If you're like me, you've listened to Tanya's music for say, something like 6-7 years (about the time 'Pod' by the Breeders came out). You've gotten chills every time she hits that chorus on 'Super-Connected' or the one on 'Seal My Fate' or the very first words she sings so softly at the beginning of 'Someone To Die For' or whatever other moment of pure grace that's in each and every song by Tanya. And you've searched all around you for people to share that, eventually finding some (thanks to the Internet at least for that)... getting the occasion of actually showing your appreciation to the world should be the most natural thing to do.

I'll talk a bit about my personal experience there, since that's Cris' basic idea of this thing: I've been hitting strings on guitars, eventually making sounds that way, for 10 years (I'm 22). The reason I picked the guitar was because I wanted to be able to play along with my favourite record at that time, that is... "Slippery When Wet" by Bon Jovi :)

I started my band 4 years ago and I started singing at the same time. Because I have a big ego and I want to be the one people look the most often at on stage... I'm serious!!! :) The only thing is that... I don't have a nice voice and my singing technique is a bit... bad to say the least, but it doesn't matter much since we have very little vocal equipment and people can't hear our singing most of the time :)

Anyway, the funny thing was I never considered covering a song by Tanya because... I don't really know why actually. Probably because in my mind, they were all so perfect or something like that. Then this project came out to light on the Belly mailing-list and I read about... someone (sorry whoever you are, I forgot your name) that wanted to make a trip-hop version of "Low Red Moon" and my mind just clicked. I knew there now was a way for me to cover some song by Tanya and also to sort of making it "mine". All I had to do was to find the song and the way to play it. The song was easy, "Super-Connected" was always my favourite. And since my band wouldn't have been too keen on covering a song by Tanya (there just are some other bands they like more), I had to do it all by myself, which meant acoustically.

Now the first time I tried to play it, I found the first 2 chords on the intro sounded typical Bossa-Nova, which made me want to play the whole song like that (I like Bossa-Nova a lot by the way). Then I'm also a big fan of that french singer called Katerine who plays beautiful songs with a Bossa-Nova feel to them in french and that made me want to translate the song in french (I'm french, did I mention that ?).

The translation bit was tricky and to be honest... well I just hope no french ever hears my version of Super-Connected or he/she might die from laughter :)

On a more "Technical" note... I'm not too aware of anything that deals with technical details in music or recording tricks. All I know is that I played an electric/acoustic Washburn guitar and we recorded that on a 4-track Fostex tape-recorder. We used 2 tracks for both the guitar and voice. That is, with the guitar directly in the recorder as if it was an amplifier, a microphone in front of the guitar and I sang in 2 other microphones also directly connected to the recorder. We didn't have any effects such as a chorus or a delay to put on, so for the mixing, I tried to use different equalizations on each track hoping they'll make each other stand out. Yep. Every person with a little bit of experience in sound recording must have raised eyebrows many times by reading this :)

If I had anything to say about common mistakes forecoming contributors should avoid, I would say first don't hesitate taking a lot of time to work on your cover, especially BEFORE trying to record it. That is don't let the first time you press the 'RECORD' button also be the first time you play the song, even if you have it perfectly clear in your mind. You have to know the song you're playing, therefore you have to learn it. So play it until you're sure you can play it without those little mistakes you might regret afterwards.

Also, even if it takes a lot of patience, make sure the version you decide to keep is the best you can do. It's really annoying sometimes to play the whole thing again only because you didn't hit that one note as you should have (but it's worth it).

I personally am looking forward to hearing more covers by people who share that love of Tanya Donelly's music, especially after hearing the first ones. Go for it! It's great fun! And if you don't do it for yourself, do it for us :) I can't believe I wrote that much and that someone might even read this...