1 – Think about it, a lot.
2 – Research, a lot. (the online costuming community gets pretty creepy)
3 – Spend hours roaming Lowes, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, Home Depot, Utah Furniture Supply, Delvie’s Plastics. Not to much an hour roaming gateway mall, weirding out all the retail girls by asking to get your hands on their old mannequins.
4 – You now have two big sheets of upholstery foam, and you have to turn it in to a wearable tongue costume. Where to start?
5 – Play a round of horseshoes.
6 – Dig in, with your walmart electric bread knife.
7 – Concede that the only way to smooth out those edges is with a half inch dremmel sander, akin to painting a fence with a toothbrush.
8 – Keep at it. Finally get around to buying a face mask and safety goggles. Because breathing in foam particles is irritating. And foam particles get stuck under your eyelids, making your eyes red and watery, giving you the appearance of a junky when purchasing snacks at Smith’s grocery.
9 – Feel hopeful for your project, freak out a little bit, then feel hopeful again. Repeat as necessary.
10 – Get to the fun part, painting the costume in Latex.
11 – Freak out again cause it’s not going like expected.
12 – Get some reassurance and “special fiber” from the special effects shop guy. (I have no idea what “special fiber” really is, but it was only used for thickening latex, I promise)
13 – Get to the real fun part, and paint with coloured latex.
14 – Finish painting, show off a little bit, and gear up for the next costume.
Rich, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. From their ’03 debut album “Fever to tell”. Next to “maps” this song hooked me on the YYY’s. No one does hip, fragile and dangerous like Karen O.
My performance and recording isn’t the tightest on this cover, but I feel I did pretty well on making this one my own.
This recording also features Handclaps! and a Bucket Drum! I’m no drummer, especially on a bucket, but I make do.
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Just got a leak of their album “Big Echo”. So far so good, I anticipate growing to really love this album with some time, we’ll see.
meanwhile great video below;
Your Ex-Lover is Dead by Stars, released in 2004. 03-04 is when I really started getting into “Indie” music; and when a lot of songs I now consider classics of sorts, were created. The original finds Stars doing the best of what they do; love-torn heart-on-sleeve indie ballads. Since the original is also a duet, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to enlist the help of my very talented friend Julia Mecham. She’s a great singer and guitarist and songwriter, and she has a better ear for some of this stuff than I do, this track wouldn’t sound half as good without her input. Really, I tried to pass off things half as good. Oh and she came up with that great impromptu hook in the last section. Anyway it was fun recording with her and I’ve learned quite a bit on this song, so my objectives are being met.
Thanks again Julia for indulging me on this project!
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Julia – Vocals, Organ, drums (before I ruined that sound file) and many other things we ended up not using.
Ryan – Vocals, guitar, mixing etc.
