SteveCastellano.com

I got a copy of Ableton Live Lite with an audio interface I picked up last year and had been meaning to fire it up and play around with it at some point. Likewise I had been thinking about remixing Mike Doughty’s “Thank You, Lord, For Sending Me the F Train” for some time, because I’m a fan, it’s a great tune, and there’s a solo acoustic version on his Skittish album. Some of you may know Doughty as former front man and songwriter for Soul Coughing, and since that band’s breakup he has released three solo CDs (that I know of, plus a live CD) and is working on a new one according to his blog. So if you like the sound of this and want more original Doughty stuff, check out his online store.

I’m pretty happy with this version. Beatmapping a solo acoustic performance was a bit of a challenge, but Live is pretty intuitive and I got the hang of it after a while. I think I’m coming to the stutter party a little late, and some of you might find the obvious trainyness a little on the cheesy side. But that’s what I did, I had fun building a train machine combinator in Reason, and I’m on to some original stuff next time.

F Train Remix (3.9 MB MP3)

I’ve finally made it into Quill & Quire, without having to go through the tedious business of writing a book. I insinuated myself into the Q&Q photographer’s frame at the Toronto launch of Against the Current, Linda Diebel’s biography of Stéphane Dion. I’m the one with the camera behind Dion in this series in the Q&Q events blog. More of my own photos from the event, an example of which is shown here, can be seen on Flickr.