We’ve Moved!
We’ve boxed up everything, and moved our operations to a new digital dirt lot!
Scenic Route Recordings
Note to Self
I recently started a new job at a guitar shop, Jim’s Guitars. It’s a pretty cool place. Jim’s been buying, selling and trading vintage guitars for almost 40 years, so we see some pretty cool stuff come in the shop. Also, he’s one of the few Orange Amp dealers in Maryland, so it’s not bad getting the opportunity every now and then to play a $10,000 guitar through a $5,000-$6,000 Orange Amp & Cab! Check out some of the guitars we have for sale here.
Anyways, this place is more like a museum then anything else. People come into buy small things, strings, a guitar cable, a cheap beginners guitar, but no one in the current economic state is really on the hunt for a $4,000 1946 Gibson LG-2. So, the very few customers we do get in, come in, do a lap or two around the store, brush their fingers across the strings of a few guitars, flip-over a few price tags and then head out. There’s a lot of down time needless to say.
A few days ago I was having lunch with my good friend Mike York. He is a recording enthusiast like i am, and was running circles around me with all the mic-pres and consoles he had been looking into recently. I have never really been a gear head. My most expensive piece of recording equipment is probably the pair of small diaphragm Oktava mics i have (i can’t even tell you their specific model#?). I asked Mike what motivated him to learn so much about specific recording & processing gear. He told me, whenever he listened to an album that really impressed him as far as the quality of recording, he would research who recorded it, where they recorded it, and what they used.
So, luckily for me i have this new job where i’ve got some time to do some similar research. I’ve been checking out what some of my favorite producers have in their studios, including favorite mics, pre amps, eqs, mixing consoles, monitors, etc… And almost coincidentally, another friend Mr. Austin Stahl, sent me some links of tracking, mixing and mastering notes from David Bazan’s new album “Curse Your Branches” and Pedro the Lion’s last full-length “Achilles Heel”
David Bazan doing some editing on the CYB sessions
There’s some pretty awesome insight as to how they tracked some of these songs. For example, Bands With Managers, the opening track on “Achilles”, the drums were actually tracked 10 beats per minute faster and then slowed down, i’m guessing to help fill out the drums.
But here are the links to the tracking/mixing/mastering notes:
David Bazan – Curse Your Branches Mixing & Mastering Notes
Pedro the Lion – Achilles Heel Recording Notes
If you guys find any other cool recording notes let me know. I need to reabsorb all this technical jargon!
falling leaves should curse their branches
i originally started writing up this post as a kind of uninspired-failed-attempt at a blog. nothing had really been catching my interest lately, and i was just gonna post some music i’d been listening to.
so as i was listening a little more to an album i was gonna recommend…it hit me.
Inspiration.
sometimes we think we’ve analyzed a subject so much that we know every angle. everything that’s been handed to us, and the rest that we’ve discovered for ourselves…after a while, we settle and tend to be complacent with how things seem.
you’ve heard the story you know how it goes
once upon a garden we were lovers with no clothes
fresh from the soil we were beautiful and true
in control of our emotions to till we ate the poison fruit
David Bazan, formerly of Pedro the Lion and the Headphones, opens his newest endeavor “Curse Your Branches” with this familiar tale of Adam & Eve. But just as Adam & Eve were skeptical of God’s warning to not eat from the Tree of Knowledge, Bazan is skeptical of the whole story;
wait just a minute
you expect me to believe
that all this misbehaving grew from one enchanted tree
and helpless to fight it we should all be satisfied
with the magical explanation for why the living die
no matter how straight of line we walk, Bazan cynically declares “it’s hard to be a decent human being.” not because of anything we may have done in our lifetime, but because our nature has destined us to be.
it seems fitting that “Hard to Be” be the first song on the album, because the story of Adam & Eve found in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, tells us that from the beginning of our lives we are bound to sin. just as the Bible declares mans fate, Bazan quickly kicks off his album with a rebuttal.
there’s no denying that we make mistakes, infact Bazan has made a career out of molding man’s sins and flaws into a catchy melody and making it rhyme. but i think Bazan has finally concluded that maybe it’s not all man’s fault. “When We Fell” is one of Bazan’s most clear-cut songs…ever, period. If you thought his previous narratives about lying politicians and adulterating spouses seemed raw, how about Bazan putting his own life under the microscope.
with the threat of hell hanging over my head like a halo
i was made to believe in a couple of beautiful truths
that eventually had the effect of completely unraveling
the powerful curse put on me by you
now God’s turn on the glass slide;
when you set the table
and when you chose the scale
did you write a riddle
that you knew they would fail
did you make them tremble
so they would tell the tale
did you push us when we fell
if my mother cries when i tell her what i have discovered
then i hope she remembers she taught me to follow my heart
and if you bully her like you’ve done me with fear of damnation
then i hope she can see you for what you are
what am i afraid of
whom did i betray
in what medieval kingdom does justice work this way
if you knew what would happen and made us just the same
then you , my lord, can take the blame
many have been describing David Bazan’s latest works as his “denouncement” with God. but it’s still unfit to call any “denouncement” with any normal relation when you can still write an albums worth of songs about the other person in the relationship.
i think Bazan just has plenty of issues and questions for the big guy upstairs, along with plenty for his followers down here walking among us, claiming they have all the answers. i think to Bazan, these followers are blind, they are content with every word force fed to them.
those who question and don’t trust a belief system laid out in front of them, they are the ones seen as faithless. i guess by definition they are. loyalty. trust. firm belief in something for which there is no proof. faith. but does that make US less than decent human beings? regardless of with or without faith, it’s hard to be.
“Hard to Be”
“Curse the Branches”
“When We Fell”
Baltimore House Show ~ Sept, 4th 2009
“Pleae Baby Please”
Are You Aware?
Wyman Park Dr/Falls Rd Path
i’ve been riding my bike a lot more lately; for recreational purposes more than transportation’s necessity. doing this has kind of made me regret not having an mp3 player to listen to music while i ride.
what could be better than riding around on a beautiful afternoon while Andrew Bird whistles in your ear.
after a good 15 minutes pedaling through the streets of Baltimore, i began to notice something better…
the world around me.
as i fly up and down hills, i notice the sound of air rushing past my ears. acting like a speedometer, it’s pitch falls and drops with the pace of my pedaling. the scenery changes. the instruments in my traveling symphony rearrange. crickets and birds suspend a wavering tremolo of chirps, they decrescendo as i pedal into the next movement. cars flying up and down 83 bring in a wash like the sound of cymbals and crashes. in the distance, it almost sounds like water.
…oh wait, that is water.
the Jones Falls River sneaks underneath the sound of passing cars, blending but with a gentler rush than them. now, where more metallic instruments seemed to fit, more natural ones take over…a marimba maybe? yes! the sound of soft mallets sweeping over smoothed wooden keys somehow seems to embody the sound of the water perfectly.
it’s not just the workings of the world around me i begin to notice, even the workings of my own body i become more conscious of.
circling around the Druid Hill Reservoir, a cool breeze blows from the lake and every time i exhale my hot breath cuts through it; the rotation of hot and cold air wraps around my face.
i’ve never felt more aware of myself, my surroundings…
my being.
and to think i almost ruined this moment of enlightenment by blocking the world out with ear-buds.
i heard music, not any particular artist or genre, but none the less music!
i think it would be impossible to try and capture the sounds of nature with man-made instruments. but if we (men) could try our best to capture, mimic or recreate the muse and understanding that comes from the earth i think these might be some close representations:
Andew Bird – “Yawny at the Apocalypse”
Andrew Bird – “First Song”
Horse Feathers – “Working Poor”
Horse Feathers – “Albina”
Balmorhea – “Remembrance”
I really wanted to post this song, i am not that great with the internet and all!
But please go HERE and check out this amazing song!
Life On Earth
we 
can stare endlessly into fire. watch it whip around, digesting and deteriorating the very thing that fuels it. we catch an entire lifespan as a crackle and snap send sparks fluttering into the air and then quickly disappear.
the destructive energy of water tumbling over rocks and down cliffs, falling great heights back into itself. elegant in its simplicity, daunting in it’s power.
the elements of this planet, collaborate together in life’s big plan. shifting, molding, growing, consuming, cutting, creating! simplistic in their motions and methods, we, creatures on this earth are entranced by them.
we lose ourselves watching, contemplating our own lives and how we fit into their workings, how we relate to…life…on earth.
singer/songwriter Jesy Fortino seems to spend a lot of time looking into the reflective bodies of water around her, or the enlightening flames of a roaring fire; throwing her questions to the wind, not always receiving an answer. but just the interaction with her natural surroundings helps her discover something deeper about her self.
under the guise of Tiny Vipers, Fortino writes and performs, in a pure sense, natural music. i wouldn’t call it folk. there’s no trace of pop to be found. it’s seems almost unfitting to even confine these songs to the label of “songs”. with just her voice and an acoustic guitar she crafts destructively simple stories and poetic accounts on her new album “Life on Earth”. jaded, but with a child-like imagination she narrates in the song “Tiger Mountain”;
“i once knew a person who could understand the way the wind blew
i tried to learn the language but its as subtle as the mist when the sun is down…”
the familiar things in nature we will never truly understand. overlook…yes. possess…never!
“the secret to a language that is spoken from the soul is its silence”
finally something i can begin to fathom. even with all it’s holes, there is still beauty in it’s emptiness.
like the fire we try to run our hands through; we get burned. and the same with water; it may look clear, but it has the power to move you.
understanding that we can not understand is what seems to inspire Fortino. not troubling herself or the listener with convoluted progressions and lyrics, she portrays in her performances what she reveals within her words;
a nature and a life that is
simple. destructive. beautiful.
Tiny Vipers – “Dreamer”
Tiny Vipers – “On This Side”
from the “Burn to Shine – Seatle DVD”
from birth…
it is an inherent skill that every bird, when it’s born, knows how to build a nest. over time it refines it’s skills, but the unexplainable knowledge of the craft is embedded in their brain.
like such, it seems similarly instinctive for human beings to feel music; not just hear it, but physically and emotionally feel affected by music. it’s seems so primitive that when a strong rhythm is playing, we feel inclined to tap our feet, bop our head, twiddle our fingers, move our entire body. or when we hear an infectious melody for the first time, be able to remember hours or even days later. primitive reactions, with probably some complex scientific reasoning behind it.
do we need a reason?
no! there’s no need to explain. music, like all passionately conceived art forms, is conceptual.
can a musician/artist be more talented or passionate than another? i think so.
but which of these factors plays more to our instinctive love for art & music?
Passion or Talent?
music and art should be discovered and digested at ones own rate; seen through ones own perspective, rather than influenced by outside opinions and trends. some songs, some works of art, we are not always ready for. we can’t relate to everything all the time. we may not like an album the first time we hear it… 5 months later, we can’t imagine being without it.
what makes us feel connected? how personal does music have to be to us? if we don’t live in the same time zone, or even decade…can we still relate to it?
i can’t tell you why music moves us they way it does. or if passion is more important than talent. or how to find some correlation between your life and an artists. i can’t tell you anything.
i can pose questions, i can’t answer them.
i can’t even make you think about these questions. i am only here to ask. give you perspective, and ask.
then it is up to your own motivation to think. ask your own questions. find your own answers.
dig deep, think deeper.
read between the liner-notes. make the connections. and above all…
feel
