Fool Me (The Vulgar Boatmen) — an MD8 home recording

a Vox/Oktava joint affair

	I tried a version of Fool Me by The Vulgar Boatmen a long time ago, then never followed through. 

I saw the band at Bottom of the Hill in SF around 1992. This particular song from that year’s Please Panic has always grabbed me. 

I was looking for another song, when I came across Fool Me on my laptop. I already had my Vox AC1 mini amp on the kitchen table & started playing with the amp’s “Rhythm” variations. The Vulgar Boatmen version is in 3/4 time, but the melody line smears across it, so I tried out a more straight-four Vox setting called “Blues.” The pattern of the words survived & I headed to the Yamaha MD8.

I recorded the Vox beat in a tom with a hyper cardioid Oktava MC012. 

I’ve had this whammy Danelectro baritone for years. I avoided whamming & anchored the chords with a Yamaha CP.

After trying another vocal mic that was too pristine, I unpacked this bear & the texture fit. I kept it up for the Kalamazoo, kinda out of laziness. The result is a few string punctuations that come & go here-&-there like they’re walking around the room. It’s one of those times when you can’t place exactly what the track does, but it seems incomplete without it.

nest of wild adaptors

Here is where things slowed: I wanted a pad that wouldn’t muddy the bed. I auditioned a few Casios, a few Yamahas & even my Roland Strings Ensemble all through my Leslie, but nothing blended right. 

Instead, EBows productively slithered in around the other sounds via the Vox/MC012 combo again &, finally, some regular tremolo to fill a hole.

Fool Me (The Vulgar Boatmen) — an MD8 home recording