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Daddy Don't Live In That New York City - Steely Dan cover.


RS Cain

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When I'm not working on original music I like to do covers of my favorite bands.

Steely Dan is a particular favorite, so here's my latest......

Daddy Don't Live In That New York City

The original recording featured Larry Carlton on guitar. My apologies, Larry.

BTW: The guitar I used on this track is the one pictured. It's called a "Firefly". It's beautiful.  I bought it off Amazon for $139.00 brand new  and stuck a set of Seymour Duncan pickups in it, and it SINGS! My bandmates call it "The Unicorn" because things like that aren't supposed to exist.....

I played guitar and bass on this, and sang it. 

The guitar was run through a "Simble" overdrive then DI.

The bass is DI.

The drums are AD2.  The keys are NI Vintage Organs and the basic Clavinet from Kontakt.

I hope you enjoy listening as much as I enjoyed doing it!

All licenses and permissions obtained.

Unicorn II.jpg

Edited by RSCain
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RSCain,

You did a really good job on this track and that guitar does sound pretty awesome.     You also put some Donald Fagan style in your vocal delivery which makes it even more believable.      It is a taste thing, but I would pull the vocal reverb back just a hair,  when people mix their own vocals they tend to push them back or stick a lot of reverb or delay on it.   Your voice sounds really good so no reason to hide it:)  

 

Regards

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The tone on the guitar was great!! I mean, Larry is great, extremely clean and tight, that's Larry. But you really gave it a relaxed loose feel that I really enjoyed. The first solo was nothing to be ashamed of. But that solo at the end was the topper!! I didn't remember a solo like that at the end, so I listened to the original. I gotta say, you really did this song justice.

 

Agree about the Donald vocal delivery. You did well in that. Bass playing was nothing to sneeze at either! 

Very enjoyable listen.

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On 8/8/2019 at 9:12 AM, Hidden Symmetry said:

Katy Lied is one of my all time fav. lps, you did the track justice. Never heard of a Firefly before, Larry would approve! Great job.

"Katy" is one of my favorites too. Thanks a lot for the listen! Don't know if Larry would approve, but I bet he'd like the Firefly, LOL.

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On 8/8/2019 at 3:03 PM, Joad said:

Huge Steely Dan fan, love what you did here ☮️

Appreciate it! Gotta love The Dan, I've learned so much from learning their tunes, the chord structures and composition of their stuff is amazing, and yet they make it so....accessible(?).

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On 8/8/2019 at 7:18 PM, jmasno5 said:

Nice cover!  I love the guitar tone.    Steely Dan is in my top 10 favorite artists.  I use to think Aja was my favorite album but then I listened to  Royal Scam.   

Thanks! Yeah, they're one of my favorites, too. I don't know if I could pick a favorite album, probably whichever one I'm listening to, LOL.

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On 8/9/2019 at 11:01 AM, Grem said:

The tone on the guitar was great!! I mean, Larry is great, extremely clean and tight, that's Larry. But you really gave it a relaxed loose feel that I really enjoyed. The first solo was nothing to be ashamed of. But that solo at the end was the topper!! I didn't remember a solo like that at the end, so I listened to the original. I gotta say, you really did this song justice.

 

Agree about the Donald vocal delivery. You did well in that. Bass playing was nothing to sneeze at either! 

Very enjoyable listen.

Thanks so much, I'm really glad you enjoyed it. It's strange to think that in these days of CNC machines and such that a killer guitar could cost a lot less than the effect pedal you run it through, but here we are.

Really the only things I copped from Larry's part were the intro lick, the signature lick in the verses, and the chord comping in the chorus and bridge.  The rest of his stuff is actually beyond me.  He does several little tasty things in there that, when you here them, you go "Damn I wish I'd thought of that!".  Then you go "How did he do that?"

But I love learning their tunes, there's so much good music there!

Thanks again!

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On 8/8/2019 at 11:00 AM, markno999 said:

RSCain,

You did a really good job on this track and that guitar does sound pretty awesome.     You also put some Donald Fagan style in your vocal delivery which makes it even more believable.      It is a taste thing, but I would pull the vocal reverb back just a hair,  when people mix their own vocals they tend to push them back or stick a lot of reverb or delay on it.   Your voice sounds really good so no reason to hide it:)  

 

Regards

Thanks very much! I seem to be able to semi-successfully mimic Fagen's delivery, which is funny since I'm a redneck  from Kentucky and he's a New York hipster,  but it's fun, heh heh.

As for the reverb, I may have overdone it a bit, but if you listen to the original recording the vocals are fairly reverb soaked, which is unusual for a Steely Dan song. Their stuff is usually pretty dry. I don't know if that was deliberate or a result of the infamous technical issues they had with the mixing and mastering  of "Katy Lied".

Anyway, that's what I was going for. Thanks a lot for the listen and taking the time to comment, really appreciate it!

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