Trio Tracks

I’m not known for having a knack for spot-on cover songs, especially when they involve any sort of specificity in guitar playing. I’m a much more approximate kind of guy.

I’m also not known for controlled use of vibrato, or willingness to commit my falsetto to record.

It’s the presence of all of those elements that make my relatively off-the-cuff cover of Hedwig and the Angry Inch‘s “Wicked Little Town” in Trio Season 4, #5 one of my favorite Trio performances, despite some quibbles re: flatness.

(I bet some of you Googlers would love to see some chords here. Unfortunately, I haven’t played this in three years and I have work in the morning. I do recall that I’m capoed relatively high – perhaps seventh fret? I’ll come back with a transcription as soon as I’m able.)

I often remark that I’m not much of a musical fan, but I freely admit that one of my lifelong dreams is to play Hedwig. That said, I’m actually a much better vocal fit for his other half, Tommy Gnosis, as voiced in the film by Hedwig co-originator Stephen Trask.

I’ve now exhausted my favorite tracks from Trio’s first two seasons – their lo-fi production values and still-developing vocals bar them from the apex of my favorites list.

Tonight’s selection is the first song of Season 3, and thus the first ever “hi-fi” Trio recorded (and preserved) as a high quality wav rather than a crummy real audio file.

The song in question is a raucous, improvisational, up-tempo take on “Will It Ever Come.”

After I built my top fifteen list I was a little puzzled at the placement of this track on the upper half … it’s not nearly as definitive as some of the songs that I’ve highlighted so far. Yet, every re-listen proves its place: I wish every Trio could stay faithful to the framework of a tune while remaining this carefree and spirited.

No matter how premeditated or rehearsed Trio has become over the years, it often yields surprising results – even in the control-freakish Season 5 I nailed a reinvention of “Other Plans” in single take.

When I had my tonsils removed in 2002 I had no way of knowing how it would impact my singing. I waited, impatiently for my throat to heal enough that I could sing.

As my first sans-tonsil week ended my voice started to return to normal. At first I sounded weird and too-open – like Bjork. Higher notes were less constrained, lower ones more boomy.

I decided that I had to document my altered vocals with a Trio, but with my singing handicapped my song choices were limited. As a result, on the few songs I could sing I spent more time rehearsing my guitar parts than vocals – my voice wouldn’t stand up to repeated tries at each song, so my fingers had to deliver their peak performance.

That’s how I arrived at this fantastic version of “Icy Cold,” from Trio Season 2, #15. The fingerstyle passages at the beginning and end were played exactly as arranged – I didn’t ad-lib at all (highly unusual for me when it comes to intricate guitar pieces).

At the time the addition seemed like a lark, but over the years it’s held up as one of the best all Trio performances – a one-time-only reinvention of one of my favorite original songs.

Trio can act as a snapshot, catching songs as they transform from one form to another. That’s certainly the case with this recording of “Typical,” from Trio Season 2, #13.

At the time the song was a year and a half old, and it still hadn’t truly found its niche, but as soon as I ad-libbed my first staccato between-verse riff while recording this Trio I knew I had found the way “Typical” was meant to be played.

While researching my Trio favorites I came across a recording I had completely forgotten – a demo of “Relief” recorded just minutes after I finished writing it.

The demo didn’t sound too much like the song I play today – the guitar rhythms never solidified, and the vocal wasn’t as distinct.

This version of “Relief,” from Trio Season 1, #8, was recorded just seven days later. You can clearly hear that in those seven days the song resolved very clearly into the form it’s stayed in for the past seven years.