Band Management: Blog 36: The Tribute Album

I am miss-managing “Band A” for 1-year. They have been asked by their label Kafadan Kontak Records to record a Suicide song for a tribute album. 
So, taking a step back: 1) It’s fun as hell to be given a crazy creative assignment from KK Records, 2) Suicide are great – you probably know them because Springsteen covered their song “Dream Baby Dream,” and 3) this is totally like Project Runway and “Band A” has to make the best cover song on this compilation album, cause I am a competitive fucker and a Project Runway fanboy. 
The song is “Johnny” by Suicide, their first ever single. A couple of members of “Band A” sat around last week and came to agreement on the chords (E, A, 😎, and the structure, which is very close to classic blues. The original has droning electronic drums, a simple bass riff, and the repetitive snarled story of Johnny looking for love and trouble. 
“Band A” played it over and over and over on Sunday afternoon. Then on Monday morning “Band A” showed up to El Rancho Morbido Studios to work with producer/engineer Edward Madill. 
The bass player couldn’t figure out the original bass part, so a new bass part had been added – a repetitive take on the Joy Division “Love Will Tear Us Apart” synth riff. A concluding narrative was added by the singer. So Johnny wasn’t just being a bad-ass – he was looking for her, and she was with someone else, and she was gonna make Johnny weep. The drums were stripped back to sound more Velvet Underground and less like an early electronica beat.
And this is how “Band A” recorded the track. First, they recorded a scratch track. They played the song over and over and over until the rhythm guitar player said “can we try it a little faster?” And the faster take was the scratch track. And that was about it, really. The singer tried vocals two more times – but decided the scratch vocals were the best. El Rancho Morbido studios have an organ and the singer played organ over the song – and that was pared-down to accent the chorus turn-around. A slide guitar was added and that was pared-down too. Some chanting was added to the end. And that was it.
Does it sound like a winner? You know I’m trying to be honest with this blog: it sounds interesting if you have headphones on and like musical soup if you don’t. The vocal melody is a lot more catchy. It’s definitely interesting. Don’t bore the judges. And “Band A” is heading back to the studio on Friday morning to clean it up.