About recording Wood + Wire:
I
flew to and from New York four times on the red-eye, the afternoon getaway, or
the weekend excursion. Whatever the case, I had yet another excuse to listen to
Dusty in Memphis, uninterrupted.
On the first trip
there, I went on the invite from Mimi and Lou Holtzman, two wonderful new
friends to me, and family of an old pal Dave Glavin. They donated a week of
their off time to host me and to show off their newly renovated EastSide
studio. It was an introduction to the process that I embraced throughout the
whole record. Lou had been recording jazz albums for years, so we set up the
room in a similar fashion.
What you hear is
the entire band politely feeling around each other's playing, which creates the
space I felt was missing in my earlier records. On the other hand, I wasn't
necessarily looking to make a purist's record. I overdubbed the vocals, for
example. With everyone comfortable, the relaxed vibe really comes across in
"Don't Worry Now." After a week, we had six songs finished. It wasn't
an album, but it was too much work already done to leave unreleased.
Dave Amels,
keyboard collector and manufacturer (Voce Inc.), as well as an excellent
player, acted as a liaison to his musician friends, some who participate in the
"Losers Lounge" shows at the Fez in NYC. He encouraged finishing the
"New York album" idea, and suggested working with Gene Holder.
I could have
replicated the process in San Francisco with other players, but these guys had
what I wanted. Dennis Diken was indispensable in that he understands the making
of records and production. He is a master in a dwindling class of drummers from
the old school. Joe McGinty was a welcome addition to the group. Pete Straus
and I have been talking about making a ensemble record since we started playing
together in 1992.
The EastSide
sessions happened February 5-12, 1996, the rest was recorded with Gene at Jolly
Roger Recording on July 25-29, 1997.
-CVS
Song
Titles:
- Starting Out
- Lines
- Sun
- As You Are
- Don't Worry Now
- Split It
- Circles
- Love
- I Can See
- Like Me That Way
- Got A Way With Her
- Feel
- The End
As an opening track
it might not be the definitive song of the set, but it contains all the
elements the album has. Rock guitars, classic keyboards, flanging and phasing,
and a double time beat reprise that puts this record's sonic place marker out
of the UK and into the USA. I'm imagining a couple that are living in some
transient hotel, looking for redemption in resigning to a life of addiction and
indolence on the grounds that it hurts no one. The same idea can be applied to
the futile efforts of thousands of artists who toil away at their craft in
vain.
2.Lines
The drum machine
and the Mellotron, "the man machines," are used on this recording. I
wrote this on the beach while Dale Duncan was surfing the break out by Sloat.
The lyric recalls a recent encounter with one who aggressively rambled to
annoying limits. The uncomfortable silence was there to fill. My last verse
gives forgiveness to us all that have some drivel to share. Dave had his
Ondioline there, I put it on the solo. It plays like an organ, only one note
sounding at a time, and to get vibrato, you have to wiggle the entire keyboard
from side to side. Difficult to keep track what note you're on while doing so!
Dennis
Diken - Powerhouse
3.Sun
From the drum
throne, Dennis suggested that Dave play a droning chord over the triplet beat
intro, a bubblegum vision of the sun coming up. He obliged, and played the
piano at the same time. Peter came up with and played the flute hoots in the
B-section and chorus. I made a sample out of a child's instrument and played
the counterpoint melody ("Pomp and Circumstance") over the guitar
solo. Gene helped nail down what ideas I had for the solo, and graciously let
me use his '59 flame-top Les Paul. It took me three days to get him to open the
case.
4.As
You Are
We kept Gene cooped
up in the studio, but let him go to the Post Office one afternoon. Pete watched
the machinery, and assumed the role of producer. To appease his demands, I
screamed so loud I blew out my voice. Gene returned to discover we'd tracked a
good vocal through a U-47 but had limited it 60dB. We produced a curious noise
in the last verse when the tape machine was shut off as I overdubbed a guitar.
Gene also suggested adding the chaotic piano notes toward the ending, to avoid
any similarities of a power ballad. The outro is a battle for who gets the last
note.
5.Don't
Worry Now
This is to me the
quintessential New York sessions track. The concept of recording everyone
together came together on this, it was a good song to record in the evening
after dinner. Having everyone in the room at the same time, is no big deal,
it's just rare that anyone chooses to keep most of the basic track. Danny Cao
overdubbed his trumpet at my studio in S.F.
6.Split
It
I was over at
Peter's house, lamenting that I didn't have any new songs worth recording. He
gave me some encouragement probably knowing there was no advice other than just
getting busy. While we were talking I played the chord figure of this song's
intro. I figured I needed everything I came up with then, so I finished the
tune. Each section modulates up, leading to the chorus, adding louder
instruments as it goes. Gene dialed in a overly limited electric guitar sound
by pushing all the buttons in on his 1176. Joe played Dave's harpsichord, which
I tuned (tedious). Sometimes the string plucker would get stuck after playing a
note, as it did during the intro. The Coles ribbon mic was best on the harpsichord.
7.Circles
This reminds me of
the instrumentation a Small Faces track. Dennis dealt a straight up Kenny Jones
drum fill, very loud as well. I dubbed the backing vocals from the demo version,
featured on Yellow Pills vol. 4. Gene offered his '63 Stratocaster, which
sounded great through the Vibrolux, and was used on most of the other basic
tracks. The rock-pop songs on Wood and Wire were mixed through Pye limiters.
They sounded good/bad, like AM radio, an exciting sound, so I went with it. The
others were heavily subjected to NTP compressors, all raising an eyebrow on my
mastering engineer Mike Romanowski.
8.Love
This was the last
of the basic tracks we did, and by that time, Dave and Joe had both gone home.
It went down in a take or two. Joe overdubbed electric piano, some of my
favorite stuff he did on the record. We did so many songs in such little time,
I'd lost my voice by the time I had to sing the high parts! I resung this in S.F.
into my C12a with a v72 preamp and the Voce EVC-1 tube compressor. This is my
only song released so far to employ the word "Thee."
9.I
Can See
Originally I
planned to record this album on digital, so I could overdub things back in my
studio. The airline lost the ADATs I brought, and took forever to deliver them
once they were found. We got the studio set up, and we were ready to track but
had no tape machines. Gene had one reel of 2" analog left, so we used
that, at 15ips, in order to get going.
CVS
explains the obvious while Gene takes a little break
We started with
this song, and when I heard how good the first playback sounded I knew I was going
to have to make the whole album on 24 track analog, and take it easy on the
overdubs. The low end bump of the tape machine and the fact we were tuned down
one semitone made it especially heavy sounding. This was the only song of the
bunch that had an edit. The outro from take one was cut onto take two. The kick
drum gets slightly louder after the edit.
The Crumar
Orchestrator and a slide guitar played with an e-bow through a crybaby wah-wah
gave the psychedelic tinge I desired, along with mixing the whole mix through
an Eventide Instant Phaser.
10.Like
Me That Way
Richard X. Heyman
was referred to me on my first recording trip to New York. I went to his
apartment in lower Manhattan, talked about music, then stepped out to buy cat
food. He wore earplugs to shut out the cacophony of the streets. Soon after, we
cabbed over to the studio with his drums and Nancy joined us with her bass.
Richard came up with an interesting pattern that involved hitting the snare
three different ways within each measure.
11.Got
A Way With Her
This is a
sentimental lyric that goes awry toward the end. Like "The Most Beautiful
Girl" meets "The Rubber Room." Some of the lowest notes I've
sung on record. Tracking at 15ips without Dolby gets noisy during the quiet
sections, like the first verse of this song. A question is if I should have
turned off the vibrato for the guitar solo. Dave's organ solo is a good example
of the approach we took in making choices when tracking live, to keep things
simple.
12.Feel
A second, more
successful attempt at getting this song. The EastSide version was nearly good
enough until I heard us play it in Hoboken. I snuck the Les Paul solo in at the
last minute, long past Gene's closing time. Pete, having known this song for
couple years, had some melodic parts worked out for bass, playing through an
Ampeg B-15. Dennis snapped photos.
zoom big
Preparing
to track "Feel" at Jolly Roger Recording
The out of tune
upright piano gives Joe's gospel styling the sound of a Shakey's pizza parlor.
I had to insist to Dave that a major 6th note over the minor chord in his solo
was the kind of mistake I was looking for. I'd first considered making this the
title track.
13.The
End
The most American
sounding track of the album, it's one of my favorites. To best match the feel
of the existing track, I sang and played Gene's Gibson D-50 at the same time
for the overdub. The chords and sections are different throughout the song.
Since we had never played these songs before the moment we were to record them,
each tune went through a metamorphosis as it was rehearsed.
Straight off it
might be raggedy, barely getting through the chord changes, and then get
melodic, spacious and loose. Eventually it becomes cerebral and methodical, and
creative musicians will get familiar with the changes and tend to overplay.
When producing this
album, I sought to keep the take that captured everyone, myself included, in
the discovery period, where we were just starting to get comfortable with some
part we'd come up with, before it turned into jamming.