Crawlers in LP Std for Folk-Metal :)

[Scotty477]

Excellent clip  :)

I enjoyed that a lot, cheers!

[opprobrium_9]

there neeeeeds to be more of this on this forum

EDIT:  that was fvcking fantastic

[opprobrium_9]

i can't say enough good stuff about this song man! I can't stop listening to it, i know this is sort of old news now, but goddamn.  You just hit everything, i mean i know you said you masked your voice with the reverb and such, but hey, the end result is what counts.  I stuck this bit on my iTunes, i doubt i will stop listening to this for a while.  If you ever put out a Metalized Scottish Folk album, with songs similar in nature and genre to this one, i will be the first to buy it. 8) (please put out some more stuff like this!)

[carlaz]

Hey guys, I totally appreciate all the positive comments -- track seems to have come out better than I expected!

Have to see if I can come up with anything else that works in a similar vein (though at the moment, I'm stumped). One great thing about folk music: it saves ya from having to start from scratch!  :lol:

And since this is the BKP forum, after all, I should add that it seems to me that having good pickups in the ol' axe is a noticeable help even when working with fairly minimal equipment (this track being all guitars plugged straight into computer).  Awesome amps and technique would no doubt help ;) but BKPs sure do their part.  8)

[carlaz]

This is a strange kind of self-promotion ;) but I couldn't resist mentioning that on 03 March 2008 a lecture entitled "Border Ballads, Past and Present" by folk-music researcher and professional singer Poppy Holden (who sang on, for example the classical/early-music Hildegard von Bingen Feather on the Breath of God CD) for the Music in the North East and Borders module of the International Centre for Music Studies, University of Newcastle upon Tyne played clips from this version of "Twa Corbies" as an example of living border ballad tradition. Not something I ever expected to have happen to any of my music -- but there ya go! 8) I get a kick out that, really. :)

Alas, she probably didn't plug BKPs while she was at it ....

Meanwhile, I uploaded a slightly improved mix to my web site at the beginning of March (the guitars a little clearer now, I think).

Traditional music never dies: it just gets louder!  :twisted:

[Elliot]

DUDE THAT IS AWESOME - great voice.

On the subject of folk metal - Can you do some other border reiver songs - especially Tam Lin would be awesome.  

A version of Blackleg Miner like that on the first Steeleye album would sound awesome too - copying that detuned banjo line would work so well with metal.

[carlaz]

On the subject of folk metal - Can you do some other border reiver songs - especially Tam Lin would be awesome.  
A version of Blackleg Miner like that on the first Steeleye album would sound awesome too - copying that detuned banjo line would work so well with metal.

I'd love to do "Tam Lin"! Been wanting to do it for years, really.  The last band I was in actually played "Blackleg Miner" a few times (and "Ye Jacobites by Name", as the drummer and myself were closet folk fans ;)), though you're right that adapting that banjo line could work well ....

I've haven't tackled any other trad pieces yet simply because I haven't been sure about the arrangements.  I don't really feel like I did any work to arrange "Twa Corbies" -- I just woke up one morning and there it was, asking to be played like that. :)  I would definitely need to think about  how to approach "Tam Lin", since even Fairport's pared-down version is pretty lengthy, and I think I'd want to vary the vibe a bit during the song ... though maybe the sensible thing to do would be to treat it in an epic metal way, like Dio-era Sabbath's "Heaven & Hell" or "Sign of the Southern Cross" vibe meets some of the proggier, more Tull-like bits of Iron Maiden from their last album .... Hmmmmmm! :)

I've long thought about a slow 4/4 version of "Scarborough Fair", sort of in the vein of Fairport's "Sailor's Life". And, though this isn't trad., the last band I was in also played a heavy rock cover of "Did You Like the Battle, Sir?" by John Richards and Bev Pegg, following Paul Downes's cover version.  That works pretty well in a metalified context, and I'd love to revisit it .....

[opprobrium_9]

do new folk metal man, i'm still waiting to put more of your songs on my iTunes!  

[Perandor]

do new folk metal man, i'm still waiting to put more of your songs on my iTunes!  

Yah, I do the same! :lol:

[Kilby]

I thought I had posted how much I liked the track when it was originally posted (but I hadn't). Anyway excellent track I like the whole thing so much.

An epic version of Tam Lyn would indeed be excellent

I always thought that the songs "She walks through the Fair," "Matty Groves" and "John Riley" could take heavier updates

[carlaz]

An epic version of Tam Lyn would indeed be excellent

Some vague possibilities for a folkishly metallic "Tim Lin" arrangement have started to glow dimly in the depths of my mind.  I'll have to keep letting it ferment, but something will probably splutter out into actual music eventually! ;)

I always thought that the songs "She walks through the Fair," "Matty Groves" and "John Riley" could take heavier updates

"Matty Groves" would be good -- though I'd have trouble tearing myself away from the bones of the so-well-known Fairport treatment.  Though that reminds me of Martin Carthy's version of "Famous Flower of Serving Men" which uses a similar tune -- that song's got infanticide, matricide, cross-dressing, spirits of the dead and other supernatural entities in animal form, and burning at the stake for good measure.  How metal is that? :twisted: It'd be worth a go ....  "John Riley" could work as well; I hadn't thought of that one before.  

Bizarrely, when I was in grad school in the UK, a band I was in that never quite got going rehearsed a version of "She Moves Through the Fair" that was mostly awesome piles of guitar echo and feedback with female vocals over it that segued into Solitude Aeturnus's "Falling" (also with female vocals!).  No particular reason those two things got stuck together -- they just sounded cool :) and it was great fun to play!

[carlaz]

On the subject of folk metal - Can you do some other border reiver songs - especially Tam Lin would be awesome.

It's taken some time, and it not at all finished, but I've at last got the first part of a demo for "Tam Lin" that is starting to go in a direction I'm liking:
http://www.carlaz.com/music/Tam_Lin.mp3

It's definitely unfinished: at the moment, the story only reaches the point where Tam reveals that "the Queen of Fairies, she caught me when from my horse I fell" -- and it's already over six-and-a-half minutes long!  :o

The BKP content doesn't start until 42 seconds in, and not properly until 1.38. The electric guitars are my Crawler-equipped LP Std, of course.  Guitar and bass amp models are courtesy of some Amplitube AUs in GarageBand. (The bass is my trusty ol' Ricenbacker 4001, and the drums are programmed using ns_kit7 samples).

Sorry about the singing!  It's really just the guide vocal, plus some double-tracking in the chorus since I couldn't stand to listen to the solo vocals there even just while editing!  :lol:  My version of the lyrics is kind of a mash-up of various attested variants; the music and riffs are mostly my own as opposed to based on anything actually folkloric or traditional, though I reference bits of the arrangements made famous by Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span.

If/when I do finish it, I'll post a separate proper topic for it in the Players section -- it's really quite sketchy and unfinished as it is now, more a footnote to the Twa Corbies recording than anything else!

[DimeZakk]

Nice but Crawlers would not be my first choice for this style to play...

[The Sorbz]

That's awesome - I'm still thinking about Crawlers in my own LP.