Full Belly Food Drive, corporate branding and the mystery of soundchecks

Last night was the Full Belly Food Drive at Skully's, sponsored by CD101 and us. Let's be honest, I typically avoid late night excursions during the week but given the cause, our sponsorship and the great bands that were playing...I just had to go. It was a great turn out and we collected a ton of food for the mid-ohio food bank. Thanks to everyone for supporting the cause!

For those of you who are a little confused over our corporate branding strategy, all I can say is...so are we! We have probably 4 variations of our name and several iterations of logos to boot. We are going to nail it down this week though...maybe we will have to take a vote.

I really dig Skully's. It is a perfect venue for live music and the people that run the place are great. The bill featured Blastronauts, Town Monster and The Lost Divide. I think there were about 7 video cameras going so there should be some really good footage online soon. For me, the highlight of the show was Town Monster. Obviously, I've been talking quite a bit about them all summer but last night was really the first opportunity I had to see them play a Venue like Skully's, with great sound and ambience. They absolutely Killed!

Finally...there is something incredibly cool about any band that can take the stage without a sound check and still rock.

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So it has been awhile since our last update and quite a bit has been happening....first off, the Town Monster album is nearly done. We are targeting the next two weeks for final mastering and then we'll be spreading the word for a special listening party at the studio. There will also be a cd release show coming up, so stay tuned for that.

We've had several other acts come through in October and recently just set up our video capabilities. In support of their CD release this Friday at Scarlet & Gray, we recorded a live session last Saturday with Sleepers Awake. This session will be on Local Pop, which is on WCRS at 9pm on Weds, Nov 4th. We will have the video of one of those songs up on myspace, facebook and on electraplay.com, right after the show airs. I really dig this band and they sound phenomenal. James and I concluded last night after listening to the live sessions that they are the tighest live band we have seen to date in Columbus.

Next week, we will be filming an infomercial of sorts for the studio..Bill has done a great job with figuring out all of this video technology. Last night, we tested the green screen and I got to do Weather. If you know me at all, I'm sure you can imagine how much I enjoyed that. In all seriousness, I would make one hell of a weatherman. Anyway, if anyone knows any spokesmodels, send them our way!

hella good

So the tedious process of editing down tracks for mix is well underway for Town Monster. This is an interesting time in the process because you have to remain disciplined. I have a tendency to want to move fast, especially when ideas hit me and I've tried hard to resist that urge over the past few weeks. This part of the process involves core editing and basic tonal shaping both on individual instruments and in the context of the entire mix. As much as I want to just dig in and start banging out mixes, I am trying to be careful to make sure the foundation is solid before adding any signficant "production".

In the past, I remember all the additive things I would try to do to mixes, to make them sound more "pro", I guess would be one descriptor. Rarely though did that approach prove fruitful. I'm finding more and more that taking a more "subtractive" versus 'additive" approach ends up sounding better and ultimately reveals the true essence of the song. It is also fair to say that this is a much more difficult process to master. I think we all have a tendency to be more additive than subtractive in most of our daily lives. Of course, having great musicians and songwriters doesn't hurt.

Last night, we did listen to several different CD's of all sorts of different genres, just to dicuss different production approaches and techniques, etc. I was really pleased with 2 things in particular, 1. even unfinished, the TM stuff is standing up to everything we listened to and 2. their "sound" is unique and distinctive. It is the essence of who they are and you can feel it when you listen.

Lastly, one of the songs we listened to was "Hella Good" by No Doubt. Whether you like them or not ( i don't like Gwen's lyrics) that song is probably the single best mixed pop song I have ever heard, period. Just listen to it.

Galileo

Last week must have been the unofficial start of the 09-10 flu season and it kept me down most of the week. Finally though, on Friday, we were able to resume tracking vox for Town Monster and we managed to get a couple of tracks completed. The guys had most of Sleepers Awake over during the session, along with Jacob from Blastronauts, so with 10 or so of us there, we were able to set up a couple room mic's in the live room and do gang vox on Guantanamo. I love gang vox and was really impressed with the natural verb coming from the live room. On Saturday, I was able to start the premixes and things are really sounding good!

Earlier in the week, The Outer Sounds sessions were featured on the hour long "Local Pop" segement on WCRS. Pat interviewed James and Jacob and they played various cuts from the sessions we've been doing all summer. It looks like it may turn into a regular gig which is really cool. Of course the show ended with a little tune from Truth for Sanity, which was a particular surprise to me and was a much appreciated pick me up during the week of flu.

Finally, Blastronauts played the Independents festival downtown on Saturday, which James helped to organize. I wasn't able to attend personally, but hear it was a smash. Jacob heads back to Boston next week, so we will be working on a couple new Blastronauts tracks early this week before they have their CD Release show on Thursday at Oldfield's on High. (check out the article this week in Columbus Alive)

http://www.columbusalive.com/live/content/features/stories/2009/09/17/ca_m_locals.html?sid=108

They then go off to Athens and Cincy for a couple shows before Jacob heads back. Of course, we'll be continuing to work on Town Monster later in the week and we have a solo artist coming in on Saturday to do a couple of demos. It is going to be a busy week!

Town Monster tracking continues and a special surprise guest appears!

Each night last week was dedicated to recording vox tracks for the new Town Monster record. We also worked a bit on guitar and that experience was really interesting. There are only about 3 or 4 tracks on the album which feature any guitar, but in each of those, the guitar is a critical element of the track. For live use and on the demo, Nate uses some old digitech (i think) "all in one" effects box thingy. When Bill and I first heard the scratch tracks of it at work on the tune "Silkworm", we were pretty impressed with the tone and overall feel of it. We thought we would go for that sound, but only better on the record, so we spent quite a bit of time messing with the Boogie gear we have, various mic'ing techniques, boxes, etc. Suffice it to say that the $50 FX box sounds 1000 times better for that song than anything we could squeek out of the Mesa. $50 FX box versus $3,500 in Amps and $50 FX box wins! No shame in that. I can't wait to hear from the gearslutz who want to inquire on how we got that incredible tone...

On Friday night, we continued working on the vox tracks and burned off some rough stems to evaluate over the weekend. For where we are at this point in the process, I think we are all pretty thrilled with the sound we are getting. Nate's vocals are so dynamic and inspiring. It is going to be alot of fun to mix.

And then, around 9pm..Sidwell showed up with a special guest...Kate from the Two-Bit Terribles!! I could write a book about the TBT's and our time together but will spare everyone that entire story for now. I will say that Kate has been in Morocco for the past two years and was visiting her sister here in town. Unfortunatley, a recent tragedy with the loss of her brother n law was the catalyst in bringing her here but she is doing well and it was great to see her. We spent some time catching up and we watched the TBT documentary that we filmed a few years back. Good times....even with all of the drama. Anyway, Kate let us know that when she returns to the states in November, they are to have an official "Band Meeting", so I guess we'll see what happens with that.

I like big checks...literally.

So a few months ago, we wrote and recorded a jingle for a Titan Insurance contest. Titan is part of Nationwide and Bill's girlfriend works there, so she was eligible to enter. We wrote the song, recorded it, and shot a video all in a weekend and entered. Weeks have gone by with no updates and we sort of forgot about it.

Yesterday, Kathy was called to a "mandatory meeting" where she was announced to be the winner and was awarded this special check. I've always wanted a check like this. Probably a little too obnoxious to hang in the studio, but how cool.

Anyway, I can't get that jingle out of my head now. I hope this isn't what our music career has culminated with...becoming jingle writers. Then again, at $5K a pop, I shouldn't complain.

The Town Monster

Well, my first blog posting ever and I'm already disappointed that I can't choose "Calibri" as a font. Nevertheless, here we go...


I suppose the intent of this blog will be to chronicle the various happenings in the studio as well as happenings out of it. Probably an occassional rant or two and more than one observation that will likely get me into trouble from time to time. Oh well, such is the life of a blogger.


This past weekend, we had "The Town Monster" come in and start tracking their first full length album. I had originally met these guys (Nate, Matt & Mike) back in the spring when they came in to do an Outersounds podcast with James. I was immediately drawn to them because of their extensive use of synths. I'm a child of the Big 80's and synths haven't been that prevalant in mainstream music since, well...the 80's. But it wasn't just the synths, they are great musicians and infuse quite a bit of jazz and rock into their songs, all of which are hooky and memorable. Best of all, they are absolutely great guys! I was really impressed with how well the 3 of them interacted with each other and just how courteous they are. That is probably the single biggest obstacle to most bands' success is just being able to manage getting along with each other. (That is...aside from being able to write decent songs and just not sucking in general)

I was really looking forward to this project and I can honestly say that the sessions this weekend exceeded any expectations that I had. We spent somewhere between 26-28 hours over 3 days banging out tracks and we made great progress. Drums are always the most tedious, but I think we got some of the best drum sounds I have ever gotten on this session. They were absolute warriors on Saturday, banging out all 9 tunes with drums and bass. I'm jealous of Mike's bass playing. He has a Tobias bass, which sounds incredible and he plays it beautifully.

Yesterday though was the best....a room full of keyboards, soft synths and computers that would have made Nick Rhodes proud. Here is Nate with just a few of them...





Tonight, we are mixing down what we have in order to evaluate over the next week or so. I'll be out of town for a few days and we will pick back up after Labor Day...I already can't wait.