The story of Michael Shelley's version of Teenage Fanclub's "Mellow Doubt"

CLICK HERE! - The original mix (that they really mastered the shit out of) that was released on the CD.

CLICK HERE! - Not sure what stage of things this mix is from, but it is clearly early - the main differences being: many things at odd levels (lower drums, etc), NO stylophone solo (at the end) and there is no fade out - this is a new edit with the live "doot doot" bridge vocals swapped for the re-done "mmmm mmmm" bridge vocals & its been "mastered" a bit.

CLICK HERE! - This is the same as in version just above, but this has the "doot doot" bridge vocals that I sang live, and it is un-mastered.

CLICK HERE - This is the same original mix as released on CD, just pre mastering - but it sounds really different.

HERE is the page at the NOT LAME website about the final album.

THE STORY:

I was working at my desk this week, with my computer's music library in shuffle mode and a song came on & I thought "this sounds good, what is it?" - it was my own version of the Teenage Fanclub song "Mellow Doubt" - I know it sounds impossible to not recognize your own recording & voice - but I swear it was true (for about 12 seconds) - I thought it was The Foo Fighters or something... I guess it had been a few years since I'd heard the recording.

It was recorded for a Teenage Fanclub tribute album called "What A Concept" that was released on the Not Lame label.

Here are some semi interesting things about the recording:

It started at Peter Katis' Tarquin Studio, where I did the a scratch guitar & scratch vocal & then overdubbed the drums. Then I quickly did two tracks of vocals - both 1st takes & both one continuous take - thinking these would be a guide during the rest of the recording - but I ended up keeping them both - except for the humming in the bridge. It's really odd how well they turned out - considering I'd never practiced singing the harmony part.

Then I took the drum & vocal tracks home & added the bass (through my guitar amp), keyboards (Casio through boss tremolo & compression pedals through an amp), Stylophone (the solo at the fade out, that sounds like a guitar), shaker & most of the electric guitars. All recorded onto ADAT, but through my 4 Track cassette, because it was the only mixer I had.

The I went to Ron Zabroki’s studio & re-sang the humming part on the bridge (from “doot doot” to “mmmm” “mmmm”) maybe added more electric guitar (the tremolo parts), the acoustic guitars & mixed it.

I was amazed how different (in a good way) it sounded on the finished CD, due to the heavy mastering.

HERE IS A BLOG that call this the 89th best cover version of ALL TIME.

FYI:
Tarquin Studios
Ron Zabroki's Studio
Not Lame's page that sells the CD

Oddly enough, this is the 2nd Teenage Fanclub tribute I'd had a song on. More details on the other one are HERE

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