As all of us in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic are riding out Sandy, I wanted to share a few thoughts on Henry Rollins. Last Thursday night at The Egg in Albany I had the chance to be at one of his spoken word appearances for the 3rd time, and my first time since 2005. Henry's music really isn't my thing, but I have really dug his spoken word since 2002 when a friend of mine let me listen to some of his CDs on the way back from a high school band trip to Virginia Beach. I have such a distinct memory of the bus pulling into the high school parking lot as we were getting back from the trip while I was listening to the track called "Marius" on Think Tank. I was transfixed and I had to wait until that particular story was over before I could be bothered to get off the bus. I was hooked.
A large focus of Henry's non-stop 2 1/2 talk on Thursday was about community - the coming together and connections he made as part of the Washington, DC, punk community back in the 80s, as well as that which our country is capable of and how strong we can be. He touched on the impending election next week, but not in the very specific way that I was expecting, though he did note that it's pretty easy to tell who he is going to be voting for. Instead, he spent a lot of time discussing Lincoln, and the former president's view that the US could not be taken down by outside forces. America's demise, Lincoln argued in a speech well-before the outbreak of the Civil War, could only come about as the result of internal conflicts, and it was a very appropriate topic given the current political climate in the country. In the past week or so, blogger Andrew Sullivan began making the case that the United States of America is in what he calls a Cold Civil War. We very well may be.
But the thing about Henry Rollins that truly strikes me is his range of topics and emotions. He goes from funny to serious in a matter of seconds, and the subject matters transition together seamlessly. So many things are discussed during the time he's onstage that by the time you get to the end of the night you can't possible remember everything that he talked about, or how you so easily got from 8PM to 10:30PM. There is a reason why I keep re-listening to the spoken word CDs of his that I have, and why I keep wanting more - because he says so much that you can't catch everything he says in one shot. And even if you can catch it, its fleeting, and you surely can't truly absorb it all at once. At least I can't. Always engaging, always thoughtful, and always real, Henry's ability to tell a story and entice a reaction is probably what keeps bringing me back, and why I find myself interested in organizations like The Moth.
"Words. Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance are music. They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can't." -President Josiah Bartlett, The West Wing, Season 3, Episode 6
If you're interested in listening to some Henry Rollins, I highly recommend starting with Think Tank or A Rollins In The Wry.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
The Mixing Game
Last week I got the first round of rough mixes from the engineer mixing my album, Tom Rosato (www.stacksofwaxproduction.com). 13 tracks for me to listen to, soak in, and take notes on. Mixing is such a subjective endeavor - what one person thinks sounds best won't be what someone else thinks sounds best. It really is an art. So, the way it works is the songs are mixed initially by Tom, then they are sent to me to compile notes on what changes I think need to be made. Less organ here, more guitar there, etc.
The main objective when it comes to mixing (and mastering, for that matter) is to get the song to sound the best on any kind of speaker. Whether it's a pair of professional JBLs with subwoofers or built-in computer speakers, you want the listener to get the most out of the recording. So, when it comes to listening and taking notes, what speakers am I supposed to listen to the tunes on? Or to put it another way: where do most people listen to music? Where do I most listen to music? The car.
To anyone watching it must have been a little curious for me to get into my car, turn it on, and just sit there for more than an hour. At least from the outside it looked like I was just sitting there. On the inside I was actually listening to each song 3, 4, 5 times, and writing down what I think needs to be improved or changed. I had 13 songs to do this for, so I broke it up into two listening sessions. We all listen to music, but most people don't realize how draining it can be to really listen intently to the same songs over and over in an attempt to hear the instricasies of the arrangement. It's something I experienced in the studio as well, and after a while you just need a break to rest your ears and your mind. But the best part about the whole thing is that a number of songs sounded so good that they didn't need a lot of notes, which is a testament Tom's skill.
Late Sunday night I sent him the notes, and after he makes the changes he is going to send me new rough mixes. Then I will listen again, take more notes, and we will finish up the songs together in the studio. It can often times be a drawn-out process, but one that is absolutely worth the time and the effort. I've been working on this project for almost 2 years, planning it for even longer than that, and it's good to be seeing the finish line. I hope you're as excited for the finish as I am.
The main objective when it comes to mixing (and mastering, for that matter) is to get the song to sound the best on any kind of speaker. Whether it's a pair of professional JBLs with subwoofers or built-in computer speakers, you want the listener to get the most out of the recording. So, when it comes to listening and taking notes, what speakers am I supposed to listen to the tunes on? Or to put it another way: where do most people listen to music? Where do I most listen to music? The car.
To anyone watching it must have been a little curious for me to get into my car, turn it on, and just sit there for more than an hour. At least from the outside it looked like I was just sitting there. On the inside I was actually listening to each song 3, 4, 5 times, and writing down what I think needs to be improved or changed. I had 13 songs to do this for, so I broke it up into two listening sessions. We all listen to music, but most people don't realize how draining it can be to really listen intently to the same songs over and over in an attempt to hear the instricasies of the arrangement. It's something I experienced in the studio as well, and after a while you just need a break to rest your ears and your mind. But the best part about the whole thing is that a number of songs sounded so good that they didn't need a lot of notes, which is a testament Tom's skill.
Late Sunday night I sent him the notes, and after he makes the changes he is going to send me new rough mixes. Then I will listen again, take more notes, and we will finish up the songs together in the studio. It can often times be a drawn-out process, but one that is absolutely worth the time and the effort. I've been working on this project for almost 2 years, planning it for even longer than that, and it's good to be seeing the finish line. I hope you're as excited for the finish as I am.
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Saturday Night I Yelled At A Drunk Guy
One of my pet peeves (and I seem to have a lot of them) is having to deal with drunk people when I am stone-cold sober. I enjoy alcoholic beverages as much as the next person, but when I have to engage with people who have had a lot to drink I often times find them nothing but annoying, and sometimes enraging.
Saturday night I was playing Bacchus in New Paltz with In The Pocket. Partway through the 2nd set I noticed a tall guy in a black shirt who was obviously wrecked. He was trying to dance with every girl he could find, and he even gave one girl the full reach-around ass grab. Oh, dude, come on, now. She wasn't very happy about it, and I watched her give him the "This is my personal space, and this is yours" talk. It didn't help much.
Before the 3rd set I used the bathroom. If you're not familiar with the men's room at Bacchus I won't go into too much detail, but suffice to say that there's a trough. Well, I walked in to find this drunk guy standing at the trough, but he wasn't standing straight up - he was leaning forward against the wall face first. Apparently the dude (not "The Dude," just this dude) had drank so much that he (at least partially) passed out while standing at the trough. It was impressive, as I had never seen such a thing. He began to come back to reality as I was leaving.
As soon as I came out I went over to some friends to tell them what I had just seen, and mid-story the guy came wandering out of the bathroom doing his best to retain his balance. But as he moved passed my keyboard he somehow decided it would be a good idea for him to stop for a moment and press some of the keys. It. Was. Not. "DO NOT TOUCH MY KEYBOARD!" Even in his advanced state of inebriation he knew that I meant business, and he quickly moved on with a slightly shocked look on his face. My friends were highly amused.
If I don't know you and you've been drinking, please don't touch my equipment. You can be damn sure that I won't touch yours. But it was a great show.
Saturday night I was playing Bacchus in New Paltz with In The Pocket. Partway through the 2nd set I noticed a tall guy in a black shirt who was obviously wrecked. He was trying to dance with every girl he could find, and he even gave one girl the full reach-around ass grab. Oh, dude, come on, now. She wasn't very happy about it, and I watched her give him the "This is my personal space, and this is yours" talk. It didn't help much.
Before the 3rd set I used the bathroom. If you're not familiar with the men's room at Bacchus I won't go into too much detail, but suffice to say that there's a trough. Well, I walked in to find this drunk guy standing at the trough, but he wasn't standing straight up - he was leaning forward against the wall face first. Apparently the dude (not "The Dude," just this dude) had drank so much that he (at least partially) passed out while standing at the trough. It was impressive, as I had never seen such a thing. He began to come back to reality as I was leaving.
As soon as I came out I went over to some friends to tell them what I had just seen, and mid-story the guy came wandering out of the bathroom doing his best to retain his balance. But as he moved passed my keyboard he somehow decided it would be a good idea for him to stop for a moment and press some of the keys. It. Was. Not. "DO NOT TOUCH MY KEYBOARD!" Even in his advanced state of inebriation he knew that I meant business, and he quickly moved on with a slightly shocked look on his face. My friends were highly amused.
If I don't know you and you've been drinking, please don't touch my equipment. You can be damn sure that I won't touch yours. But it was a great show.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Ben Folds Five
8 remarkable things about my first time seeing Ben Folds Five (in no particular order):
1 - The intimacy. I'm used to big concerts. The artist I've seen live more than any other in my life is Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, and it was just a few weeks ago that I saw them at MetLife Stadium, along with probably about 65,000 of my closest friends. The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY, is almost as far from that as you can get. We were on the floor which was mostly standing room only, but unlike a Springsteen show I didn't have to arrive at 2:30PM for a wristband only to have to come back at 4PM to stand in line to be let into the pit to wait for a few hours before the concert started. The show was scheduled for 8PM, we walked in at 7:15, and we were able to get a great spot right in front of the stage with only one line of people in front of us. You can see from the picture just how close we were; so close I could hear the sound of Robert Sledge's foot on his pedals as he clicked them on and off. Very cool.
2 - The opening act, Kate Miller-Heidke. She's from Australia and also opened for Ben Folds when I saw him solo at UPAC in Kingston, NY, two years to the day before Tuesday night's show. It really says something about the songs when I only heard them once two years ago and I recognized them again. Specifically, her song "Caught In The Crowd" is very powerful, and upon further investigation I was surprised, but not shocked, to learn that it won the top prize in the 2008 International Songwriting Competition. It's that good.
3 - Ben Folds Five, dude! I mean seriously! I waited 10 years for this show! Sure, I've seen Ben Folds solo twice - in 2002 and 2010 - but this is the original.
4 - The setlist. Again, my reference is a Bruce Springsteen concert, where they keep things moving one song to another. On Tuesday night, with the exception of the last 3 or 4 songs of the set, the band had at least a little bit of a pause between every song. Also, most of the show wasn't even attempting to keep the momentum and energy moving forward quickly. Most of the set was structured: upbeat song, downbeat song, upbeat song, downbeat song, etc., until the last few songs that were all upbeat. And I don't mean this as a criticism - it's just different, and it allowed the show to just kinda wash over the crowd as a whole.
5 - My lack of expectations. Of course I expected the show to be good, but what I was not expecting was a certain song. We talked about what songs we might hear before the show, but I didn't go in with a hard list of songs that I was hoping to hear. I've seen Springsteen so many times at this point that I do go in with a mental list - songs I have been waiting to hear live that I haven't yet. But going along with the above point about the setlist, I just soaked this show in instead of waiting for a particular song.
6 - The "oops" moments. I counted at least 4. In the opening song, "Michael Praytor, Five Years Later," Ben seemed to forget a few lyrics at the beginning of the 2nd verse and had to fake it by muffling his words a little (a trick I'm well aware of as a singer). In another song I could've sworn I heard a wrong note on the piano. Ben's playing on the intro of "Draw A Crowd" completely fell apart, but he insisted that everything keep going and the crowd was into it. That was a moment that really drew the crowd in. During the encore, there was a slight timing issue in "Magic" when the full band comes back in toward the end of the song - it was completely noticeable and Darren Jessee got a big smile on his face as if yo say, "Yeah, that just happened." The crowd loved it.
7 - The vocal harmonies. The way that Robert and Darren backed up Ben's lead vocals was truly impressive. Harmonies are not one of my strongest points, but the two of them made playing and singing fantastic backgrounds look effortless.
8 - The Capitol Theatre. It actually is really impressive despite it being in what seems to me to be an out-of-the-way location. Recently renovated, the walls featured pictures of the legendary artists who have graced the stage, especially in the 70s. And the coat-check was key, as it would've gotten too hot standing on the floor.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
The Oddness Of Shooting A Music Video
In preparation for the release of my upcoming new album (and trust me it won't be "upcoming" forever), I am currently working on two music videos. The only other music video I've released was for "Endless Sky" back in January 2011, but to be honest that was more of a slideshow. And last Christmas my cover band In The Pocket released a video for "Please Come Home For Christmas" by The Eagles, but I just appeared in the video - I wasn't really the main focus and I didn't have to act. But these two new ones are full-out videos. One has a loose concept, one has an actual story to it. One involves me kinda just being there, the other involves me actually acting. These are somewhat new experiences for me.
When I was younger my sister studied film at Vassar College, and I helped out by starred in some of her student films. I remember one silent project that involved me not being allowed to play with the older kids at a baseball field, and another with music where I got scolded for not cleaning up my room to the tune of "Yakety Yak" by The Coasters. So, I'm not wholly without experience, right? Kinda, I guess. Being in front of the camera this way can take some getting used to.
On Sunday night we were shooting a scene in the Poughkeepsie train station. Obviously there were people around. I mean it is a working train station, and people have to get where they're going, but they were content to sit around watching us while they waited for their trains to board. Honestly, the only people who seemed to have an issue were the cops. We had been there for an hour when they came up and asked how long we were going to be there. Then they asked if we had permission. Permission? It's the freaking train station, dude. I guess somehow three people being in the train station lobby was going to prevent people from making their train, or arriving safely back to their cars after they arrive. I had no idea we had such power. We also shot on the platform, and there was a conductor who couldn't help but comment on how serious I looked. Even as the train was pulling out she was hanging out of the door, practially heckling me! It was at that point that I couldn't keep it together anymore. Thanks, Ms. Conductor!
Hopefully the shooting of both videos will be completed by the end of this month. But when they're be edited and released is still to be determined.
When I was younger my sister studied film at Vassar College, and I helped out by starred in some of her student films. I remember one silent project that involved me not being allowed to play with the older kids at a baseball field, and another with music where I got scolded for not cleaning up my room to the tune of "Yakety Yak" by The Coasters. So, I'm not wholly without experience, right? Kinda, I guess. Being in front of the camera this way can take some getting used to.
On Sunday night we were shooting a scene in the Poughkeepsie train station. Obviously there were people around. I mean it is a working train station, and people have to get where they're going, but they were content to sit around watching us while they waited for their trains to board. Honestly, the only people who seemed to have an issue were the cops. We had been there for an hour when they came up and asked how long we were going to be there. Then they asked if we had permission. Permission? It's the freaking train station, dude. I guess somehow three people being in the train station lobby was going to prevent people from making their train, or arriving safely back to their cars after they arrive. I had no idea we had such power. We also shot on the platform, and there was a conductor who couldn't help but comment on how serious I looked. Even as the train was pulling out she was hanging out of the door, practially heckling me! It was at that point that I couldn't keep it together anymore. Thanks, Ms. Conductor!
Hopefully the shooting of both videos will be completed by the end of this month. But when they're be edited and released is still to be determined.
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
The Road Trip Playlist
Once you're a veteran at taking road trips you come to understand the importance of a good playlist. I've driven to Illinois, Georgia, Maryland, Delaware, Las Vegas twice, and Western New York countless times, and I've learned music selections can make or break a trip for sure. The first time I drove to Las Vegas we started every day by listening to Boston's debut album. Epic. On that trip I remember that the truck we were driving didn't have an auxiliary input for my iPod, so we had to rely on an iTrip which tuned the music to an unused FM station of our choosing. Not the best option, but it got the job done. The worst part was that it kept killing the battery of my iPod.
Anyway, last week I took a 3-day, 1,400+ mile road trip and we decided to keep track of the music that we listened to over the approximately 26 hours of traveling that we did (though the first 3.5 hours I drove in silence). Here is the list, in no particular order.
Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen
Ben Folds Five - The Sound of the Life of the Mind
The Beatles - Rubber Soul
The Beatles - The Beatles (I was giving Tony Beatles fun facts as we were listening to this one)
The Beatles - Abbey Road
The Bee Gees - Number Ones
Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA
Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love (I keep coming back to this album time and time again)
Earth, Wind, & Fire - The Essential
Hall & Oates - The Very Best Of
James Taylor - The Best Of 1& 2
Jimmy Cliff - Rebirth
Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane
Maroon 5 - It Won't Be Soon Before Long
Maroon 5 - Hands All Over
Maroon 5 - Overexposed ("The good songs, anyway" according to my traveling partner, Tony)
Matchbox 20 - North (We listened to at least twice as we are both currently obsessed with this album)
Michael Jackson - a general mix of Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad, Dangerous, and a little more
Rancid - Indestructible
Rob Thomas - Something To Be
Rob Thomas - Cradlesong
The Script - The Script (I love this album. I always associate it with NYC since I first listened to it on the train)
Stevie Wonder - Ultimate Collection
When I used to drive to and from Geneseo for school I would listen to essentially the same albums every time, but for these longer trips it's great to shake things up.
Anyway, last week I took a 3-day, 1,400+ mile road trip and we decided to keep track of the music that we listened to over the approximately 26 hours of traveling that we did (though the first 3.5 hours I drove in silence). Here is the list, in no particular order.
Ben Folds Five - Whatever and Ever Amen
Ben Folds Five - The Sound of the Life of the Mind
The Beatles - Rubber Soul
The Beatles - The Beatles (I was giving Tony Beatles fun facts as we were listening to this one)
The Beatles - Abbey Road
The Bee Gees - Number Ones
Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA
Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love (I keep coming back to this album time and time again)
Earth, Wind, & Fire - The Essential
Hall & Oates - The Very Best Of
James Taylor - The Best Of 1& 2
Jimmy Cliff - Rebirth
Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane
Maroon 5 - It Won't Be Soon Before Long
Maroon 5 - Hands All Over
Maroon 5 - Overexposed ("The good songs, anyway" according to my traveling partner, Tony)
Matchbox 20 - North (We listened to at least twice as we are both currently obsessed with this album)
Michael Jackson - a general mix of Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad, Dangerous, and a little more
Rancid - Indestructible
Rob Thomas - Something To Be
Rob Thomas - Cradlesong
The Script - The Script (I love this album. I always associate it with NYC since I first listened to it on the train)
Stevie Wonder - Ultimate Collection
When I used to drive to and from Geneseo for school I would listen to essentially the same albums every time, but for these longer trips it's great to shake things up.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)