Unplugged. *Really* unplugged
Posted by David Hepworth on 30 January 2008 - 8:05am.
Nothing in the world of rawk sounds quite so absurd as a vocal track deprived of its instrumental backing. Here, thanks to the folks at Chunklet, is the never knowingly out-emoted David Lee Roth doin' "Runnin' With The Devil" on his own. All on his own.
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Weird in more ways than one
Where's the chorus gone?
I would imagine...
...they did that separately. With the whole group.
The "War" vocal track is like that
"[silence] What is it good for? Absolutely [silence]. Huh!"
Edwin doesn't sound quite as ridiculous as the Rothster though.
(If I knew how to embed sound files I'd post the thing. Er, Fraser, got a sec?)
You'll need...
To upload the file to somewhere like Divshare - the code to embed the file at another site will be generated for you automatically. Then it's a straightforward copy & paste.
OK, here goes
(Ta, Fraser!)
Mr H has actually inadvertently hit upon a silly little hobby of mine: collecting original vocal tracks of classic songs (mostly Motown). I'll happily put up a couple more if fellow bloggers will front me the money er I mean say "Yeah!" My particular faves include:
Stevie Wonder - For Once In My Life
Smokey Robinson - The Tracks Of My Tears
Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston - It Takes Two
Marvin Gaye - What's Goin' On
The Temptations - My Girl
Plus, the jewel in this weird little crown: the original backing-vocal track of none other than the Word-blog-endorsed GROAT: "Be My Baby" (yes, Sonny & Cher are in there).
This is brilliant!
We want more!
OK, here's my Top 3
First off, here's Little Stevie uptight and naked:
The Tempts (could them lads sing a bit or what?):
And, last but not least (well, for now, anyway -- I'm supposed to be working here!), the GROAT itself:
Note for the nerdily curious: The Motown ones were put together by some masher-up who realised that by tweaking with the channels of a 5.1 version of a Greatest Hits CD that was done for the Japanese market you could completely isolate the vocals. The Spector one is the real deal, though -- the original BV track. Dig that headphone seepage! I only hope that whoever liberated it from the studio took the precaution of wearing a Kevlar vest. (I've got Ronnie's original vocal track too but I've just discovered it's on my old computer, dang it.)
Wow.
wow. wow.
That's fantastic
Struck me listening to the Temptations that they're so relaxed and consequently they produce a lovely, soft sound unlike nearly all the self-styled "great vocalists" of today who sound terribly harsh. And is there a bloke among the Ronettes?
Who was the Ron?
It was Sonny Bono, who back then was still the studio gopher. He also dragged in his 16-year-old girlfriend for the session to make up the numbers. The rest, as they say....
is a video...
of his girlfriend all grown up wearing a skimpy little number sat astride a cannon on a warship.
Best thing I've heard for ages!
Archie- Absolute gems. Brought work to a dead halt (not always too difficult a task, though). Those Tamla vocals are just as arresting without a backing track, whereas Dave Lee Roth just couldn't get arrested. Do you reckon Cher was the slightly flat harmony noticeable at the end of the Ronettes clip?
(Please... there must be some engineers out there with a few clips in the attic?)
Un
f*cking believably brilliant.
Good game
Archie - come on now, you've got to give us the Ronettes by lunchtime.
Thanks for that...
My Wednesday has started with a chortle (in fact, make that several chortles)
Ooooooh yeaaaaahhh! Woooo hoooooo!
Beach Boys God Only Knows a capella anyone?
Bit of instrumental sound in places.
Love this song.
Unfortunately it says embedding disabled by request.
Damn
Now see that it also killed the URL I'd pasted.
Just search for Beach Boys God Only Knows a capella on You Tube.
Mick Jagger with Chas and Dave
The early stereo mixes of the Stones albums were somewhat crude, resulting in just Mick Jagger and Brian Jones occupying the right channel for "Mother's Littler Helper". Gets particularly hilarious right at the end where there's ten seconds of silence following by a costermonger's "hoy!"
Meanwhile, over in the drum booth....
Bonzo gets a tad irked before laying down "Fool In The Rain":
A-one-uh! A-twoooo-uh!....
That's a seriously good groove
I've captured this one, burnt it to CD, and had the car fitted with a 3,500 watt system. The next time some baseball hatted herbert pulls up alongside my car in a Nova with ArrrUnBeee blaring out, I'm going to max this little bugger up and blow his bloody windows out.
Murry minces Beach Boys vocals
Adze's Beach Boys post reminded me of something I found last year and luckily it's on this PC.
So, it's the mid 60's, you're America's most successful pop band, in the studio recording one of your greatest all-time hits. Everything's going pretty well and then your Dad (who's also your manager) turns up after having had a few drinks...
It's pretty long, but listen to the end, when he walks out after delivering a tearful lecture to his boys.
And if Fraser can tell me why my Divshare embeds have the white space underneath...?
I've been wondering that too...
For some reason, the embedding code you're using contains a couple of examples of the attribute height="85", while it should be height="28". It's easy enough to fix this by manually editing the code, but I don't know why Divshare is giving you the wrong height to start off with...
I've fixed the example above.
Now you don't.
Ah.
Not so funky
Once you strip That Bass Line away, Rick James sounds like someone you'd run to the kitchen to avoid at a party.
Silkey Robinson
As DH noticed listening to the Temptations, there's a self-confident effortlessness here that today's R&B-ers just never seem to get the hang of:
The best singing I have ever heard
It's not strictly an acapella but it may as well be. On Sam Cooke compilations this is variously included as "Humming Track" or "Happy In Love" Sounds to me as if he's practising to himself way off mike and somebody just happens to have the tape going. Anyway, it's a sound the angels would recognise even if they had to lean closer to the Mac to hear it. And please note this is just a 30 second clip included for illustrative purposes only.
That...
just sent a shiver down my spine. It's as if his voice were a conduit for joy to pass through.
And...
sadness
How do i get it to play?
Nothing seems to happen - doubtless my fault - I click to activate the control...and that's it!
Well...
If you can see the player, you have the right software installed. It should work.
Ahhh
I guess I haven't got eh s/w installed then. What is it?
It's Flash
Or perhaps you have an old version of Flash that isn't compatible. Assuming you have admin rights on your computer, you can install it after downloading the latest version.
Ta for that
still won't work - have downloaded Flash - but I think it's now due to some Windows bollock blocking Active x controls etc etc can't be arsed to find out what at the moment! But ta for tip.
Isolated Bonham
That Dave Lee Roth is all over the web, but little else similar can be found, apart from some Beatles stuff that gets pulled very quickly.
But, I have found a page of isolated John Bonham tracks.
Track 1 is like a recording of a fireworks display. He was awesome.
http://www.saladrecords.com/bonhamfiles.htm
DIY Beatles ones
1. Put on pretty much anything in stereo pre-Rubber Soul.
2. Hike the balance pot on your amp all the way over to the left or right.
3. Bingo! (Or whatever the drummer was called.)
So now I'm obsessed.
Grapevine
What's Going On (fascinating listening)
Dave Lee Roth track synched with promo video. Wonderful after the 3.00 mark
What's goin' on?
The Marv ones don't work.
To be going on with, here he is with Our Kim (just a snippet, mind):
I heard it through…
… try this one instead. The vocal doesn't start until 0:19, but it's well worth the wait!
He had...
the pipes.
Great hair, David Lee, but here's how to do the rest of it
Percy's vocal track from "Since I've Been Loving You" (again, just a snippet, but enough to illustrate the point, I think):
Dark metal via barber's shop
Every year since 2004, Finnish dark metal band Ajattara have released a Christmas single. My brother, who is something of an expert on this genre of music, tells me that these singles do rather well in their native country and have, in the past, broken into the top ten. Christmas 2007's offering, Tulppaani, included an a capella B-side, best described as the sound of a dark metal, barber's shop quartet recording the theme to a children's television programme.
Glass-gow is thee rock 'n' roll capital of the world!
Personally, I think LR acquits himself extremely well and it did end up on the classic 1st album. Where's the problem?
Now about that gig at the Glasgow Apollo...