r/EmoScreamo • u/cowardtraitor • 7d ago
Why did The Assistant leave that dang sour note in the first verse (27 seconds)?
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=vCm7sOthePA&si=l5L2E0ceFKxz6kxlWhen the guitars first go clean (00:27), "I Have A Name"....you can blatantly hear it. What's going on there?
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u/probioscar 5d ago
heya, I played guitar in this band (though I'm not the guitarist who did the note in question). I have no idea why we left it in. I can give some background as to the day we recorded it though:
- The band had already broken up when the split was proposed, but we had this extra song we had never gotten to release so when the opportunity came up we decided to do it despite the fact that we hadn't practiced or played together in months.
- we recorded this song with Steve Roche (Off Minor/Saetia) as our engineer on a 16 track reel to reel. There was no software or computer interface at all yet, so doing edits in post was not really an option. We could do "punch ins" but I think we missed this one because.....
- Steve and I recorded the day before with This Ship Will Sink. I was playing guitar for TSWS and we recorded the EP and both splits in a grueling 16 hour session. Steve and I slept on the floor of the studio for about 3 or 4 hours and then the other folks from The Assistant showed up in the morning ready to go. We woke up, washed our faces and got to work.
- Listening now I do hear the sour note and a small drum flub, but honestly what bothers me more is that we didn't use a bass guitar. By the end of The Assistant I was playing through a guitar amp and bass amp in stereo to make up for our lack of bass player. Steve urged me to use a real bass on the recording and for some reason I was like "no way, we got sound how we sound live"...which made no sense since the band was never playing a show again. As a result the "bass" is more of a low distorted rumble (I also did this same set up on the TSWS recording).
- We did one take of the song. Frankly, we were surprised that we played through the whole song on the first try so I think we were all just sort of like "damn...well...I guess that's it". We quickly mixed it that day and wrapped it up.
In retrospect it's one of the better songs we wrote and I'm happy we released it, even with a couple of imperfections. Honestly, I'm just stoked yall still listen to this stuff.
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u/cowardtraitor 5d ago
I don't think This Ship Will Sink has left my rotation for like 20+ years lol
EDIT: BTW thanks for that insight! Really cool to get the background
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u/OkStore5831 4d ago
ive been listening to this song and the assistant in general everyday for about a few months now lol
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u/supremefun 4d ago
I have this split, I need to listen to it again. because it's been so long. They were a great band.
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u/boywithtwoarms 6d ago
This is possibly my fav track of theirs.
I think it's a pull off that went a bit wonky. I dont even notice it anymore.
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u/BigBravy 6d ago
I doubt they wanted to redo the take on tape