B3nson does B3nson

Always more music! “B3 does B3″ is a project that we’ve been working on since the start of 2012.  The participating artists chose some of their favorite fellow B3nsonite’s tunes and are putting their own spin on them.

Emily Stewart does Matthew Carefully
& for next week, The Neighborhood of Make Believe!

Happy Wednesday! “Oh My Luck” by Matthew Carefully is what we’re covering this week. Check out last weeks post for the original version because this is how the one-woman show known as Emily Stewart does it:

A couple questions for Emily Stewart:

WHO is on the recording?: It is just me, Emily Stewart.

WHERE was the recording done?: On  the couch in the living room in my apartment in Westfield, Massachusetts.

HOW did you make the recording?: Well, after doing a B3nson does B3nson with both Richard Nolan and Matthew Loiacono, I wanted to do one of my own.  So upon arriving back in Westfield one weekend I just sat down and got to work.  I would like to thank my brother Ryan because he gave me advise on how to make it better because I was going into this whole thing a bit blind as I never done any recording or editing like this before.  As you can tell there were no instruments used, everything is my voice.

This is the first B3nson a capella recording. Have you had any other experience with singing or arranging for a capella?: Yes, I am in my schools a capella group, we are called the Night Owls, and I am currently arranging the piece “Boyfriend” by Ashlee Simpson for just the girls because it is quite sassy

Materials Used: I used Garage Band on my MacBook, and a pair of headphones.

Why did you pick this song and artist to cover?: I picked this song because it was one of my favorites that I was able to perform with Matthew Carefully and the Undone Ensemble at last summers Resteration Festival.

WHAT was the hardest and/or most fun part or re-arranging and recording this song?: The hardest part about this project was recording and editing it because I had no idea what to do.  But that was also my favorite part because it forced me to sit down and figure some things out.  The part that I had the most fun on though was being able to beatbox.

Have you put your new post-production editing skills to use since making your recording?: Yes, Richard Nolan (Umbwella, Boston Celtics) and I, along with some others are working on some new music.  When I finish or almost finish a song I record it and send it to him and he thinks of ways to make it better.  Then when I go home we work on it together.  I am also in the process of working on some tracks for Kamran Parwana (Nursing Home Discoveries).

AND FOR NEXT WEEK!

B3nson Grand-Wizard Alex Muro is the man behind the Neighborhood of Make Believe and this weeks original tune, “Between Two Nighttimes, Lightning”. This is the opening track of their 2010 B3nson release Prince Tuesday (b3031), available at their bandcamp.

A couple questions for Neighborhood’s Alex Muro:

Can you give us some background on this song?
The song was inspired by a poem of the same name (although in spanish) by Vincente Alexandre, which I read in the book Longing for the Light: Selected Poems of Vincent Aleixandre, translated by Lewis Hyde, that I bought at the dove and hudson book store. It was a habit of my for a long time to go and buy a book of poems by someone I had heard of and a book of poems by someone I hadn’t because the books there are so cheap and the store is brilliantly curated so that its difficult to buy something truly bad. This is an amazing book and I highly recommend it to other people who like to read books of poems. Its kind of surreal and dense and all written in free verse in a way that made it seem to lose very little in translation. Its poetry where the emphasis is not how things are said but instead what is said and it manages to be rather powerful in that way. The title line had a resonance in the idea that one moment can instantly divide two periods of time. So the whole song is about how to deal with this metaphorical bolt of lightening which divides your life into eras. This coincided with the time when the hobo banned was trying to decide what its goals were and why, which allowed Jen and Eric to concentrate on what has become The Parlor.

You have already heard the Boston Celtics cover of your song, what do you think about their version?
Driving back from Schenectady last night, there was nothing good on the usual radio stations so I tuned in to FLY 92.3 as it was playing that song by the band FUN whose hook occasionally gets stuck in my head and left the dial there for a while thinking to myself, “Its been ages since you’ve listened to popular radio you should see what its like these days.” I am still grasping , although half heartedly, at an appreciation of radio pop. There are so many constraints placed upon the genre (must have thumping 4/4 kick,very fake snare sound as the loudest things in the song, whooshing noises to indicate that the important part of the song is coming up and the chorus must be very short repeated at least 5 times ) and I resent as a listener that someone thinks that such cheap tricks would actually trick me into liking something. Instead it becomes a distraction, preventing me from listening to the what fills the small amount of room left for creativity. The Boston Celtics on the other hand have a knack for this kind of thing and clearly find a  thumping 4/4 bass beat to be a boon rather than a distraction. There is a lot to be said for context and how things are presented to us and the Boston Celtics are helping me to learn how to appreciate pop music. At least a little bit.

Previously:
Umbwella does the Hoborchestra
B3nson does B3nson