Tuesday, June 14, 2011

The History of Audubon Park, Part Twenty

When Ross asked us to play on WXDU the first time, we ended our sloppier-than-usual set with a cover of "Turn Your AC on High" by Work Clothes. I've made no secret about the fact that I think Work Clothes are one of the all time best bands. Audubon Park, in what was to be a tribute, took one of their lovely songs and turned it into a circular saw flying through a playground. I mean, it turned out pretty great and I hope that Lee and Jenny know that it was meant with love.

When we were rounding out the track list for our second EP, we were stuck for a fourth song. From the original demos that I recorded, there were two other songs--one we learned and one we didn't. The one we learned, "Babble and Yap Senselessly," we only played once. I don't know why--I really liked that song. But, it never caught on or maybe I decided I hated it at the time and have forgotten that.

In any case, we were at Go!, discussing the recording we were going to do at Finn's mom's and we decided to do a cover of "Old Haunts" by the Ghost of Rock. But, just as we took Work Clothes's haunting ballad and turned it into a noise rock blow-out, we decided to take The Ghost of Rock's punk song and make it a stark piano ballad. The subject matter of the song--getting older, remembering the past--made it perfect for that.

That cover is one of the things I am most proud of with this band. Somehow, Matt and I hit those high notes on the backup vocals just right. But it wouldn't be so good if the song weren't really great and The Ghost of Rock were brilliant, so it would have been hard to make the song not sound great.

You know, "Gold Guitars" by Farblondjet is a really great song too.

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