DEXTER RELOADED - THE OKE KARAOKE

MUSIC - Pounds, Shillings and Pence

This is a song Richard Stillwell and I originally recorded in about 1980 in his Parnell flat. We mixed it down to stereo and I don't know what happened to the original master but I wore out the cassette copy I had so decided to have another go at recording it around 1996. The song showcases the vintage Ibanez AD-80 analog delay pedal, perhaps the most musical effects pedal ever.

The song is about New Zealand's conversion to decimal currency in 1967 and not, as some people have suggested, a song celebrating the immense fun you can have with mind altering hallucinogenic drugs.

I worked out the chords and made up a bass line, whacked the drum machine track on it and did a vocal. That was mixed down to stereo and I bounced the stereo track back onto the Fostex X26. I grabbed some sound bytes off some video tapes I'd made and mixed them in live on the bouncedown.

With the remaining two tracks I made up a sound effects track with the AD-80.

I did the reverse guitar solo by putting the cassette tape in backwards and mixing it down in reverse, then I listened to it in the car on the way to and from work for about a week so that I knew the song backwards. Then I recorded the solo with the 4 track going in reverse and knowing where the changes were I just did some pentatonic soloing.

Recorded at The Lost Note Studio 1996. Gear used : Fostex x26 4 track, Sony HiFi VCR, Ibanez AD-80, Alesis III Midiverb, Shure SM58 mics for vocals, all recorded through a Sansamp Original and Akai Studio Compressor.

Pounds Shillings And Pence

Strange, strange music
Strange, strange words
July the 10th 1967
It all happened then

Strange, strange money
Strange, strange switch
Took a trip to currency change
Aint been quite right since

(Sound Bytes) Repeat Verse 1 (Sound Bytes)

Strange, strange feelings
Strange, strange sights
They took away pounds shillings and pence
They took away my dollars and sense

(Sound Bytes) Repeat Verse 1 (Sound Bytes)

Strange, strange story
Strange, strange end
Don't take away my LSD
Strange, strange friend

(Backwards guitar solo) (Sound Bytes)