Roky Erickson/Entombed cover.
Scrap Metal
I upload music to under the alias 'Extar'. The music is primarily heavy metal, but I like trying my hand at other things now and again. I record my music in my bedroom with an old PC and a bunch of sub-standard equipment.
Story behind the song
I'm a big fan of Entombed. One of my favourite song of theirs is a cover of the Roky Erickson song 'Night of the Vampire'. Thanks to that, I am now also a fan of Roky Erickson (see: neglected 'side project' Two Headed Dogs). It was only a matter of time before I put another Entombed cover, or a Roky Erickson cover onto here, and now that time has come.
Is it a cover of Roky Erickson, or a cover of Entombed covering Roky Erickson? This is why I usually try to avoid 'covers of covers'. Anyway, hopefully it turned out reasonably well. I actually started recording this before 'Out of View', but was unhappy with it at the time and left it unfinished. So here it is, finished off. Sadly, there aren't any Vincent Price samples in this.
Roky Erickson doesn't seem to print lyrics, and there are some terrible attempts at transcriptions available online. One particularly attrocious one just stuck 'Charlie Manson' into one of the verses where Roky doesn't even sing anything and where it wouldn't fit anyway. I tried to pick the most accurate lyrics I could and the ones which I thought sounded the best.
This guitars in this were tuned to C again. It's a pretty low tuning, but it makes the 'way too high for me' vocal line actually manageable and naturally boosts up the heaviness. Of course, it also means that the strings on the bass are so slack that any proper tuning is almost impossible. I need heavier gauge strings.
Some of the lead parts have some pretty heavy chorus and (if I remember correctly) phaser effects layered on to evoke more of the psychedelia of the original. Pretty much everything else on the song is Entombed via Nine Inch Nails.
I did that drum thing again, with the tube drive setting on the Pod. Also, totally ripped off Nine Inch Nails 'Home' with the way the drums close the song. That keyboard solo near the end is probably massively Portishead again as well. What are you going to do?
There's actually a load of subtle keyboard parts and what sound like samples present in the Erickson original. Yeah, I totally couldn't sort that out.
I was so bored of trying to get the guitar parts right on the first recording session for this. Most of the rhythm parts ended up being re-done anyway. The lengthy outro was wholly the product of the second recording session.
Some of the clean guitar parts, the lengthy outro and the drums sound very similar to 'Forgot About Dre'.
I can't remember where I got the thumbnail from.
I made a big deal out of getting straight into the action with this song. I've done a few too many songs lately which had annoying intros. Most likely due to the long periods of time between recordings, and wanting to make each recording pull all the stops out (also with the little jingles after each song has ended). I actually ditched the rather dramatic and cool introduction from the original, as well as the Entombed version, in favour of going straight into the similarly awesome bridge section. I copied this from a live recording of the song by Erickson which is included on the 2nd disc to the version of 'The Evil One' I have, which features a bunch of clips and recordings from a radio show he must have done some time after the album's release. It's a great recording, I mean Roky Erickson is a pretty weird guy to begin with, but the people who called into the radio show sound f*** ing nuts, and all the song recordings have a really bleak, sparse sound to them. What happened to cool bonus content like this?
Lyrics
He comes from Transylvania,
On Saint Swithen's Day he was born,
Eyes stare through the darkness with no form,
Maidens his bite harms.
Tonight is the night of the vampire.
If it's raining and you're running don't,
Slip in mud 'cos,
If you do you'll,
Slip in blood.
Tonight is the night of the vampire.
The moon may be full,
The moon may be white,
All I know is,
You'll feel his bite.
Tonight is the night of the vampire.
Never sleeps in the night,
Comes out when the moon is bright.
