Cover of Anniversary by Theatre of Hate.  Recorded around 2007 using GarageBand.  All instruments are keyboard with the exception of the guitar, which was recorded through a tiny practice amp.  Apologies for the weak attempt at the clarinet/sax solo, but it was the best I could do via keyboard.

I think Anniversary is one of the better songs by Theatre of Hate, and it Billy Duffy (ex-ToH, The Cult) has stated it's his favorite song by the band.  It's a shame it hasn't been played live since 1982.  The bass line is excellent.

Anniversary

A cover of Judgement Hymn by Theatre of Hate that I recorded using GarageBand many years ago.  It's all recorded using a keyboard, with the exception of the guitar during the final portion of the song.  The drums were a bit of a beast to program and they do no justice to the original, but I'm happy enough with them because I have no drumming background.  The originally obviously doesn't have a piano, but I thought it was kind of cool and gives a Spear of Destiny 1984 touch to it.

SoD Cover Songs

Judgement Hymn

A cover of Don't Turn Away by Spear of Destiny recorded using GarageBand.  It's mostly keyboard with a guitar.

The recording is mostly based around 1984 live versions, and you'll notice some organ bits from the live version featured as a Prisoner of Love b-side.  I went a bit overboard for the solo section of the song, which starts at around 1:32.  The guitar line is playing the sax solo from The Preacher live.  The piano is playing the sax solo from the One Eyed Jacks album.  If you listen hard enough you'll hear an organ, and I want to say that it's playing the sax solo from the Prisoner of Love live version.  Anyway, three different sax solos played at the same time using different instruments.  A bit chaotic but I still love listening to it.

Don't Turn Away

A cover of Aria by Theatre of Hate / Spear of Destiny that I recorded around 2009.  It's all done with keyboards, and I probably should have thrown some guitar on it, but oh well.  I thought it would be cool to do a piano centric version of the song, imagining that's how Neil Pyzer would have played it if Spear had ever done the track live in 1984.

There's this great guitar solo from 3:37-4:08 in the original Grapes of Wrath album version, and I've never heard it any of the live versions, which is a shame.  The sole reason I recorded this cover was that I wanted to capture that bit, although I couldn't figure out how to play it.  Luckily my friend Jacob is a talented musician and he sent me a midi with him playing that section, and I messed around with it.  You can hear the result at about 3:00 into this song.  None of my friends (including Jacob) think that particular guitar solo is any good, which is crazy to me.

Other than that, I don't really recall how I structured the song.  I'm guessing I listened to a bunch of different versions (Ten Years After, Preacher Live) and took some little bits that I liked from them.

Aria

A cover of I Remember by Spear of Destiny that I recorded around 2008.  I always felt that I Remember was a super underrated song, and I think the only time it got played live was during one of the West World Weekends some time around 2013.

I'm pretty sure that I got the chord progression wrong going into the refrain, so apologies for that.  It still sounds correct to my ear when I listen to this recording, but I recall realizing it was wrong after I finished recording.

This would sound good if I put some guitar on it, but as it was I was trying to highlight the piano/organ parts.  One part I always liked about the song was that little piano run toward the very end.  You can hear it here at 4:30 and 4:40.

I Remember

A cover of The Flying Scotsman by Spear of Destiny that I recorded around 2010.  This is one of the few songs that I did that was guitar centric.  The guitar doesn't sound that great because it was just a direct cable from my guitar into my computer - no amp.

I always loved the galloping drum/bass combination in this song and I'm surprised that I halfway did it justice given that I have no drum knowledge and horrible rhythm.  I'm also a fan of the end of the song, which is based on The Bonnie Banks of Loch Lommond.

Astute Spear of Destiny fans will notice that both the intro and outro of this recording are based on the 1983 live version, most widely available on The Preacher Live.  I threw piano on here because I always wondered what the song would have sounded like if the 1984-85 lineup of Spear had played it.

Flying Scotsman

This is the first song that I ever recorded, maybe back around 2007.  The guitar was played through a little practice amp smaller than a box of kleenex, which I then recorded through my computer's mic.  As bad of an idea as that may seem, it created a kind of cool sound that I've never been able to replicate.

Of course, it is a cover of Spear of Destiny's Grapes of Wrath.  Most of the song is based on the live version from the Live at the Lyceum (1984) recording.  There are bits at the very beginning and end that are from the ToH version on the Ten Years After album.  I don't play sax, so I did some weird keyboard effect to capture the sax solo from the Lyceum version.  There's a piano part around 3:40 which is my favorite bit - this is from how the song was played during 1984, and although that part isn't really audible during the Lyceum concert, I've heard it on some other live versions.

Grapes of Wrath 1

The intro to Nero by Theatre of Hate.  I never got around to finishing the rest of the track, in part because ToH drums are a beast to try to capture using midi.  Similar to my recording of Judgement Hymn I added piano to this track, imagining what the song might have sounded like if performed by Spear of Destiny in 1984.

Nero (Intro demo)

Absolutely horrible cover of Mickey by Spear of Destiny.  I just couldn't get the guitar tone right, but bear in mind this was basically guitar->GarageBand with no amp, so go figure.
I started to record a much more fleshed out version of the song, but never finished it.

Mickey

Cover of These Days Are Gone by Spear of Destiny.  The first portion is based on live 1984 versions of the song (such as Lyceum), which had drumming.  The second half "instrumental" portion of the song is a combination of how it was played live in 1986 (very guitar oriented and Volker Jenson piano) and some of the sax-led versions from 1984 live shows.

These Days Are Gone 1

Cover of The Traveller by Spear of Destiny.  There aren't any live versions of this (at least back when I recorded it), so it's a pretty straight take on the album version.  Maybe not the most exciting song to do an instrumental of, but I thought it would sound good with piano and organ standing out.  Plus there's that great moment at about the 4 minute mark based on the "whoooo" bit that Kirk does towards the end of the song, and I love how the song ends.

This song could probably use some acoustic guitar, but I figure that I'm never going to get around to that.

The Traveller

The most amateur of anybody to ever post to SoundCloud likely.  I'm simply sharing some recordings of some favorite songs that I recorded back around 2007-2009 using GarageBand.  Amateur stuff for sure, but maybe someone will enjoy hearing a different take on a favorite song.

speardestiny

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