music: AndersenPalooza, 7/31/04, Bellingham, WA
Sunday in Boston. I’ve been couch-crashing for almost a week now and have done a stellar job of taking it real easy, reacclimating to city life and all it brings. I’ve been catching up with friends- ran into M. biking through Porter Square, stopped by Dunk n’ Balls’ house briefly, checked in with Peet, the new roomies, and even managed to grab a beer with a fellow educator at Charlie’s late last night. But i’ve been busy. This time around it’s been with recording music.
The past two or three weeks have seen some significant steps towards my musical growth. I picked up a mixer,
a soundcard, two Shure microphones, a fairly nice condensor mic, and the cables to connect everything. I also picked up an acoustic guitar pickup from my sister, and yesterday I bought a bass used for $95. A pretty nice instrument for the price, and an indespensible tool in my quest for sonic documentation. Funny part is that I don’t play bass. But I know enough guitar to get by for the time being. To top it all off, I recovered my poor old drum set from Amy’s magical music room and will be employing its services shortly.
All this adds up to a lot of money, yes, and a lot of time, yes, but it’s worth it. I’m now able to do some high quality recording and produce something listenable. From the technical end, at least. Whether or not my songwriting is any good remains to be seen, but I’ve been pretty pleased with what has come out. Now it’s a matter of arranging things and putting them down on tape…eh…hard disk. AJM and I started the process at the end of the summer, starting in Bellingham around the first of the month, but ever since that day or so in the company of The Chef and the Dub Anthropologist, i’ve been feverishly working towards getting something of quality together. This last spurt of purchasing will allow me to really get down to it, moreso than I ever have.
So this weekend was a work weekend. I figure that I won’t get the chance to put a good chunk of time into making music once I start work, so I pushed hard to get something down this weekend. After two days of locking myself away in tmo’s room with my mini mobile recording studio, this is the result. It’s a campfire tune called “Mama,” (a sappy campfire song of the highest degree to be sure) a collaboration between myself and AJM, our small tribute to Camp Minikani. It would have been nice to have that guy around with his mandolin this weekend to lay a track down, but that’s why I’ve saved the session-to allow for overdubs later. The vocals are a little rough as well; maybe I’ll redo those some other time. For the most part, I’m pleased with the results, especially when compared to what came before.
The music bug has bitten me hard. After our impromptu gig in Bellingham at the start of the month, I’ve been mulling over pushing this music thing a little more seriously. I have feelers out on Craigslist and some local bulletin boards for jam sessions and partners in crime….
Guitarist/drummer/(bassist?)/songwriter w/vox seeking others in the Boston area to jam, possibly form band. Have gear, EP of originals. Looking to jam, gig locally, nothing too serious. Listened to my share of the Dead and Phish, but envisioning something in between Late Paul Simon and a Beastie Boys instrumental. Listening and patience over chops. Originals and covers. Improvisation and exploration a must. Email davidtaus@anize.org if interested.
Gettin’ there, as always. But as of late, the gettin’ there has been really gettin’ there. Hmm. Right. I just have to be careful to keep one foot in the world-at large, to not lock myself away with a bunch of microphones and knobs and stringed instruments for days at a time. But now to post-production. It’s always something…
Posted by davidtaus at August 22, 2004 07:49 PMUPDATE: The drumset is set up in the basement. It actually sounds great. Combine with some electric guitar and bass…oh my…crank up the heat and look out the window.
Posted by: Taus at August 23, 2004 04:36 PMUPDATE #2: This music thing is no joke. I worked for a good seven hours yesterday on getting a decent version of Gato Negro down for the archives and it really didn’t come out. Technical problems aside, it was just tough to hit a groove with the song. I think that part of it was the surroundings (I was working in the basement of 12 Curtis) but a lot of it had to do with some of the finer points of session recording. I started with the acoustic guitar track, which was stupid. I should have started from the sonic bottom and worked up: drums, then bass, then rhythm guitar, then vocals, then lead guitar. Problem was that the drums are a pain in the ass to mic, and it was tough to hit on a good sound for them. I ended up giving up on all the day’s work. I’ll hopefully get some time to work through the song this weekend, all tracks except drums to be done in my own room once it is set up. Interesting to see what happens when this music thing stops being fun and starts being work.
Posted by: taus at August 25, 2004 11:16 PMnot sure why this blog showe dup in my inbox, but this looks cool. I am a guitar player, and I love Kimock, Phish, DEad, and live in Medford.
Posted by: koosh at September 8, 2004 08:05 AM