President Home by MAC

By digging a bit more in MAC's website http://mouvvv.com/ I stumbled on another Miss Steak cover. Another very old song that I do not currently have a recording of called "President Home". I actually remember this one being one of our favorites at some early stage of Miss Steak, back in that time where we did a serie of shows to entertain athletes of the "Jeux du Québec".

MAC's cover is awesome! Not only he brings back to life an old forgotten part of my memory (I'm impressed with his memory!) but also he improved the lyrics and I love what he did!!

Here it is => MAC - President Home

A new Miss Steak webpage

Just to give you a heads up, I have started a new Miss Steak webpage on my own server so I will be able to host audio files and other goodies. You can see it at pvmusic.intercode.ca/miss_steak

Care, an old forgotten success, not completely forgotten.

I remember when I composed this song, it was in the early 90s. The song was basically a ripoff of Smashing Pumpkin's "Today". It was not long after "Today" became popular on MTV. Just like in "Today" my song "Care" featured little hig pitch guitar notes that went on for a while as the verse and then for the chorus, heavy power chords with distortion kicked in.


I did something funny the night I first composed and recorded that song. I used a tape cassette recorder and pressed record, played and sang the song, then played that tape in another tape cassette while playing the second guitar and vocals I came up with while recording the result in the first tape cassette. I was amazed of the result, for the first time I recorded 2 tracks of guitar + 2 tracks of vocals. Everything was harmonized. I made copies of the resulting tape and gave some to all of my friends because I was so proud, I wonder if someone still has one of those tapes anymore, Id love to get my hands on one of those!

Then we proceeded to start playing that song along with my other songs in my band Miss Steak, my friend Guillaume was playing the guitar and vocals harmonies. One day we did a show somewhere and played that song and lots of people came to see us after the show angrily accusing us of stealing that song, pretenting that my friend Jean-Michel Cabana had initially written it. I was like "what??".

This guy Jean-Michel was a good pal of mine, it turned out one day he made a party at his place, played that song and told people it was his. I was not even mad at him :) more like flattered... and a bit annoyed :P

Anyways, on went life, this song "Care" was one of the most popular songs of the early Miss Steak but unfortunately I do not have any recording of it for the moment. Thats why I was so excited when I found out that my friend MAC (see his website at mouvvv.com) had recorded a version of it. Now his version is the only known version.

There is no video version of the song yet, but I am hosting a copy of it on my own Miss Steak webpage (http://pvmusic.intercode.ca/miss_steak) here is the direct link to the song:

MAC - Care (Miss Steak cover)

Fubupampalé

I think this is a great punk song with a "woodsy" "swingy" verse that sounds quite original. Developing those "woodsy" "swingy" chords one day at my parents house in Sherbrooke is how the song started for me. Then the punker part came to me just like a logical response to the first part and pretty much all the rest of the song as well... then it was only a matter of setting a fixed structure and the song was ready for the band. The band loved it right away!

The lyrics it was never 100% clear where they were going, I guess I'm still trying to figure what I was trying to say in that song.

One day if we ever find the time to record any of those songs more professionally, this one definitely gets my vote :)

Masterville

Masterville.. I remember that in the last years of Miss Steak this was our favorite song to play :) This recording is probably not the best time we have played it but it gives the idea. Maybe we will try recording it again one day!

One of the problems with the recording of this song is that it was recorded on a 4 tracks. Ah the 90s... hum well this was recorded in 2000 but you know what I mean. Back then people did not have powerful computers and the Pirate Bay to fetch all the pro music programs for free, back then kids who werent signed with a recording company could only convince their parents of buying them a 4 tracks it they were spoiled enough, like me! So since we recorded on a 4 tracks but I wanted to be able to add infinite back vocals and sound effects afterwards, I had to leave at least 2 tracks free, so I can record a new thing and then copy track 2 and 3 together on track 4 so I can now record something else on either 2 or 3 and then mix it with 4 on the remaining track and so on... so all that to say that we had to record all the music on 1 mono track, drum + bass + 2 guitars, I put my vocals alone on track 2 to be mixed in with the back vocals and sound effects later.

Because of this, it was not possible to remove any fuck ups in the instruments, it was basically a live recording. Like for example at 1:35 there was a fuck up on the MIDI guitar and since it was not possible to remove it or to just mute the entire music for that 2 seconds I actually added a "bwa bwa bwa" vocal over it to cover it up :P But it is what it is, today with our i7 processors and stolen Cubase we have infinite tracks so there is no need to keep and fuck ups anymore... So just wait till we re-record this one :)

My Way

This song must have been recorded more or less around 1992 too. Unlike the other songs on our "Demo 2" (even though I dont remember if there was a demo 1) this one is played by me alone.

I remember that we have recorded this whole "Demo 2" in the band room at the music school "Studio de musique André". My friend Guillaume Poitras was going out with the daughter of the owner of the school (and yes its her that the song Mr. Cornflakes is about) and as a result of this he had the key to the music school and we got to go there for free to practice after the school was closed. That was actually very nice of the owner

But that one time we had practiced quite enough and we were planning to record. So we connected a tape deck to the console all the instruments were connected in and just played our songs. So all that to say that when I played this song, even though I was playing it all alone, everybody was there with me :)

I'm gonna kill her!! A rage song!!

Well I guess I got a little bit mad because I had a crush on that girl who looked half asian at school but I never managed to get any attention from her, so I wrote this song about that. It's an angry song and it sounds pretty kewl!!

For some reason the band had taken the habit of ending the song on a drum solo. Drum solos are fun and really cool, plus it gives us a chance to notice the drummer and what he can do.

It's our first drummer François Brousseau who started the tradition, but after we changed drummers for the local drum legend Iohann Laliberté this part became even more interesting. This song features a pretty intense drum solo by Iohann who must have been around 15 or 16 years old at that time.

This must have been recorded also more or less around 1992.

I guess none of my friends spoke much english at the time, so they did not realize how horrible the lyrics were!!