A Parting of Ways

Today was a sad day for all Porridge kind.  We had to part ways with our fiddle player, Masson Dixon.

The day started so pleasant.  I made sausage, eggs, toast, coffee... Masson showed up on time.  Everything was awesome.  Jesse came by and we discussed what we expected to get done before he went off to practice with the other band he's in called Sugarskull.

Breakfast... mmm...

First we pondered which songs to do first.  Masson had played on a few of these songs at practice before and he had told me last week he'd be ready to record sometime earlier this week.  It being the end of the week now we assumed he had been hitting the wood shed and would be ready to record.

Masson absorbing Mowin' the Shoulder before getting started

Apparently we were not 100% correct in our assumptions.  Masson was super excited about being a part of the album but whenever it came down to putting down his fiddle parts he seemed reluctant.

Masson working out the intro to Mowin' the Shoulder

Masson played a few takes for the intro to Mowin' the Shoulder and I double tracked him to cover up a few intonation problems, but he was agitated and when I told him I thought he could play better, his response was "I don't have a whole lot of time to keep playing these parts."  At first I was a little irritated.  I was upset because I thought he was just half assing a fiddle part that he was going to call good enough because he didn't want to take the time to do it right.

We had a chat about it and what it boiled down to was Masson isn't interested in being a fiddle player.  He's not.  He's a guitar player, and he always has been really, however he was recruited to the Cowboys because he had displayed interest in it... In fact, he may have volunteered his services because I'm not sure how I would have ever known he even had a fiddle if he didn't.  At some point between being recruited and the recording process he lost his oats.  We discussed him working on harmonies for production but we are stalemate on that.  It's looking right now like we are going to have to part ways with Mr Dixon, at least for the album.  If the Porridge ever hits the big stage, we'd love to have Masson come play guitar and do backing vocals, possibly even some leads, but having another person to pay on a project that most likely isn't going to turn a profit is looking like a bad investment.

I'm calling in some favors to hopefully getting another fiddle player; a real one.  There's a band called Kingfish.  My dad is friends with their fiddle player.  He's done some work for me before and hopefully he will again.  We might be breaking the "everyone has to sing rule."  There just aren't a lot of options now.

To make the day not a total waste though, I got in touch with Trip and we laid down some finals on vocals.  I did 2 songs; Jesse did 2 songs.  I'm halfway done.  Jesse isn't.  :)  They turned out great.  Hopefully I'll finish my leads this week and get some fiddle on the album.  Next weekend Jesse is out of town, the following he has a gig.  Not sure what that's going to do to the anticipated release date, but I think March is still realistic.

Laying down vocals on Tears on the Pavement

It's almost 1am and I have class in the morning.  Yes, morning is Sunday and I have class.  So for now, plant your oats and remember, the reaping draws near.

Missed It By "That" Much

EDIT: As it turns out this blog did post as Tuesday instead of Wednesday.  Apparently blogspot does not run on central time.

I'm starting today's entry 7 minutes late of what would have been the last possible moment to have updated my blog for the day.  So now today's blog is actually yesterdays blog, but since today there won't be any recording, I suppose the phrase is moot and since the album won't be out for several months still...  Moving on.

Today started so much like a "normal" day recording with Jesse.  I woke up around 9:00am and made coffee and cleaned up around the house.  Kory and I had agreed to work on drums around 10:00am today and I said I'd make breakfast.  I elected to go with breakfast burritos since they are both delicious and portable.

Duncan Donuts Turbo Blend (left) and Breakfast Burritos prior to cooking (right)

Trip shot me a text while I was making breakfast saying he was in town dealing with a tire issue and could swing by to help with production if I wanted so I said cool and just as I was rolling up the last burrito he arrived.  He went to tinkering with the 3 songs we did yesterday.  He determined that we had a minor phase issue in the overheads and went to moving things around.

Trip tinkering with StudioONE compressors

Kory arrived as Trip was tinkering, which was just as well because there was no way I was going to sit behind his kit to get sounds for Trip.  He took a tape measure and measured out the distance from each mic to the snare, turned around the overhead, which I was apparently using to mic the ceiling, not the drums and fiddled with some compressors.  We then ran through about an hour of hit-and-honk drum tag teaming where in Kory would play 2 bars of something while Trip and I fiddled with the inputs on the firepod trying to make sure things were loud but not clipping.  Being that the songs are very dynamic, it was tedious.  But at last Trip understood why the level on the snare was very low and life continued.  That was after we realized I had the tracks mislabeled.  Silly me!

Kory and Trip making a go of getting a good room sound for the drums

After Trip left Kory and I put some good time in recording.  The drum sound from yesterday changed dramatically but the tracks we did yesterday were almost all side stick and very mellow so the current hope is to not have to re-record them.  That being said, until we do another listen to the drums and decide that they aren't good enough, Kory cranked out 7 good takes on drums today!  I could tell by the end of the day he was getting frustrated about not having written parts for the songs but I assured him it was good and what he was playing was fine.  

I snagged one video while he was recording but that was all I managed as I was guiding him through the songs with ridiculous hand gestures.  It make the process more amusing for me as I got to do more than just hit buttons, but probably doubly frustrating for him as he had to decipher on the fly not only what part of the song I was gesturing for but also what that meant he was supposed to play.

Kory laying down the chorus to Billy the Kid

All in all I'm pretty excited about how things went today.  Kory recorded an entire album (of songs he'd only heard twice) worth of drums in two days and I think the most takes it took him was 15, which includes takes where I just stopped him because I thought a fill sounded sloppy.  As an aside, Kory is super cool to work with and really takes criticism to heart.  He never appeared to have a problem with any of my commentary and gave every suggestion I had a try, even after several of my suggestions proved to be bad ideas.  I wish it was always that easy.  

Another day, another part down.  Time to get in touch with Mason Dixon and get some fiddle down.  Time for another harvest.

Photo courtesy of Michael J. Oxbigg

Bang A Gong

Drums!  We did drums today!

Today was awesome!  I woke up, watched an episode of Psych on netflix, went to a chiropractor appointment and had a cute girl send electric shocks through my back, came home and watched a few episodes of Lie To Me, went to a job interview, came home and cued up Cowboys of Porridge for drums.

I sent Trip a few texts asking for advice on drum mic placement and as I finished prepping the room Kory showed up.  I offered incense, beer (not wine) and candles, and we got busy setting up drums.

Kory setting up his drums for the first recording session

First song I set up was Two Bowls of Porridge.  I figured, start at the start.  Silly me, apparently I hadn't emailed Kory that song!  We checked levels and moved onto Dead Man's Curve instead... the last song on the album.  If you ain't first you're last, right?  It was actually just coincidence.  DMC happened to be next song in the list of "recently opened sessions" on StudioONE.  

We moved onto DMC and after some piddling around with what Kory was going to play, we decided to be unhappy with the drum sound.  Kick sounded great, overheads were good, room mics were whatever, not much different from overhead really, but the snare wasn't doing it.  Kory tightened up the snare and it sounded better but it still wasn't there so I hooked up a shure SM57 and it was at least there.

Kory nailed Dead Man's Curve with minimal difficulty and after a quick run through to make sure he liked everything he played we moved onto Tears on the Pavement.

Tears proved a little bit more challenging than Dead Man's Curve.  But not for the reasons I would have expected.  The drum loop I programmed for the intro to Tears is... unconventional at best.  It's got some rim shots on the up beat... it's just weird.  I don't write drums the way a drummer would play them usually... I'm not a drummer.  I write drums just to have things on beat with what I'm playing, so they usually come out weird.  When we play live, all I listen to are hi-hat and fills.  Having something weird to work with and me telling him "Play whatever you want" made things weird for him.  But he came up with a cool syncopated drum beat for the intro and I told him to just go ahead and keep it upbeat after that.  There's a part towards the end where the song goes form 75 bpm to 90 bpm though and it's not a slide and there isn't a count in, it's just very abrupt and Kory nailed it like it was nothing.  I was so impressed and the song really rocked out after that.

Kory laying down some mean side stick on Tears on the Pavement

After tears we layed down Mowin' the Shoulder.  It was getting to be late and as much as I wanted to do a really rockin' song I figured we could lay down the songs that were mostly side stick tonight and not piss off my neighbors and do to the more up-tempo songs tomorrow.  We went over Mowin' a few times and Kory was unhappy with what we played a couple of times per part and he kept apologizing.  He's such a sweetheart.  With reassurances that it was totally cool for him to do as many takes as he wanted we moved on and tracked the whole song and it came out really nice.

With the three songs down we started listening and I really wasn't feeling the drum sound we had achieved, but it was still raw, no reverb, no eq, not even panning, so I moved all the drums to one bus and found a "DRUM BUS" present in StudioONE and oh my... how things changed.  The drums which I was satisfied with previously suddenly became superb.  Before you could tell they were recorded separately from all the other instruments and they sort of stuck out.  There was "to much room."  With a little reverb and compression everything came together and I didn't know I could feel so relieved.

After recording Kory and I popped open a few more beers and had a brief conversation covering everything from disc golf to musicians we are compared to and with that he went on his way.  I went to Albertson's to procure breakfast for tomorrow.  Tomorrow we get started about 10:00am.  Trip will be here to supervise.  I'm feeling good about it.  

We have all day to knock out 7 songs and then the only thing left will be fiddle and vocals.  March is looking good.  

Until then, eat your oats...

Shake Your Body Line

While I normally try to make everything in my blog relevant to actual recording, today is going to start with a bitter rant which will lead into something more relevant... 

I'm not sure if it was yesterdays indulgences of beer and cigars or caffeine withdrawals, not having had any in several days, but after Tim left yesterday I developed a massive headache which I did not recover from until about 6:00 this morning... And this guy had to go to MSU for a class (that didn't happen by the way) at 8:30am.  I got my sleep deprived shivering body up before the sun was shining, drove to a wet little parking lot devoid of all other cars and parked, and waited.  Then I walked around the building and all the doors were locked.  Then I checked (via iPhone, which is a pain in the ass) my MSU mail, the MSU calendar, my personal calendar and the portal assignments for my class.  All say class this morning.  As I was getting ready to leave, I hit the "handicap" button and... the doors popped open.  I ran inside before they closed.  The cold air and light drizzle at this point had me pretty awake so I found my classroom and played some games on my phone to kill time.  Maybe someone would show up.  I feel like the fool because when I left, just before 9:00, no one else had shown up yet and no one was in the parking lot.  I gave a longing glance at McDonald's as I drove by thinking a cup of coffee and a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit would be awesome but I restrained myself and headed home, where a warm bed was still calling my name.  To cut this already long story short, I did not get to take a nap prior to Tim showing back up today.  I was engaged in a number of other less desirable tasks, other than prepping fajitas for dinner tonight, which will be the third most exciting thing I do all day right behind recording and going back to sleep.

[Insert Picture of Tim in his Vehicular]

Around 3:00pm, Tim Smith arrived and rescued me, like a tiny steam knight riding in a bright white steed, from my loathsome piddling.  He informed me that he'd been jammin' the mix I sent along with him yesterday and had some ideas.  He really wanted to lay down some electric harp for Flying J to give it that good ol' dirty grit sound.  I was stoked!  He brought a tiny little Fender Champ and a Green Bullet mic.  "The classic blues combination" as he referred to it.  We mic'd him up and he laid into Flying J.  The solo to that song wasn't coming together the way I'd hoped and after he put some harp behind it, it was really rocking.  Or as much as a low key song rocks.  

Tim tweaking getting his electric harmonica set up

That was the only song that really needed a whole lotta harpin' (and not of the boont variety) so I requested a little shake shake for a couple songs.  He put down some shaker on a few songs for me and that was the end of the day.  I love it when a plan comes together.

Tim laying down some egg shaker on Flying J

A short pow wow later with me assuring Tim he'd be kept in the loop (and a link to this blog assures that he has the power to do that himself if I prove unreliable) and he was off, driving his noble steed into the distance to save some other Maiden... Fan.

So that's it for a few days.  Tomorrow evening may see a little drum recording, possibly Tuesday.  Details with Kory at this point are still vague but if all goes according to schedule vocals should be getting cut by the 14th and mixing should be getting done by the 21st.  That puts this album at a very optimistic Valentine's Day release.

Cross your fingers and pray for oats!

Photo from original album cover shoot

Ropin' the Wind

It's been a great two days off and I have to say, surprising.  Kory and I have been in constant contact and he's most likely going to come over for drums Monday at this point.  Mason says he's been listening and wants to come over during the week next week to record his fiddle parts and that he is almost certain about what he wants to do on most of the tracks.  But!

As many talented musicians I've ever hung out with, I don't know that I've ever had a chance to sit down and just hang with someone as "vibe" oriented as Tim Smith.  We didn't talk about vibe per se and I didn't light up any incense or candles like Jesse and I used to do, but he definitely "feels" the music and understands where his role needs to be.  It was really refreshing.  

Tim laying down the blues harp on Two Friends of Mine

He told me he'd show up around 3:00 or 4:00 in the pm and much to my delight arrived right at 3:00.  It was a drizzly, dreary display of weather and he lugged his bag of harmonica's in the house in short order.  After grabbing a smoke and a beer we started tracking Two Friends of Mine, since he'd played that with us before on a few occasions.

Nailed it, I believe first take but we ended up punching in the ending because I wanted him to play a little harder and do a solo of sorts to end it.  He had been laying back because he didn't want to miss the ending.

Then Cheesy showed up.  I was actually forewarned that he would be coming by and it wasn't a problem, the more the merrier.  He posted up on the love chair, basked in Tim's glow for a bit, took some pictures and jet.  

Cheesy hanging out watching Tim work his magic

Next song we worked on was Tears on the Pavement.  This song really needed something to start it off and Tim worked on it a bit before he found what he wanted to do.  We got his parts in a few takes and Eric snapped this picture while he was recording.

Tim laying down some blues harp on Tears on the Pavement while I man the computer

Another beer, another smoke and 20 minutes later and we were moving on to another song again.  Billy the Kid (the strumstick song) was next.  Tim was totally feeling this one and he laid down the whole song in a couple takes.  We weren't feeling the solo section though after a listen and I grabbed the strumstick and we worked out a few parts.  I don't want to spoil it for you, but it's awesome.  Nailed it in 3 takes and we wrote the book on the Billy the Kid song.  It was off to Ropin' the Wind.

Ropin the Wind has Tim momentarily stumped

 While it was in the same key, Ropin' has a totally different feel from the strumstick song and Tim wasn't sure what he wanted to do.  He knew he needed to be in there and he knew where he needed to be but wasn't sure about what to play.  After being stumped about 10 minutes, he went out for a smoke break.  I went to tidy up the kitchen while he was out there and started feeling the house shake and a low thud...

Tim burst in through the front door: "I got it!"

Tim working out what he wants to do on the bridge for Ropin the Wind

Since we're tuned down half a step all these songs are a little difficult for Tim.  He's gotta use harps he's not used to playing and some of the ones that he has aren't in the octave he wants... He was making due but he wasn't happy with the performance at first.  I set the bridge on loop and let him got at it. We ended up snagging a good take pretty quick.

With that we called it a night, 4 tracks in the bag and probably only 2 more getting worked on tomorrow.  I burned Tim a CD of the tracks and we had a good conversation about what I expected from him.  His thought was "these are your tunes, what do you want" and my response was "I don't care about it, play what you want".  

This confused him at first but it's not that I don't care what people play so much as, I don't know what's going to sound good until it's there so I'm not going to shoot anything anyone does down until there isn't any way to make it work.  The Cowboys of Porridge tunes are supposed to be fun and in the moment and while I've scripted out certain parts for Jesse and I and I have a general feel for what I want drums to do, I'd rather have the players on the album be happy with what they've put forth than their creativity stifled by my dictatorship.  Roger Waters I am not.  I kind of wish I were... but I am better looking, I suppose.  

But I digress.  

I want everyone on the album to have fun and be proud of the project they helped create.  He got it and is totally stoked for tomorrow.

After all, at some point this is all the band was:

Jesse and I doing a Cowboys of Porridge tune at a family reunion

A Day Without Porridge

It's like a day without sunshine.

Inconveniently enough, yesterday there was no sunshine.  I woke up to a miserably dark day filled with clouds and drizzling rain.  A more dreary day was never had.  I hate rain. 

Yesterday marked the first since I started this blog that we did not record.  Jesse came over  and got the sessions from me to put on his laptop.  He will presumably do some light mixing over the next couple weeks.

Today, rejuvenated by a fresh batch of Dunkin' Donuts Turbo Boost coffee, I made cream of wheat for the little lady and I.  Then I opened the blinds and behold, there was light.  Brilliant bright light, so I closed the blinds.  Sunlight's all well and good, but it's nice to let your eyes adjust first.

As a surprising turn of events, Tim Smith contacted after breakfast and is free to do some recording.  Saturday he will be coming over to lay down some blues harp and percussion.  I told him he had carte blanche to do whatever he may and asked if he wanted to hear the tracks before he came over or if he wanted to wing it.  His reply was brilliance is often improved and he would wing it.  Excellent!

That being noted, unless one of our other cowboys contacts me scheduling a recording appointment, that will be all until Saturday when I report on the events of the Tim Smith session.

Good day to all and to oats good night!

Happy New Year

A creative title to today's blog, I know.

The below picture is how In Liquid decided to ring in the New Year.  It was an awesome night filled with fresh roasted hog, chili, Mexican 7 layer dip (made by a Cajun girl), Hawaiian sweet rolls, pumpkin rolls and numerous other things I'm sure I'm forgetting.  Our manager, Casey Derouen, had requested we do an acoustic gig at his in-laws for NYE.  We thought there would be no better time to break out some Cowboys of Porridge tunes than the end of 2012.

In Liquid performing Dead Man's Curve at 2012/13 New Years Eve Party

What with everything being mostly done with recording yesterday we were pretty fresh on most of the songs and after the LSU game, everyone needed a pick me up so we played from 10:00-11:45.  Then we took a break to turn the PA into a radio and watch some fireworks.  After the fireworks we played again until about 1:00am before starting to pick it up.  We played songs we hadn't played (ever as a band) since we were in high school, which is a lot longer for Jesse than Cheesy or I.  We had a blast and I personally haven't had that much fun at a gig since we opened for Snydley Whiplash.  But the drive home from Topsy is long and treacherous and by 2:45 I was finally rolling in... and still had gear to sluff in the drizzle.  I hit the bed hard and with some cuddles from Stud was out like a light.

My glorious New Year's Day breakfast

Now to today... Today for me started just before 10:00.  And it started with a shower because I was rank!  Then I decided to continue my day with the glorious feast above.  I had unfortunately exhausted my supply of bacon but medium eggs with buttery toast and orange juice is still excellent.  I had intended to do cream of wheat as well but the box was elusive.  I have since found it... above my microwave.  

I didn't expect much to get done today.  I came in the computer room, did some mixing and looked longingly at the bed.  About 1:30 I decided I would take a nap, just when Jesse sent me a text reading "I just woke up".  I told him to grab lunch and come over because I was going to take a catnap.  When he showed up we watched what is quite possibly the worst movie ever.  Yellowbrick Road.  Do yourself a favor.  Avoid it.  It's not even terrible in the sense that Insatiable or Captrain Kronos Vampire Hunter are terrible.  Insatiable at least got a reference in Borderlands II!  If you want a real rant about it, email me, for now, back to harvesting...

After our terrible movie experience we came into the studio.  Jesse had been pretty irritated from lack of sleep and being cooped up in my computer room for a week, understandably, and all he wanted to do today was lay down the electric track for Two Friends of Mine.  We did it, he got it in one take, it was great.  Then I coaxed him into laying down the solo, two rhythm electric tracks and redoing the acoustic track (that I was unhappy with, not him for once) for Two Bowls of Porridge with the thought: "It's all that's left, if you lay it down we're done."  Worked like a charm.  

One of the original idea's for the Cowboys of Porridge album cover

So now all the guitar, mandolin and bass parts are done.  The tracks have been sent off to the fiddler and drummer.  With luck they will be contacting me sometime this week to lay down tracks which Jesse has more than earned a break from dealing with.  We will theoretically record drums in my garage.  Trip has the idea that it should be a room sound so just a kick, snare and two over head room mics with very little EQ.  My garage is fairly sizable so it should do the trick.  Lets hope.  I've never recorded fiddle though so I'll have to rely on the fiddle players ideas for that one.  

The current idea is to list the entire album (11 songs) for 5 bucks for .99 a song.  Hopefully some of you enjoy it enough to pick up a tune or two.  Hopefully more in the near future, but this may be the last blog for a while so I leave you with this closing message:

From Dick Jakman to all of you, may all your oats measure up to standard in 2013

Photo courtesy of Richard Jakman