'Dancing in the Dark' (Springsteen) slight return...

So, on acquiring a Bass Harmonica the first thing one asks oneself is 'why doesn't it sound like the noise I had in my head?'

I'm far from disappointed though.

It was great fun making 'spooky' noises in the dark when I first got my hands on it, but it has a job to do, and that means I have to make some attempt at learning to play it.

Easier said than done...

One of the reasons I purchased this instrument was wanting that 'sound' on The Flying Aspidistras'  version of 'The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God'.

I tried playing along with the second demo version.

It wasn't a great success.

I kept noodling away... errr,  alright, I imitated farting noises and laughed like a drain for about 2 days.

I eventually found I could very-nearly-almost accompany the demo version of 'Dancing in the Dark' I'd recorded.
I hadn't planed to re-record DitD, as - always happens - I'd become... well, sick of it.
It might come out to play if I can't think of anything else to twang, but it's definatly on the back-boiler.

So, back to work then.
Garageband reloaded into the iPad.
The DAW app doesn't really work of me, I find GarageBand much easier to edit on.
The problems with GarageBand are all the 'bells & whistles'.
It's always a temptation to add 'automatic' backing instruments to fatten the track out.

The only non-human instrument I recorded was the drum track and, initially, only to provide a metronome, but in the end it sounded better in than out so it stayed.

Instruments (in order of recording)

• Track 01: Metronome Drum Track
• Track 02: Resonator Ukulele c/w guide vox
• Track 03: Baritone Ukulele.
• Track 04: Resonator Ukulele.
• Track 05: Pocket Bass Hamonica.
• Tracks 06/07/08/09 Vocals

I made a slight mistake in the recording procedure.
When recording the guide uke/vox track I turned the drums off and used the annoying clave metronome.
My timing drifted in a couple of parts.
This had the knock on effect of throwing the subsequent recordings ever-so-slightly 'out'.

It's an odd sensation, listening back to the guide-track whilst recording another part.
You know your timing is dead-on against the drums - which I'd turned back on - then the backing-track 'wobbles'.
You only have a split second, once you realise something's wrong, to readjust.

It's a bit like being seasick.

I could not get the vocal right, one of the reasons it's fallen off my top 20 songs to sing and play.
The result is a combination of several takes.
I like the way I attempted to extend the word 'and' in the stanza  'I get up in the morning, and I have nothing to say'.
It was an attempt at a tension building 'annnnnnnd here's Dickie' talk show host way.

I like the way I sung 'tired and bored with myself' in my impersonation of a narky teenage way.

These observations may not actually be apparent to normal people, but I can hear them.

Here it is then:


It's growing on me, but it's done now.