Euphoria (Behind the Fridge) – Single
Posted Apr 19th, 2009 by ConorThe Dominican Affair recorded for the first time ever on Saturday. What can I say – it was an experience! It was not a professional recording and therefore the sound quality is not perfect. Over all I think that it is a reasonable first attempt for us.
I really didn’t expect that it would be as hard as it was. It took us eight hours to record one song! Never mind the mixing the sound engineer had to do afterwards! We started with the guitar, then he put a computerised drum loop in along with it – which can still be heard sometimes in the finished version! Then the bass, then the vocals and then the drums. Christina was the only one to get it right on the first attempt. The guitar took ages. One thing that I don’t think the engineer understood was that the guitar in this song is supposed to be discrete and very low. Background music nearly. He actually put two guitar tracks over each other and put distortion on one of them which was a bit of an overkill I think.
The bass went smoothly aswell but it took a few attempts to get it right. I don’t think that the bass is loud enough in the finished version either. We like it very loud in this song! Then came my turn. Absolutely terrible. It was so damn hard. I was playing with a metronome and the rest of the band in my ear. But as soon as I started playing I couldn’t hear anything through my ear. And they kept telling me to hit the drums as hard as I would playing live but when I did that I could hear even less. Vicious circle really because I kept going out of time. Eventually I had to simplify the drums, take out some of the breaks and try my best to hear what was coming in my ear. In the end we got an ok recording, though the sound quality wasn’t that good. We didn’t have the best equipment…
I should also mention that this is a greatly shortened version of this song. The full version hits seven minutes. We recorded it minus one verse and a chorus. Then the engineer digitally removed a few bits including the guitar solo. That’s why you might hear a not perfect transition between the drum roll and the last chorus.
There are a few things that made it hard for me. The tempo of the song is slow in the verse and a bit quicker in the chorus, but the computerised metronome cannot change tempo so I had to re-learn the song with this standardised tempo! The other thing is that I am a drummer and as a drummer I don’t keep in time. I set the fucking time man! I was trying to stay in time with everyone else where as usually everyone else is staying in time with me. I can set the time and keep to it but I just found it really hard to follow everyone else! Also the drums drive the song. I am responsible for making the song exciting to the other musicians and to really hammer it in when it should be hammered in. But when we recorded we did not have each other there to guide and inspire.
Taking all that into consideration and not being too harsh since the people who recorded us did it for free I do not think that this is an example of The Dominican Affair experience. It’s too not us. It’s too steady and conformist and the same. There is no great display of talent here because we just werent all that inspired. There is no atmosphere. I hope that this does not mean that we are destined to be a “live band”. Anyway I know that this post has been all negative but I really do have to thank the people that helped us make this recording happen. It was a great learning experience and it lets us know that if you think your tight then your not tight enough, you must know that your tight! That’s enough moaning it’s time to let you decide for yourself what the song is like!
Download the single for free here.
Listen to the single on our Bebo page.
Let me know what you think of it now. I know I’m just being critical because I have played this thing a million times and this time I could not get it right!
Hullo, I am the number one Dominican Affair fan dontcha know, and I shan’t let my name slip no matter how painfully obvious it may be as to my identity, although to drop a hint I live in a tree called 21 Fifty First avenue by the sausage factory there (ah, yes, Constable Richmonds, it’s good to have you over) and like don’t you know I can dodge bullets but not tampons.
So, here’s my poem/rap about this single :
I really must say with some dismay
to the A-OK folks of the frickin D.A
that this recording is a little lacklustre
it lacks the punch that the REAL song mustered,
OK it was for free but I really do hope
that for the actual E.P you’ll sound a little more dope.
The guitar sounds gay and the chorus is fucked
and the sweet guitar solo has been un-sweetly chucked
Luke is being banished to an unfair background,
he should be at the forefront making sexual sex sounds,
McGhee you’re quite the drummer but here you sound shite,
but I know you guys are pink enough to set this shit right,
of course it’s quite ironic that Christina should excel,
she fairly fuckin nailed it and you really can tell
that this young awesome lady is quite the skillful singer,
her performance is actually a winner!
But for Shane and Luke and Jesus well you guys can really PLAY
so for the future keep producers from having their dumb say,
the man who laid these sounds down seems to be something of a noob,
his guitar, cymbal and tempo styles are like an old lady’s boobs -
unpleasant to say the very least
and letting down a masterpiece,
Euphoria (Behind The Fridge) is a pretty little ditty,
and here it sounds a little gay plus a little shitty,
so my advice is to re-record with someone basically better,
and duplicate this song’s sweet live sound to the very letter,
this Single version is not at all the right introduction,
to a band so bloody brilliant they give musical liposuction,
and so I give my fond farewell to you funky foxy fellows,
with the warm and hopeful concept of a E.P much more “yellow”
than this brown and murky understatement of raw and phallic talent,
that should be given proper care by a producer much more gallant.
Um, yeah, basically, the Single is OK, but, come on guys, you chaps are the hottest piece of red-hot
hotness planet present and a song as smexy as Euphoria ought to be done without giving in to the preferences of some producer, shit like slowing the tempo down in the chorus and using that hypergay chorus effect on the guitar when it ought to be clean cut like a porn star’s … yeah, you get the idea. After all, there’s plenty more fish in the bowl as it were and I am personally looking forward to the hardcore sexual proper recordings you guys do in the future than this “just OK” piece of likable mediocrity.
I am still your number one fan! In fact, I’ll probably end up LIKING this recording eventually. Just when you’re doing the real thing, keep it real and stick to your feelers and don’t let the feckin producer intervene with your genius!
I love you guys!
from your number one fan CIARAN!!!
I don’t want to be too harsh on the guy that did the recording for us. He is far from a noob. In fact I think that we got a good enough sound out of the equipment we had. The reason that I was so critical above is that this is essentially an ok ep. People have told me “it’s fine”,”it’ll do the job”. Frankly I’m not going to bother with anything that is “fine” or “does the job”. If we release anything we have to feel that it is the best that we could possibly do, and this just isn’t.
Here, you cannot say one bad thing about the recorder… he was extremely professional, he had a vision and he achieved it with brilliance.
The D.A. does disagree with this recording as it doesnt hold its originality in this recording… Drums SHOULD have been recorded first… AND BASS SOLO should have been left in… i didnt write that solo so some sound engineer could cut it off.. it was wrote as a starting point to shanes Epic guitar solo and an explosion of all the meaning, feeling and soul of the song and some might say the whole band.
Ciaran you are a true artist, no one could write that rap in a million years… truely amazing.
Luke xx
Yeah, right on guys, considering the actual means and equipment used for this recording the recorder did the best he could, and dissing the man is about as cool as dissing a lollipop man .. really not cool at all. He just did his frickin job, and I guess he wanted this song for RADIO which would explain his perhaps radical yet understandable changes to the original song.
But we all know how epic Euphoria Behind The Fridge can sound, and we all know that in the not-so-distant future we WILL hear it recorded to its full amazement and originality, and it WILL rock us. Really hard.
By the way CONGRATULATIONS on playing the UCD ball yesterday!! You guys are getting BIG!
A barrel of love from your number one fan,
Ciaran