added some EQ and reverb and of course harmonies sometimes; then guitar further into a multi-effects pedal to add some reverb and punch. I also had a large diaphragm mic, dry (meaning, no reverb or effects at all), sitting close to add detail and some wood back into the guitar. From there, into BUTT and thence up to a Shoutcast station. BUTT did the recording locally.
I tried to make each song lead into the next narratively, and to cover a nice wide range of genres for everyone who was there. Here’s the set list, which was selected to fit the holiday: horror songs, creepy songs, songs about death and madness, prison tunes, and murder ballads and silly songs. It has a bunch of the stuff I usually do — blues, a lot of singer-songwriter material, 80s covers that it’s weird to tackle on acoustic…
- Some prefatory blues noodling before the actual show started
- Thriller – Michael Jackson
- Black Horse and the Cherry Tree – KT Tunstall
- Are You Happy Now? – Richard Shindell
- Creepy Doll – Jonathan Coulton
- Meanies – Jim Infantino
- Black Magic Woman – Santana
- Every Breath You Take – The Police
- Robert Johnson – Bill Morrissey
- Johnny Rottentail – Amy Ray
- Down by the River – Neil Young
- In the Air Tonight – Phil Collins
- Folsom Prison Blues – Johnny Cash
- Phone Call From Leavenworth – Chris Whitley
- Devil Inside – INXS
- Blow ‘Em Away – Chuck Brodsky
- Werewolves of London – Warren Zevon
- Mallon’s Bridge – Mustard’s Retreat
- Jonas and Ezekial – Indigo Girls
- Waiting for the Rain – Bill Morrissey
- Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door – Bob Dylan
- Moon Over Bourbon Street – Sting
- My Wife Thinks You’re Dead – Junior Brown
- Paint It Black – The Rolling Stones
- Goin’ Down Judah – Dana Cooper
- Long Ride Home – Patty Griffin
- Ghost of a Dog – Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians
- Mad World – Tears for Fears originally, but this one sounds more like Gary Jules
- Velvet – a-ha
11 Responses to “The Sunday Concert: Halloween!”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Oddly, in the RSS feed, the link WAS a download link.
This is a great concert, too! Thanks!
I get a little stuttering — not sure if it’s my local playback, or from the source.
Nice Cthulu/blues intro.
And now… onto THRILLER!
Haha, this is good!
(But still stuttering, grrr…)
OK, playing fine in Foobar rather than the in-browser QuickTime plugin I was using (not your Flash thing — the RSS link pops up the mp3 itself, as LSK says above.)
Yeah, the RSS feed doesn’t show the Flash player and shows just the link…
I have chopped it up into individual tracks now, but I have not uploaded them yet.
The post now has the link to the ZIP file of the individual tracks.
That rendition of Mad World was very spooky!
It takes a lot of guts to do Thriller on acoustic solo live.
Len:
Thanks, I think. 🙂 I felt pretty good about how “Thriller” came out, but I can tell you, I was totally freaked out about it in advance. It is rhythmically a bit tricky, the singing range is weird (I moved it down a whole step, actually — and moving it more would have made the guitar part murderous!), and of course, everyone knows it.
I used to play it with straight strums, but this arrangement was based on Emily Elbert’s great version, a little simplified (search YouTube for that one, it’s great).
Prokofy, all the songs were supposed to be spooky or dark, in one way or another. 🙂 I now kinda want to do a show with more varied emotional terrain. 🙂
It is a compliment, Raph. I’ve played Don’t Stop Till Ya Get Enough but used midi and it’s basically a two-chord song and I sang it an octave lower. No way I’d risk Thriller because it be bery tricky, so props on that one.
Wow. Me, I’m turning more folkie every day although weirdly, last week I stumbled onto some videos of our band from the 90s. Google Music works.
http://www.youtube.com/clenbullard#p/a/f/0/7n3b8sXb7h8
http://www.youtube.com/clenbullard#p/a/f/1/knq_8aM3qfs
… the guy with the acoustic.
Tonight, I’m going to Nashville to see Willie at the Ryman as a guest of one of the moguls. Strange how things turn. It has nothing to do with my music, just another online conversation that is crossing over.
Oooh, Creepy Doll. Yay