Black Out Friday, last year

Hope you’re eating some nice tofurkey and lentil stuffing. Or turkey and mashed potatoes. Speaking of food, if you’re ever bored and want to read some comical reviews of food I would suggest checking out Gigi’s Reviews. If I ever got to meet her, I’d take her out on a date.

It’s a meek day here in northern California… but tonight is the second annual Black Out Friday. We’ll be missing some key members this time around… no Erik Schau and possibly no Brandon Lowder… but I will hopefully be mostly rested to take on the task of a 24-hour designated driver. Any suggestions of places we should go and try to incite chaos?

Schau has about eight or nine songs he’d like to record in the next few weeks. Tambo is somewhat busy with his own endeavours, but will most likely be in the fray of this album sooner or later. But until that day comes, Schau and I recorded a song called Back Home over two days. The original demo, which will hopefully see the light of day, had this Hawaiian/tropical vibe to it that everyone but myself pointed out. I saw this song as more of a way to introduce something Schau hasn’t really been backed by: a band. We’ve done a bunch of not-so-traditional drums on all of his recordings in Shedaluma, which usually turned out great, but never have we crossed into the realm of just some four-piece kit with some cymbals and only one guy behind the set. Of course, we couldn’t necessarily do that either so we went with some machine drums instead… but it’s a start.

Another aspect of the song we recorded is the slowly developing idea of whether or not Schau wants to stay on the side of what the song means and how it feels altogether… or if he wants to bounce to the side he’s very familiar with musically, just having some good fun with a mic, a recording machine, and no one to tell you not to. Except me of course. The line is very fine at the moment, but maybe when we lay a few more tracks down we can gather up what the album should actually sound like… a party? or something more serious?

Since the song was recorded at The Shed (and parts in my own room) it’s hard to say how different the quality would be if we also recorded some tracks down in Shedaluma. The quality of mics and space shoot through the roof in Shedaluma, whereas here at The Shed we’ve got very very very limited space and equipment to work with. Engineering a tasty hit out of this place is kind of like trying to build a skyscraper with toothpicks — it’s possible……. but it’s a very very long way before it will actually happen.

If you’ve ever followed my production blog [nwlikesmusic.blogspot.com] then you probably know about the only mic that is owned by The Shed. It’s an Audio-Technica PRO24, which is a really cheap condenser mic. There are a few Sony mics in The Shed but no phantom power to use them, unless we run it through the Korg D4… but then it’d be way too much of a hassle and recording wouldn’t be as fast as it would be annoying. So we’re stuck with some shitty mic here but we’re making it happen.

Another thing that we’re doing is using the old school Fender Bassman with… dun dun dun! An actual BASS guitar!! We’ve also used it with my electric guitar as well. Luckily for this song, it’s kind of got that beach vibe so the Fender tone isn’t too much… which it could be at times.

We did vocals in both my bedroom, which gives a better acoustic sound and doesn’t sound as cramped of a space either, as well as The Shed. The difference in the ceilings really helped out for differentiation in the double tracked vocals. We also recorded all of the acoustics in my room since hardwood gives off better vibes than carpet does. Electrics were all done in The Shed.

During the mixdown, Felisha Gonzalez helped me out with the ending of the song… whether it should be more Weezer or more Mason Jennings. Turns out, the mix of the two was her decision: the vocals from the first mix and the solo from the second mix. She also would like to add that she “perfected it”. Also, Schau asked her prior to the mixing that he “demands perfection”. Great job editing team, you’ve appeased each other. As for the song itself… it’s in the link below! Check it out!

Erik Schau – Back Home

right click and “save target as…” to save to your compy. or just click it to stream!

Me and Maxi won this I believe

I wish this picture was related to anything I’m about to say. It actually sort of is since almost 99% of the recordings thus far have happened past midnight and before eight in the morning. I recorded the national anthem in the day because it was a loud and angry metal track that the neighbors probably wouldn’t have enjoyed at 3 am.

The national anthem, or more importantly “the rest of the states that we can’t really identify with music”, has been maybe the most funny to make since Tambo was wanted something along the line of “Jimi’s national anthem… but crazy.” I think I ended up doing just that. Maybe a little less; you can’t beat Jimi.

The surf rock song, the song which will be called “California”, is too bland at the moment. It’s kind of lame since it really is just generic surf rock. Remy Chan did have a random demo pop out called “Leab B”, which went under the artist Happy Island Fun Time Jamboree. If the name didn’t describe the type of song to you clearly enough, let’s just say it’s a little more island than surf… and yet, better than my attempt. So we might use it for “California”.

The country song, formally known as “Texas” and I think it’s called “Tennessee” now, is proverbial gold from Tambo’s stance. I think it’s all but completed aside from lyrics.

The big thing about all of these demos are the reemergence of the drum machine. Tambo uses Reason for his DJ Giant Octopus stuff but hasn’t used a machine for band type stuff since his first “Vern Fonck” days. Usually, drums were somewhat sacred since the only near-decent playing of drums was from me, and I was pretty poor. The drum machine adds a presence that I wish we had, but won’t ever have. Well, we might one day. Time will tell. We are losing Schau at bass though, which sucks, so that’ll be a sad day.

Remy and I have compiled over an album’s worth of demos, some with lyrics some without. Currently, along with “The Last Unicorn” project, I am trying to drum track out all the demos that are worthy of drums. Hopefully within the next week or so Remy and I can knock out some of these demos.

Wtf, no video on the front page?

Sometimes, and I don’t know why this is, you can completely tell when a band has used a click track or not. Some bands are completely for it. Umbrellas use a click track and it doesn’t seem to bother them. Their click track actually is hidden under this whimsical backtracks. Some bands need them. Minus the Bear plays to a click track when you see Erin (the drummer) wearing those headphones. No, it’s not a fashion statement like the ever-so-popular Linkin Park guitarist. But timing those beepboop sounds that Minus the Bear uses to their musical splash is necessary, especially when two guys are playing their samples with their feet and the other one, Alex, is trying to coordinate the back track with all of it.

And then there are bands that use it horribly and don’t use it. At a show, a new local band was playing their highly technical songs, much akin to the Russian Circles type music (another click track loving band). Of course, without the track behind you, you have to rely on your drummer’s internal metronome. Some drummers are just machines. Some jazz bands that I’ve witnessed have no click track and yet their drummer is able to stay at a solid tempo while doing all this work about his drums. Back to this local band… mediocre music mixed with a poor timing live creates a show of disaster. Stopping too late or too early, missing cues, being a beat behind… it’s all miss and not a lot of hit.

Before I talk about hiding the click track, I might have lost a few people so I’ll try to get them back now. We’ve talked about a metronome and how a metronome is a machine that sets a specific beat per minute (bpm) and sticks with it for however long you want to play to it. It’s useful for solo artists who start getting really into their solo but lose interest in the time they are playing in. The head bobbing idea of music is that you’re getting into a predictable groove that makes you wonder what’s next. If you’re speed of playing, your bpm, is inconsistent it becomes harder to get into the groove mindset and throws the music possibly off-balance if your transition was not smooth enough. In an example, think of someone playing the piano and randomly speeding up their piece in the middle. It might be more interesting for the player, but it’s not ideal for the listener. Now extrapolate that to a 5 piece rock band. The music might not be as intricate but now you have to rely on everyone to play in sync. The drummer usually keeps a constant beat, but who keeps the drummer in check when the song is a little more complicated? A click track helps.

Now, back to how to cover a click track in a song. The common way to do it now in the digital world is have a click track and then just delete the track before the sum. Some times, however, the clicking noise adds something to the song. It’s like a song with handclaps… why are they there? Why are they so catchy? Think of Kevin Devine’s “Ballgame” without the hand clapping… you would definitely lose the groovy feel of the song, even if the song itself hasn’t been altered by much if the claps were removed. The idea behind keeping things like hand claps in is definitely to add that other layer of sound to the song, but some songs hide this even deeper. Using Umbrellas’ song “Boston White” you can clearly hear the oscillating hum of a keyboard or a synth in the intro of the song. Although faint, this synth sound actually resonates throughout the entire song. What it’s adding to the song is a really faint oscillating hum that you recognize throughout the entire song. It doesn’t really hit you until you realize that a lot of songs lately have been produced to include these hybrid backtracks.

A way that many DJs actually have been using these hybrid backtracks have been pretty innovative in what can be done in the not-so-electronical world. The idea of breaking the wall of the backtrack, as in messing with it in some ploy to focus the listener back into the song, is something that is rising in popularity. DJs have been mixing and breaking beats down since their inception, but not until recently have they been attacking the records that have been always spinning, proverbially. Hearing little murmurs and breaking beats, completely muting the track for a split second, or abruptly stopping and continuing with something very similar but removed somehow is becoming something that will soon be implemented into some production techniques in sheds around the world. To hone this technique, I will try to play around with some remix-sounding stops and starts for the new stealth project Ryan Tamborski and I have begun. Maybe it’ll see the light of day… maybe not.