Remix #4: Rachel Rosen

Rachel Rosen (John Anealio remixed).mp3

This month I have the great privilege of having my song "Rachel Rosen" (inspired by Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep") used as the December song at remixfight.org. Remix Fight is a monthly competition where a group of remix artists duke it out by remixing the same song. It is a wonderful example of the wealth and breadth of talent that exists on the Internet.

There are seven different contestants in the remix fight of "Rachel Rosen". Each one is wildly creative and completely unique. Go here to check it out and vote on your favorite one.

Remix #4 is the remix artist who goes by the name of Undesirable's version of "Rachel Rosen". I will eventually post all of the remixes that entered this month's contest but this re-imagining of the song was the first one to grab me.

Undesirable managed to keep the spirit of the original song while creating something completely different. This remix accomplishes the difficult task of being both robotic and emotional at the same time. I love how he constructed a new melody from the samples of my vocal, and how he created the glitching and stuttering droid-like effects that inhabit his arrangement. It is a stellar piece of work.

I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do,

John

Special Thanks to MC Jack in the Box for picking "Rachel Rosen" for this month's remix fight.

Related Posts:

1. Sci-Fi Song #6: "Rachel Rosen": This is my original recording of the song
2. "Rachel Rosen" radiotimes remix
3. "Android Girlfriend": A great mash-up using "Rachel Rosen" and a few other songs.
   

Remix #1: Rachel Rosen

Rachel Rosen (radiotimes remix).mp3

I love to hear a different interpretation of a familiar tune. In the past, the only way to do this was to "cover" the song. When I perform in coffee shops, I usually play a bunch of cover tunes. I perform in a somewhat laid back, folk, finger picking guitar style. Any song that I choose to play at a show comes out sounding like that. If you ever clicked on my last.fm page, you've probably noticed that my taste in music is quite eclectic. My shows have consisted of folk versions of songs by the Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and James Taylor to Led Zeppelin, Rush, and Whitesnake (I'm not kidding, "Limelight" and "Here I Go Again" make excellent folk songs). Here are a few links to some great cover song blogs:

1. Coverville
2. Cover Lay Down
3. Fong Songs

Another, more modern way to interpret a song is through a remix. A remix is when a musician takes the actual recording of a song (usually the individual tracks; vocal, guitar, drums, etc.), and mixes it up with other original material. Sometimes remixes can be as simple as substituting a new electronic drum part for the original beat, other times it can be a completely different interpretation, where the remix artist creates a whole new track underneath the vocals.

There is a wonderful music community website called ccmixter.org. cc stands for Creative Commons. All of my songs are released under a Creative Commons license. Basically, this means that my songs are free and can be freely posted on blogs and podcasts or used as a soundtrack to some one's video or remixed.

ccMixter is a site where musicians can post the separate tracks of their songs for other musicians to remix in any way that they would like. radiotimes is the moniker of a very active remix artist at ccMixter. He did an excellent remix of my song "Rachel Rosen", which is the song that you can download at the top of the post. He took my guitar part and vocals and added a completely different drum beat and bass line. He also added all sorts ofsynths, sound effects, and reversed cymbals. I love it. Check out some of his other remixes at his ccMixter home page here.

Here is my original version of "Rachel Rosen"

If you or anyone that you know enjoys remixing other people's music, head over to my ccMixter page here. This is where you can download the individual vocal, guitar, and drum tracks to some of my songs. Check it out, and feel free to do something creative with them.

Hope you enjoy it,

John

Sci-Fi Song #6: Rachel Rosen

Rachel Rosen.mp3

Sci-Fi Song #6 was inspired by the Philip K. Dick classic, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. This song is sung from the point of view of the novel's main character, Rick Deckard. I'd like to thank the moderators and members of the SciFi and Fantasy Book Club at Good Reads for picking this as the book of the month for July.

Here are a couple of good recent reviews of the book

1. Stainless Steel Droppings
2. Thus Spoketh Terje
   

Here are some of the tools that I used to record the track:

1. Martin Acoustic Guitar in DADGAD tuning
   
2. Les Paul Studio Electric Guitar
3. Washburn Bass Guitar
   
4. Rode NT-3 microphone (to record the acoustic guitar and my vocals)
5. Apple Logic Pro 7 recording software
1. The ES2 software synth for the synthesizer solo
   
2. Logic's included compressor, delay, and reverb plug-ins
3. The electric guitar parts were recorded through Logic's Guitar Amp Pro plug-in
4. The drum parts were created using Beta Monkey's Drum Werks V loop collection
   

Hope you enjoy it,
John

Here are the lyrics:

Rachel Rosen (Is She Really an Android?)

My name is Rick Deckard, I'm in my hover car
I'm a bounty hunter for the city
There's six androids free, and it's left to me tonight

They're the Nexus 6 and they get their kicks
From singing opera and killing humans
She's got short dark hair and an icy stare, alright

Is Rachel Rosen really an android
Can Rachel Rosen really be alive
Is Rachel Rosen really an android
Can Rachel Rosen really be alive

I give the Voigt-Kampff test to bounty hunter Phil Resch
cause he fears that he might be an android
He's got a laser tube and a bad attitude, tonight

I book a hotel room, I hope she gets here soon
I've got three androids to retire
We share an android kiss at the St. Francis tonight