Nashville Sounds

Tonight, I was planning on a night at home of relative boredom and perhaps a viewing of the Apprentice, but my friend Joseph called me and offered an extra ticket to a Nashville Sounds game. Since I have been in Nashville for more than ten months now and still not successfully been to a Sounds game, I thought I'd give it a go.

As it turned out, it was $1 beer night so that made it all the more exciting once I was in the gates. However, the unseasonable cold, threatening rain and poor play by the Sounds certainly put a damper on the game. That didn't stop me from enjoying a few beers, a ballpark hotdog and some roasted peanuts. Fifty-five degrees on April 28 is just too darn cold for the South. Like I said, the Sounds didn't play so hot, giving up five runs in the first inning, but it was certainly nice to get out to a ballpark again. I'll definitely have to take more advantage of the minor league club here in town. It beats sitting around in my apartment watching the idiot box.

Sideways

I finally got to watch Sideways tonight. It was a pretty great movie directed by Alexander Payne. I really like his work a lot. I was first exposed to his darkly comedic style through Election but I have to say that my favorite work of his at this point is About Schmidt.

Sideways follow to men played by Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church as they travel to the California wine valley for a last hurrah before Church's character is to get married. Giamatti's character is a depressed writer who loves wine and wants the perfect experience while Church's only wants to party. Both actors shine under Payne's direction and I felt that I could relate to some of the uneasiness and self-doubt of the characters.

About halfway through, I couldn't help but think that this is like the movie Swingers except that it's characters are at middle age instead of mid-to-late twenties. It was a very funny movie yet darkly so at times. And of course it had the now patented Alexander Payne style ending.

Since I'm not much of a movie reviewer, I'd say just take my word for it, but if you want a review that will give plot details, check out the Filthy Critic. He gave it four out of five fingers which is a rarity to say the least. Whatever you do, don't give up on it if you feel that it is starting too slow and isn't going anywhere. That is typical of Payne's style, but trust me, it is worth the wait.

Isn't It Ironic?

As I was spell checking my last post, I noticed something very funny about the blogger.com spell checker: it doesn't know the word "blog." Even Alanis Morisette couldn't get confused about that irony!

Recording Overdub Sessions

So today, I went back to the studio to continue working on yesterday's project. Since all of the full band basic tracks were cut yesterday, all that was left was guitar overdubs and vocals. So at 10:00 this morning I got to the studio and started prepping for the session. Then the guitarist came in and we started talking. He was a really nice guy by the name of Gary Talley. Fett, my boss, had told me before that Gary had been in a band in the 60's called the Box Tops and they had a hit record. I had never heard of it, but when I asked my dad this evening if he had ever heard of the Box Tops, he immediately started singing "The Letter," the Box Tops biggest hit. So that really made it sink in that I got to record overdubs with someone who has had a moderate deal of success in the biz.

Today, Fett let me engineer all of the guitar overdubs which was a little intimidating. Typically a musician will not get an entire song right in one take because they are only human and they make mistakes. So then it is the engineer's job to play the song back and put the tape machine into and out of record mode at just the right time so that the musician can fix the few incorrect notes. The trouble with it is that it can be very hard to hit those "punch-ins" at just the right time so there is risk of starting too early or late and erasing something that you don't want to. Of course engineers make mistakes too and I made one this morning, but that is not too bad considering it was only one bad punch in four hours. Plus when Fett tried to make the same punch, he screwed it up as well! So it was a tough one.

All in all it was a good experience this weekend and hopefully I will get to enjoy many more. I mean look how happy I am in the picture. And by the way, don't let the size of the console fool you. The Yamaha O2R96 does just as much as this console and this one, it's just all digital and pretty efficiently organized. Leave it to the Japanese to put so much power in such a small device.

The Engineer (3rd Time's The Charm!)

First Professional Recording Session

Today I took part in my first official recording session in an operating studio. It was quite an interesting affair especially because of how things are done in Nashville. Most of the music I listen to is indie rock or pop rock and is typically recorded by a band that has been playing together for at least a little while. They occasionally hire extra musicians to add string accompaniment or addition instrumentation that the band can't play themselves.

Well, Nashville and country music in general, operates in an entirely different way. Country music is driven by singers and sometimes the occasional singer/songwriter. Typically, the singer chooses from songs pitched to them by songwriters eager to make money in publishing but not performing music. Check out any current/contemporary country album and you will not see many songs sung by the artist on the cover. They buy their material from someone and they usually don't have a band so they also have to hire one to record.

So the band is hired and comes in and a lot of them have worked together before but sometimes there is a new session musician around. Like today, my boss had never worked with the drummer he used before, but you'd never know it from the way they worked together. So these musicians come in and set up their equipment and then start listening to the song demos that they will be recording. All of the songs are written up in Nashville specific sheet music form called the Nashville Number System. All of the players sit around and listen to the song a couple of times, make a few notes on their song charts and then assume their positions in the recording studio. After a dry run or two, they do one or two takes and move on to the next song! I learned about all this stuff while I was in school but it is something to see. I guess in a music factory like Nashville, it is the most efficient way to do things, but I don't know if I really agree with it. It takes the creative energy of a band out of it but since these musicians all know each other and work together very frequently, I guess it is similar. But it is amazing to record six songs in eight hours. Most rock and roll projects take a minimum of a week to record twelve to fifteen songs.

It was a very fun experience and I even got the opportunity to sit in the engineer chair for one of the songs. That means that I was actually operating the tape machine and mixing console so it was on me if something didn't get recorded right. Most of the day, I was in the position of second engineer typically swapping out microphones, keeping track of paperwork and helping out the musicians when they needed something. I have to say that I did a pretty good job though because I pretty much anticipated everything that anyone needed and was already in the process of doing it before they asked. So hopefully this will be the beginning of a long relationship with Azalea Studios and that I can learn a lot and take this knowledge out on my own someday. All in all, it was pretty satisfying but quite a long tiring day. Tomorrow, it's back to the studio to record vocals and I'll be running the board a lot more for that!