Demotron: Please (1993) (Part 1)
The beginning of an epic multi-post farewell to my oldest song, called "Please". Here lies the first embarrassing 1993 4-Track recording. This is Part 1.
Did you miss the INTRO POST? Click here.
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Part 1: (this post) The very first recording of ‘Please’ from 1993–performed with best friend Shane (restored, re-mixed, & mastered). This includes the embarrassing first lyrics and alternate title, “I Like Elvis”. Buckle up, this might suck. Ha.
🎧 “I Like Elvis” (aka, Please)(1993)
I really want you to enjoy the first ever recorded version of “Please” from 1993, below. I know this might not be possible.
Technical note: This file will continue to play, even if you lock your phone.
This is BTL Exclusive. You cannot hear this anywhere else–thank God.
I made a more slightly more tolerable version below, with video view of the Pro Tools remix output.
I remastered this 4 track recording from 1993–just for you. It stung a bit. I didn’t make any edits. I used the insane audio cleaning software iZotope! RX10 Advanced to remove tape hiss. I used various audio plug ins, volume automations, and panning to sharpen what was already there. Talk about polishing a turd. My old friend and mentor, Patrick Moore, who worked on David Lynch’s Elephant Man, was fond of declaring in the edit room, “now now Ryan, you cannot polish a turd–- but you can freeze it”. This one might have to be deep-frozen. Even better, I’d prefer to dip this one in the liquid nitro from T2, if that’s ok with you? Hopefully, it won’t rise up again, “Have you seen this boy?”
I feel great about my restoration powers. It’s hard to imagine life before all this audio cleaning tool-wizardry. I was able to unearth sounds I’d never heard before from this cassette 25 year old cassette tape. Terrible and unwanted things. Ha.
Hello Shane!
Shane Tise was not one of those above mentioned ‘unwanted’ things. The classical guitar in the left speaker is being performed him. If you listen to the end you can hear him ask a question.
“You didn’t record this did you?” "Yeah I did", says Ryno "Oh, what for?", says Shane.
You may be asking the same thing. That query still holds up.
Shane is doing the artwork for all the versions of “Please” in this series.
How cool is that! That’s information about Shane’s creation other posts about Please, here. You can watch his “Please (Live)” album artwork come to life in an animation here.
The Making of this Recording
The Gear:
Yamaha MT-120 4 Track Cassette Tape Recorder
2 x Acoustic Guitars (regular & nylon)
2 x Microphones ($19.99 Realsitic 33-3018 Radioshack + another crap mic)
1 x Boss Reverb Pedal (RV-6)?
These 4-Tracks
This arrangement is pretty simple, compared to some of my other 4-track recordings from back then.
Track 1+2: Shane and I played dueling guitars together as an initial guide pass. Theres an artificial echo on his guitar, so I am pretty sure put his crap mic through a guitar reverb pedal or some kind of fake echo maker.
Track 4: Immediately afterwords, I went and quickly made the hellacious lead vocal. I had a habit of recording vocals on track 4 with this machine. If we never got around to a 4th layer, than at least there would be some separation.
Track 3: Following that, I moved into the bathroom and sang the backing vocal onto Track 3, in the shower stall (for echo effects).
I remember having fun
It was fun to plan out the tracking on a 4-track. You had to really pre-envision your art. This is something I’ve carried with me throughout my creative career: I think in advance about how I’m might end a thing, before I start the thing.
In the remix, I discovered some sneaky background vocals on my acoustic guitar, Track 2. I was playing with Shane, so I was most likely adding the backing vocal parts on the guitar track, as a location guide. Without these blazes, one can easily veer off a song’s trail in a first-pass guide recording.
There’s a short guitar solo punched into the lead vocal Track 4, near the end. I may have gone into another room to make this, as it sounds different. This was one of our ‘pro’ tricks back then, taking the 4-track into a different room for a sound. It still works today.
Shane, my friend.
Shane Tise is all over these old 4-track tapes. He could (and of course still can) play a lot of instruments. He’s an awesome artist with a lot of powers whom I still look up to. In the 90’s, we used to descend upon the 4-track weekly, feeding it a heap of spontaneous song ideas. This activity cut through the hot boredom of suburban Phoenix, AZ like butter. If we found something we liked, we’d build on it. No thinking whatsoever. We could both play drums, bass, and guitar. So, the two of us could quickly support each others’ ideas into something resembling a song.
Like acting for the camera-you only had to get it right once. There’s a complexity of limitation in having only 4 tracks, which makes for exciting choices–like “punching in” a guitar solo on the vocal track–where you hit record and perform your solo destructively between the gaps in a lead vocal track (see above image). Fitting everything into 4 spaces could get sublimely intricate very quickly.
Learn more about my 4-Track history in one of my excruciating Recording Ennui posts, here. Beware, it gets nerdy quick over there.
About these dumb 1993 Lyrics
I’m not gonna lie. I’m embarrassed by these lyrics. I mean they are REALLY dumb. I’m pretty certain I made them up with the microphone in my hand. Remember I’m 17 years old making this. Have a heart.
Achtung!
Protect your mind & eyes. Please refrain from reading this.
I like Elvis he shot his TV Two young lovers and a talk show make three There's fire in the whole thing I'm leaving that TV But while I'm here I'll watch awhile I won't be too long just a while I've watched for too long I'm on my way Don't you hear the phone? I'm on my way But while I'm gone the TV's on All day long you bug the tube TV makes you dumb You can't leave You can't leave You can't leave
Okay, okay
Despite my discomfort in sharing, this is pretty decent recording. Am I going to allow myself to be proud–30 years later? Oof I say. One nice remembrance is that you can tell Shane and I enjoyed recording. I miss that feeling a lot.
In early 1990’s Phoenix, we could have been doing far more terrible things with our time to make life bearable. I knew countless persons who drank and drugged their way across the monotonous desert suburbia. I remember us making a lot of recordings like this–just filling up cassettes. It was an antidote for restless teen-angst. This is the pre-Internet, pre-cell phone era, not that that helps make this song stop sucking so hard.
When I look back
One thing I wasn’t doing back in 1993: self-reflecting. The joy in making clunky 4 track recordings was the discovery. When I look back, I am jealous of that initial feeling. It was pure joy. It’s not too difficult to relate to now. The simple act of making a recording of yourself, playing or singing on a device, then later listening to it while driving down the road-is a hoot!
Another thing I remember (after hearing the playback) was a familiar noise in my head–the steady undertone of being quietly terrified about the uncertainty of adulthood. That feedback that sets you off lying to everyone about how you, “have a handle on” your direction in life. Maybe that’s what tape his is, exactly?
My remix didn’t get rid of that. I remember thinking that I had 2-4 years before middle age was upon me and it would be ALL OVER. You know. I was a total idiot teenager. 💋
More 4-Track stuff?
I’ve have received some halting requests to make more of my 1990’s Ryno 4-Track music available. Easy now. I’m pretty sure the magic in that requisition is embedded in the absence of knowing. Upon finally hearing these poo-brown studies, I suspect one might pine for a return to the depravation of sound.
For me, of course there’s gold in them hills. I’m sure I would find song snippets worth mining for future songs if I delved into these tapes. At present, my creative well is overflowing. Yet, if I was to dive into this collection further, that’s what I’d be searching for: guitar, drum, and bass riff-gold.
FYI, there’s 23 tapes. Read about it here
Drop D Tuning
At the center of this song is the fun of just jamming in Drop-D
D A D G B E
Conclusion
After High School, in 1994, I spent a year in Scottsdale going to community college. I was living with my best friend Pat. My younger brother was still at home, nearby, and because he also was keen on music making, we collaborated a lot. In that time between 1994 and 1996, I made more music than I’d ever previously done. I moved off to University of Colorado, at Boulder, in 1995. Once I hit 20 years old, I didn’t know where I was headed.
I thought of myself as some kind of Renaissance man, who could/would one day be just a revered as Michelangelo or Leonardo DaVinci. Ha. I mean just AHAHAHAHA.
Did you think of yourself that way?
I was interested in a lot of art. Without much pondering at all, I abandoned songwriting, for filmmaking. This became my new target in 1996. In the following decade, I poked at music, making temp scores for the films and tv shows I was a part of, but it wasn’t until 2008 that I’d seriously return to songwriting again - in Long Island City, NYC–following a hugely unhappy time in my personal life.
Part 2–Preview
In Part 2, we flash forward 15 years. Ryno crawls ashore from an ocean of of woe to find himself suddenly single in the big apple (NYC) in 2008. He returns to creating personal film and music. His oldest song evolves into what it is today, with new lyrics centered around the word "Please." Subscribers will endure 2 more demos: One on omnichord and the first demo. I just found a multi-track recording demo, so I’ll try to put that in there for you as well. The important thing to focus on is the craft and growth of this song. It’s also peculiar how some good songs don’t belong anywhere.
INDEX of Future-future Posts
In Part 3, Please, LIVE from Seoul (2022) with the band–Ryno on electric guitar. This is worth the wait.
In Part 4, Please Drums with 17 mics in JM Studio, 2023. Gear heads might like this one.
In Part 5, Please LIVE from Seoul (2024) with the band–Ryno on electric synth. Very inspired.
Exclusive First Listens
The Exclusive First Listen of the studio version of Please will be made available here on Behind the Lights, after the above Demotron finishes.
All my new music premieres here on www.BehindTheLights.org before going worldwide. Thanks for subscribing.
This is the end of Part 1, Demotron: Please
Wear Out the Lights
About the author
Ryan OToole (aka, RYNO) is a skateboarder from Arizona with too many film degrees, who writes songs for Pretty City Lights—a new music project based in Seoul, South Korea. His songs have been described as, "alternative rock for people dying of middle age". Formerly associated with the band, Amateur Blonde, his songs have been featured in television and film - notably, The Walking Dead (S10 Ep21). RYNO is the author of Behind The Lights a freemium substack publication, documenting the Pretty City Lights song & album creation process with the slogan, “watch me make music”.