From the album "Odelay". I love Beck's early melodic stuff. Loser is ok but it's songs like this one that I really dig from Beck. This was fun to throw together although I couldn't figure out that little guitar solo he does at the 1st break... btw, recording hand clapping sucks. (I threw in an additional guitar track with the new PRS.)

Lord Only Knows (Beck Cover)

From the "Natural Born Killers" soundtrack... one of my favorite movies of all time. This song is Anthemic for GenX. It was kinda hard to play & make interesting because it's a very long & quiet piano/synth song that basically repeats the melody over & over without any major changes. Trent's original is hauntingly beautiful... but my take here was beginning to sound awful repeatative & bland... so I broke it up a bit by silencing drums in spots, adding heavy guitars at the end & doing some echo samples with guitar. As per my usual, I utilized drums by Arnaud Krakowa. I claim no ownership or copyright of the opening sample of Juliette Lewis singing... I just wanted something from the movie in here somewhere.

Something I Can Never Have (NIN Cover) Remix 1

Some bands are considered "emo" but I don't feel like that label applies to them. FAR is one such band. However, Texas is the Reason is emo through & through... & this song here, "A Jack w/One Eye" has always been my favorite song by these guys. Some of the stuff they've put out can come across as "whiney" & I don't dig everything by them. But there's certainly a few gems in their discography. I love the guitar riffs here along w/the odd time signature. My vocals don't really compare to his, I can't really sing for one, but I also can't reproduce the "whiney" quality that actually fits this song well. At least the music came out really good IMO...

A Jack with One Eye (Texas is the Reason Cover)

Finally nailed this tune. I've been trying to cover it with a more or less straight on drum track as Procol Harum plays it... and it just wasn't working. At least not as a hard rock cover. Then I discovered Doom Tones channel on youtube. His drums are sick! This particular drum track wasn't even on my radar when I was going through some options. It's when the drums really pick up that hooked me & brought out the song for my harder version. So props to Doom Tones for that! The clean intro & ending were just a way of showing how different this could've went, but I think it works ok. I'm very happy with the final results musically. This one ROCKS! My vox are blah as usual, but I used my new ESP LTD F-50 Guitar and I love it. Hopefully my recording block is over now...

A Whiter Shade Of Pale (Procol Harum Cover)

This song is from the movie "Scott Pilgrim Vs The World". In the movie it is sung by the actress Brie Larson. It's how I 1st heard it & Brie's version is my favorite version. I love this song... the structure, the bass line, the guitar parts lead... it's just an excellent "feel good" song. As usual, my vocals just can't compare to either version but if you are gonna cover it... I really tried to clean it up as best I could, but it's sung by higher pitched female vocals. (The drum track I used was from a Youtube channel called "The Interlude", so thanks to them for the drum track!)

Black Sheep (Metric Cover)

...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead is one of my favorite bands. This song here was just released as a single for their new album due out in July '22. As soon as I heard it I knew I wanted to cover it. Vox were a bitch as usual & the drums sound a bit wonky because I had to slow down the tempo & they lost some fidelity. (Thanx to Mr. Drums youtube channel for the drum track!) Btw... Contra Mundum means "Against the world".

Contra Mundum (Trail Of Dead Cover) Final Mix

My 2nd mix of a rocking cover version of Don McLean's song about Vincent Van Gogh. I really wasn't sure if this would work out at all when I started. I had to change some timing in the song to make it work. There's almost no pause between the verses in original version. It was just too "busy" that way, so I gave it some breathing room (...and still the vocals are almost non-stop). NOFX does a version of this song too, but their's is way different than mine. Everyone else who covers this song keeps it pretty, quiet & sad... so I wanted to do it differently. I guess it came out ok. It's hard to really hear the lyrics because there's so much going on, but I encourage anyone to look 'em up. They are really good! As usual, all vox & instruments are done by me except the drums. Those are from an excellent youtube channel called "Guitar Maps Drum Tracks". They have tons of killer drum vids, so thanks to them.

Vincent/Starry Starry Night (Don McLean Cover)

Delta Spirit is one of those bands for me where I either love their songs or they kinda irk me. They aren't the band for me to pop in an album & listen to it straight through, but some are better than others. This song is from their 2014 album "Into the Wide" & it is one of their best along with their 1st album "Ode to Sunshine" & 2nd "History From Below". The other 3-4 albums they've put out do nothing for me. But, back to this tune... it is one of my all-time favs. I remember when I first heard it actually... it's THAT important in my personal musical lexicon. I was going to add synths but I decided not to. There's already so many tracks I didn't want to lose the feel of what I already had. I have recorded this before with the synths, but that effort was bogged down with shitty drums & poor overall recording quality... & horseshit vocals I might add. I'm glad I gave it another whirl as this recording is sooooo much better than that first one. It's such a great song, you should get on youtube & listen to the original!

Hold My End Up (Delta Spirit Cover 2023)

*2nd Mix. This song came about from inspiration when playing my new guitar, an Ibanez RG470 that has a killer burled red burst top. That is the guitar primarily used in this song (I added a couple lead runs with my Schecter Omen too...). All guitars were ran through my Line-6 Spider 3 amp. The bass I used was my Schecter Elite 4 Diamond Series thru my Positive Grid Spark amp. The lyrics are actually one of the best parts of this song though! I had named it "A Good Old Fashioned Punk Rock Song" before I even had a word written down. As I tried to map out the vocals I kept hearing "Santeria" by Sublime in my head & it was throwing me off from writing anything. So instead, I just embraced it and before long I found myself writing lyrics based on other punk/hard rock bands that fit my needs whether it was a song name, album name, band name or their lyrics I was using... it was a lot of fun to figure it out while trying to reference certain bands that I have loved through the years. You will find references to Sublime, Metallica, Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, Misfits, Nirvana, Ministry, Social Distortion & NOFX. I'll add the lyrics sometime soon. Enjoy!!!

A Good Old Fashioned Punk Song (2024)

Punk Rock Song 2

When DEVO played this song back in '76 or '77 (?) they claimed it was a "song by Gerry & The Pacemakers from 1965". I can find no such song from them named "Beulah" or otherwise... but it sure is a good tune. I think "Beulah" only appears on that live album from DEVO's early days in Akron... there is no existing studio version or anything. This song inevitably got played at tons of parties from my youth... more often than not we would all join in on the "LOVE!" refrain in our drunkeness. It's such a catchy tune & has such a classic feel. I have some other DEVO songs in mind to cover too, but this one came outta me 1st & I'd bet that there's very few people who would recognize this as a DEVO cover outside of hardcore DEVO fans & my friends from those days long gone.

Hold My End Up (Delta Spirit Cover 2023)

Jeff Swinderman 4

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