Joe Scala Finishes February Album Writing Month!
Our bassist, Joe Scala, spent the month of February not only playing some shows with us and learning a slew of new material for the St. Pattrick’s Day show, but writing and recording an entire 14-song album from scratch. Have a listen, then pop on over to FAWM.org to read the liner notes on the songs.
In the studio: Silent Little Bells
Jon's feet.
This session was an exercise in letting go.
During the Distance sessions, we were as meticulous as possible: Every song was done to a click track (a metronome, to keep time), we overdubbed each instrument and voice in isolation, and this gave us control over every note, passage, and line in the songs. It let us copy and paste parts to create loops and layers, and it made for a pristine record. At times it’s too pristine. I joked with Chris during the mix down that the next session would be the garage rock album.
We recorded the tracks mostly live—no click track, no isolated instruments, so all the bass and guitar and drum parts are bleeding into the microphones. We did overdub some vocals, mostly because there aren’t 12 of us for a choir, but also because we didn’t have any more microphones or inputs on the board, so Joe had to sing his parts afterward.
At one point we did try playing to a click track. This was very frustrating in that I tried using the loop function on my delay pedal and discovered that I’m not a robot. Eventually we scrapped it and just played the songs like we’d practiced. We did fix a couple things here and there, fixed a lyric here and punched in a couple notes—I’ve never pretended to be flawless—but for the most part, what you hear is what we did at the time.
Here’s what we used, for any curious gearheads:
Jon: My red telestrat on “Silent Little Bells” and my friend Keith’s Gibson ES-135 on “It Started Well.” Effects: Hartman Compressor, El Capistan, volume pedal, Germanium OD, Malekko Ekko 616, and a Vox wah. Amp: Fender Hot Rod Deluxe miced with a Royer. I also play a glockenspiel in this song, but, uncharacteristically, I don’t want to disclose what we did to it.
Vocal mic is a Shure SM-7, which was also used for all vocal overdubs.
Jen: Roland RD-700, direct into the console. I think her vocal mic was an AKG.
Joe: Epiphone Viola bass into a 100-watt Ampeg head. I don’t remember what it was miced with, but it might have been another Shure.
Tim: We used Chris’s drum kit, which is a hodgepodge of stuff with Zildjian cymbals. The snare is a black beauty that Tim donated to the studio during the Distance sessions.
There are multiple room mics surrounding the drum kit.
We're bringing our friends Miss Shevaughn and Yuma Wray to Baltimore for the first time. We played a bunch of shows with them over the summer. Oh, and here's your chance to get a copy of that poster McKinzie Lefstein made for us!
Back in the studio
So this is a bit of a surprise—I thought we’d be staying out of the studio this year, but we really got the bug to record Heather Aubrey Lloyd’s “Silent Little Bells,” so we’ll be heading out to Woodstock again to work with Chris Freeland in early November. We’ll also be rerecording an outtake from the sessions for The Distance of the Moon at Daybreak, “It Started Well,” which has only rarely been performed in public (and never as a full band). We’ve worked out a funky little drum beat and some unusual guitar sounds to go with Dylan-y lyrics, a jazzy progression, and a lot of local character.
“Silent Little Bells” will be the a-side, though. It’s an absolutely killer song by a local songwriter, and we haven’t played it in public as a full band yet, so the Joe Squared show will be everyone’s first opportunity to hear the full arrangement. I’m really excited about this song. It’s the song that actually got me into the idea of covering songs by local songwriters, and I’m not the only one around town who plays it, either, so I know it’s not just me. I’m really proud that we’ll be able to share it with our little corner of the world.
Okay, enough of the hype. Because there’s something else, besides recording our first cover, that’s a bit of a departure for us:
We’re not going to post this one publicly where everyone can listen to it. We’re not going to sell it. We’re going to give it away to people just for being on our mailing list. (There’s a link in the top right of our website to sign up, or you can click here, if you aren’t already on it.)
At some point that may have to change. There’s an upper limit to how many people can be on our mailing list before it starts costing us money we don’t make, and I have to pay Heather Lloyd for each copy of the song people download, so if for some reason we end up with one of those “first world problems” where too many people are downloading the song, I might have to put it up on iTunes or Amazon or something.
Oh, the EP will have a subtitle: Baltimerica 1. That should map out what’s going to be happening over the next year or so.
Joe Squared mini release show
So Dec. 9 will be our release show for the single/mini-EP, whatever you like to call it. We’re bringing our friends Miss Shevaughn and Yuma Wray to town. Spectacular vocals from Miss Shvaughn, and some big guitar sounds and a kickdrum provided by her partner Yuma Wray. We played a few shows with them over the summer, and it’s great to get them to our hometown. We’re talking with some friends about adding a third group, so we’ll let everyone know who that is once we know for sure.
Oh, right, a video
Anyway, this post also promised some video from our Cellar Stage show with the Kennedys. The show went great—we fit in pretty well with the headliners (who played a Fairport Convention song AND a Richard Thompson song), and we made a bunch of new friends. Hopefully we’ll be able to go back someday … maybe even with the full band. Paul Demmitt shot this video of our new song (pardon the incorrect song title):
8/27/11 HOSTEL SHOW CANCELLED DUE TO HURRICANE
There’s a hurricane, donchaknow. I have lots of cheese and chicken. Most everything else was spared the indignity of being cooked.
“Albany” (We’re About 9 cover)
Originally I wanted to do “I Stopped Listening,” the brilliant title track from We’re About 9‘s 2005 EP, but there was no way to do that song without harmony vocals, and, well, despite my best efforts, I’m only one man and I can’t harmonize with myself. So instead I settled on “Albany,” Brian Gundersdorf’s funny little story about trying to flee to Canada and getting stopped by a cop on the way. It’s a song that’s endured on We’re About 9′s set lists since they first started performing it, and an audience favorite, so I just have to hope that I don’t make anyone upset with my rendition.
The chords here were just a guess, but they seemed to work okay. The only substantial change I made to the song was to put most of it into 4/4 timing and then play the instrumental section as a waltz. (The original is in 6/8.)
My parents-in-law gave me the banjo for my birthday last year. They had gotten two of them from Deering in lieu of payment for advertising in Dirty Linen (not by choice—Deering just sent it and seemed to think that was okay instead of sending money). The other one went to my brother-in-law at Christmas. It’s nothing special, but it is a particularly good low-end banjo, and it’s really light.
Most 5-string banjos are tuned to a g chord. I tune mine like the 4 highest strings of a guitar (the last string being one full step higher than what’s normal on a 5-string banjo) because I can’t play an instrument that’s tuned to a chord.
This is part of a series I’m doing of songs by people from Baltimore. Here’s links to the others so far:
“The Hangman (Down at the Gallows)” (Matt Pless)
I’ll have a cover of a Heather Aubrey Lloyd (of ilyAIMY) song soon.
In our case, we played at Artscape, the biggest outdoor multiarts Festival at least in the mid-Atlantic region. We weren’t booked by Artscape and we don’t have street performance licenses. Suck it, usual channels!
A perusal of the submission guidelines for most festivals reveals that they either expect you to use some horrid 3rd party press kit service or to upload all your stuff – including videos, which are large files, you know – on their web site and then, after you’ve spent the better part of your afternoon doing so, they tell you three screens down the line that it’s going to cost you $35 to submit. Doesn’t mention if you’re going to get paid for the gig if you happen to get it, either, making it very difficult to determine what gamblers and stock traders and economists (but I repeat myself) call the “EV” or expected value.
My buddy Mosno did go through the Artscape website this year and get booked. And Acacia Sears did so by using a horrid 3rd party press kit last year. So Artscape has at least a modicrum of taste and therefore might have booked us if I had wanted to part with my $35.
But as you’ll see, this gig ended up being our most expensive ever. That’s why it’s not just dos, but don’ts, too. Read more…
“Apocalypse” (Steve Hefter cover)
Steve Hefter & Friends and Friends of Friends (Shafafof) was active in Baltimore for a few years until Steve Hefter moved to Portland. They were a great band to see live, and this was one of my favorite songs of theirs because Steve would freak out during the last verse.
This song happens to contain one of my favorite couplets ever written:
What a disappointing apocalypse
Thought rich folk would escape on their rocket ships
CD release poster
Mell Wall of Petal Blight designed two posters for us. We’re going to pick one and print up a bunch to give out at the show on May 21. Enjoy! Read more…
