Audio

Cripple Creek – Backing Track – Key of A – 100 bpm

Factory Farm Songs, the debut album from four-piece Trouser, is filled with echoes of classic Americana, folk and country combined with modern rock sounds. Themes throughout the nine original songs are varied — from Ken and Barbie’s troubled middle-age years to a family man’s desire to live underwater.

Politically and romantically charged lyrics are enhanced by the driving backbeats of Geoff Lewis (Across State Lines, Zydecrunch), and a range of acoustic and electric stringed instruments are played by songwriter and vocalist Nick Brown (Boris Texas), guitarist Rob Ericksen (Jive Dharma, Fly Illusion) and bassist Chris Hines (Domingo).

All of the musicians featured on Factory Farm Songs are good friends who’ve spent a decade recording and touring throughout the midwest, and Factory Farm Songs captures the straight-forward energy of the band’s live performances.

Recorded at the studios of Onsight75 Productions, LLC, and mastered at The Vault in New York City, Factory Farm Songs is also the first big release for Lemonchester Music, a Madison, Wis., based independent label dedicated to capturing the musical spirit of hungry and independent artists and delivering their music and messages to larger audiences.

I had the pleasure of playing pedal steel on tracks 1, 4 and 7 of this fine album. If you like what you hear below then go here and buy a copy for yourself.

Factory Farms
In The Bathroom
Crack In The Door

Pumpskully was the “Outlaw Country” band from hell.
Out of a basement in Nashville with some help on pedal steel from
Buddy Cage of The New Riders Of The Purple Sage

Damn Hole
Farmer
Liar

Download the the entire album for free right here. (36MB zip file)

I found some inspiration this weekend and channeled it into recording a Neil Young tune. The song is Drive Back from his album Zuma.

I busted out the old Prophet 600 for a few cheesy analog syth licks. No quantizing here just good old disheveled rock & roll complete with a reverb explosion at the end.

Here are some rough recordings of me kickin’ back and screwing around.
Complete with false-starts and tempo fluctuations.

Coming Apart At Every Nail

Hats off to Neil Young’s Hawks & Doves.
This song is a blast to play.
I started recording at 10:00 a.m. and I had it done by 5:00 p.m.
If the mix doesn’t suit your fancy, “Oh Well”, that wasn’t the point.

Recorded on February 11th & 12th, 1996

Hitched A Ride
Anna Lee
Back To The Country
Nevada Ave.

Hitched A Ride was recorded in one take and was supposed to just be a sound check but we ended up using it even though you can hear me knock my guitar neck into the mic stand at the beginning of my solo.

Anna Lee is a great tune with some nice rickety playing. I had a pretty nasty cold during this session and it really shows on my “Danko-esque” backup vocals which were coincidentally recorded live while I was playing steel (not recommended).

Back To The Country was heavily inspired by the sound of Jimmy Buffett’s “Living And Dying In 3/4 Time” album. Most people think the intro is a bad edit when in fact for unknown reasons I decided to start the riff over one more time.

Nevada Ave. is worth a listen just for the train wreck at the end.

The never ending quest for the ultimate microphone placement continues.

Little Sadie
Misery Loves Company
Blue Ridge Mountain Blues
Early Morning Rain
Don’t This Road Look Rough And Rocky

If you like “Drunk Pedal Steel” check out track three.

Every Street In Nashville