For the end of this month I thought we’d put up a couple more songs I came across while surveying old hard drives. These songs are from a band named Oktober Skyline. The recordings are over fifteen years old. One reason I wanted to put these up for you to listen to is to show the wide range of music you might work with if you want to run a recording studio. This band played a style that was labeled ‘math metal’ or ‘mathcore’ (at least it was when we were recording these songs). Some of the touchstone bands for this style are Dillinger Escape Plan and Botch. What really intrigued me while recording the songs was the timing, especially the timing of the drums. There’s a lot going on if you listen to the drum and guitar parts. I’ve always felt that to do a good job recording, you have to gain some familiarity with the musical style. So I spent time listening to bands that played this style, bought a few CDs, blasted them on the car stereo. There are things I really enjoy when listening to this. One is the sheer power wash that hits you when you crank it up. Multiply that times ten when you’re in the room with the drums live. Something very liberating about that. I really believe you can learn something from any type of music that you listen to. There’s always room to grow. You might not latch on to every style as something that you’re going to spend a lot of time with. But your musical life will be a lot richer if you get past labeling music as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. I’ve always felt that music, or any art, is subjective.
These songs were released on a four song vinyl EP titled ‘Oktober Skyline’. I actually found a page on discogs.com that lists the EP
The songs were not named before they left the studio so the file names were just coded numbers, but I believe the first one became titled ‘My Hair Just Grew 3 Inches’ and the second is titled ‘Mandy’s Tape’. The band did put out a full CD later that you can find online and ‘My Hair Just Grew 3 Inches’ was included on that CD.
But wait! There’s more! I found some live video of the band. As usual in these older ‘home’ videos, the sound isn’t great, the recording is shaking, but you get an idea of the insanity of this type of show. I did record some tracks with just the drummer later. If you watch carefully he’s using a double bass pedal and some of the kick drum sounds are at the speed of a snare roll. Woof!
Every once in a while I go back in to the older hard drives in the studio system. Sometimes I’m looking for a specific track or photo. Sometimes I’m just trying to remember what was on that particular drive. When I returned home from traveling I took one of these jaunts down memory lane on one of the external hard drives to see what was there (in the future I’m thinking about also checking on material on the stored DATs which contain material from when we mostly recorded on ADAT tape and mixed down to DAT). When you work in a studio you find that almost every recording experience is different. Some bands (or individuals) will want to include you on the entire project, from concept through completion. They’ll let you know what they’re doing and when and how they’re releasing the music. Others will complete the recording project and move on. So there are a lot of bands that I really have no idea what happened either to the band or the recording after the studio work was completed. The particular hard drive I was checking on had some material that was recorded at least a decade ago. So when this music was completed, some in the mid 2000’s, the posting of content on the internet was not a given.
I remember the session for the recordings I’m posting today. The band wanted to play as a collective in one room which always has more technical pitfalls to work through. We do have the large room space to accomplish this. You need to mic everything very carefully and use the right mics to keep bleed through to a minimum so you have some separation to work with when you’re mixing. The other issue is if one individual makes an error, the whole band has to play the song through again. It’s live music – no overdubs or punch ins. It’s especially challenging if the singer wants to remain in the same room. For the vocals on these songs I decided to try something new. The vocalist had to be facing the band using a very narrow band directional mic. I then set up a large sheet of plexiglass between the mic and the band to cut down on sound hitting the mic. Worked out pretty well.
The name of the band was Eastern Accordion Ensemble. The two songs below are ‘C P Martini’ and ‘Action’. I guess you would put them stylistically in to the ‘punk rock’ category – although at this point that moniker is about as specific as saying ‘rock music’. The sessions were a lot of fun and I thought the music deserved to get a little space in the vast internet universe. If anyone has info on the band or the songs, please fire off an email or comment to us, it would be interesting to know where this went. Otherwise, sit back and enjoy.
October is a month in eastern Pa where we often spend an inordinate amount of time living under gray skies. Early fall can be like that around here. Weather like that can suck the inspiration right out of you. Sometimes we get lucky and have a relatively sunny season. If not, you have to look for and take your inspiration where you can find it. My first bit of luck was being able to travel out of the area and spend time hiking in amazingly beautiful places. Now I’m trying to get inspiration from getting back to work on making music and finding new music to listen to. I think we have a nice little variety pack of tunes this month that gave me some new ideas and hopefully will provide you with something you enjoy or a band you might want to take a deeper dive in to exploring.
First Up: Shannon And The Clams – ‘Midnight Wine’
This song is a real interesting mix of styles and sounds. The foundation of the song is held down by the rhythm section. The drums and bass guitar keep a relatively simple beat and are pretty much down the center of the mix. This allows the rest of the instruments and vocals to go off on tangents whenever needed. One interesting add is the main beat of the snare drum is filled out most of the time by a tambourine. This gives the snare an extra bit of high end snap and allows it to be a prominent time keeper in the mix without actually making it louder. I’ve talked about micing the snare from below to get the extra snare ‘snap’ and this mix delivers the same results. The keyboard and guitar sounds are placed in the sides of the mix. During the vocals they keep a quieter presence, all fuzzed out and not very distinct, but they add little flourishes here and there to keep it interesting without having a large amount of chord changes. When the instruments are brought to the front, it’s a psychedelic buzzfest. I think the vocals are great. The two separate vocals are mixed together so tightly it actually sounds like a single vocal. Your singers have to have a very complimentary sound to pull this off and they certainly do that here. They also add a great Americana sounding twang to the tune which fits the lyrics perfectly.
Next Up: The Felice Bothers – ‘To Do List’
The thing I like most about this song is how the overall makeup of the song at first tricked me in to enjoying it at one level: a great sounding Americana/Country flow. The instruments have a nice clean mix – crisp drums, foundational bass, clean piano and acoustic guitar filling in the available space. The vocals are out front in the mix. The vocal style fits the feel and the clean vocal recording and placement puts them in front. After hearing it the first time through I listened to it a second time. That’s when I started to pay more attention to the lyrics. It is, as the title suggests, a ‘to do’ list. But it’s a hilariously odd to do list, where the strangest words are used to create rhymes . Just in the beginning we get ‘change all the bloody gauze’, ‘buy a spinach colored dinner jacket’ and ‘defy all natural laws’. These observations are mixed in with some more aspirational ideas like ‘bring flowers to the sick’ and ‘find out what’s killing the bees’. The back and forth between altruistic ideas and whacky ones keeps the song in a great state of imbalance and really makes you pay attention to what is being sung. It’s neat trick if you think about how many songs you like where you’re not actually sure what the full lyrics are. Just to add a little spice they throw in a little off kilter lead guitar at the 2:30 mark and from 3:30 to the end. The off kilter guitar is a great match for the lyrics.
Finally: Sault – ‘London Gangs’
We’re ending with something completely different from the first two songs. ‘London Gangs’ by Sault takes me back to the period of post-punk dance tunes. I could definitely see this being played in a dark, basement dance club at high volume. It shows how much can be done with a simple repetitive rhythm core. It’s mostly a simple clean drum track and an equally simple fuzzed out bass track. They add in a heavily reverbed and delayed sung/spoken vocal. It’s not really higher in the mix than the instruments, but it still stands out because the instrumentation is so spare. There’s some little side sound add ins like guitar or vocals made to sound like an instrument. Every once in a while you’ll have a total beat drop out which reinforces the beat when it comes back in. The interesting part is: it sounds so simple. It should be easy to throw together. But it isn’t (trust me, I’ve tried). It takes just the right combination of rhythms, instrumentation and sonic qualities to make it work. Therein lies the challenge and the fun.
Retro: Steely Dan – ‘Black Friday’
For me there’s never a bad time to throw in a little Steely Dan as the ‘Retro’ pick. I could probably do it almost every month and not come up with a song I didn’t really like. This song is from the 1975 album ‘Katy Lied’. I came across it again in a mix of tunes I was listening to online and actually played it a couple of times in a row. I know the band isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but I liked their mix of jazz/rock from the first album on. Another big draw for me was the quality of the guitar players they used and the amazing riffs and solos these players created. This solo is actually done by Walter Becker, one half of the true Steely Dan band duo. He was nominally listed as their bass player in the beginning, but the duo was really about composition and arrangement more than just their presence as players. And who couldn’t love a fun song about crashing the stock market?
We returned this week from our latest National Parks adventure. There’s nothing better than watching the sunrise from an amazing mountain trail to clear your head and give you all the inspiration you could possibly ask for. We’ll continue to work on the Messin’ With The Music series. There are a lot of irons in the fire as far as new original compositions go. I’m often inspired to start writing a song when I hear a certain style of music that catches my attention. I find it doesn’t usually work if you try to carbon copy a style or song. The style is a starting point for the composition. Over the course of putting all the pieces together it should pick up your personality with different timing, chords, instruments and technique.
I think the following songs will provide an example of how a basic song style can underpin a variety of different compositions. The songs are all blues informed guitar music. But the style of the blues incorporated here is a bit more specific than the vast variety that falls under the ‘blues’ moniker. I’m not sure what specific name to give it. I’ve heard it referred to as ‘delta blues’, ‘hill country blues’ or ‘talking blues’ – and I’m sure some musicologist somewhere could give you a correct and exact definition. For me there are several important components. First, the interplay of the guitar and the vocal. The guitar line often matches the melody of the vocal, sometimes note for note as they are played together. Second, the guitar, especially between the vocals, tends to be riff oriented rather than chord based. Finally there is an overall looseness to the playing style that rolls in and out of the song’s basic timing. When you listen to the three songs that are included here, don’t get hung up on the differences in recording style or sonics. Listen for the overall similarities and how each musician takes the style and makes it their own. I picked songs that have a wide span of years between them to accent the recording differences and show how long this style of music has been popular.
First we have ‘Spoonful Blues’ played by Charley Patton. This song is dated as 1929. The songs that have been preserved from this era don’t usually have the sonic quality that you will hear in recordings made as technology advanced. It was probably recorded live in a hotel room somewhere using the technology of the time, a very basic tape recorder or possibly cut directly to vinyl. So the song is just vocal and guitar played at the same time. Again, pick up on the underpinnings – the interplay between the guitar and vocal, the guitar riff and the overall looseness of the song. All the pieces are there. Although this style had already been around for a while, recordings of this era were the first attempt to capture the music and would be important touchstones for musicians who came later.
Next we have a song that couldn’t be more different in terms of recording and guitar sonics. I would imagine most of you have heard ‘Voodoo Child (Slight Return)’ by Jimi Hendrix at some point. The song was recorded in 1968. An amazing display of virtuosity and the possibilities of what could be done with a guitar sonically using electronics. Listen closely. Despite the vast sonic differences the underpinnings are all still there. The guitar and vocal match. The repeating guitar riff between vocals. The looseness of the playing. Another piece is that the guitar and vocal are very prominent in the mix compared to the bass and drums. It’s a great interpretation of the musical style.
To finish our run I’m adding one of our favorites, Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band. This song ‘Clap You Hands’ was recorded in 2010. In some ways it’s a stylistic middle ground between the two previous tunes. His guitar playing style goes back more towards earlier Delta Blues sounds. He even favors vintage guitars in this case playing an electric/acoustic. The recording quality advancements are easy to hear. The sound is clear and there is a lot of separation between the instruments. The drums and washboard are given a more prominent place in the mix which add drive to the sound. But as in all these examples the basics are there. A basic riff between the vocal parts that carries through the song. The guitar and vocal matches in the verses and choruses. The loose playing style especially with the slide parts. A wonderful update of a classic style.
If you get too hung up on musical styles and trying to come up with a style that’s totally ‘original’, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. When musicians are asked to describe their music you’ll hear every crazy genre and subgenre name you could think of. We all want to be ‘original’. But you can take any style that already exists and add your own personality to it to make it original. Sometimes the best thing is not to over think it. Have fun, hit ‘Record’ and let it fly.
While I’m on vacation hiatus, we thought we would showcase another Velvet Wrinkle Wreckerds track that many people probably haven’t heard. ‘Drain’ is another great track from The Flank’s album ‘At Stake’ that we released several years ago. Up until now it’s been housed on our Soundcloud account which many people who are following this blog may not be familiar with. We’re adding the song to our YouTube station where we’re showcasing most of our music now. We’re building up a large amount of new tracks with Velvet Wrinkle Wreckerds artists that are in the works. When I get back from our much needed vacation/adventure/retreat I’m hoping to hit the ground running, live in the studio the rest of 2021 and have a bunch of new material that will be released in 2022. Bedsides the music we’ll be working on releasing more videos. We’ve got an ambitious agenda, let’s hope the rest of this crazy world doesn’t implode and we can release the creativity.
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