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.

Barons In the Attic do Sgt Dunbar
& for next week, The Zabernacle Choir!

Hot off the release of a new album and a slew of new internet videos, these hard workin’ fellas took some time out of their rock star lives to do a cover of Sgt Dunbar’s “Upon Awakening”. Like everything else coming out of the Attic, it’ll rock your socks off:

A couple questions for the Barons, Dan Maddalone and Dylan DePice:

WHO is on the recording?:
Barons In the Attic - Matt Hamilton, Aaron Wilson, Dylan Depice, Dan Maddalone

WHERE was the recording done?:
DM: In SUNY Albany’s WCDB studios. We did a little live show/recording/video thing and just recorded the band playing it cold turkey. I over dubbed some bass and guitars to thicken it up.
DD:  By “cold turkey” you mean you literally never practiced it with us

HOW did you make the recording?:
DD: We recorded it live with some college radiostation recording equipment rigged up in their CD library.
DM: Condenser mic over Dylan (drums), sm58′s in front of everything else. Overdubbing on my end was done with a sm 57 in front of my fender deville for both bass and lead.

Materials Used:
DM: Les Paul, Rickenbacker bass, fender deville, fender blues deluxe, clunky sounding drums, lots of gain
DD: sole. (“yes you can!”)

Did you mean “soul”?
DD:  i meant soul as in soul but also as in the soles of our feet as in “can i kick it?” “yes you can!” i guess i was thinking that the only thing more badass than playing music with soul is playing it with your foot. on the other hand (ha), the only thing less badass than explaining jokes over the internet is trying to be cryptically clever in the first place. damn.

Why did you pick this song and artist to cover?:
DM: I suggested it awhile go because the song is suuuper good and I figured lots of people would be doing older b3 stuff. Figured we’d do something new(ish).
DD: a good cover helps you appreciate the original. actually, bad covers do this too. anyway, we thought stripping down–on complex instrumentation and arrangements (which we couldn’t have pulled off anyway, in truth)–and turning up–the volume (if not the heat)–would help highlight the dope essential skeletal structure of the totally tubular tune, brah. Also, since this song isn’t as accessible as other b3 songs–that you can listen to like a member of the goddamned 21st century!–we thought it’d be cool to highlight a slightly more obscure song belonging to the least obscure b3 band.

WHAT was the hardest and/or most fun part or re-arranging and recording this song?:
DD: hardest: not ever practicing it as a full band or having a digital recording to use as a reference. most fun: winging it.  we kind of fucked it up which totally ads to the rad raw gnarliness which we totally dig. Dan usually doesn’t grip the ax but whenever he does he always lights it up like thomas shreddison.
DM: The most fun part for me was trying to write a guitar solo over the weird time switching and just trying to make it all work.  We had the barebones of a song and I think we pulled it together into something I really like listening to. Plus, it sounds super raw which I dig after how “good” the new album sounds.
DD: you generally are cynical about our band, so “good” might seem sarcastic coming from you.
DM: I don’t mean that “good” comment in a facetious manner, the new record sounds amazing, but I miss that old gnar sound we used to have sometimes.
DD: No biggie. But it might make more sense to someone outside of b3nson if you cleaned it up a bit. Of course, I’m making the assumption that this could be read by someone outside of b3nson.

AND FOR NEXT WEEK!

Back in B3nson’s infancy, Adam Zurbruegg was the original bass player for Sgt Dunbar & the Hobo Banned. Shannon Sullivan was the lady he admired from afar. Adam’s side project, The Zabernacle Choir released the LP “Peach Tree” with catalog number b3006. 40-some-odd records later, B3nson is a bit more “grown up”, Adam and Shannon are married, and Nursing Home Discoveries covered Adam’s song “Ghost”:

Choir leader, Adam Zurbruegg:

Can you give us some background on this song?
Sure thing, brah. I wrote this song in 2007 for my “Peach Tree” album, which was kind of a journal of how, at the time, I was trying to figure out what direction I was headed, and was starting up a life with my now-wife, Shannon. ”Ghost” started with the guitar riff, which I later realized was virtually identical to Dennis Leary’s “Asshole” song. I’ve always been really fond of this song, and am excited to hear what Nursing Home Discoveries does with it!

This last verse is a bit prophetic, is Shannon still the carpenter and are you still just lazy?
Absolutely. We wouldn’t have it any other way. However, she did not build our marriage altar or the cathedral, much to my disappointment.