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…this episode of WMRT offers a cover song. This is a reimagining of the song Thanatosis by HRIF and a collaboration with CansaFis Foote, including words about loving/hating your own voice and images…
…a few months ago MITER & CANSAFIS met on the internet…this is what has come from it so far…
I’m Loving It
by miter
This song is part of an “exchange of ideas” in which I offered to cover a tune by CansaFis Foote, purveyor of the endlessly entertaining Free Fun newsletter and a person that does all of the things. I chose a song by his band HRIF. Here’s more about the band and the album:
And here’s the original song in all of its glory:
“Thanatosis” stood out to me due to the lyrics and the rockingly adept drum and bass parts. In my estimation, the lyrical theme says, “where the heck am I?” Relatable. Very cool song! The miter cover version is essentially a “dance remix” that hopefully makes you want to move your feet and wiggle your little butt.
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I spend a large amount of time listening to my own music.
It’s part of the process.
Or so I say.
It’s true. Listening to a song over and over is a necessary element of the recording process. This is why some don’t enjoy recording. It entails constant repetition to discover nuances to be tweaked and amended ad infinitum.
Ego can assist.
If you like the sound of your own voice—whether that is the sound of your singing or speaking voice or your artistic concepts—it helps you enjoy repetitious listening to your own musical creations. In my case, I do not enjoy the sound of my singing or speaking voice, but I do enjoy stewing in my own creations.
Ego saturation may be a defining practice for artists regardless of discipline, quality or merit. The pleasure of this masturbatory exercise echoes across Substack. Writers reading their own words over and over, promoting and congratulating—we’re partners in shame.
By-in-large, music is a collaborative process and playing with others used to be a necessity for harmony or unison to occur. Due to advancements in technology, narcissists can now easily perform all musical elements with themselves and by themselves. A real-time saver.
The work requires self-love. If I did not like the music I was making, I probably would not want to continue doing it, much less blog about it!
Or so you would think.
I reflect the common sentiment of being my own worst critic. I could go on for hours about how much I suck and how flawed I am in every way—especially as a musician.
Let’s get into it.
First, yes, I am definitely a hack. For this cover song, I could not play the bass and drum parts of the original, so I had to play somewhere in the range and cut up the best parts. If the term “hack” connotates the untrained, then it is doubly true for someone that hacks pieces of music into segments just good enough to be palatable.
As for the drums, these are all software drums that came with Ableton Live—a Roland 505 emulation. The software lines it all up for you and you don’t even need the skill to bang on a cowbell (no “more cowbell” jokes). There’s some basic arpeggiated synths in there…at least I pushed some knobs here and there.
And holy heck (hack), the vocals are cut up with effects to kingdom come. Both the speaking parts and the singing parts.
I hate the sound of my own voice so much that I obscure it in any way possible.
Reverb, delay, saturation, tape machine plug-in and equalization to remove the more egregious tones. Anything goes, even autotune (though I did not employ it on this track). Given all of the production trying to make it sound better, I might as well have AI optimize the vocals.
In the end, I’ll listen to my creations or collaborations more than anyone else in the world through the recording and mixing process along with the self-congratulatory listening for pleasure. Making your own art does afford one this satisfying ego stroke—which can be healthy.
Unless you hate the sound of your own voice.
Or, if you love it.
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...loving/hating the sound of your own voice...
by CansaFis Foote
“If you have an opportunity to use your voice you should use it.”
-Samuel L. Jackson-
The internet is not my favorite place in space. It reminds me of what it might be like to live in someone else’s used gym socks. Here I am a hamper. Or a hampster. Maybe I am mold.
But the internet is one of the easier ways not named prison to meet new and cool strangers. Almost a decade ago I met my bandmates Tom & Mark on the dating website Craigslist. To say more would be to pretend I hadn’t already said enough somewhere else.
And roughly a year ago I got to meet a Colorado based mugician (music-magician) named miter on the creamsicle colored “nerds who love words” forum Substack. I was drawn to both his cat like purring and the fact that he used a longform essay platform to release and share music.
I love anachronism. Feed me dinner in a shoe store. Let’s watch a drive-in movie off the wall of a White Castle. It is time to make all libraries into roller skating rinks. Champagne is soup (don’t test me).
miter made music where the words were. He also made words where words were. I am told he made music where the music is too (craigslist). Anyhow the wind is long and breaking so let me stumble like a one legged seabird into the point of all my talk-talking.
miter and I met to discuss collaborating months ago. I have been sitting with an open tab staring at the idea of making a music video for him while slowly populating a folder with archived monster movie stuff. I guess today is the day I will start that. In the meantime this gem entertainer has taken one of the songs off of HRIF - HNEFATAFL and made it his own.
You can and should listen to both versions of the song. I stand on the idea that cover songs should improve upon, or deeply change the imprint of originals. To cover something in exactitude is to offer the world nothing. You become chat-gpt and will look and sound like Sam Altman’s talking scrotum (his face). By taking someone’s something and making it your own you open the world to possibility. We can all see each other as we are. It is a much deeper challenge to show someone who they aren’t.
I am not miter. He is a real magucian (musician + magician). I am a punk. A hairy hippy. An absolute amateur. How real then does it feel to be seen in this song.
When we released Hnefatafl last year I was so excited to pretend I was a musician again. It had been half a decade since I finished making a record. Many things can stand in the way of want. My blocker for doing nothing but rock was imagination. I used to think I could do just one thing. Now I want to do everything.
One of the lies I used to tell myself was that I can’t sing and that I suck at music. These aren’t lies in that they aren’t true. They are lies in that I never believed that they were true all the times friends and strangers repeated them to me.
I am a firm believer that anyone can do anything. I might suck at singing. I might suck at music. Whether that is truth or lie depends on who I believe.
A friend reviewed my record by asking me “are you ok?”. i am not afraid of my own voice. Are you?
Thanks to miter for your interpretation and imagination. HRIF is now a better band because of you. I look forward to making more music. I guess that means I am a real mangician now (chuck mangione fan + ician).
“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.”
-William Shakespeare-
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All for now pals. I hope you enjoyed this collab as much as I did and that you subscribe to Free Fun.
RS
ICYMI, here’s last month’s song:
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