Can't Touch Me

Not to be confused with U Can't Touch This by MC Hammer, this is a grinding piece of punk blues co-created - through correspondence - with my good friend Mickey Fordola for a project (currently on hiatus) called The Hemotions.

The techy stuff: The backing track features my Gordon-Smith SG, drop-tuned to C, in the right channel and my battered 'Encore' Fender style bass in the left. Despite costing somewhere in the region of £150 new, I've never used another bass that makes such a satisfying sound; partly due to the strong signal not produced by daintier, more expensive instruments. The horn section is culled from a sample library with added gain and some cheap reverb to make it sound less clinical and sit better over the guitars. I can't remember where the drum sounds came from but I manually added a bunch of hits into Battery.

More often to be found charismatically crooning as a wedding singer, Mickey proves his versatility with a thin, slightly pained vocal that is a perfect foil to the heavy, churning guitars (and a marked contrast to my slightly Waitsian gurgling in the chorus). To hear Mickey in Rat Pack mode or to book him for a wedding, take a look at his website...