So here’s my newest song…Mr. Bad Cat
Mr. Bad Cat is a brand new song for me.
While I was recording the Smoky Mountain Encounter, Mr. Bad Cat popped up unannounced with his claws out, grabbed on to my earholes and wouldn’t let go.
In fact, I had trouble not dropping what I was doing on the other song, because I wanted to dig in to this one right away.
But, I think it was better that I waited a few weeks to work on it.
I had my first two shows of 2014 last weekend, and I played this song at both shows, and I think it helped for it to ferment just a little… although, it is still pretty raw and ragged!
Now even though the song is brand new, I’ve had several of the components floating around for a while.
In fact, I remember exactly where and when I first made up the guitar part for this one.
Every year, I play a party for my friends Wendy and Victor Ing; they have a big old southern boil, and it’s just a great time out in their backyard every summer.
Well, I usually end up playing for about 4 hours, and I do a lot of improvising because it’s a pretty laid back event.
I ended up making this guitar part up off the cuff, and it stuck with me ever since last August (2013).
It’s been my sound check riff for sure haha.
The other component I had was the title... I’ve had that for quite a while too. (In fact, many of my songs start off as just a title waiting for some words)
Ya see, we have a cat…and his name is Mr. Biscuit…but I usually end up calling him Mr. Bad Cat, because that’s what he is.
At least that’s what he thinks is… a real tough guy haha.
Well, that title finally clicked together with this guitar part; after that, the words came pretty quickly.
So, I debuted the song at the Buzzbin Shop, a great live original music venue in my hometown.
Also on the bill that night was the incomparable Matt Woods, with Larry Fulford on the drums.
(Larry’s one of my favorite drummers and musicians, but that’s for another blog)
So Larry comes up to me after my set and tells me that he and Matt were floored by Mr. Bad Cat, they were cracking up over the lyrics, especially where a go… “with a capital BAD…C-A-T”.
Larry was like…”not just bad…but capital BAD”
I told Larry that I have an actual Bad Cat at home, and he asked (with some disappointment)… “It’s about a cat?!”
I said, “well, it’s about a cat… or a dude…a bad dude”
He said, “No, it’s definitely about a dude!”
That launched us into one of those great conversations I love having with another well-versed musician.
You see, I have always loved those old 40’ and 50’s Blues, and Rhythm and Blues, songs where all of the lyrics have a double meaning.
So me and Larry were throwing all kinds of examples of these types of songs back and forth.
For example; Big Joe Turners Shake, Rattle, and Roll … “I'm like a one-eyed cat peepin' in a seafood store”…have you ever THOUGHT about those lyrics before!!!
Or the song, Little Bitty Pretty One…I’m not even going to talk about that one…Yikes
How about Big Mama Thornton… “You ain't nothing but a hound dog… Been snoopin' round my door… You can wag your tail…But I ain't gonna feed you no more”
This could easily turn into a three hour discussion, because I love those double meaning kind of lyrics.
But, to wrap things up for you all, and for my friend Larry, Mr. Bad Cat is about a dude…a very bad dude indeed.
To record this one, I used my brand new, sea foam green, Fender Vaporizer amp.
So far I LOVE this amp.
Just stick a mic in front of it, and that’s it.
No EQ, no BS, no pedals…BAM!
One take and done!
For the vocals I used my Shure-55.
The vocals are really, really overdriven on this one; (by design).
Whenever I get up in a higher register with my voice I tend to overdrive a mic, so I left the volume cranked up and let it all happen
Also, Jean shot video of me tracking all of the parts, so I pulled the audio from the video camera and mixed it in with the guitars, vox, and drums.
That’s about it for this one…stay tuned for the video of the actual studio performance, coming soon!
~SRT
Update…heres the video!