Frightened Rabbit's "State Hospital"

[midwinter]

Hi all.

I thought y'all might enjoy our live version of Frightened Rabbit's "State Hospital." This was the last indoor gig we had on the books for the foreseeable future.

Also: I hate that the guitar audio isn't better; the mic I had on my instruments (a Neumann KM184) was so good that it picked up her vocal so well that any time I brought my guitar up to a level that sounded good, her vocal was always too loud.

Guitar is a 2011 Breedlove American Series C25/SR (but a custom order).

The pickup is a B-Band into a Radial Tonebone PZ Pre.

Mics are a Beta 58 (mine, guitar), and standard issue 58 on her, and an 55 on the keyboard player.

I think it was an A&H board.

You can hear the version on the EP here.

Warning! It has a couple of cuss words but they're very poetic.

[MakingMusic]

You're right. The recording isn't balanced and can barely hear the guitar but the vocals are really nice. Good harmonies!

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by MakingMusic

You're right. The recording isn't balanced and can barely hear the guitar but the vocals are really nice. Good harmonies!

Yeah. Next time we do this, I’ll sticking a 57 on my guitar.

My only other option—which may actually work—would be to reamp the guitar through a PA speaker and mic the speaker.

Thanks! We’re increasingly playing everything with three part these days.

[midwinter]

Turns our re-amping my signal through a PA speaker and micing *that* made a huge difference.

[superbitterdave]

I’m conflicted - great performance, but I would have loved to hear more of the guitar. Regardless, thanks for sharing!

Cheers,

Dave

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by superbitterdave

I’m conflicted - great performance, but I would have loved to hear more of the guitar. Regardless, thanks for sharing!

Cheers,

Dave

Yeah, it's a shame it wasn't more usable. There's really not THAT much to the guitar part, anyway. At least the video is pretty!

Here's a live in studio version:

[superbitterdave]

Originally Posted by midwinter

Yeah, it's a shame it wasn't more usable. There's really not THAT much to the guitar part, anyway. At least the video is pretty!

Here's a live in studio version:

Studio version is great too. The guitar is more forward, but I agree it’s understated. Which works well. Great job!

Cheers

Dave

[foxo]

I've heard many Frightened Rabbit covers, they're very popular in Edinburgh unsurprisingly. This is by far the best one. Well done!

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by foxo

I've heard many Frightened Rabbit covers, they're very popular in Edinburgh unsurprisingly. This is by far the best one. Well done!

Thanks so much! We did a whole EP of them!

[midwinter]

Originally Posted by superbitterdave

Studio version is great too. The guitar is more forward, but I agree it’s understated. Which works well. Great job!

Cheers

Dave

Thanks! This was a really fun project.

If you listen to the original version of "State Hospital", you can get a feel for what we kept and what we re-imagined from the original. We all (there are just the three of us) really love the songs but we always thought their production/arrangements got in the way of a lot of their songs.

So for this project, we just peeled off all the layers and stripped them down as much as we could with the instrumentation we have available to us.

The loss of Hutchison was such a tragedy.

[superbitterdave]

Originally Posted by midwinter

Thanks! This was a really fun project.

If you listen to the original version of "State Hospital", you can get a feel for what we kept and what we re-imagined from the original. We all (there are just the three of us) really love the songs but we always thought their production/arrangements got in the way of a lot of their songs.

So for this project, we just peeled off all the layers and stripped them down as much as we could with the instrumentation we have available to us.

The loss of Hutchison was such a tragedy.

So I started listening to Frightened Rabbit. Great stuff. Sad that they are no more, but I will definitely pick up some of their albums (yep, I’m old school that way). Thanks for the introduction and again, well done (both takes)!

Cheers

Dave

[midwinter]

I'm actually not a huge fan of their recordings. My favorite record of theirs (I'm old, as well) is Painting of a Panic Attack, which many of their fans did not like. It was produced by Aaron Dessner of The National.

But I could watch them live forever, or him solo, like this: