Handshake Drugs/Marquee Moon

Now with added cornet! (by me, not by that guy)

The Ecuador Three - Handshake Drugs

The Ecuador Three - Handshake Drugs

Here's a mostly pointless cover of Wilco's Handshake Drugs the veers into Television's Marquee Moon for a few minutes in the middle. Contains viola. And doubletracked tambourine.

The Ecuador Three - Handshake Drugs

Coltrane in slow motion

"Hey what's up with Don the bassist, he's looking like shit"
"Don started doing heroin"
"Jeez, how could he be so stupid"
"All the really good jazz musicians did three things. They read the Bible. They did heroin. And they practised a lot. Don wants to get better, so he's started reading the Bible and doing heroin."
- I Love Music thread

I've been listening to a lot of John Coltrane lately. It's not just that his playing is fast - it's more like he's playing amazing melodic lines and he just happens to want to play them extremely quickly. They'd be just as interesting slowed down. By way of example, here's India at half speed:

John Coltrane - India (The Ecuador Three treacle remix)
 

Carpenters Challenge: Rainbows

The Carpenters Challenge: record a Carpenters classic, if possible making it even more airy fairy than the original. First up is our man Manketta (or Brian to his mam), seen here on the right, with a glitchy update of a middle of the road classic. Stay tuned for versions of Superstar, We've Only Just Begun and more...

Mantekka - Rainbows

Jenny Is A Fox

This is one of those tunes where I tried to put too much stuff in and it never quite came together as I planned, so I uploaded it so I can leave it and finish something else. Oh well. I'm one track closer to finishing the Peace And Love EP (provisional cover above).

The Ecuador Three - Jenny Is A Fox

The Ecuador Three - Gideon

Quick little cover of the My Morning Jacket song recorded in just under an hour on a rainy Saturday afternoon

The Ecuador Three - Gideon

Opus Dave

There comes a time, it seems, in every young man's life when his friends sit him down and make him listen to the album they've been writing about him behind his back for the past two months. Here it is: (all tracks credited to The Retro Cowboys of Delta Dineenadelica)

1. Opus Dave
2. The Curse of Dave Dineen
3. (Baby, I'm) Dave Dineen
4. The Legend of El Dineeño
5. Pin Stripe Revolution
6. 13 Choses Qui Sont Meilleures Que Dave
7. (The Tale of The Bastard Child of The Suitor To) The King of The Midweek Scene
8. Dance It Off With Dave Dineen
9. Hey, Mr. Dave Dineen!
10. Dirty For Double D
11. The King of The Midweek Scene (Suite)
12. Bad Bad Dave Dineen / The Dangerous Dave Dineen Rag

Free VSTs that aren't shite

I use Tracktion 2 for all my recording needs. It came free with my soundcard, and is a joy to use. The built in EQ is pretty good, and very intuitive. The MDA plugins included, however, leave a lot to be desired. For those of you interested in this sort of thing (hi Andy), I present to you my list of usable free VST plugins to get you started:

• Steroid Bouncer - processing for stereo tracks that aren't really stereo, i.e. bass direct and mic'd amp
• Cyanide - simple sigmoid type distortion
• endorphin - excellent dual band compressor, intuitive controls, good for heavy squashing
• Bionic Delay - nice dub type delay - make left and right delay times different and you can get nice Haas effect placement
• newB - bass enhancer, can be good if used subtly
• Freeverb - the daddy of free reverbs. Only really has one sound (medium room) but it's a good one
• Ambience - good reverb for when you want an obvious effect
• SIR - impulse reverb. Get impluses here and here.
• Tapeworm - Mellotron VST. Nice flutes

Easy (Thus Do All)

I thought I was onto a winner with this one until I realised that not only did it rip off Place Your Hands by Reef, but Wide Open Spaces by The Dixie Chicks. Oh well...

The Ecuador Three - Easy (Thus Do All)

Undercurrent

Here are two old (2004) tunes done for a college video documentary project. They're pretty much pastiches/ripoffs (try and guess which one is trying to be Four Tet, and which one is DJ Shadow). Nevertheless, I remember being pretty proud of them at the time, young and foolish as I was.

Dave Dineen - Speaker Music
Dave Dineen - Title Music

The Ecuador Three - Hey (or how the band did its thing)

A (slightly work-in-progress) song for ye all.

The Ecuador Three - Hey (or how they band did its thing)

Retro Cowboy Delta Dineenadelica

Another far-fetched flight of fancy, this time courtesy of Norman Davey.

Retro Cowboys of Delta Dineenadelica - The Curse (a preview from the Album "Songs In The Key Of D Dineen)

Tuned like a guitar...

...played like a cello. The arpeggione was invented in 1823, but quickly fell out of favour, its only notable work written by Schubert. I want one.