THE HORRORS OF CHILDBIRTH

GBL GBL RMX CABARET #4 - Bike Month

ORIGINAL SONG:
Bike Month - Tide Came In
(Courtesy of Old Ugly Recording Company)

REMIX NOTES:
Bike Month is my pal Doug Hoyer’s neato lo-fi concept record / project. I used to do talent buying for the various celebrations that attended to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada’s official bike month, which is June. Doug was one of the acts I booked in that capacity, and his twee-infused, Bill Cosby-inspired live performances at pancake breakfasts and biker meetups must have entranced both grandmas and bikepunks alike, because they kept asking for him back. The month rubbed off on Doug too, because he was inspired to take on an ambitious project: equipped only with his four-track, various instruments and an old cd of hip-hop breaks, he would record 30 songlets in honor of bike month, one for each day in June. Tracking for the project became an opportunity for broad collaboration, as Doug enlisted the help of countless individuals involved in Edmonton’s insular and relatively tiny scene (incidentally, he and I also ended up doing a pretty ridiculous “rap” song for the project, which arguably prophesied R. Kelly’s “Pregnant”, and which you can gawk at here). Another one of those collaborators was the lovely and talented Jessica Jalbert, with whom Doug worked on “Tide Came In”. I’ve always loved the way Jessica can deadpan lazily yet expressively, and Doug’s noodly midwesty guitar accents suited her cynical breathiness perfectly.  But those accents aren’t on the remix.  Because the song was done on four-track, the only parts that had not been smushed together onto one thoroughly unremixable track were the vocals, so my task changed: a lurching, fuzzy total recontextualization came into focus out of necessity. Making things harder — parts all were recorded to old, warbly tape, and Doug rarely tuned his instruments before tracking, so Jessica’s vocals ended up getting recorded at some inscrutable scale cents off from your usual A440.  In short: I had to give things a good goring.  And in true Bike Month form, the remix ended up being about double the length of the original (which weighs in at 1:06!!!).

For now, you can catch Doug Hoyer and Jessica Jalbert playing around Western Canadia, and tours for each of them will surely follow again soon. Doug has a new album on the way, so keep the eyes open. AND: Bike Month II and III are en route.

REMIX DOWNLOAD:
Bike Month - Tide Came In (GOBBLE GOBBLE’s Feminism as Taught by Lars von Trier)

xo
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