Play that funky iphone, whiteboy!

It's very safe to say that we're not a normal band. Whether that's to our detriment is up for debate, but that's how we like it. So when we were asked to do a cover for ABC radio, we spent longer thinking of what to do, than doing it. We settled on our beloved blur. But not famous blur, obscure blur. We did a cover of Out of time off their Think Tank album. For my money, and I think Nicks, it's their best album. I am sure the Song 2 and Parklife people will argue that, but FUCK YOU! This is my blog, so Think Tank stands as king.

So we now have a track, but want it to be different. We only had a weekend to work it up, so it was challenge enough as it was. We were thinking of programing soundscapes and odd percussion etc, but it would still only be a very rough version of an awesome song. Then I got a call from nick.

"What about if you download a piano app, and play it at the studio?" said nick.

"Fuck yeah!" said drew.

So I downloaded the app, and away we went. To add to the phone theme, nick took his phone and recorded some shakers and a xylophone, then played the mp3 in the studio for us to play to.

Sound odd enough?

It was only really made a bit special when it came time for my solo. For the most part, I just played passing notes and chords, which wasn't too amazing. It wasn't till the solo that it made it a bit special. As I had an octave to play with, I was able to duplicate the exact solo of the original track, except for one note. So with a tiny tweek, the solo came out awesome. And it made it all look and sound a lot more fancy.

We know we are not the first to do this sort of thing. Not by a long shot, but we didn't just want to go into the studio and bang out an acoustic version of a metal song. As with everything we do, we strive to have a talking point. In this case, it was our phones. It then led onto conversations about technology and the band, which then lead onto the bands ethics and ideals, which is the exact kind of thing musicians like to bang on about. We hate questions like...

"What's your favourite pizza topping?" or best yet... "if you were an animal, what would you be?"

What a wasted opportunity to talk to someone! If you started a pleasant conversation with an attractive woman in a bar, would you then interrupt it with "If you were a deep fried Chinese entre, what would you be?" Ridiculous!

Back on topic, Drew! Back on topic!

Thankfully, the interview and performance went very well at the ABC. The presented loved it, played 2 more tracks of ours, and seemed to talk for ages. Nick and I now want to record it properly with better sound levels and no 'fat finger' mistakes. All in all, it was great fun.

Here is the link to the ABC website. Will post the re-recoded version when it's done.

www.abc.net.au