Road Trip - Pt. 2 More Recording

The whole reason for the trip was to record some of Paul’s songs. Some of the songs we had played together a long time ago and some were new to me. My main instrument is bass and I think I have a pretty good feel for Paul’s music, so that was the easy part. But I also played slide guitar and mandolin for some of the songs, and what I tried to do for those parts was to play something that added musical accents, but didn’t overwhelm the lyrics and vocal parts. I tried playing a fiddle part on one of the songs, but didn’t feel that I would be able to pull it off.

If you’ve never recorded, the procedure goes something like this (or at least this is how we did it this time)… First the bass and guitar were recorded on two separate tracks. We played those together so we had the timing down, and didn’t have to use a click track. Since we were playing together, if one sped up or slowed down, then the other would follow.

Recording bass and guitar tracks

After we had a take that we liked, we would add the “musical accents.” I would either play a slide part or mandolin part while listening to the already recorded tracks in headphones. Once we had a good take of whatever incidentals were to be added, then Paul would put down a vocal. That’s pretty much it for recording. After that there’s mixing and mastering, but we only had time for a rough mix on the tracks. Well, that’s not entirely true, we had a friend of Steve’s come out and do a better mix on five of the songs, but since we didn’t have all of the recording  finished, we couldn’t get them all mixed. It was fascinating to watch Steve’s friend Chase mix down the basic tracks using Logic Pro. Chase had previously done some work at Southern Tracks Studio, so he certainly knew what he was doing, and I was just amazed about how computerized it all is now. I remember doing some recording in the early 1990s and it was all analog with tape and faders, and trim pots. Now everything is digital, and you manipulate the sound by digitally adjusting the wave form (I think, I’m certainly no expert.)

Rough mix of "Could Anissa Have Been Saved" with random pictures from recording

Road Trip - Pt. 1 – Recording

So I just got back from spending a week in Marietta, Georgia. I was in Georgia to do some recording with a friend of mine.

Let me start at the beginning. Around the end of January, my friend Paul, who I’ve known since junior high, called me up asking if I’d like to go record some songs that he’d written. I didn’t have to think about it too long, and agreed. The recording was going to be done by Paul’s friend Steve, who lives in Georgia and has a small studio. After checking to see that my family was okay with it, and making sure I had enough vacation time, it was confirmed, and we were ready to go. Paul sent me a packet of song lyrics and chords, plus a copy of a cd that we had recorded of his songs from 12 years ago, plus some new demos that he had done. I gave them a quick listen and picked a number of instruments that I thought would work for the songs. Then on Feb. 18^th after a 12-hour drive, Paul arrived at my house at 5:00 in the morning and we loaded up his car (except for the upright bass which didn’t fit) and headed south.

                                                      Paul with guitar

After another 11- to 12-hour car ride, we were in Georgia and ready to record. Paul writes his own songs in a style which could be best described as darkly humorous folk rock. They usually have a lot of words, and fairly intense vocals. Having played music with Paul, off and on for a number of years, I am familiar with his style, and I guess he likes what I bring to his music, because after meeting his friend Steve, and hearing how he plays, I said to Paul, “Why am I here? He can play everything I do, and better.” But Steve just wanted to set up the microphones and press the record button, so I had to play the music. Not that I minded.

Steve at the controls

We recorded 10 tracks of guitar and bass, and then I overdubbed some mandolin, slide guitar, and ukulele, and Paul of course did the vocals. We more or less finished 9 of the 10 songs. The 10^th song was not finished because the vocal part was too tricky, and Paul’s voice—which had been giving him trouble all week—was just about shot.

Paul working on vocals

 We wrapped everything up on Friday, and drove home Saturday. It was a fun week, and other than the recording we went out and saw a band, had a brush with greatness, and met some really cool people. I’ll write some more about that soon. Stay tuned.

Still Life or How I spent my time off



Party Tricks

So everybody is talking about this video of 5 people playing one guitar. I've seen it mentioned on various forums, and it's interesting the first time you see it, but it's not anything new. It's an old party trick.



The first time I saw it, I  was thinking, "Hmmm, I've seen this before." Two other videos came to mind, the first one is fairly recent, and it's 4 people playing one electric cello.

Stringfever playing  Ravel's Bolero on one Cello




But the other one that came to mind was a little older. Back in the late 1920s - early 1930s, the Cumberland Ridge Runners played a song where they switched instruments ... and well you just have to watch the video. Watch carefully around the 1:05 mark.

Cumberland Ridge Runners - Goofus




If you like this kind of stuff, especially the older video, there's a lot of really cool "novelty" stuff from the early part of the 20th century. Most of it was from Vaudeville, but a lot of it was just entertainers going for the "Wow" factor. Some of the people that come to mind are Roy Smeck and Willie Hall. I'm sure there were more, I'll try digging some up and posting it later on.

Happy Valentine's Day

Since it's Valentine's day I thought I'd post a couple of my favorite love songs.
Let's start with one of my favorite singers, Sam Cooke.

Sam Cooke - You Send Me



Check out this great website on Sam Cooke.

Another great singer, and song - Otis Redding doing Try a Little Tenderness. This was recorded the day before his tragic plane crash.

Otis Redding - Try a Little Tenderness



Check out the Otis Redding site.

Now for something a little different, one of my favorite bands from the 1980s, showing that power-pop/punk bands can write love songs.

Husker Du - Greeen Eyes



Lyrics for Green Eyes

And finally, a song by Joe Ely about St. Valentine himself. (Well sorta, if he drove a red Continental and had a broken heart.)

Joe Ely - St. Valentine




Lyrics for St. Valentine

Enunciation

Okay, I found the quote that I was thinking of when I posted in “whatcha’ listening to. “It’s from the book “Early Downhome Blues” by Jeff Todd Titon. I haven’t read the book (yet). I found the quote on the Weenie Campbell forum.

When I asked Son House to listen to a particular line from a song by Charley Patton that I could not make out, House laughed.  He said "You could sit at Charley's feet and not understand a word he sang."

To me that’s not a bad thing. In the 1980s, I was a big fan of R.E.M. and one of the things that I used to like about them was that you couldn’t understand their lyrics. I remember in college having long discussions about what Michael Stipe was saying. This was on the early albums, Chronic Town, Murmur, Reckoning, Fables of the Reconstruction, and Life’s Rich Pageant. You could start to really hear the lyrics around Fables, but they were still hard to understand what he meant. However once you started to clearly hear the lyrics, some of the mystery went out of R.E.M.

R.E.M. - Radio Free Europe

But back to Charlie Patton, as stated, Charlie didn’t enunciate words, and to this day people still don’t know what he said on certain songs. In “Down the Dirt Road”, what does he say?

I’m goin’ away to a world unknown…to Illinois …to where I don’t know… to where I’m known

Charlie Patton - Down the Dirt Road Blues

Here’s a fairly lengthy discussion on Charlie Patton from Weenie Campbell.

I don’t know what he actually says, and to me that’s okay. You can put whatever meaning you like into the song, interpret it however you want. The more time you spend trying to figure out what the lyrics are, the more you get pulled in to the music. Music doesn’t need to be “perfect”, a little noise or mumbled lyrics might be just the thing to grab a listener.  Sort of like how African Mbira (thumb piano) players put little pieces of metal or bottle caps on their instruments to add a buzz to their playing. Music that is too “polished” sometimes just doesn’t sound right to me. It lacks that human element.  I’d much rather listen to Bob Dylan’s voice or Charlie Patton’s hard to decipher lyrics than any perfectly enunciated auto-tuned voice out there today.

Down the dirt road isn’t the only example of Charlie’s diction, or lack thereof. One of my favorite songs of his, “Some of these Days”, which was most likely loosely based on the early jazz song “Some of these Days” made famous by Sophie Tucker, it sounds like he’s saying “Lum of these days”, or sometimes “Yum of these days” and for me, that makes the song.

Charlie Patton - Some of these days