Big Ray: Naked
June 13th, 2007 by EdI haven’t posted any MP3s here for ages, so I thought I’d bash out a quickie post and get the first Big Ray album made available for download/streaming.
Windfall - 5.0MB
Treat You Right - 5.0MB
Free Range Flesh - 3.6MB
Missing A Train - 4.6MB
Evergreen - 4.6MB
Open House - 5.2MB
Spaces Inbetween - 4.0MB
Watch Me - 3.6MB
Richer In Body & Soul - 4.8MB
Feeling Tired & Useless - 3.3MB
Carousel - 5.7MB
Squirrels & extras - 29.5MB
Alternatively you could stream the whole album instead of downloading the individual tracks.
Some quickie notes (lyrics to follow eventually)
- The album was recorded by Sink, but we decided on a name change before it was released.
- It was the first time I’d recorded with Roop (Rupert Coulson). He was awesome. I’ve not recorded without him in the intervening years unless I was really short of cash. He the man.
- It was released on City Slang. It was their idea to do an acoustic album (not that we needed much encouragement). They wanted us to break from Sink’s punky image (cough!) and wanted ‘Naked’ to be similar to Yo La Tengo’s ‘Fakebook’ album which they had released the year before.
- This is the last album that you have to endure my fake American accent. Not sure how it got there in the first place, but it took me years to shake it. It had gone by the time the next Big Ray album was recorded.
Posted in Big Ray |
June 13th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Thanks very much for posting this. I love Business Class, but the other albums were out of print by the time I got into Big Ray.
Any chance of an “Extras” tracklist please? Or do those songs not have names? Thanks!
June 13th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Mark, good point. Here’s the skinny on the extra tracks:
‘Squirrels’ kicks things off. It’s a re-recording of an old Sink song. Music by me, lyrics by Laurence Bell (who now runs Domino Records to great effect). This is an acoustic version with Buddhist monks and the Beach Boys making guest appearences. The end section of the track is us playing over the rhythm section of the Beach Boys on a bootleg version of thei excellent track, “It’s About Time” from the ‘Sunflower’ album (1971 I think; it’s great check it out). Kermack was supposed to stay quiet at the point where they do a load of fancy fills near the end, but he played along (in time) and the whole thing sounds great.
After that finishes there’s minutes of record scratch sounds effects until 10:43 where you get a largely acoustic alt mix of “Richer In Body & Soul”.
At 14:52 there are some Answer Machine Messages.
At 15:25 you get to hear the AWESOME forgotten Sink track, “Ugly Juergen” which is a nod to our German touring partners from 1990, Ugly Food, who were the nicest people you’d want to meet, but a little bit fiddly with their songwriting. We did this completely unrehearsed (natch!) because we thought it was hilarious….boy, does it go on a little.
17:17 brings us more radio stuff and answering machine messages.
At 18:55 you get a fun-to-do-but-hard-to-listen-back-to version of the 1960’s classic, “The Letter” originally by The Box Tops. We finished a day early in the studio and put this whole section together on the last night after we’d finished mixing the album. One mic in the control room and everyone sitting around having a laugh. John plays double bass on this, I’m on shit guitar and vocals and Paul’s on harp. Roop did the percussion.
22:33 brings more radio chatter and 23:05 ives us the closer called “Thanks & Outta Here” (I just made that up) which is another stupid faux jazz thing based on something we knocked up on tour in Europe with our Polish friends, Trybuna Brudu…it’s a long story and I won’t go into it here. John does the Cleo laine impersonation, Paul’s on double bass, Roop’s doing the percussion and I’m reading off the thanks list for the album.
June 15th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
That last track plays havoc with my iPod - I love the version of Squirrels on this, but it’s impossible to put it into any playlists and shuffles thanks to the extra 25 minutes!
June 16th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Andy, you’re a man of the world. Edit the MP3 and re-import it into yr iPod. A great free sound editor for PC is Goldwave, but most CD/DVD burning apps have a sound editor built in. I could do it for you and re-post, but:
1. You don’t count ‘cos you betrayed your country and left
2. I’m a bit bizzy. Sorry.
June 17th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
“You don’t count ‘cos you betrayed your country and left”
Talk us through that accent your using on this album again…
June 18th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Andy…a good point well made. But I did manage to get rid of it.
