Monday, February 28, 2011

Thing 302 Record a Song

First and foremost, let's do the thanks-to bit. Half Traffic is a pure and complete ledge-bag wrapped up in a hero. He's also a thoroughly nice bloke. While I'm selling him; he's single ladies, so get in there now, while you still can. Got road frontage. Swear to God. So thanks to him.

Mind you, calling 'round to his place is a little strange. He's got recording equipment and instruments coming out the wazoo, to borrow and Americanism that I can't pull off. At last count the man plays nine (I'm going on memory here, and mine's not razor sharp to start with. If that needs revising, it'll be upward, not down) instruments. He's got drum kits, ten hundred million guitars, saxophones, banjos, the lot. And he's a top notch producer.

There he is there below this line. Top bloke.
When I say he's a producer, I'm not talking about his profession. No, not for Half Traffic. Music production and recording is what he does on the side. Limerick heads will know him from the band Traffic, which he is one half of. Hence the very lazy blog name. And yes, that's a didgeridoo and a djemba drum in the background. He plays those too.

Mind you, the most talented producers in the world can only do so much... so there's no point in pretending that this was ever going to be a smash hit sensation. I can kind of sing. My voice is not going to sell records. Thorny Wire on the other hand, despite what you might think of his sometimes cranky countenance, has the voice of an angel. A dirty, Guinness drinking, cursing, pint-pulling angel. But an angel nonetheless. I'm allowed to say such things, he's my little brother.

There's a serious love of singing in the family. Comes from my Nana, I think. She was a singer in my gran-uncle's band way, way back. Smashing singer too. Thorny Wire got all the good genes. I got the sarcastic writing gene. What a dud. So we love our singing, even those of us that wouldn't be the greatest.

Thank God I've no shame, otherwise there's no way I'd be sticking this up here... Mind you, thanks to Half Traffic's production, it sounds better than it would have. Look at him there, producing the hell out of that song...
In order to be able to make it so you guys can hear it, I've had to splice it into (yet another) picture montage thing. It's me singing, with a bunch of Project photos for fun. Try not to get nostalgic kids. I don't want anyone crying onto their laptops...


I picked Regina Spektor because I straight up love that song. I mean I really love it. Mind you, she can sing the song. I'm just trying not to murder it. It was fine though. As Top Cat says, be proud of it... (even if it is murder...)

4 comments:

  1. Could you have picked a more difficult song to sing? Well done, though :)

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  2. Love reading your blog Dan.. think this may be my favourite 'thing' so far.. well done:)

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  3. well done, dan! it's not as easy as people think, is it?! u picked a whopper of a song, though, even if it is a killer to sing. fore play for you! really lovely, and a nice video diary for when (sniff!) it's all over

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  4. that was excellent dan, thorny wire didnt get all the singing genes!, copy niamh, what we gonna do when its done done (double sniff!)

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