Here’s the newest single from Velvet Wrinkle Wreckerds eclectic collective Steaming Mulch. We never really know what we’re going to see from them until the song is finished. As always with our group of friends it was recorded, mixed and mastered at ChurchHouse Productions Studio. It’s for everyone who’s had to find their way out of their own personal ‘Mordor’.
Enjoy
Yo, Mel – this one’s for you.
A lot of the music I like the best has one component in common – groove. It’s easy to hear in dance records from Industrial to Disco. But it’s also in places you wouldn’t expect – punk blues like The Gun Club or Americana like Reverend Peyton. The beat catches you and pulls you in to the song. It has a physical presence, it makes your body move.
Nile Rodgers is one of the great masters of groove. In this video he talks about finding the groove in all types of music. You may be surprised at some of the places you’ve heard his guitar playing without even realizing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da_Yp9BOCaI
His latest work is with Daft Punk. A lot of people like to trash ‘disco’. Where do you think a lot of the current dance music came from? You can really hear the guitar groove in ‘Get Lucky’.
We’ve covered many different avenues of the recording process in previous posts. I’ve come across two different items that present an inside look at recording before the ‘digital revolution’. The first is a recording of the Queen song ‘Under Pressure’. Most people have probably heard the song before. What’s recently been released is the vocals of the song minus all the music. The amazing factor in this is how crisp and ‘real’ the vocals sound. No digital manipulation, no ‘autotune’ (maybe an effect here and there). Just listen to Freddie Mercury and David Bowie give life to the vocal sound. Clean, clear, amazing. A big treat is Mercury’s vocal in the middle of the song where he holds a note then keeps raising it higher. If you listen in the background you can sometimes hear the music bleeding through their headphones.
The second clip shows The Rolling Stones mixing the song ‘Little Queenie’ from the live ‘Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out’ album. Some stuff to watch in this: The mixing booth is pretty small and plain – function is more important than looks. No automated faders – at times it takes three people working the board to test the changes they want. Finally, they’re mixing by sound, not over concerned with watching meters – eyes closed and listening – the band was very involved in the mixing process. Also enjoy the sound of two inch analog tape being rewound when they go back to certain parts of the song.
There are many great things about today’s recording tech, but the simplicity of the past also had some advantages.
Yeah – ’nuff said.
You gotta love a video that makes you laugh every time you see it. This video reminds me of our two ‘kids’ who really love to talk.
Emma – The first CEO of Velvet Wrinkle Wreckerds:
Bonnie – Current CEO of Velvet Wrinkle Wreckerds:
I could just hear them saying this:
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