Big Chris & D'Bare Bones Band UPDATE!!!

messiaen77 wrote:

I've given this one a fair number of listenings and my original opinion goes out the window (apparently the earbuds I was listening on are crap and made the vocals sound like they were recorded on a pocket recorder and just overlaid with the rest of the music as an afterthought).  I got this and Billy Gibbons' Big Bad Blues at the same time and I gotta say I like this one more than his.  I can't really pick a favorite song because so many are so good.  I wasn't really feeling "Give it to Jesus," but now that I know the story, that will change.  I'm glad you decided to add the silly songs.  I guess when I'm listening to the BC&DBBB albums, I really sense that YOU  are coming through in them--the serious and the silly.  That's what I want to hear from music like this.

Thank you for giving the album another chance and for your kind words!

I can assure you that the vocals were not just haphazardly thrown in.  I have recorded and re-recorded and so on and so on to get these to where they need to be.  There isn't a song here where I settled for my first "finished" anything.  I have redone the vocals so many times I can't remember.  I redid guitars.  I started over with "Burning Bush" just to change keys.  I redid bass.  I redid drums.  This wasn't my usual "it's good enough" self.  I kept pushing to get things right.

Oh, I knew you hadn't.  That's what was puzzling me so much.  At first I thought maybe I'd gotten a bad download (legit, from Amazon), but then I was listening to something else that I knew sounded great, but those earbuds made it sound like I was listening to one of those old pocket AM radios with the crappy speaker.  So I put it on in the car, and it was a world of difference.

I've been listening to the album daily for the last few weeks.
Along with the first BC&DBBB album I would say they are your best works today.  The music sounds very honest and really suits your voice.  Even the paradoy and humorous lyric tracks come across as honest, and not at all "shoe-horned" into the project.

Lots of favorite tracks on this one...but probably couldn't select one single song as a favorite if you held a gun to my head.

Man Overboard
Give it to Jesus
Bootlegger's Prayer
Legs
Lord How I love the Way She Walks

These are all fantastic songs!  I also dig what you did on Burning Bush, a parody song yes...but not at all silly.

LEGS RULES !  My favorite track as of now !

"Legs" is a fun track.  As you already know, that was a lyric done by Fundy.  I built the music around the lyrics once we agreed on the wording and flow.  I tried hard to give it a mid-80s ZZ Top vibe minus the keyboards.  I even tried to copy Billy Gibbon's playing style with the solo.

While my brother usually does drums on my albums, I am playing everything on this one.  The drum beat during the verses should sound familiar as it is very similar (by design) to AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap".  I wanted to make my own song yet tip the hat to some musical greats of the past.

As for "Burning Bush", I wrote the lyrics for that back in 2000 when I still played with Stressin'.  We eventually pulled it from our set as the song was just too high for me to sing.  We never thought of redoing it in another key.  On the album, I dropped the key to F and it works just fine vocally.  Darren is playing drums on this as he had some high-hat stuff he wanted to do during the lead breaks that were not on the original song.  I tried my best to learn the solos, but it was hard seeing that I was using only three strings!

My favorites on the album are:

Man Overboard
Free
Completely Flexible
Please Don't Make Me Watch A Chick Flick
Legs

Cool back-story stuff!

I go for the heavier stuff:

"Man Overboard"
"Free"
"Bootlegger's Prayer"
"Where The Worm Dieth Not"

But I do like "Legs" a great deal as well as the re-recorded version to "Give It To Jesus".  I also kind of take to "Please, Don't Make Me Watch A Chick Flick"

As for the review, I have the first draft finished and hope to have it online sometime next week.

Dynamis wrote:

I go for the heavier stuff:

"Man Overboard"
"Free"
"Bootlegger's Prayer"
"Where The Worm Dieth Not"

But I do like "Legs" a great deal as well as the re-recorded version to "Give It To Jesus".  I also kind of take to "Please, Don't Make Me Watch A Chick Flick"

As for the review, I have the first draft finished and hope to have it online sometime next week.

Cool!  I look forward to reading it.

As do I!

alldatndensum wrote:

"Legs" is a fun track.  As you already know, that was a lyric done by Fundy.  I built the music around the lyrics once we agreed on the wording and flow.  I tried hard to give it a mid-80s ZZ Top vibe minus the keyboards.  I even tried to copy Billy Gibbon's playing style with the solo.

While my brother usually does drums on my albums, I am playing everything on this one.  The drum beat during the verses should sound familiar as it is very similar (by design) to AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap".  I wanted to make my own song yet tip the hat to some musical greats of the past.

As for "Burning Bush", I wrote the lyrics for that back in 2000 when I still played with Stressin'.  We eventually pulled it from our set as the song was just too high for me to sing.  We never thought of redoing it in another key.  On the album, I dropped the key to F and it works just fine vocally.  Darren is playing drums on this as he had some high-hat stuff he wanted to do during the lead breaks that were not on the original song.  I tried my best to learn the solos, but it was hard seeing that I was using only three strings!

My favorites on the album are:

Man Overboard
Free
Completely Flexible
Please Don't Make Me Watch A Chick Flick
Legs

I wondered if "Legs" was meant to sound ZZ Topish.  The vocals really sold it on that one.  Strangely, it reminded me more of "Gimme All Your Lovin'" than, well, "Legs".

"Legs" was definitely supposed to sound ZZ Top-ish.  The guitar tones, soloing, and even the lower vocal hidden behind the main vocal during the chorus were all ZZ Top tricks.

I don't really hear the comparison to "Gimme All Your Lovin'"  The song was meant to sound like the band, but I didn't mean for my song "Legs" to be reminiscent of their song by the same title or any other particular song.  I just wanted the feel from the "Eliminator", "Afterburner" and "Recycler" albums minus the keyboards.

Let me clarify, I don't think the song sounds like "Gimme," it's just the riff.  And yes, that layered vocal put me over the top in making that ZZ Top connection.

I am feverishly working on getting a new song called "Rudolph the Snowflake Reindeer" finished to share to the 2018 Cigar Box Nation compilation.

Cool!

Here is the Angelic Warlord review: https://www.angelicwarlord.com/reviews/b/bigchris&dbarebonesband18.html

Sweet!  Off to read it now.