This is one of a series of songs recorded live (and low-tech!) during Thomas Dolby's Spring 2012 Time Capsule Tour.
Comments from Thomas Dolby:
like starting the show with this song for a couple of reasons: it's got a rocky r'n'b feel, but it's quite tense and uncompromising, so it's a good prelude to what's to come and sets the scene nicely. Also it's not all that demanding vocally, so it's a good way to warm up my vocal chords. The lyrics reference a Heineken TV ad from the 1970s in which Franz Schudert is trying to get his symphony finished, and his friends call up from the street 'hey Franzi, are you coming down the Bierkeller?'
In this song I'm playing a sort of brass part via Logic's ES2 synth on the bottom keyboard. With my right hand I have to span a 9th (thumb on an Ab and pinky finger on a Bb) plus in the second verse I add a moving middle note, so the chords end up being Bb major, Bb sus, Bb 2nd, Bb major. The bridge moves up to C7, then in the chorus I'm playing an Eb sus throughout, though the bass moves from Eb to F. My left hand is doubling the bass. The bass is programmed with a MiniMoog plugin.
The lead line at the end of each chorus is played in a higher register quite a 'singing' ES2 mono synth, which I then carry on to use for the start of the solo verse. This carries through to the end of the bridge, where I mix in a second note two octaves down, using a MIDI knob assigned to control 7. Then I move to the upper keyboard-you have to understand that both keyboards are just MIDI controllers, they have no 'sound' of their own in this song. The upper keyboard is set 4 octaves up, so I have a total of about 10 octaves to play with, all sending on MIDI channel 1. Logic then splits the registers up and sends the zones to different synth and sample sounds. The 'nasty' part of the synth solo is played on Omnisphere, a patch called 'Control Thyself', which has some distortion effects. I open up its filters towards the end. When the solo gets to the chorus sequence I go back to the ES2, with lots of pitch bending, replicating what I played on the record 30 years ago.
PS Largo's a lovely old theater, with a lovely old lighting system too-perfect for making Kevin's pre-humbucker Fender Telecaster buzz like a hive of angry bees!
Comments from Kevin Armstrong (guitar):
Because this song is the set opener and it starts with my guitar chords alone I always feel slightly nervous in case I don't land my left hand squarely on top of the first changes. From an open Eb6 to a B aug-maj7 isn't the most friendly of things your fingers can get around and still make it sound punchy and aggressive. To learn to nail it took me several hundred goes. If my left hand isn't completely relaxed or gets even a fraction twisted the astringent complexity of TD's innovative chords turn into a horrible discordant honk. I have to do it with a slight distortion boost added too so any mistake is amplified and there's no hiding place. It just sounds like s**t! On the other hand when it rings out loud clear and true I feel like there's not another guitarist on the planet who can make that sound and know that there are players out there watching who are going.. How does he do that?
If you want to buy a DVD and CD of the entire Time Capsule show, as performed at the Blue Note in Tokyo, you can buy it at CD Baby.
11 июл 2012
