The Beatles--Revolution

[feppytweed]

Can anybody recommend me similar songs? what with use of "fuzz box" and other guitar sound alterations, this song has just gotten stuck in my head, and i would love hearing songs like it.

Thanks in Advance


Jason

[Manduck]

"Spirit In The Sky" by Norman Greenbaum has kind of a similar guitar sound. It's kind of a cheesy song, though.

[ZeroGyro]

I don't know if you've heard it, but you should check out the version of "Revolution" (or "Revolution 1") on The White Album. The arrangement is actually quite different and you may not like it, but it's neat to hear how they change it up.

[Stephe96]

REM's "What's The Frequency, Kenneth" has that distorted guitar sound.

[Askance]

Songs that are similar in feel, to me anyway, include John Lennon's angry diatribe against Paul McCartney How Do You Sleep, and The Kinks' You Really Got Me, and All Day, All of the Night.

[ccwaterback]

Didn't McCartney use a fuzz base in "Think For Yourself (Rubber Soul)"?

Canned Heat did a lot of fuzzy guitars too, you might want to check them out ... "buzz for me Sunflower (Fried Hockey Boogie)" ...

Then just totally out of control loud distortion, I would have to say Blue Cheer.

[Cardinal]

I was told that the fuzz tone in "Revolution" was made by knife slits in the PA speaker cone. Anyone heard this? Anyone got a cite?

[F. U. Shakespeare]

'The 2000 Pound Bee' by the Ventures -- a young Jimmy Page heard this one and modeled a lot of guitar sounds he used in the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin, and the Who (yes, Page played lead on some early Who records).

'Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting' by Elton John (guitar by Davey Johnston).

[Ms Boods]

I was told that the fuzz tone in "Revolution" was made by knife slits in the PA speaker cone. Anyone heard this? Anyone got a cite?

I don't know about this song specifically, but the original 'slash the speaker cone' to get that kind of fuzz distortion was Dave Davies of the Kinks when he tore up his 8 watt Elpico with razor blades. (http://www.davedavies.com/kink02.htm)

[Mr. Blue Sky]

'Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting' by Elton John (guitar by Davey Johnston).


Oh my, yes. Crank this one up to 11.

[Sgt.Pepper]

I'd recommend Gomez's "Bring Your Lovin' Back Here", that has a really nice fuzzy guitar bit in it. On their album, "Abandoned Shopping Trolly Hotline".

[feppytweed]

I don't know if you've heard it, but you should check out the version of "Revolution" (or "Revolution 1") on The White Album. The arrangement is actually quite different and you may not like it, but it's neat to hear how they change it up.

i would, but i cant spend 30+ dollars on beatles cds now. just not in the cards. all i have now is the Red album(1967-70), One, and Sgt. Peppers lonely hearts club band.

[Rich Mann]

Back when I had an ancient device called a 'phonograph' which played 'records' I decided to compare the two versions of this song by placing the 45 rpm 'single' on top of the 33 rpm 'LP' and play one right after the other. I forgot to change the speed in between, though, and discovered that the speed of the songs match when played at the same speed. Which made me wonder if the idea for the second version (whichever one that would be) came about by just this sort of happy accident.

Neither of them sounded at all good when played at either 78 or 16 rpm.

Why, yes, I did have a lot of time on my hands back then. Why do you ask?

[Walloon]

I was told that the fuzz tone in "Revolution" was made by knife slits in the PA speaker cone.
Phil McDonald, the tape operator for the recording session, tells how they did it (http://www.avrev.com/music/revs/beatles/).

[woodstockbirdybird]

"Making Time" by The Creation might work for you. Actually, a lot of the 60s stuff Shel Talmy produced in the 60s (Kinks, Who) has that sound.

You could also check out Rhino's Nuggets compilations, or any number of 60s Garage Rock comps.

[woodstockbirdybird]

Sorry about that dumb-ass sounding sentence referencing the 60s twice.

[Lute Skywatcher]

I can't think of which one at the moment but one track on The Legendary Shack Shakers'* "Cockadoodledon't" CD is fuzzy. The entire track, even the vocals!





*You've probably heard a bit of one of their songs, even if you haven't heard of the group. A couple of verses from "CB Song" was used in a Geico commercial.

[Small Clanger]

From Walloon's link . . . the "mixing-console-as-fuzz-device" is not an idea that caught on throughout the recording world, but it did give us one unique and blazing Beatles single!I always thought that's what it sounded like (that is, pretty horrible) I guess they did it while the sound engineer was out having a smoke and they could abuse his console.

I think there may be some "overload the mixer" type distorted guitar on some tracks of Zep IV, I'd have to go back and listen carefully through cans to confirm this -- though it's not the sort of thing I will have imagined. Pagey would try anything so it's definitley possible.

Other than that I can't think of any other examples of mixer overload as effect (Portishead maybe?), generally it just sounds nasty. Moby and his ilk do use signal distortion but it's usually heavily filtered and/or compressed to take the edge off.

[ZeroGyro]

I'm not sure what method they used to get their distortion, but Hüsker Dü's "Celebrated Summer" has that brittle, overdriven guitar sound.