Like this:

So for some reason I decided earlier this summer that it would be a good idea to record an album. I had two or three original songs lying around for a while, but instead of just recording those three, I decided it would be a better idea to record an album’s worth of covers too. In retrospect, I don’t know why I didn’t just put more effort into writing more original songs and just recording an EP, but I guess my explanation is that it was fun, most of the time. Alternatively, I did get a lot of experience with recording and mixing and such, but only sort of, since the only tools I had at my disposal to do this were my laptop, a digital camcorder, and an amp. Everything that was electronic could be recorded relatively cleanly, but I could only record vocals with my laptop mic. Also, the only software I had to do this in was Audacity. So it was kind of a silly project, but it was a pretty enjoyable one, and I guess now I’m better prepared to write and record more of my own music?

DOWNLOAD THIS THING HERE

I honestly don’t care if only two people download this and hate it, because, really, I’m not very talented musically and the recording technology I used is fairly, um, let’s go with “lo-fi”. I know this is a terrible way to promote my work, but this was more so a project for my own amusement than for other people’s, but there’s also not a lot of point to going through all this work and not at least attempting to share it. So, I only ask two things of you if you download this:

1. Don’t tell me how bad it is. I already know. I’ll listen to genuinely constructive criticism, as always, but based on what I know about the internet and how my blog is best known for making fun of Rebecca Black, I’m not expecting karma to be so kind here.
2. Don’t listen to it very loudly. Even playing this on a stereo might be a bad idea, because the recording quality really isn’t all that great. You probably want to stick to headphones. Plus, then people don’t ask you why you’re listening to this.

That being said, I do hope that you enjoy at least some of it. There is quite a bit here I’m fairly proud of, in that sort of “look what I made in sixth grade pottery!” kind of way, except I only got a C in sixth grade pottery, so, you know, more so. Here’s a little bit about each song that’s on the album, in case you’re one of those people who like to know about the music you’re listening to.

The World At Large (Modest Mouse cover)

This was actually recorded a year and a half before anything else on the album. I recorded a cover of this song entirely on a whim, singing and playing ukulele into my laptop’s built-in microphone while reading the lyrics off the internet. I was honestly really surprised how well this turned out, especially because it was done in one take. So, indirectly, Isaac Brock is to blame for me thinking I could make music.

This Year (Mountain Goats cover)

This was the first song I attempted for the album, thinking that if I could do this, then I could do an album. This is, naturally, where I made a lot of obvious mistakes that I tried to avoid for the rest of the project, like practicing a part before recording it. Simple as the piano part to this song is, I screwed it up more times than I care to admit trying to record it. I spent hours getting good takes, and now I can do the whole thing perfectly. This was also where I first experimented with recording ukulele and guitar directly through my amp. It is still really tricky.

Kids (MGMT cover)

I had actually recorded a guitar/ukulele duet of this song with my RA in my freshman year of college, so I knew exactly what I wanted to do here. This is where I learned that recording my electric-acoustic ukulele through the amp doesn’t always sound “ukulele-y enough”, so what I wound up doing was using a digital camcorder to record my acoustic ukulele, which is how most of the ukulele parts for the album were recorded.

Psycho Killer/Bad Romance (Talking Heads/Lady Gaga cover)

This was the first “big” one that I tried doing, with ukulele, guitar, piano, and drums. The drums were actually made on my keyboard, using one of the drum settings, so each drum sound is made by a a key on my keyboard. I only did drums like this for this song and one other one, because I realized that is stupid. The vocals were probably too ambitious for me, but I really like my instrumentation on this one. There’s a lot of interplay between the parts for the three instruments I’m playing that I rather like. So, if nothing else, if anybody wants a version of this that’s just my instrumentation and not my voice at all, I will happily provide it for them. Or alternatively, I mashed up the original recordings of these two songs a year ago.

Beer (Reel Big Fish cover)

This was easily the most fun song to record on the entire album. It’s such a simple song that I could really play around with the arrangement and make it as absurdly epic as I could manage. The first verse and chorus with the vocals accompanied by uke and a synthesized choir was somewhat inspired by the Mountain Goats’ song “High Hawk Season”. After that, of course, I wanted the song to absolutely explode. There are actually two layers of guitar throughout the majority of the song, doing the same thing. One was recorded cleanly through an amp, but I couldn’t get the distorted “crunch” that I wanted because, well, I was recording through an amp into Audacity, so I had to keep everything at its absolute quietest setting. I eventually figured out I could fake the distortion by overdubbing it with a second guitar track that was just my laptop mic sitting on the opposite end of the room from my amp turned up to full blast. Interestingly enough, the bridge vocals were actually recorded with my cell phone because I couldn’t find any other way to get the vocal effect I wanted. Lastly, the bongos were actually the absolute hardest thing for me to play and record. I have no gift for percussion.

Godot

This song and “The Smartest Guys In The Room” were two songs I wrote senior year of high school on my ukulele. This one only had half the lyrics finished, however, so I had to go back and fill in the blanks, which is kind of a tricky thing to do, because it’s hard to go back to a general feeling you had two years ago. I wound up getting it done by focusing on specific events I could remember from that time, which is harder than it sounds, as I threw out a couple verses because I felt after reflecting on them that they weren’t exactly the mood I was going for. Being able to look at it all in retrospect helped out a little bit, however, because it let me see a sort of bigger picture. I actually have guitar, bass, and drum parts composed for this in my head, but felt a simple ukulele and vocals arrangement was more honest. And, of course, way easier.

Shores of California (Dresden Dolls cover)

Even though it’s just vocals and ukulele, this was easily one of the hardest songs for me to do on the album. I must have recorded fifty vocal takes, trying to get one that didn’t sound like shit. The ukulele part, on the other hand, was one of my favorites on the album and some of my best playing.

Bodysnatchers (Radiohead cover)

Never cover Radiohead. Just don’t. You may think it will be fun but it’s mostly just hard, even if you can play the distorted guitar riff on ukulele and you think that’s impressive.

The Smartest Guys in the Room

Another song I wrote in senior year of high school on the ukulele, which I also had a full arrangement planned for, but ran out of time to actually record it. I’m okay with this for the same reason that I’m okay with “Godot” turning into a simple ukulele and vocals arrangement, for the simple reason that that’s just how I’ve been playing it, so that might as well me how it’s recorded. Someday I’ll go back and redo these two songs with drums, guitars, bass, keyboards, and get them to sound like I’d imagined them as opposed to how I’ve always played them. The versions on this album will be like the rare acoustic demos or something. The chorus vocals for this song were the very last thing recorded for this album.

Runaway (Kanye West cover)

Don’t worry, it’s strictly an instrumental cover, save for a snippit of “Dark Fantasy” at the beginning, used as an intro. This was one of the more fun ones to do, because instead of spending a lot of time trying to get my singing to sound good, I could just make the instrumentation sound really lush instead.

Boring Fetishes For Boring People

An original song that I’ve been playing with for about two years. The simplistic piano melody came first when I was messing around on my keyboard, and then the rest of it just came into my head as an overproduced pop-rock song, so I did my very best to replicate that with the resources I had available. Throughout the song there are three layers of guitars, a ukulele, a piano, a synthesized bass, and a drum machine. And there’s a synthesized trumpet solo because why the hell not. The guitar solo is, sadly, nowhere near as epic as in my head, due to the fact that I don’t really know how to play guitar, but, aside from the relatively low recording quality the whole thing suffers from, I’m actually fairly proud how closely I was able to replicate the song that was stuck in my head for two years that didn’t actually exist. You know how weird it is to have a song stuck in your head that isn’t real? It is fairly weird.

The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton (Mountain Goats cover)

Yeah, another Mountain Goats cover. This one, however, was completely unplanned and really only happened because I was at a friend’s house and was messing around on their mandolin. I do not play mandolin. That’s why this one sounds kind of like it’s just me screwing around, because that’s exactly what it is. I was rather surprised with how well it turned out though, which is why it found a place on the album.

Heaven (Talking Heads cover)

Another Talking Heads cover? Wow, I got lazy with this.

Some Fantastic (Barenaked Ladies cover)

The Barenaked Ladies are my favorite band and I knew I had to cover a song of theirs, but debated which one for a while, and ultimately settled on a deeper cut from Stunt, the album with “One Week” on it, and the only reason why they’re famous in the states, but that’s a rant for another day. This was one of the hardest songs to do, because I actually had to practice playing it before I recorded it (although I should have for a number of other moments on the album…). Since I’ve been playing the piano for longer than all the other instruments on the album put together, I thought it was necessary to do my best to show it off a little bit.

A Moment of Silence (Streetlight Manifesto cover)

The ukulele, piano, guitar progression was one of the first arrangements I came up with when I was still considering making the album, but was actually one of the last ones I recorded. The screaming vocals at the end are a little ridiculous, but I felt they had to be done. Even when recording vocals in an empty house, recording yourself screaming is just uncomfortable.

And so some random information about the making of the album, because I know you’re curious:

• The only instruments that were used for the album (save for “The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton”) were a Lanikai LU-21 concert ukulele, an Applause UAE205E Electric-Acoustic Ukulele, an Epiphone Les Paul Special II Electric Guitar, a Yamaha YPG-235 keyboard, and bongos on “Beer”.
• Most of the ukulele on this album is the acoustic Lanikai recorded through a JVC digital camcorder, which was actually the best microphone I had available to me. The first four tracks and “Bodysnatchers” are the only ones that feature the Applause ukulele.
• The only “live” songs (vocals and instruments all done in one take) were “The World at Large”, “The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton”, and “Heaven”.
• “Psycho Killer/Bad Romance” and “Runaway” are the only songs that use drum loops I created on my keyboard. This was obnoxiously difficult, so I found an online drum machine instead. Tomas Erikkson’s drum machine was used for “Boring Fetishes For Boring People”, and Andre Michelle’s FL 909 was used for “Bodysnatchers”.
• All vocals were recorded with the microphone in my Dell Studio 15 laptop, except for “Heaven” and “Some Fantastic”. That is partly why they sound horrible.
• The amp used was a ZT Lunchbox, basically on its absolute quietest setting at all times.
• Everything was mixed in Audacity. For better or worse.
• Originally a Cage the Elephant cover was going to be on here, but it didn’t work.
• Originally an Arctic Monkeys cover was on here, but I ran out of time. I still want to do it though…
• The two most important things I learned while recording this album: always record the drum track first, and I can’t keep tempo for shit.

And that’s basically it.  Do enjoy.