One of our goals here at WBM is to provide a peek into the processes of creating music which is, at every stage — from infant idea through shrink-wrapped adult — nourished by revision, refinement, and experimentation.
At the player level, arguably no Whack-era tune received more exploration, in feel and arrangement, than did Becker and Dean Parks' Cringemaker. A true survey of this vast terrain would require an aural version of a topo map….but we’ll sketch it out by planting just two ranging rods here [both to be compared, of course, to the shrink-wrapped version on 11TOW]
Photo: Amanda Parks
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This first clip is a run-through from the crew at Hyperbolic Sound in Maui, with John Beasley on the venerable B3. I labeled this audio “Swamp Cringe” in my files, which you may or may not understand after listening. No man can control that, y'know.
Dean Parks - Guitar || Adam Rogers - Guitar || John Beasley - Keys || Fima Ephron - Bass || Ben Perowsky - Drums || Walter Becker - Vox
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BONUS ALT-TAKE: This is an instrumental of the same keys-forward arrangement, but has several hallmarks of an actual “track take” (which are to be distinguished from the more casual or exploratory “run-throughs with vox” like the audio clip above). By Download Only
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This second clip is a run-through from the truncated Signet Studio experiment. Although it’s not radically different from what you’ve heard before — except for an outro of crazy couplets — it may be of interest as we all continue to ponder the compelling (but often opaque) issue of a writer’s progression through the iterative process of choice — as in W's ultimate preference on Whack for either his “machine” versions, or tracks from the Maui band.
Interested to read your thoughts ...
(Provisional: some credits may be corrected) Dean Parks - Guitar || Bob Sheppard - Sax || John Beasley - Keys || Neil Stubenhaus - Bass || John Keane -Drums || WB -Vox
Love all three versions ! Awesome ! Drums nice and high in the mix but not in the way. Fab!
Thanks for posting :-)
Dan, Tony, and others:
For a while now I’ve wanted to post a cheat-sheet for various terms we use here on WBM —track; track-take; take; run-though; rehearsal, demo; overdub; etc. etc., especially as our use of these terms here may differ from their more colloquial meaning or understanding.
This would provide more context for visitors to an archive such as this who, after all, are hearing lots of different “beasts” from a big menagerie of process components and stages. In short, it might help to understand the somewhat different goal or function of each beast in the oft-mentioned iterative process of getting from demo to final. [EDIT: In fact, if I get it right, it probably belongs as part of the site FAQ]
This present multi-clip post is a good case where an explicit clarification of concepts and terms might be illuminating; why, for example, Walter isn’t soloing on some clip…or why there’s no vocal on what I’ve identified as a “track-take”, and so on.
But whenever I try to begin my little WBM glossary, my Infographic nature gets me dizzy, with visions of hierarchical branching trees and such… but in any case it would be a bigger job than I have the gas for just now. Still, I did want to flag my intention here — you get points for intentions, right? — and maybe in the meantime the more inductively-inclined among you — or those familiar with old-school recording endeavors — can make better gestalt sense of what we’ve presented here, and elsewhere on the site.
Carry on….
My goodness, these alternate versions are incredible. So much fun! I actually particularly love the instrumental version, it's a real shame Walter's vocals aren't on that one because the band sounds incredible there.
What a treat! I love both versions; either of which I’d have been happy to hear on 11TOW. Cringemaker was always one of my favorites off that album to begin with.
swamp version for me all day. the Maui band was something else. every track posted here with them goes straight to the top of my list.
Miss you Walt
What a treasure trove this is! Love hearing all 3 of these. It's interesting to me how WB did not play guitar on these (unless he did on the instrumental version... any credits available on that one?). I know Dean co-wrote the tune so in a way it makes sense. But on the original CD, WB credits himself with "solo guitars" except for a couple. I think what it always comes down to for all of their stuff (both SD and solo) is, did it capture the spirit or the feel that he/they were looking for? I'm pretty sure in one of the interviews he did around the time of release, he said almost exactly that in explaining why he went with the "machine" versions on most of the songs. But for me personally, I lean toward the full-band versions just for the great musicianship. The Signet band is probably my personal favorite but it's close. And always, I love hearing Walter play guitar so it's always a slight disappointment when he is not on the credits. But hey, thank you @Moderator: D-Mod for these gems!
Love these. That first version is very powerful and groovy. Much as I love the final version on the record, this unpolished take is very very soulful. Thank you so much for the insight. 😎
I totally get it why Walter choose for the machine. It gives it a more cold feel, non traditional.
Wow! What a delight. I love it, and the feel would have fit 11 Tracks of Whack. All it needed was Walter on guitar too.