After playing around with some funky music tools, I’ve come back to the singing, which is my ultimate goal with Thunder Road. And going with the Show Your Work philosophy, here’s an early and very imperfect take of me figuring out how to sing this song.
I only sing up to “You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re alright,” which is such a funny line. The rest is just guitar.
I ended up kind of channeling Elvis here, which was wholly unexpected and fun. I gave Elvis a little nod to a few weeks ago as well, if you look closely.
My song did need a remaster from a pro. I had been focused mostly on performing the song and just wanted to get it out the door, so I kind of rushed the final master.
While I was happy to have sang my first song and enjoyed the result, I had made a few beginner’s mistakes in the recording and the final mix.
I had wanted a Johnny Cash “live at Folsom” type of sound, but ended up with an exaggerated echo.
I had recorded the vocals with a cheap guitar adapter and ended up with a lot of noise and low volume.
I had mixed everything with headphones and forgot to check the final mix on speakers, where most people would be listing to it most of the time.
Casey was looking for a challenge and jumped on it. He cleaned everything up, especially the vocals, which he somehow salvaged. He insisted that I sound just like Johnny Cash. I’m not so sure, but I’ll take the compliment.
He let the instruments breath more and gave the drums some nice crunch.
Among other things, for the original master, I made the mistake of listening to the final mix only on headphones. 🎧 And I made the original pretty darn echoey in an attempt to compensate for my very basic singing.
So I’m putting the stems (tracks) here for my friend (or anyone) to download and play with.
To get my song out there where it can be streamed anywhere – via Siri, on the HomePod, in the car – I needed to pick an “artist” name to use on all the streaming services. It’s always fun to pick a band name, but I had set a rule for myself from experience messing around fruitlessly with friends in the past: first the music, then the name. You have to earn the name.
So I decided to go with The Coastal Service. 🙌 It’s sort of a play on The Postal Service, an amazing band with one of my favorite albums ever. I am not a Postal Service tribute band; their name just inspired an idea.
“The Coastal Service” is meant to invoke a sense of mystery and fog and awe and danger. It’s about meeting the ocean: like life, it’s big and dangerous and beautiful and meant to be explored.
I also like the idea that this fictional “coastal service” is there to serve humanity and is broader and more secretive and than, say, the US Coast Guard. It’s somewhat inspired by a Wes Anderson vibe, especially Moonrise Kingdom.
Mental Break Town 