It’s rare that I ever think of doing a cover of a song. My opinion has always been that unless you can do something very different than the original version, there’s no reason to do it. I don’t want to hear someone do a version of a Beatles song that sounds just like the Beatles version, I might as well just listen to the original.
Well, I’m going to be going to see Jonathan Coulton soon, and I’m also working on an album, which has a lot of songs about being an evil genious and other general evil stuff. Coulton has a song called “Nemeses”, about a person who finds the one they are destined to destroy. Some bells went off in my head, and I thought, “what if I did a cover of that song in a slightly cheesy Broadway Musical style. Lots of brass and strings, and a few slight alterations to make it more evil”. I figured that by changing it from a rock song to a more orchestral piece, not only would it satisfy my rule for cover songs, but it would also fit well into the album, since it fits the theme perfectly.
So, with that in mind, I set out to record the song and make a video in just 3 days, in order to have it done before the Coulton concert. My API preamp is in the shop, so I may come back and rerecord the vocals once that comes in, but I think the final version will pretty much stick to this arrangement when it makes it onto the album.
One thing to keep in mind when watching the video: the only instrument that was actually played live for the recording were the cymbals. Everything else was done with samples on the computer, including the percussion and piano. It would have looked fairly boring to see a music video with just a bunch of midi data, so I decided to fake it, and hopefully it doesn’t look too bad.
I’m going to make the song available as a free download for just a short time, until the next song becomes available (and since I’m making good progress on the album, that shouldn’t be very long).
[audio:http://markblasco.com/media/evilmachine/tests/Nemeses%20-%20JoCo%20Cover.mp3|titles=Nemeses – Jonathan Coulton Cover|artists=Mark Blasco]
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