Saturday, March 28, 2009

Girl Friday


Yesterday I cut basic tracks in SugarHill's Studio A for Girl Friday. The session was incredibly fun and worth an update. GF brought food which included an astonishingly good chocolate chip cookie (one of the giant pizza pan sized ones). It was amazing because it was cooked just right--about one minute past the raw cookie dough stage (danger!), but before the next chewy cook stage. She also brought each of us a chocolate easter bunny... along with Perrier, wine, banannas, veg tray, chips, picante' sauce,....

We did do more than eat. We got basics for two great songs, Storm, and Dorthy . Eric Jarvis played bass, Falcon Valdez was on the drums and percussion, and Josh Moore played piano and accordion. Steve Christensen engineered, and SugarHill Uber Intern Kevin assisted. This was the first time I worked with Josh, and I was suitably impressed. It was also the first time for me to work with this particular cutting crew. Eric, Steve and I have tons of hours logged in the studio together, and Falcon and Josh fit right in. As a matter of fact, the vibe on this session may have been one of the sweetest I have ever experienced, even though we were put to the test before the session even started. Andy Bradley's emergency mix session did not end until a few minutes after our slated start time. That was no problem at all for us as we all sat around the 'horn o' plenty' of snacks in the break room table. Way to go Girl Friday!

The highlight of the session was Falcon coming up with some great arrangement and percussion ideas. No. Wait a sec,... the highlight of the session was GF going into an unabashed girl-cry during the first take of the first song we tracked. She had warned me that it would happen, and U.I. Kevin was ready with the tissues. She was just so pumped to hear her song being realized by such generous and talented guys. I actually had some contact-cry emotions when I saw her break down. She was experiencing the joy that motivated us to work in the studio in the first place. It's always an honor to lead someone through the rite of passage of their first session working with magical players. The music was great, the vibe was beautiful, and the fellowship was wonderful. A really good day at the office. Now I get to play my parts!



Friday, March 06, 2009

Southern Backtones new video: Slumber Party

The Southern Backtones (no strangers to this blog), just released their second video, Slumber Party. This is another mad collaboration between zenfilm's braintrust, Ross Wells, and SBT's lead singer, Hank Schyma.

The song was engineered and mixed by Steve Christensen, and I produced, sang backing vocals and played mucho SK-1. The song is a psycho-ballad about,... well,... sex. Ok. I know that this probably comes as a great surprise, and I apologize in advance for the subject matter.

The video is PG-13, however, and features a few fleeting glimpses of moi, producerboy, hammering it out on the SK-1.

Ross and Hank have made their (now usual) genius moves. I think that you will enjoy.


Southern Backtones "Slumber Party" Music Video from W. Ross Wells on Vimeo.