The Fool on the Hill, not with a Kazoo

Another day, another Lennon-McCartney cover.

The Magical Mystery Tour is one of my favorite albums, though it's not as cohesive or balanced as Revolver, Sgt Peppers and Abbey Road. The album's two hits - Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane, were originally recorded during the Sgt Pepper's sessions.

The Fool on the Hill remains one of the most poetic and melodic songs in the Beatles catalog, continuing McCartney's discourse on apathy that he started on "Eleanor Rigby" (and continued on with one of his solo songs,  "Another Day")

Fool on The Hill, 4 track tape cover

The main challenge here was what to do with the adlib portion - the only acoustic wind instrument I have (not counting musical farts) is a Kazoo :

Better suited for Wile E Coyote

But it sounded too Looney-tunish!
In the end, I opted to use the wonderful woodwind samples from the Emu Proteus.
Track 1 - I sequenced the piano part on the Korg Kross, and sang while playing the egg shaker
Track 2 - synthesized woodwinds played live on the Emu keyboard
Track 3 - Hofner bass
Track 4 - Epi Casino and back-up vocals played through a TC Helicon Harmony G

Anticipation , Hofner Bass, and the Egg

I re-discovered an old Mandy Moore cassette and played it - the covers album with some very tasteful Todd Lundgren and Elton John songs. I was particularly drawn to her version of Carly Simon's Anticipation, and decided that's going to be my test song for some new gear I'm trying out. The first, of course, are the cassette tapes I got from the bowels of Sulit.com.

The second is a ninety-peso egg shaker, which is the percussion of choice for this number :

scrambled please!

Fab!

The third is a Hofner violin-bass! This is the cheap version of the original German made bass of choice by a certain left handed bassist. I really haven't explored it a bit, but it's very light, sounds good, and makes me want to play bass!

So here it is : Anticipation 4 track cover
Very very quick recording, no edits! How can you edit with tape???
Track 1 - vocals / piano
Track 2 - vocals/ egg shaker
Track 3 - vocals / bass
Track 4 - vocals/ guitar

The guitar I used is the Epiphone Casino (of course!)