"Monkey" - Henwrench and Geir covers thetworegs

[Geir]

As suggested by Trevor himself, Henwrench and myself took the challenge of covering this beauty of a song.

So easy to go wrong when covering such a song, but I hope we've managed to capture the spirit of the song and still add a bit of our own flavour to the soup.

I started out semi-cheating the first pianotrack in GarageBand (smart-keyboard) so Henwrench could have a backingtrack to add the words to. When I got it back I added the piano "bass-fiffs" and some sprinkled notes on top, this time using the iGrand piano app (just fantastic piano-sounds) played from my OLD Technichs electric piano. Added a cello at the outro and some strings, an upright bass and a trumpeth plunger in the background (all from thumbjam played from the el-piano except the cello that's played on the iPad).

Hope you like it Trevor, it was a pleasure to record.

Monkey

w/m: thetworegs
Spoken words: Henwrench.
All instruments: Geir

[Hilary]

When Trevor first suggested it, I thought Nooooooooooooo! it's such a stunning song I wouldn't let someone else do it, if it was me. Oh how wrong could I be, this is fantastic and it must be such a thrill to hear someone else perform one of your songs

First class guys.

[thetworegs]

  Superb Guys i couldn't ask for more i've got goosbumps...i knew this would be perfect and it is .....Thanks...there's a tear in my eye, poor old Monkey.....the song is about a good friend who i knew since school who ended going down the wrong path and died early at the age of 38, so this song has a special place in my heart and hearing you two perform it, took me back to those happy & Sad days we spent together. The words seem to me more poignant than when i hear myself saying them...so thanks again...mission completed....Pie-pod bound for sure

[Oldrottenhead]

brummylicious

[henwrench]

HA HA   

      This was hard to do.

          In the (quite frankly, stunning) original, Reg is speaking in (I presume), a bit of a 'put-on' accent. I had to resist the temptation to do the same cockney voice, which was difficult. Then I had to get over the fact that I was gonna just do it in my own voice. It's ok for me to (pretend to) 'sing', but just talking really does feel like an 'exposure', like I'm doing it naked or something. But it was an honour and a privilege to do this, over Geirs wonderful music.

                                                          henwrench

[Puddleglum]

Enjoyed that

[64Guitars]

This is excellent! I love the piano and the ThumbJam instruments. And it's great to hear henwrench's spoken voice. You can't beat an English accent for narration.

I've been thinking for some time that it would be great to start another concept album project like the "Suffering Machines" album by FuzzFace and friends. But hearing henwrench's narration on this recording made me think of the great albums by Rick Wakeman where narration played a big part ("Journey to the Centre of the Earth" and "The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table"). I think it would be great to try something similar. We'd pick some classic book that everyone's familiar with and tell the story in an album's worth of songs using a combination of narration, singing, and original music in the same way that Wakeman did. I think it would be quite interesting.

[cuthbert]

Excellent musical background, Geir - that piano sounds rich! And henwrench, I think you could read stories professionally...very engaging.

Top shelf work, fellas!

[Hook]

I love this guys, really brilliant stuff their Geir & awesome narration! My buddy did something similar to what 64 is describing in High School, he called his classical literature series. He took the narrations we (his friends) did and messed with speed & pitch, etc. over a background piece, it was quite cool. Sounds like fun!
Love this listen!
Rock On!

[bruno]

Guys, this is excellent. Loved the combination of sounds and the earthy midlands accented narration.
Ace.
B