First Complete Draft of “Symbolic Dog Blues” !!

It’s done! Well, not DONE. Just, you know, done. First draft, all the way through, all instruments, all voices, all everything.

What’s left to do?

• Fix the jokes that don’t work, and rerecord their dialog.
• Rerecord Jimbob’s dialog in the 2nd verse, matching his voice to the other verses.
• Add some light drum fills if I feel like it.
• Adjust all volume levels and mix the song as a whole.

Notably absent from this list is any more instrumental recording: the bass, guitars, keyboard, and Kazooka tracks are completely finished!

The audio:

As always, use headphones or real speakers (not your laptop’s) for best results. Or use your laptop. Whatever.

If you’ve already heard Verses One and Two and are too impatient to hear them again, this first link is for you. You will miss the entire buildup and not really get it, and Jimbob will call you a dirty rat, but I don’t mind if you don’t mind. Click here to get only Verse Three:

If you are awesome and want to hear the full six minutes, click here:

What is all this Silliness??

Okay, I am not attempting to produce America’s next pop hit. This offbeat, silly song is my learning exercise, and by the time it is fully mixed down, it will have provided me with about a year of self schooling in audio recording and production. This sort of character work is a favorite style of mine, and it has allowed me to practice every element I am likely to work with in the future: programmed drums, guitars (acoustic, electric, bass) and keyboards, singing vocals, spoken vocals, singing character vocals, and odd percussion sounds like glass bottles and a hand drum I once bought at a T’ai Chi festival. Oh yeah, and a hard rock kazoo.

Future work will take more conventional considerations into account, such as selecting styles that other people tend to like. Don’t misunderstand—I am very happy with this project!! Just sayin’ …