Stray Cat Strut

I got a bit of a confidence boost recording “Secret Agent Man” because I felt like I was able to capture a reasonable facsimile of the original’s lead guitar bits, so I decided to apply the same approach to “Stray Cat Strut.”

This is a tune my good friend and neighbor Chris and I ran through a few times during our summer 2020 outdoor acoustic jam sessions, and I love singing it. I spent A LOT of time on this recording, and even more on the remixing/remastering activities, to the extent that I really got tired of listening to it over and over (and over) again. I’m happy with the results, but I also recognize that I am not now, and will never be, Brian Setzer. That guy is an amazing guitar player. I’ve had the opportunity to see him a few times, once while he was still with the Stray Cats where I was so close to him in a general admission, open floor setting that I was practically on the stage. About 5-6 songs into that show I suddenly realized my mouth had been open the whole time, my jaw dropped in awe and disbelief while this little guy, sleeveless and all tatted up with his trademark and enormous Gretsch hollow body strapped around his neck, and equally enormous pile of hair on his head, effortlessly (or seemingly so) rattled off these riffs and solos that were so impressive I swear for more than a few moments I thought he could not be human.

The chord progressions here are pretty straightforward, as are the drum and bass tracks, although those both had some unique challenges I will discuss in a bit.

This song is anchored by two separate guitar solos. If you compare mine to Setzer’s you will hear nuance in the original you don’t hear on mine. That’s what makes him Brian Setzer. I found a series of YouTube videos posted by a very good guitar player that presented a step-by-step tutorial on these solos. By “step-by-step”, I mean literally, “ring finger, second string, 7th fret, slight bend”, etc. Maybe “note-by-note” is more accurate. I used a similar instructional video to help me with the “Secret Agent Man” solo, but these solos are much more complicated, required more takes than I care to mention, and in the end I still needed to splice together multiple takes to get something that was even in the ballpark. As I told my good friend and neighbor, Peter, I may not be a very good guitarist, but it turns out I’m a pretty decent digital editor.

The Stray Cats recorded and performed with minimal instrumentation: Setzer’s guitar, plus drums and bass. The drum kit was sparse and typically comprised of only a snare, a high-hat, and 1 cymbal (all of which the drummer, Slim Jim Phantom, played while standing). The bass was an acoustic double bass played by Lee Rocker.

As usual, I tapped out all the drums in GarageBand, using only the snare, high-hat, and cymbal samples, but I combined a couple of the built-in snare and rimshot sounds with an overdub of live drum stick clicks to achieve a reasonable approximation of the original. The bass guitar I own (refer to my Gear page) is a Squier Classic Vibe ’60s Jazz, which I had only days before adjusted to address some fret buzz and intonation issues that I can — and will forever — hear in the previous recordings I posted. Rather than pointing a microphone at a physical amplifier, I record all of my guitar and bass tracks by effectively plugging those instruments directly into the iPad (through a separate gadget I will cover in a future post) and using one of GarageBand’s ridiculously huge set of amplifier emulators. Through much trial and error I found a combination of bass settings (pickup and tone) and an emulator configuration that provided the sound I was trying to achieve.

This is the last recording that I remixed and remastered after having shared an early draft with friends and family. In fact, it was this recording that made me realize there was still something (turns out, much) to learn with respect to mixing and mastering. I found an excellent series on YouTube, and I spent many hours watching and applying, watching and applying, until I sort of figured it out. Prior to applying the techniques I learned, my recordings had a lot of problems: They were muddled, the vocals often sounded a bit “underwater”, they didn’t have what some describe as a “competitive loudness” (which is a touchy subject among musicians, engineers, and music aficionados), and were poorly balanced. Still a lot to learn, but the remasters all sound a lot better to me than my first drafts, so all good.