David Bowie has always been a favourite of ours and at the time of his death it occurred to us that we had never covered any of his songs. Here’s our take on an absolute classic, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” from 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
Acoustic Temptations cover (free download)
I recently found this old acoustic recording of The Temptations’ “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” on an old hard drive. The vocals aren’t perfect, the lyrics aren’t always even right and the guitar could use work, but that never stopped me from uploading to Soundcloud before.
Listen and download for free below!
Click here for more details on the cover illustration.
New Music: Original Christmas Song for Charity
Check out our first original holiday song, as part of the latest Zunior Christmas album in support of The Daily Bread Food Bank.
Dog Is Blue Fuzz Pedals
Handmade fuzz pedals built by Paul!
Based on a tried and true classic circuit (the Bazz Fuss), each pedal is tweaked to sonically destructive perfection then custom painted with splattery chaos.
Featuring a simple 1-knob configuration and built for use with standard 9v guitar pedal adapters, the custom Dog Is Blue Fuzz is the perfect tool for quick and dirty mayhem. Great for leads, feak-outs and general musical terror.
Feel free to contact Paul directly for any questions.
SOLD OUT: we’re out of fuzz pedals for now, but hang tight and there may be more on the way (email Paul for more info if you’re still interested in getting in line).
If you’re curious about more than just guitar, check out the 1:10 mark of Dog Is Blue’s cover of J.J. Cale’s “Call The Doctor” and you’ll heard the fuzz pedal scorch on the lead keyboard line:
New Music: J.J. Cale Cover
Arguably the cover song we’ve recorded more than any other, it’s about time we shared a version of J.J. Cale’s “Call The Doctor.”
Video: Live at Raw Sugar in Ottawa
Set to the album cut of “People,” this video was put together by Matt from Flat Head Dog Productions, who happened across our set at Raw Sugar last fall.
Live Video from Raw Sugar in Ottawa
Dog is Blue from Damp Digital on Vimeo.
Last fall we played at our favourite Ottawa hangout, Raw Sugar. As we were setting up a dude came up and asked if he could video our set. Sure, why not? Nice of him to ask–next thing you know he’s got some pretty hefty A/V gear and we’re suddenly being captured in HD glory!
That dude was Matt from Flat Head Dog Productions. He shot and edited this montage of our set that night, played to the album cut of “People.” It’s a pretty fun glimpse of the gear/demeanour of a Dog Is Blue show and we’re hoping to work with Matt on more videos in the future.
DIY Effects: EHX Freeze with Effects Loop and Expression Pedal
Read these links if you want to know how to do this yourself (and probably more properly than I’ve done here):
https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=101235.0
http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9967&hilit=freeze&start=20
There aren’t many pedals out there that an astute DIY enthusiast can’t build. However, if there’s one company that keeps pushing the envelope away from the same tired, easy to build overdrives and fuzzes it’s Electro Harmonix. Case in point, their Freeze pedal—a sound retainer effect—is next to impossible to piece together on my own. Thankfully Laura was kind enough to buy me one for my birthday and even kinder enough to give it to me a month and a half early!
After a quick test so she could see how happy I was, it was off to the drill press to add some holes into my new gift. In the end, as the above video describes (with a first attempt at annotations too!), I changed the stock stomp switch, went with an expression pedal jack to optionally control the effect level my foot, and added an effects loop. The latter allows me to run just the ‘frozen’ signal through things like a tremolo or phaser and not affect my guitar signal at all.
I couldn’t really find any guidelines on how to do any of this online (the usual suggestion of disconnecting the wiper of the level pot and inserting the effects loop there didn’t work), so I ended up tracing the circuit with an audio probe. All told, I took the ‘send’ signal from R3 and returned it to the wiper of the level pot (there could be an easier way, but I’m no guru—just a lunatic with a soldering iron).
That said, if you’re looking to do this to your own Freeze just be aware that it’s all SMD components and I almost lost R3 a few times (it’s about the size a hangnail). But you know what they say, “He who dares…” blah blah blah.
We used this newly modified bad boy at a show on the weekend and it worked really well. A friend later remarked that he what sounded like an organ playing under my guitar, which is exactly what I was hoping for!
Dog Is Blue Fan Art by Robb Mirsky!
Our pal and fellow musician, Robb Mirsky, drew up this awesome band sketch after our show at The Piston last week. It’s not the first bit of “fan art” we’ve received (that honour has to go to contemporary artist Tom Yeo, whose efforts include this awesome fake show poster), but Robb’s irreverent satirical style hits close to home for Dog Is blue, so it’s a definite honour!
I also really love how we’re both lazily glaring at the other through the corner of our eyes, like we might turn on each other at any moment (which really does capture our live shows well…).
Live Review: Deanna Danger on our set at The Silver Dollar
We’ve both been pretty busy with artistic endeavors of the 2-D kind lately, but it’s always a shot in the arm to hear that people liked our last show! In this case, Deanna Danger wrote a very flattering review of our set at The Silver Dollar on July 21 as part of the Music Maul CD release party (with The Leonids, who were fantastic).
Check out Deanna’s review here, suffice to say that bits like this made us all gooey inside:
“The evening began with a soft introduction that swiftly changed, making me realize how pleasantly loud a two piece can be. The evening was hilarious and sweet all at once, with beautiful music that reminded me of the Civil Wars and Blue Rodeo; a perfect combination of Canadian tales and sweet harmonies.”
Not to mention her enjoyment of our cover of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own,” a song we tried for the first time that night when I called an audible in the middle of the set, much to Laura’s dismay.
We’re hoping to set up a few more shows in the coming months so stay tuned for lots of updates.