Misfits and Slow Learners Track 5: Old Time Tunes by Cub Lea as Hot Spot Last updated 12/04

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	Credits:	Words, music, arrangement & production by Cub Lea, 12/83, 12/87
	Players:	Cub Lea (all instruments)
	Notes:	The "cheap hollow-body electric" tone was produced solely by running my main guitar's cheap neck pickup through a ten-band Boss EQ and into the multitracker. The acoustic guitar is a cheap aluminum-necked Ovation knock-off.

Concept

The idea here was to do a tip to Leon Redbone, and produce a no-drums track that sounded like an old sit-down trio with a washboard bass and clarinet. I tracked the vocal by singing with a "pinched throat" through a homemade cardboard megaphone into a cheap Electrovoice stage mic. The megaphone effect simply didn't work that well, but it does impart some of the feel I was looking for.

What more needs to be said? Just something I did for kicks'n'chicks. And it worked pretty well on both counts.

For several years I had a full-length RealAudio version of this track on my website as a download under 200kb in size!

Trivia: "Electrohome" is a now-defunct brand name used by a Canadian home electronics company, about as well-known here as Motorola was in the US back in the days when transistors were considered "newfangled".

Execution

Weak.

The vocal was never more than throwaway stuff, and I almost cringe at some of the lines here. "Lost my fruster-ation"? Ewwww!

It also suffers some from my total lack of comprehension of chord structure and appropriate changes. It works, barely, but only after hours spent playing with chord charts trying to find the appropriate "jazz-age" chord for this or that change. I stuck to rock stuff after that; I imagine that would please a lot of people, if a lot of people had ever heard my stuff.

And as for that "lazy" meandering lead guitar line? Well, it could have been worse.

Old Time Tunes

Time is nearly endless when I'm home alone
Life is so predictable when no one's home
What's getting me through
Is sittin' with you
And singing all the old time tunes

Lost my frustration the song came on
Was it just a pretty ditty or a novelty song
I once was into art
And orchestrated parts
And didn't like the old time tunes

I never figured disco or them protest songs
I tried to love the opera but that time's gone
I can't get into Back
Or Rock Around the Clock
I love the silly old time tunes

I admit to being clever but I lost my verve
For news, reviews and literature; they're all absurd
Give me a Cole Porter rhyme
In three-quarter time
'S about the best that I have heard

Songs about the glory days, pocket full-o-rye
Tear-jerkin' torch songs and Shoo-Fly Pie
So turn down the tone
On the electrohome
They got to sound like old time tunes

Well it's a lazy, hazy summer close to beer-barrel time
And Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine was never so fine
So sit back and sway
On a warm summer day
And sing another old time tune

Copyright ©1983, 1988 Living Skill Music