Saturday, July 27, 2013

Stories from the Studio

If you LIKE my band on Facebook, then you probably know that a couple weekends ago I spent about 18 hours at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington VA. This was easily one of the coolest, most entertaining weekends of my life.

My band has gotten to the point where we felt it was time to do some serious recording. Our demos, which as of this writing are still at our ReverbNation site, were done in Tom's basement by us. They sound pretty good, but we wanted to have something that sounded great, done by a real producer in a real studio. A lot of this was vanity. Like I have said before we don't have any delusions about quitting our day job. Music for us is a fun way to express our creativity and let off some steam. The experience of working at a real live recording studio was something that excited us all.

We were originally supposed to work with TJ Lipple. He was on the roster of Inner Ear producers, actually had a website, and produced a record by Boris Milic I wound up buying a couple days later when serendipitously seeing a show at the Rock n Roll Hotel. This seemed sort of like karma, so I emailed him and we exchanged messages and agreed on a date to meet at the studio just to get to know one another. The entire band came out and we met and talked and hung out for a good 90 minutes at the studio. We went away with a settled date and feeling confident that TJ would do a great job.

The first name on the list was Don Zientara. He owned and ran the studio and was the engineer for a ton of great DC hardcore and straight edge bands like Bad Brains, The Dismemberment Plan, Minor Threat, and all of the Fugazi records. When I saw his name I laughed, thinking "yeah, that guy will want to do our little record." I actually got a call from Don a few days after I sent the deposit check in. I wasn't going to answer the ring but it was a local Virginia number. "Hi this is Don from Inner Ear! Just wanted to say we got your check and are looking forward to you guys coming in!" I think I was kind of in shock. He seemed like a really nice fellow and I was looking forward to possibly meeting him at the studio.

Fate would step in. Maybe a month before we were to record TJ wrote that his wife reminded him of a prior commitment on the date we had arranged. He said we could either move the date or he could find another producer for us. We liked the date so TJ kindly went to find some one new for us to work with. A day or two later I get an email saying Don would work the board for us. Don Zientara, the guy who worked on this. And this. And this. And this.

At first I admit I was a bit intimidated. Mainly because I thought what would he think of our songs. My neighbor Steve had done recording at Inner Ear and said Don was cool and just another guy. So intimidation turned to real excitement, knowing we were going to work with a guy who had worked on some sensational albums. Like with TJ, we met up with Don a couple weeks before hand. We found him very personable and friendly. He asked if we had our demos with us, so I pulled out my iPhone. He seemed to dig the music and we parted all looking forward to recording.

So studio day came and we were all pretty psyched. Don had told us to bring everything we had and I pretty much did that. Even my acoustic guitar in case the spirit moved us. The drums took a while to get set up right because you have to microphone them just so. Don actually kicked us out of the room so that he and the intern Nick could finish the job without us milling about. So we hung out in the lounge and ate cookies and drank French press coffee that Mike the drummer brought. Every now and then Don would summon one of us so that he could test the levels. When it was my turn he had set up baffles around the amps so there wasn't too much room to spare. After about two hours we were ready to start playing.

The room itself was divided into two sections. The far end was where the drum kit was set up with around 11 microphones carefully set up. The room bottlenecks in the middle before expanding again and that is where the other three of us were set up. It was kind of cramped but not bad at all. A window looked into the control room where all the cool recording tools were. This wasn't just a guy tapping a keyboard, though there were computers and monitors, but a big giant control board with 30 some tracks available. It was very impressive, and looking at it was pretty much like reading Greek. There were chairs on a raised area behind the board so we could watch as Don fiddle about with controls.

The recording itself was a great experience. We did 6 songs in one day, averaging about 3 takes per song. We did a guide vocal track as we played to help keep the time but those vocals were naturally tossed out and we re-did them after clearing out the room of all our gear. I took maybe 2 or three tries per song; one gave me a particular hard time because I had to sing pretty high. Don did a neat trick where he would tell me to sing just the chorus on one pass and on another to sing just the verse. This allowed him to mix it together and not have me fighting for breathe in between.

It was all good-humored and fun. There was zero tension. For my part I took to Don's suggestions without any argument. At one point he said "Good, I like compliance!" I feel we were pretty easy to work with and we didn't obsess over every little point. None of the oh-I-missed-a-note-there stuff. It wasn't absolutely perfect, but we didn't need it to be. Nor could we afford it to be. I can easily see how it can take a year to make Hotel California where you just start obsessing over things, tinkering constantly to iron out the performance.

After 10 plus hours we broke for the day. Tom and I were coming back the next day to do the mix. Patrick and Mike had family duties to attend to. Afterwards Tom and me and Patrick went for beers and dinner at Hard Times. We all enthused about how fun it was, how good it seemed to go, and how much fun it was to work with a real pro like Don.

The mixing process was interesting. It was here we really got to tweak the songs. He sort of level-setted the first track and instructed us to start fiddling. Tom and I thought it sounded great and were hesitant to start but after a bit we got into it. We agreed that his solos needed to be brought up so that took center-stage at the right point. For one song I did start fretting over my guitar tone. I had a specific sound in my head and me being an amateur I couldn't really describe it. Finally Don says to be "do you want more bass, mid-range? More treble?" I didn't know what I wanted, so I just said "I want it to sound Black Sabbath-y." Don nodded and said "mid-range." He turned the knob and there it was...the opening chord to "Iron Man." Funny that the most romantic song in our repertoire, the most overt love song, is the one I wanted to sound like Tony Iommi. HA!! The best part was when Don turned to me at one point and complimented me on my singing. What an awesome thrill!

We took about 2 hours per song and were really happy eith what we had. Don put it on flash drives we had brought and also did a very rough master so that we would have something to listen to before we had it officially mastered. TJ was going to do this for us. Tom and I left with CDs for the car ride home and were both ecstatic with the results, even though they weren't finished yet.

So as of this writing the tracks are with the master engineer, who in our case is TJ. He also said some nice things when he listened to them. Hopefully by Early August we will have some real CD-ready songs for you to enjoy!

If you want to se photographic evidence, I recommend checking out our Facebook page. I have a whole album of pictures there! And be sure to LIKE US!!

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Sunday On The Town

Looking for something interesting to do? Have I got a suggestion for you!! Come see my band, Braddock Station Garrison, do its thing at The Black Squirrel. This is a very cool place located in the heart of Adams Morgan on 18th Street in Washington DC, just down the street from where Jimi Hendrix did a five-night residency in 1967. History!!

The Black Squirrel has some of the tastiest burgers in town along with one of the slickest beer menus around. Plus it's an intimate little place to see a show. And did I mention it is FREE. As in NO COVER CHARGE! As in come on in, plop down have a burger and a beer (or three) and enjoy the free music!

We go on around about 9pm, so don't be late!! There's a public parking just around the corner, which we highly recommend if you are not cabbing or Metro-ing down. Come on down early to hang out!

Here's our sweet-ass flyer! Come on down and tell us how good it looks!!


Thursday, July 11, 2013

Queensrÿche, By Any Other Name

Have you heard the new Queensrÿche album? The appropriate response (other than "no") would be "which one?" This is not something similar to what Guns n Roses did with Use Your Illusion. This is two different bands with the same name releasing albums within a month (or something like that) of one another.

On one side you have Queensrÿche featuring vocalist Geoff Tate and a bunch of hired guns who have spent time with Dokken, Candlebox, Ozzy, and AC/DC. Their new album is called Frequency Unknown and features 10 new originals plus 4 re-recordings of Queensrÿche classics, their most well known song "Silent Lucidity" included. Geoff had an incredible voice. At their high water mark (early 90s) he was among the best rock vocalists around. He's always seemed to be a bit of an ego-maniac but when you make records like Operation:Mindcrime and Empire and Rage For Order you can use it to positive purpose.

On the other side you also have Queensrÿche. This one features the rest of the band regulars: Michael Wilton, Eddie Jackson and Scott Rockenfield. Chris DeGarmo (the other classic-era guy) flies jets now and only dabbles in music. Good for him. This other version features some other guitarist and the guy from Crimson Glory. Their record is called, simply, Queensrÿche.

All the hullabaloo seems to have been caused by the brunt of the band getting sick of Geoff Tate, which isn't that surprising. Evidently Geoff's wife was their manager, whom the band fired without Geoff approving, which caused Geoff to become even more insufferable. Fair enough, I don't really begrudge them that. So now they are fighting over who owns the brand name. I am surprised there hasn't been some sort of injunction or something (I admit I am no law-talking-guy) that prevents one or the other or both from using the name. Yet here they both are. One of them is playing DC in a few weeks. I think it's the Tate version.

I saw Queensrÿche on their 30th anniversary tour a year or so ago. That made me feel very old. I enjoyed the show because they played all the old bests, but I did think Geoff spent way too much time babbling. I also saw them when they toured behind Operation:Mindcrime 2, yes they made a sequel to their album. If you know the story it makes sense. My buddy Doug went with me and he hated the sequel record. I thought it was ok. They played the first record...took a break...then did the second record. All with a couple actors on stage acting bits out. Strange but whatever.

When I was in high school and my first few years of college I loved Queensrÿche. I don't hide that I am a metalhead and prog fan and Queensrÿche skate that line in between. I still like listening to the real Mindcrime record and Empire and the very under-rated Promised Land and the even more under-rated Hear In The Now Frontier. The albums after that have been kind of meh.

The Geoff Tate album is...fine. It's kind of uninteresting. It has the usual Geoff Tate bombast: he talks over bits of songs as if he is speaking to someone next to him in the recording booth. The music is fine...it sounds like Queensrÿche but is missing something. Remember that it's called Frequency Unknown..."F U"...and the cover has a fist wearing rings, one saying "F" and one saying "U." Get it? Great joke, I wonder who he is talking to.

The non Geoff Tate record is, I think, much better. It actually musically sounds like a Queensrÿche album. And the vocalist, Todd La Torre, really sounds like Tate. There were a few times the first time I listened to it where I had to double check which version I was listening to. The songs are all fairly short, which is a good thing I feel. They are to the point, get in get out. Self-titling the record is a nod to re-birth, starting anew. It's interesting that Tate has the "queensryche" DNS, while the other guys have "queensrycheofficial" just to keep things confusing.

What really cripples the Tate version is the re-reecorded versions. They are totally unnecessary, just a jibe at his old band-mates. And they aren't that good...they don't even approach the originals. They make the whole enterprise kind of sad. It's too bad that a great band can't ride off into the sunset, or just do a record and tour every couple years and make their fans happy and re-live their arena filling days. Now it's just pettiness and business and lawsuits and counter-suits.

So if you like the 'rÿche, give the Tate version a listen to satisfy curiosity. And check out the self-titled album. Neither of them are really Queensrÿche but it's closer to it.

Here's the best track off the record I like: "Redemption." It's got a cool soaring chorus and the typical laser-like guitars.


Sunday, July 7, 2013

Heresy: Floyd over Zep?

Yesterday my wife was hanging out with me listening to records and she said I should put on some Zeppelin. The only vinyl copy I have is Led Zeppelin II (would have had the debut if I had gotten to the record store ten minutes earlier but that's another story...well, I guess the story is pretty much told). We put it on and she asked me who I liked better: Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. I response, without hesitation, Pink Floyd.

This shocked my wife, so much so she immediately went on Facebook and announced it. "Steve says he likes Pink Floyd better than Led Zeppelin. He's proud of it and not ashamed. What the hell?!???Happily a number of people have risen to my defense.

Like many teenagers in the 80s/90s I was obsessed with Pink Floyd. I had the posters, I had the cassettes and then the CDs. I had the VHS vide tapes. I had a Floyd visual history book which breaks my heart that I can't find now. I was even tempted to buy a guitar (even though I couldn't play at the time) because it had the Gerald Scarfe artwork from The Wall on the body. On some subliminal level I appreciate the artsy-ness of Floyd. Mainly it was because I loved David Gilmour's guitar playing: "Time," "Money," "Wish You Were Here," "Have A Cigar," "Comfortably Numb," "Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)," "Run Like Hell," "Hey You" were all in constant rotation on Q102 back in Dallas when I was growing up. And Gilmour has such a unique style of playing it just stuck.

Probably what sealed it for me was when Floyd released Momentary Lapse of Reason. It's pretty much a David Gilmour solo record, but as a Floyd record it's still really really good. It came out in 1987 when I was watching MTV constantly. MTV had a Pink Floyd weekend (imagine that today!) and they spent 3 days previewing the record, showing old clips, showing the movie The Wall, showing interviews with David Gilmour and Nick Mason promoting the album. Here was an old band that had classic music I heard all the time on the radio making a new record; something that was accessible to me as a 14 year old beginning to shape my own musical interests beyond that of my parents; something I could call mine that I couldn't necessarily say about Dark Side Of The Moon or Animals. And it had some great songs: "Learning To Fly," "Dogs Of War," "Sorrow". Even "One Slip" is a great little number.

From there it was buy every record, even stuff like Relics. I admit I didn't really get The Final Cut (though I now think it's amazing in it's way). I got all the posters to hang on the wall. I bought Delicate Sound Of Thunder on CD and VHS when it came out and played it into the ground. I played the Live at Pompeii video tape constantly.

It took a while for me to warm up to led Zeppelin. There is a sinister-ness to them that I didn't quite get. And they sang, unless it was about hobbits or misty mountains, about squeezing lemons till the juice ran down their legs. I wasn't against that, but for music I was far more interested in literateness (AC/DC being the outlier to that). Floyd and Rush, later Iron Maiden and Metallica and Qüeensryche. These bands were bringing great music AND great lyrics and ideas. They made me think.

The first Zeppelin tape I ever bought was The Song Remains The Same. It's amazing I went on to like Zepplein after that, because that is probably the worst live record ever made. I think I got it because it was a double cassette and had a lot of songs I knew on it. That was the only Zep tape I ever had. The first CD boxed set I ever bought was the 4-disc Led Zeppelin box. Again there was a bit of a hullabaloo about the release of that. It might have been one of the first big box sets released..it might have been Zeppelin's debut on CD. But I remember going to Sound Warehouse on Josey Lane in Carrolton at 10am on Tuesday to buy it when it came out.

Music is all about connection. Be it MTV hyping a new Floyd record or rock mags heralding the debut of Zeppelin on CD. I was a bit older with Zeppelin...that box probably came out in 90 or 91. So I was just a bit more advanced but my musical foundation had already formed. And Floyd were a huge piece of it. Zeppelin was built on top of what came before.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Mid Year Report

Since everybody else seems to be doing it, here's my Top 5 records of the year. It's entirely possible one  or two or all of these will fall off the Top 10 of the year (that happened last year with The Shins) but I doubt it! These records are all really good!! Some hard and heavy stuff...some mellow stuff.

The Eldritch Dark by Blood Ceremony - What happens when Black Sabbath meets Jethro Tull? You get Blood Ceremony. Though front-lady Alia O'Brien is far cuter than either Ozzy or Ian Anderson. I've been drooling over this record on Spotify for a while...the vinyl is supposed to be coming soon, so I will write about it when it shows up. They are from Canada, which is apropos of nothing.

Ultraviolet by Kylesa - This is s good as modern metal gets. Smart, well-written, not super-fast so it keeps a great groove. Kylesa know how to get it mellow before breaking into a sonic tidal wave. Read more here and here (Blood Ceremony here to!)

The Stand-In by Caitlin Rose - And now for something completely different. Sensational country-esque singer-songwriter. I say country-esque because "modern" country is equated with junk like Taylor Swift. This is the real deal. More here.

Impossible Truth by William Tyler - Brilliant record I wrote about here. Guitar instrumentals can get dull in a hurry; this doesn't get dull at all, it's mesmerizing. It's not the kind of record you dance to (I guess you can but it'd be kind of weird) but even though it's wordless it's the kind of record you still pay attention to.

Elephant Stone by Elephant Stone - More Canadians. Psychedelic prog-pop with 12-strings and sitars. Very classic era 90s sounding band. I need to listen to this record more. Wrote about seeing them live here.

There you go. Like I said, I can't really see these records falling off the list. Especially the Blood Ceremony one. If one of them does (or two or three) then that will be great because that means more killer records came out. I expect the new Blackfield will be on my list, that comes out September-ish. Alcest and Anathema are both working on new records. Records I have now that could make the list? Destroy This Place, Arbouretum, Kadaver maybe. It will be fun to find out!!