Song “Banemana”—with Jake’s help!

In Feb. 2008, my son Jake was playing with GarageBand on our iMac, and I recorded some guitar and bass loops for him. I made it all up on the spot, and then Jake and I dragged the loops around in the editor. And then … I liked it!

This was back when my “home studio” was but a junk room with double-walled soundproofing, and it was only on a rare occasion that I had the electric guitar out. In this case, the occasion was that I had just (finally) bought a bass guitar, which I was anxious to play.

In the end, I liked our little experiment. A lot. I went off and wrote lyrics for it a few months later. Unfortunately, I wrote them for a deep spoken voice, the kind of voice I used to have on demand before my allergies (or something) started interfering. It is now a rare day when I can do that voice, which is one reason I skipped over “Banemana” to record “Symbolic Dog Blues.” Ironically, I proceeded to do Jimbob’s dialog in that same elusive voice (plus the southern accent), which I summoned one night by staying up late with a certain popular Mexican drink made from southwestern cactus, but that’s another story.

There is no engineering on this one, folks. Use headphones, or all bets are off.