It has jazz parts. It has techno parts. It has synths. It has crushing guitars. It has lilting string arrangements. It breaks all the punk rock rules. It is totally pretentious. But it totally works.
The reason I feel that "The Shape of Punk To Come" is one of my favorite recordings is because it oozes artistic intent. Everything is there for a reason. Nothing was extraneous ear candy. It all fits. And this is just a focus on the aesthetic. I can't really compare HP2's endeavors with the politics behind Refused. It's straight up apples and oranges. But if I made an attempt this weekend to try to channel any sort of musical inspiration, my divining rod was pointed squarely in the direction of Umea, Sweden.
And the best part of all is that some of my expectations were met.
Starting out this process I was half fearing that I was wasting an entire weekend. That technical problems would arise and negate our efforts. That someone would drop out last minute and we would half complete a half finished recording. I don't want to think I'm a pessimist, but I tend to ultimately prepare for the worst. Let's start with what I sought out to do.
(in order of importance)
1. Record/Mix/Master 4 songs for the EP
2. Record and post a video cover from each member of the band
3. Barrage Twitter/Facebook/YouTube with an avalanche of content
and...
(what really happened)
1. Record most of 4 songs for the EP
2. Record (1) Ke$ha cover, post it on YouTube
3. Sporadic blurbs on Twitter/Facebook/YouTube
Not too bad. I wanted to leave Anthony's by 8 or 9pm Sunday night and I ended up staying till 1am, but outside of that nothing really catastrophic happened. I wish I could apologize to Anthony's neighbors for accosting them with quite literally "balls to the wall" guitar sounds for a good couple hours, but nothing too offensive that a borrowed cup of sugar can't fix. Do people still borrow cups of sugar? Anyways, here are some highlights and I'll follow those with some closing thoughts.
I've absolutely fallen in love with the idea of "house recording." I wish I took better pictures to document the complicated process involved to route audio signals to and from Anthony's garage to his master bathroom, but this one will have to do for now. Basically, we had a snake that was long enough to run from point A to point B. This tape/blanket job was a poor attempt at sound buffering, but it did keep flies out of the garage.
This picture of Dave looks like...
amirite?
I actually used a $3 tape recorder from Goodwill to make "trashy" drum samples. I hope that I'll find a place to put them in mixing.
Curtis is an absolute boss of a drummer. I've been playing with him on and off since...2003 and he's definitely raised the bar on my playing. He has some super exciting things coming his way and I wish him nothing but the best.
One of my wiser microphone purchases throughout the years. You find SM7s in radio applications since they have INTENSE off axis rejection and come hard wired into a fatty wind screen. They also sound great on hihat, male vocals, and guitar cabs.
I've been playing Magic cards (also off and on) since 1994. While I can't claim much for serious tournament success, I can infer a great deal about the comings and goings in one's head from watching their play style. Bhakti used to play more, but doesn't really have an active group so his cards have been gathering dust for a few years. He did manage to bring his deck for the weekend and ran shenanigans all over us in our larger 5 player game. Curtis, however managed to put him in his place with a straight ahead small white creatures deck. What did I learn about them from their playing? Bhakti is a thinker and Curtis is persistent. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time away from engineering to meet Curtis' challenge for a 1:1 game. Next time.
I don't really imbibe much, but I hear Red Stripe is cool if you like trad. The weird thing is, I can't really tell whose head it is by the watermelon in the upper right corner.
When we used to host ska shows in a parking lot by an It's A Grind in Anaheim, I put a bunch of sound gear in a huge vertical rack enclosure and called it Wintermute. When we used to play at Downtown Disney I put a bunch of sound gear in a huge horizontal rack enclosure and Dave called it Summermute. Now that I have most of my recording/outboard gear in an angled rack enclosure I'm not sure what to call it. Springmute? (If you're getting all my Frank Gibson references we should really be friends)
This is what I have to deal with. Not just on recording weekends but every day pretty much. But I really like cables. The make everything able to communicate with everything else. The green ones are actually called "Kiwis." You can't make this stuff up.So what did I learn this weekend? That having the right mix of people is key to any musical endeavor. Being one of the band's old timers, I can definitely say that we've seen a myriad of lineups. I've personally played a number of instruments and worn a variety of hats, and can squarely say that this is the most cohesive incarnation of the group so far. It took us a bit to get going, but everyone found their niche and offered what they could to the overall sound. I can personally say the recording was so much less about people imposing themselves on the songs and much more on doing what's best for the song.
Look at "It's About Time." That album is so guitar-centric it's not even funny. While I can definitely claim a bigger portion of the writing credits than this session, guitar riffs, guitar solos, and Tyler was pretty much everywhere. It was so much more about "proving" that I could play and "proving" that I could double track and "proving" that I could harmonize and solo that it took the focus off the songs. While I personally love "Dare Don't Tell," it really is a guilty indulgence in EVERYONE SET YOUR KNOBS TO 11! Guitar riff! Horn riff! Synth riff! All on the chorus! Too much. There was a definite rivalry in having "my" song included because there were too much of "your" songs included overall. That isn't what music is about. It's not about giving Ringo his one lead just to appease him. It's about the overall product.
Let me share some thing with you. Dave absolutely hates 2 things on guitar: reverb and wah wah pedal. Guess what? He used both on the EP! If we were in some kind of my parts/your parts/my call/your call battle with the rest of the band, the core part of David would have stood up and cried from the mountains:
"DAVID PARRIS DOES NOT USE REVERB ON GUITAR PARTS"
But because we were all locked into the same productive vibe, the core David was able to take a nap and the creative David took over the pilot's seat. Creative David was able to hear parts for what they were and what they added to the song. Creative David was able to drop the baggage of "NO WAH EVER" and just add what the song needed.
Tyler (in the third person) was the same way. Tyler is a rhythm guitarist. He plays rhythm guitar. He did not, however, play any of the distorted guitar in "Day Goes Down." He let David handle it because it's not supposed to be a rip-your-face-off-with-distortion part. It's supposed to be an "I have a fake Bri-ish ac-cent" part. And who is better at that than Dave? On another song I play muted guitar for...half the song. And don't play on the other half? Why? Because it totally adds to the separate of the verse and chorus. Curtis did an amazing job of helping me narrow down my parts. He suggested playing with the horns instead of running circles on Anthony. And it totally worked. Anthony however...
Got his ass kicked. Hard. He had all this riffs and fills and notes that could have eclipsed the entire song. But just like the late Amy Winehouse, we said "no, no, no." And what effect did that have on the songs? It cleaned them up tremendously. It started our quest to simplify the music instead of bogging it down with mud and complications. That same aesthetic carried over to the horns as well. But we're really proud of the decisions we did make. They really proved to us that we had "paid our dues" long enough to warrant self production. And my proudest moment was when I handed Dave the keys on producer duties. I could definitely see the songs in a different light, but that wasn't the point. The point was to get one person's view across. Where I would put in a wobble bass, Dave would put in a trombone solo. We needed someone's vision to tie everything together, and Dave definitely got it on this one. Of course, he received a lot of help from our horns who were amazingly flexible with their parts. I'm really glad I can think of myself reaching a level of musical maturity. Looking back I have no idea how my hot headed 18/19 year old self would have been allowed in any band, haha.
So there you have it, a long winded account of our trials and tribulations from the past weekend. While I really can't say that this was a catalyst in reigniting the HP2 fire back to our "glory days" of 2 shows a weekend, I can say that I am totally content with waiting it out to find strong material with a strong production quality that I can honestly say I'm proud of. This weekend marked a number of personal bests, and more importantly the realization that my personal bests will sound like nothing compared to the full cooperation of a live interactive rock and roll band.
Until next time, I will probably be burning the midnight oil programming bass and drum samples to have a listenable amount of groove. Thanks for reading.
-Tyler
PS Now we're probably at the hardest part! Figuring out a schedule to finish the mix!
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