Dear y'all,

Very sorry to have left you all sitting and wondering what the hell happened to us…I know you’ve been checking this page diligently every day for the past year, or in some cases dozens of times a day, hoping and praying for an update…hitting the “Refresh” button over and over until your fingers are raw and bleeding…wailing “Why oh why can’t the Aviation Blondes update their blog?? WHY GOD WHY???” before passing out in an alcoholic stupor...another bleak, gray day without an ABs blog update having mercifully come to an end.

So a lot has happened since our last entry! Let’s hit the highlights:

• MAY-JUNE ’09: We mixed the CD.

• JULY-AUGUST ’09: We had it mastered by West Coast engineer extraordinaire John Cuniberti, formerly of the legendary Record Plant in Sausalito, CA (Google it). John took our humble mixes and made them sound stellar.

• MAY-SEPTEMBER ’09: We established a relationship with Get Hip Records to release the CD on Pittsburgh’s great garage-rock indie label. (No small feat considering that we are not a garage-rock band…)

• SEPTEMBER ’09: Our drummer Dave Klug designed a beautiful CD cover package, basing a theme around a cool mod-ish illustration by his friend John Ritter.

• OCTOBER ’09: We had the CD manufactured at DiskMakers in New Jersey and had them delivered in time for our release party.

• NOVEMBER ’09: In the days leading up to the release, we went 3-for-3 with feature articles in all of Pittsburgh's main print outlets – the Post-Gazette, Tribune-Review, and City Paper:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09316/1012674-388.stm
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/ae/s_652706.html
http://www.pittsburghcitypaper.ws/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A71469

• OCTOBER-NOVEMBER ’09: Our intrepid Merchandise Committee (Jen and Dave) oversaw the design and manufacture of the 2010 Aviation Blondes Product Line: a standard white T-shirt, two kinds of women’s tees (tank and babydoll), and the ultrafashionable black skully cap with AB logo on one side and Aviation Blondes written on the other.

• NOVEMBER 14, ’09: OUR DEBUT CD "EDGE OF FOREVER" RELEASED ON GET HIP RECORDINGS (GH-1155CD). The release party was at the Rex Theater and was a blast.

• FEBRUARY ’10 and APRIL ’10: Further shows at the Rex.

• APRIL 5, ’10: The Pittsburgh Pirates featured our song "Catch and Release" at the home opener to kick off their new "local band inning" series. The idea originated when their in-game entertainment manager saw us at the Arts Fesival last summer and dug us. So we got pride of place as the first band featured.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=1218423&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=34918503849&aid=-1&id=1242572657

• PRESENT: Writing songs. New songs include: “Just a Little Now,” “Watch Me Drown,” “(Does Anybody Still Want) A Rock ’n Roll Girl,” and “Great Big Battle,” and several more are in the works as we start thinking about recording our follow-up CD.

Whew, that’s just the highlights! I didn’t even get into the really juicy stuff…things that could get us thrown in jail and, in Daryl's case, deported. I’ll have to save that for next time.

In the meantime, you can listen to the CD for free if you haven’t heard it yet, here:
http://www.myspace.com/aviationblondes
and if you like what you hear, you can buy it here:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/AviationBlondes
or
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/edge-forever/id340755157
or
other online outlets that I'm too lazy to link to.

More updates soon, promise.

Recording report: 4/15/09 "Don't Look Down" horn section

We ended our recording project—the tracking part, anyway—on a high note last night with a stellar guest appearance on “Don't Look Down” by the horn section from The Metropolitans: Rocco Pacella (trumpet), Jonny Franks (tenor and soprano sax) and Mike Dely (bass trombone).

I caught a lift out to Joe's with Jason and we talked a little in the car about our strategy for recording them. I had done some reading about different ways to record horns and was thinking we should just keep it simple and use dynamic mics (SM57s) for the trumpet and trombone, and maybe one of the condenser mics for the saxes. The reason being that according to my reading, saxophones, which are woodwind instruments, generate a more harmonically complex sound than brass instruments and sound better when recorded through a mic that captures all those little details in the sound—in other words, you would want to use the kind of mic that you would use for recording vocals. Brass, on the other hand, generates a big, assertive tone that can sound harsh when recorded through condenser mics and actually sounds better through more basic mics like 57s or 58s. Or at least that's the conventional wisdom.

Rocco and Jonny arrived first. The plan was to start off by recording the soprano sax by itself, then record the other three parts together once Mike got there (he had to drive in from Newcastle). After we talked for a bit and went over the charts, it occurred to Jonny that he and Rocco should record their parts together, because those two instruments were paired up in the charts for most of the song, either playing in harmony or the same melody in some spots. Likewise the other two parts, the tenor sax and trombone, were paired up for a lot of the song so it would make sense to record them together, too.

The microphone issue was resolved by Jonny's clip-on mic, which he uses live and has used for recording with The Metropolitans. It sounded good on the track and so we didn't need to bust out one of the big condensers. Rocco played into one of the dynamic mics. They tuned up using the software tuner on Joe's Mac and then we “rolled tape.”

Horn players amaze me. Not just the physical difficulty of playing those instruments well, but the sight-reading aspect of it, also. All trained musicians who can sight-read impress me and make me a little jealous. I come from the world of rock 'n roll, the garage, where people sort of teach themselves how to play their instruments and sort of learn how to make up songs, and everything is verbal: you say “play this chord” and show the guitar player, and “play this beat” to the drummer, and off you go. Nothing is written down. Many, if not most, rock musicians have no idea how to read music. Which is fine—in rock 'n roll you don't really need to. I can read a little, out of necessity, but I can't sight-read and play something right off the page like these guys, or Jen, can. I have to stare at the sheet music and think about what each note is and eventually I get it. Wouldn't be much use onstage or in a recording session!

When I charted the horn parts for this song I was greatly aided by software, which allowed me to enter the notes one at a time and match them up correctly, make sure the transpositions were correct for the different instruments, and—most importantly—to be able to play it back as audio to make sure I was translating the notes in my head onto the page in a way that made musical sense. That playback feature had left me feeling pretty confident that I'd made usable charts that would make sense to the players, but I still didn't know for sure until the session. Luckily it worked out fine and everyone seemed to be able to read off their charts without any problems. There were maybe a couple notes a little bit outside the comfortable range of the trumpet and the trombone, which a more experienced horn arranger would have avoided, but they were able to hit them. I felt quite pleased with myself.

Rocco and Jonny knocked out their parts quickly. Since the horns only play in certain places in the song, we went through section by section and recorded each chunk, then jumped ahead to the next spot. The advantage of having guys who are used to playing together was immediately obvious. They were spot on, perfectly in time, in tune and together. There were a few places where I needed to clarify a rhythm or a cadence, and I only had to explain once and they got it. Once we got started, we were able to tear through the whole song in a matter of minutes, with me “conducting” by waving a sharpie in the air like an idiot. They played the parts perfectly and even did swells where I had indicated on the sheet music. True pros!

Once we had the soprano sax and trumpet recorded we had a few minutes to kill before Mike arrived so we played with Joe's amazing new acquisition—a theremin! I've never seen one up close before and it is just the freakiest damn thing you've ever seen. It's controlled completely by moving your hands in the air near a couple of metal parts—you never actually touch anything. The left hand controls volume and the right hand controls pitch. I have no idea how it works but it is damn cool. Joe is determined to learn to actually play it as a musical instrument, which apparently is difficult but possible.

Mike arrived and started warming up. He plays a bass trombone, which has a nice low, rich tone. It was obvious just from listening to him warm up that he's an exceptional player so I felt bad that his part was so monotonous. It's mostly just one note played in a simple pattern, over and over. In retrospect I could have taken better advantage of having a good trombone player to work with than the way I charted it. Especially since he drove all the way from Newcastle. Still, simple as the part is, it is crucial to the arrangement and the song would have suffered without it. Huge thanks, Mike!

Jonny busted out the tenor sax, which is what he plays in The Metropolitans, and we recorded their parts together just as quickly as we had done the other two. I got to play conductor again, clarifying the rhythm of a few things by waving my sharpie. I’m sure I looked like a dork but I really found that quite a thrill. I got to conduct! Maybe I'll have to start calling myself a “composer” instead of a “songwriter”...just kidding, I’m not that pretentious. I will, however, require my bandmates to start calling me “Maestro.”

Before we knew it, we were done. Quick and easy. We listened to the playback and let me just tell you right now, these guys completely transformed the song. I can't believe how good it sounds now. It really sounds, to me at least, like a soul record from the early 70s, which is what I was going for but didn't know if we could pull it off. I'm just over the moon. Can't wait to mix it and let everyone hear it.

Really was a pleasure to work with these guys. They have that rapport where they constantly abuse each other and give each other a hard time, but it's hilarious.

Thanks again, fellas. We owe you.

Recording report: 4/8/09

The session last night – our next to last – was quick and fun. Just some final backup vocals by Ronda Zegarelli, Scott Bedillion, Lexi, and me. Once again the redoubtable Joe Stile manned the controls.

Scott had heard “Edge of Forever” for the first time just that afternoon and had been immediately struck with an idea that no one else had thought of: a layer of “la la la’s” under all the other voices who were singing the lyrics. It was a solid idea and it worked really well. So there’s now yet another layer to the big chorus on the end of the song. Scott has a very rich, pleasant voice with great pitch control, and he banged out two tracks in one take each, boom.

Ronda, to my delight, brought her “A” game and absolutely sang her ass off. She wailed full-throttle in that blues/gospel style of hers and literally shook the room. Seriously. Her voice is so powerful the whole room was actually vibrating…things were falling off tables…I think I lost a couple fillings. Just amazing and gorgeous. That was the finishing touch the song needed. All the other singers did great, and I’m very happy with what they contributed, but there was still that missing ingredient of someone really taking it home, going for broke, testifying and improvising with total abandon over top of everything else – someone who just happens to have a killer voice. Think Merry Clayton on “Gimme Shelter.” Ronda did a better job than I ever could have hoped for and now the song really feels complete.

Scott and Ronda both had places to go and left when they were finished, which left me and Joe sitting there staring at each other. I thought I would use the time to finish up my last thing, a backup vocal for “Don’t Look Down.” It’s an easy part – I just double Jen on the verse and part of the chorus, an octave lower. Got it done just as Lexi arrived.

All Lexi had to do was a portion of her backup vocal for “Don’t Look Down” that had been left dangling from one of the sessions a while back. At that session I had thrown her a curve ball by asking her to sing the melody slightly differently from how she’d been doing it, which can be a daunting thing when you’re used to singing something a certain way. Tonight I’d taken the extra step, before Lexi got there, of singing it myself as a scratch track for her to reference, but as it turned out I sang it wrong myself (!) – so that was pointless. Luckily Lexi didn’t need my help – she’d been practicing the part in her car and knew it backwards and forwards. She sounded great – the notes are down in the lower part of her range where her voice sort of purrs. Joe commented that we would have been happy to listen to her do about 20 more takes, but sadly she hit it perfectly the first time.

So there’s nothing left now to record except the horn section for “Don’t Look Down,” which is scheduled for next Wednesday. We’ll be joined by Rocco Pacella, Jonny Franks and Mike Dely from The Metropolitans. Very excited about that. I’ve never recorded a horn section before and neither has Jason or Joe, but I’ve been doing some reading and am starting to get an idea how to approach it. And Rocco said they can help advise us on how to record them, so I’m not worried. I can’t wait to hear how "Don't Look Down" sounds with the horns. Probably the most important ingredient of the song apart from Jen’s vocal.

Only one session left! But then there’s all the mixdown work to do, which will also be chronicled here, so don’t worry – this blog isn’t going away anytime soon. Even if some of you were hoping it would!

luv,
SM

Recording report: 4/5/09 “The Edge of Forever” group vocals

We had a good time on Sunday recording a whole slew of backup vocals for “The Edge of Forever” – me, Daryl, and a cast of thousands. OK, well, six, but it sounds like thousands. In addition to Lexi and Jen’s existing tracks, we added Daryl’s part and mine to complete the core band vocals, then added guest performances by John Young, Mike Moran, Seth Andrew, Tim Pollock, Steve Seel, and Marc Turina. So that’s ten voices on the song so far, with as many as nine more we still might add (though more likely just a few – more on that below). It’s already starting to sound like the cast of a musical…it just has that slightly theatrical “large number of men and women singing!” kind of vibe. Which is want I wanted – I don’t mean that as a negative. It sounds great.

I got there before everybody else so I could spend a little time and get my part right. Apparently I was having a good singing day (which is kind of like a good hair day, only with less hair and more, um…singing…) because I did my whole part in one pass and then added a little extra thing I wanted to retain from the demo, plus a harmony of it on top. So I did three tracks all within about 30 minutes, which is fast for me.

John and Mike arrived and were both commendably well prepared. We had two mics set up so everyone could have the option of recording in pairs—helpful for making people feel less pressure and getting twice the work done in the same amount of time. There was enough separation between the two mics that bleed was minimal, though there is some, of course; but for the most part each voice will have its own track. Not that it matters all that much – these tracks are all part of a big chorus sound so it’s not crucial that any one part be perfect on its own…we’re going for a net effect. It does make a difference when everyone sings well, though, and everyone did. Anyway, John and Mike chose to sing simultaneously and they had both obviously thought about and rehearsed their parts. They both went low – Mike singing the bass, sticking close to the low B, the root; and John starting a third above that. So they created a nice, low, manly harmony to complement the higher, warmer female harmony of Lexi and Jen. Immediately the end choruses took on a much fuller, more satisfying sound.

Daryl and Seth arrived just as John and Mike were finishing up, and Tim walked in a few minutes later. We decided to do Daryl’s part first. Even though he’d never sung on this song before, he knows it well enough that his part came easily. His role in the band’s vocal arrangements is often to double Lexi down an octave, and in this case his voice just went there instinctively. Someone remembered that he needed to be on the middle chorus too (unlike all the guest vocals, which are only on the end choruses), so we got that done and now the middle chorus sounds just right. Daryl got his part done fast, too, so we were establishing a good pace. I had been wondering how quickly we’d be able to work with all these guest singers, but everything ran smoothly and everybody knocked out their parts like pros.

By now most of the obvious harmony slots were spoken for, so we weren’t sure if there were any unique notes left for anyone to sing. I suggested (and Seth, listening closely, confirmed) that the only place left to go was the fifth, with the middle F# as the starting note. We sat with an acoustic guitar and mapped it out. In the end Tim and Seth decided to start on the same note but diverge on the 3rd chord, then come back together at the end. It sounded a little odd as they sang because when they diverged (warning: geeky music theory ahead) they were briefly singing a major 7th interval (Tim on low A, Seth on middle G#), which totally works when it’s blended in with all the other voices, but by itself sounds kind of strange. Seth was wondering if he was hitting the note wrong, and I assured him that he was hitting it perfectly – it was just that that interval, when sung correctly, should sound strange in exactly that way. In addition, what Tim was doing was kind of impressive: he had to let go of the main harmony note and drop an octave very suddenly to hit the bass note, then pop back up just as suddenly to hit the last few notes with Seth. That low A was the only thing missing harmonically and eagle-ear Tim spotted it and filled it. Like audio spackling! Tim is pretty amazing. Seth is no slouch either – they’re two very musically smart people who can sing, and they both did a great job.

So with Tim and Seth’s parts recorded, the group vocals were now really sounding nice and full. From this point forward, since there were no more unique harmony notes to sing, it would be a question of the rest of the singers either mirroring an existing part or “thinking outside the box” and coming up with something unique. Marc and Steve both went the more creative route, making up their own parts that will help sort of glue everything together and make all the voices sound more unified. It’s hard to explain what I mean by that without sitting with you with a guitar and listening to the song and actually showing you – but the crux of it is that to create a satisfying group vocal sound, you don’t want everybody singing the exact same parts in exactly the same way. You want some variety. You don’t want them all taking a breath in exactly the same spot. And so on. You want different, but complementary, patterns and rhythms. All hopefully on key, of course, but with lots of natural, human variations that taken together create a satisfying whole.

So what Steve did was start on the middle harmony (my part) but keep climbing at the halfway point instead of dropping as I had, and then in the second half double the lead vocal (Lexi’s part). So in other words he began by singing along with me but ended singing along with Lexi. It worked really nicely. Steve was in good voice and sang quite sweetly, and when we listened to the playback his voice nestled in among the others in a very organic way.

Next up was Marc. Marc is a bass player and came up with a cool sort of up-and-down melody, bouncing contrapuntally between two notes much as a bass guitar would. As with Steve’s part, they’re all notes that were already being sung by others, but not in that specific rhythm, so it added a new textural layer that gives the harmonies more “movement,” as Joe approvingly put it. So it’s a part that stands out, yet blends. Perfect!

Speaking of Joe Stile—a/k/a The Man To Whom We Are Increasingly In Debt, or if you prefer, the unpronounceable acronym “TMTWWAIID”—Joe did a great job at the helm and offered lots of good advice that helped us make smart choices about the vocal arrangement. Not to mention giving up his whole Sunday afternoon to hang out with a bunch of nerdy guys and a notable absence of hot women, which Joe is ordinarily surrounded by. So thank you, TMTWWAIID!

There were a number of people we invited who weren’t able to make it on Sunday and at least a couple of them will be recording with us this Wednesday. Scott Bedillion, the distinctive voice of Seven Color Sky, will be further sweetening the mix, which we’re very excited about. We’re also excited that the one and only Ronda Zegarelli will be bringing her magic to the song as well. Ronda sings like no one else and I can’t overstate how happy I am that she’s going to contribute to our CD. Our producer/engineers Jason Fisher and Joe Stile, too, of The Borderless Puzzle fame, have been invited to sing on this song and hopefully will be adding their tracks any time now. Hint. :P

There are a few others who have been invited to sing on “Edge of Forever” as well, who we’re still holding out hopes for, but who I won’t pressure by naming here. You know who you are! There is still time to make arrangments, but not much. We are shutting this operation down very soon and relocating for the mixdown to Fisher House, the Swissvale estate of Jen, Jason, and Lucy Fisher. It is there, in an underground cave, that strange alchemical phenomena takes place that results in psychedelic audio bliss so intense that the military has approached the Fishers with lucrative DoD contracts – Radio Halliburton, if you will.

And if I’m writing sentences like that, it means I’m delirious from hunger and need to go eat.

Till next time.

xo,
-Steve

Recording report: 3/25/09

Some new recording activity to report on today. Daryl finished all his backup vocals last night and Dave added extra percussion to “Don’t Look Down.” That means 5 of the 7 songs are completely tracked and ready to mix.

Daryl did backup vocals for “Pretend,” “The Stranger in You,” and “Catch and Release.” He has a deep voice and thus provides the bass anchor on choruses and other places where we do 4-part vocal arrangements. There are actually a lot of places throughout these songs where all four people in the band who sing (Lexi, Jen, Daryl, and me) are all singing at once - more than I thought. There is a lot of singing on this CD in general - I think that’s going to be one of the main impressions people will have right away when they hear the finished product. It already sounds quite striking in the raw, unmixed tracks. We're definitely a singing kind of band. Some bands are shy about singing. Not us!

“Pretend” only has Daryl singing on two lines in the bridge, so that took about a minute. “Stranger” features Daryl’s voice solo on the second verse and then all the choruses from that point on. He hasn’t been singing on the choruses when we’ve played the song live, so we had to take a minute and figure out exactly what his part is. We determined that it’s basically a mirror of Lexi’s part, an octave lower. Daryl picked it up quickly and knocked it out. That just left “Catch and Release,” which Daryl has never sung before, but again he picked it up quickly. On this one his part is a mirror of my harmony vocal, an octave lower. Every chorus on this song has different lyrics so I wrote some of it down for Daryl to refer to as he sang, and he did a nice job of matching all the eccentric phrasing of the various choruses.

So now that his voice is on the tracks, the final vocal ingredient is in place and there’s a complete, full-band sound to the songs.

Dave came in to add some tambourine and shaker to “Don’t Look Down” and arrived just as Daryl was finishing up. There was some discussion about which parts of the song needed what. Dave and Jason settled on a system where the tambourine and shaker alternate sections so that for the most part they’re never playing simultaneously on the same part of the song. So the prechorus has shaker, the chorus has tambourine, the bridge has both, and the verse has neither. Being a drummer, Dave had no trouble maintaining the rhythm even though there was a lot of fast 16th-note stuff going on. Percussion is harder than people realize, especially tambourine. You really have to be able to maintain an even rhythm because those high frequencies cut right through the mix, so discrepancies or little variations really stick out. And it’s tiring to the arm, too. But Dave nailed it in one or two takes, pro that he is. I think the additional percussion adds a nice new layer to the song, really brightens it up.

A week from Sunday is our big guest vocal session for “Edge of Forever.” We’re inviting pretty much everybody we know who can sing (plus some who can’t). Should be fun. I have to figure out how organized or disorganized that will be. Probably better if it has some structure instead of a big free-for-all…we’ll see. Also coming soon is a session with the horn section from The Metropolitans (Rocco, Jonny and Michael) who have agreed to add their magic to “Don’t Look Down.”

So we’re really getting close to being finished with tracking. Just in time for the nice weather, too. Life is good.

Blondes on the radio

There’s a little bit of a lull in band activity this week, since last night’s recording session was cancelled due to illness (me), exhaustion (Daryl), and plain ol’ unavailability (Jen). We’ll be back at it next week.

HOWEVER, the big news of the moment is that tomorrow (3/20/09) morning at 9:05 a.m., WYEP guest DJ Rege Behe is going to play our song "Don't Look Down" on the air. Even though it’s only my demo of the song and not the final band version, no one is complaining. This will be officially our first radio airplay anywhere ever, so it is a milestone. If not a moment for champagne, then at least really good beer. Later in the day, that is…not at 9:05 a.m.

So tune in to WYEP 91.3 FM, or if you’re not near a radio tomorrow morning, you can also listen online at the station’s website:

www.wyep.org

Our show last Saturday night went really well, by the way. Especially considering how long it’s been since we’ve played out. It was mostly a Seven Color Sky crowd of course, since it was their CD release party, but there was a healthy contingent of our peeps there as well. Good fun. SCS sounded great. Our new stage look seemed to go over very well. Lots of compliments about how good we looked. I could get used to that.

Update: Blondes are live again

Just a quick update to say we’ve started rehearsals for our upcoming gig with Seven Color Sky, so we’ll be laying off recording for the next two weeks. We just have a few sessions more to complete the remaining odds and ends and then we can start mixing. I’m hoping to get the CD mixed, mastered, and shipped off for duplication by late April.

It felt good to play together as a band again on Sunday. First time we’ve all been in the same room and playing music since November. It’s been way too long.

I think the recording process has helped us as a live band. When you record, you put everything under the microscope and can really figure out what’s working and what isn’t. Sometimes little problems aren’t apparent at regular band practice, just a vague sense that something doesn’t sound quite right…and then at the recording session you say “Ah ha!—there’s the problem.” After all the recording we’ve been doing, we’re all playing and singing our parts with more precision than we did before. I think right now we sound just about the best we’ve ever sounded. Everybody seems really pumped to do a show—I know I am.

So our long break from live shows is finally at an end and I couldn’t be happier about it. I want to do at least one show a month from now on. More, of course, when a really cool tour offer comes along…which I expect to happen any day now. :D

Recording report: 2/25/09

In attendance: Jen, Lexi, Rod, Steve. Engineer: Joe

Still more good progress - Jen knocked out all her remaining keyboard parts on Wednesday night. We're getting close to the finish line now. We tracked keyboards for four songs: "Catch and Release," "Don't Look Down," "Pretend," and "Edge of Forever." Jen was well rehearsed and played with a lot of focus and energy. Now the songs really sound like the Aviation Blondes.

Jason decided to stay home drinking with Lucy again this week, so engineering duties were in the capable hands of Joe Stile.

Joe set things up so that we could record audio and midi simultaneously. For the layman, that means we recorded the literal sound of what Jen was playing like any other audio track you'd record, but at the same time we also captured the neutral digital information of the notes she played, velocity and other data, so that if we want to use a different sound - any sound at all - we can change the parts she played to any sound we want when we mix. We haven't decided yet whether we're going to take a more purist attitude, i.e. that the CD should sound as much like the live band as possible, therefore we should use exactly the same keyboard sound Jen would play live; or whether we should take advantage of the ability to use some other sound, for example a really lush piano or strings. It's sort of hard to explain if you're not familiar with the digital music world, but basically, on the computer we have access to samples and sounds that aren't programmed into Jen's actual keyboard, if that makes any sense. Anyway, we'll save that debate for another day. In the meantime, we got really good performances out of Jen and that's the important thing.

Sorry this entry is a little short - I think I burned myself out writing some of those super-long ones.

So at this stage we're going to take a little break from recording so we can rehearse for our show on March 14. We recently booked two more shows - April 24 at the Doublewide and May 23 at the Thunderbird. So we're about to become a fully active band again, FINALLY. Freakin' hallelujah.

Recording report: 2/18/09

A workmanlike session last night. Got stuff done. We re-recorded the bass for “Edge of Forever” in the new key, finished the lead vocal on “Edge” and did a couple miscellaneous backup-vocal parts. Now we just have to do keyboards on four songs, all of Daryl’s vocals, and a few other odds and ends. We’ve stuck to the schedule pretty well so I’m pleased.

One drawback to this blog is that I started writing it after we had already recorded rhythm tracks (drums and bass) for all the songs, so Dave and Rod haven’t figured into the narrative much. So it was a nice change of pace last night to get Rod in to finish up his one loose end. He did a good job on a pretty tricky part. It’s a high melodic bass line sort of in the style of Peter Hook of New Order. Once he conquered the main part, Rod also added a second, lower, bass part to fill out those frequencies and give us more options in the mix. That was a head’s up idea. I had done that in the demo but probably wouldn’t have remembered to suggest it now.

Next I did a couple backup vocals for “Pretend” and “Catch and Release.” Easy enough. I only sing a little bit at the end of “Pretend” so that didn’t take long, and “Catch and Release” is also pretty easy when I remember the words. Every chorus is different on that song so I had to stop a bunch of times to refresh my memory.

Finally, Lexi did the lead vocal for the choruses of “Edge of Forever.” She had recorded all the verses in a previous session. As we decided a few weeks ago, we broke the chorus into two parts to allow for easier breath control. Got it done and now that the bass is finished too, that song is really starting to come into focus.

Big thanks once again to Joe for taking over at the board while Jason took a well-earned break.

Next Wednesday will be Keyboard Night, Jen’s schedule permitting. Can’t wait to add that very important ingredient to the four newer songs.

Recording report: 2/11/09

It was the Daryl and Steve show at stately Stile Manor last night, with the two of us recording guitars for “Don’t Look Down” and backup vocals for “Crash and Burn” and Daryl doing his solos on “The Edge of Forever.”

Very pleased with our progress. At this point we only need three more sessions to complete all the basic recording work. Then it will just be a few miscellaneous overdubs and on to the mix. We’re on pace to wrap this up in April.

After 2/25 we’ll be putting recording aside for a couple weeks to start rehearsing for our gig on March 14th, when we will be opening up for Seven Color Sky at Club Café. I can’t even tell you how excited I am to play a show after all this time. No actually, I can tell you: I’m excited to play a show after all this time.

Now for you diehard recording geeks, what you've all been waiting for, the agonizingly detailed rundown on last night’s session:

Daryl started off with his octave guitar part on “Don’t Look Down.” He kept it simple and played the part straight, no frills. That means it will just be a solid, useful track that will serve its purpose in the song and we won’t have to fuss with it. Then he recorded a second, more improvisational, part with some nice fills and licks, the idea being that we won’t use all of it but we can go to it here and there when we’re mixing the song and hit a place where a little guitar fill is needed. We’ll probably use some of it on the final chorus where the songs opens up a bit.

While the amp was still warm (Daryl brought the Mesa Boogie this time – sounded great), I went over and did my rhythm guitar part for the same song. I’m not actually sure how much of my guitar will make it into the final mix. I’ve always heard this song as being entirely keyboard and horn-led, with the only important guitar part being Daryl’s octave thing. But I recorded my part anyway just because I always play it live...we’ll see when we mix.

Then it was time for Daryl to lay down his solos on “Edge of Forever.” He set his amp for a bit of growl and he used his wah pedal to get that wild, slightly-out-of-control sound that the youngsters of today love. After doing a couple takes that I thought were solid but a little restrained, I encouraged Daryl to really open it up and let fly. He didn’t need to be told twice, as every take after that was more intense than the last. It was normal pentatonic blues-based lead guitar (which is what I like), just really good and really fast. Some of what he played sounded like Jimi Hendrix at his wildest. We’re going to have fun when we mix and use two or more tracks of Daryl’s solos, panning them left and right to get a kind of psychotic hard-rock meltdown feel as the song climaxes. It’s a long song and was built to have plenty of guitar improvisation, especially toward the end. Daryl really rose to the occasion and did some impressive work.

After that it was on to backup vocals. We had about an hour left, which was just enough time to do both of our parts for “Crash and Burn.” Daryl did two tracks, one where he sings the same melody as Lexi but an octave lower, and another where he just sings the low A note in a kind of drone. It adds an interesting effect and should make the whole vocal mix more fully rounded. I did my usual harmony part and got through it pretty quickly. It’s one of our older songs, written in the spring of 2006 shortly after the band got together, so singing it is second nature by now.

We listened to the playback of “Crash” with all the vocal tracks up, including all the doubled parts, and it was a kind of funny. There are a lot of vocals on this song! We will have to mix carefully. With all the vocal tracks up full-blast the chorus has an unintended Gregorian-chant quality. Pretty sure that is not what we were going for! It’s gonna sound good though, once we get it mixed.

Jason did his usual stellar work behind the board, i.e. behind Joe’s Mac-based digital audio workstation running Logic 8, a truly amazing program. I have a program on my PC called Sonar, which I love and am very loyal to, but I have to admit the latest version of Logic beats Sonar easily. This program can do things that are simply astonishing. And of course it helps to have a smart engineer/producer who knows how to run everything at maximum efficiency.

Next week: Rod plays bass on “Edge of Forever,” Lexi wraps up her vocal parts, and Steve warbles into the mic and tries to stay on key!

Recording report: 2/4/09

Great session last night starring Jen and Lexi, both of whom got a lot of good work done.

Have I mentioned what a joy it is to be in a band with these two women? Apart from being not hard to look at, they are both talented musicians and have great instincts for what to bring to a song. As I think I’ve mentioned before, the two of them have a strong connection when they sing that comes from having played in bands together for years, and their voices blend in a way that’s very distinctive and cool. Just a great sound.

Engineering/production duties were ably handled by Joe Stile while Jason was at home hanging out with Lucy Fisher. Joe recorded The Borderless Puzzle’s new CD (which is excellent, by the way) on this equipment so he was able to step in without a hitch. Like Jason, Joe has a knack for working with singers in a way that coaxes out the best performance without exhausting them. He got great work out of both of them last night.

Jen warmed up by laying down her backup vocal part for “Catch and Release.” It came quickly and she was able to match the phrasing of the lead vocal exactly. The only trouble spot came with the bridge – Jen was hitting the long trailing notes at the end of each line just fine, but something sounded off. We listened back to her track by itself, and her pitch was right on. We finally figured out that while both Lexi’s lead vocal and Jen’s backup part were on key, Lexi had used vibrato on the trailing notes and Jen was singing them straight-on. Normally that would be potentially a big problem – but Jen said, “OK, I’ll just vibrato it,” and she sang it again, exactly the same way but with just a little wiggle of vibrato at the end of each line. Now it matched Lexi’s vocal exactly and that slight oddness vanished – now it sounded great. Not many singers could do that so easily. Jen just shrugged and said, “I know how to channel Lexi.”

Her voice warmed up, Jen moved on to the lead vocal of “Don’t Look Down.” This song will be her biggest vocal showcase on the CD but that fact didn’t seem to rattle her at all – in fact she sang it in a very relaxed, easygoing manner that is perfect for the mood of the song. We talked about “groovy” soul records from the early 70s such as The Fifth Dimension, which is the general ballpark I was aiming for with this song. (I was thinking more Stylistics actually, but everybody keeps saying Fifth Dimension. Close enough.) Jen definitely “gets” this song and knocked the whole thing out in just a couple of takes. I think we worked on it for about 30 minutes start to finish, which is really quick for an entire lead vocal track. It sounds great and now we can start layering on the production. This is the one that I’m charting a horn section out for. I need to get on the ball and finish the charts because the time to schedule the horn players will be coming up soon and they’ll want some time to get familiar with the song before they come in.

Jen was on a roll now so we surged ahead to her co-lead vocal for “Pretend.” Completely different song than “Don’t Look Down” – this is a fast, clanging punk-pop song that sounds kind of like the early Jam. Just a fun blast of rock ’n roll. I’m really happy with the way the basic tracks have turned out. The guitars, bass and drums really have a raw, punky late-70s feel, which pleases me no end. (Kudos to Rod for writing this one.) By way of contrast with the backing tracks, the vocals have a sweet, girl-group quality. Lexi and Jen share the lead on this one, singing most of it in unison à la Bananarama, if Bananarama were better singers. Or maybe it sounds a little like Blondie…or a more rocking Pipettes. I don’t know. I just like it, whatever it sounds like. Jen banged this one out in about ½ hour as well, finishing it up just as Lexi arrived, so the timing was perfect.

At the session a couple weeks ago Lexi had requested that she not record her part for “Pretend” until she and Jen were there together. As she started working on her part I could see why – it was much easier to get the two performances in sync if they were both physically present in the room. With Jen’s track already laid down and in good shape, Lexi was able to match the phrasing exactly and we once again had a finished track very quickly.

“Pretend” got Lexi’s voice warmed up for “Edge of Forever,” which we had to start over on the lead vocal because we all forgot we changed the key after we did basic tracks. (I should say all of us forgot except Rod, but Rod hasn’t been to any of the recent sessions because he’s been busy at work.) At a vocal rehearsal at Jen’s house in November we raised the key up to B and all agreed that it sounded much stronger. The basic tracks were recorded at Rick’s in October in the key of A. We’d forgotten about that two weeks ago, and so we lost about an hour of Lexi’s work on the song from Jan. 21st. Not the end of the world, but I feel bad about wasting anybody’s time – we have to do so much schedule juggling to get together that every minute counts. At any rate, Lexi took the news like a soldier and got to work on singing it in the new key.

I could hear right away that the new key lends itself to a stronger vocal. Lexi had hit all the notes just fine when we had been recording in the lower key, but the lowest point of the melody went all the way down to the very bottom of her range and she wasn’t able to put much oomph into those notes. In the higher key, the whole melody is shifted more to the center of her range and just sounds better all-around. We stuck with the plan of recording the verses and choruses separately, and once again Lexi sang the verses very sweetly, with a lot of feeling. I can’t remember if she did just one take or two, but it wasn’t more than two. She did a really lovely job, as evidenced by how you could hear a pin drop in a room full of wisecracking smartasses. Everyone was moved.

Jen felt inspired to record her harmony on the verses while the right mood was still hanging in the air, so she jumped up and got behind the mic as soon as Lexi was finished. It was a good idea – Jen sang like an angel and hit her harmonies perfectly, not just in terms of pitch but emotionally in the way she matched the essence of Lexi’s performance and sang in total sympathy with it. They’re her harmonies, too, of her own invention, and they’re very creative and spot on. This is a song I was already proud of as a songwriter but Lexi and Jen have both added to it immeasurably. I know I gush over them too much, but I just can’t explain how happy it makes me to hear my songs being brought to greater life than I could ever give them myself – and it’s not just Jen and Lexi, of course, it’s the whole band. Even with many overdubs still to record, I already like the band version of this song way more than my demo. And I really worked on that demo, too! But I couldn’t be happier to hear it being rendered obsolete.

On a band unity note, we got a surprise guest appearance by none other than Rod Schwartz! Haven't seen Rod since December so that was a great surprise. He's back in the fold now after a hectic winter and plans to be at most, if not all, of the sessions from this point on - all to the good.

I think because we were jazzed from getting so much work done in one night, we were still raring to go at 10:00 PM and probably overplayed our hand (and maybe overstayed our welcome!) by trying to squeeze in still more work, this time on “Don’t Look Down.” So we spent another hour on work that was doomed. Lexi recorded her chorus harmony and sounded fine, but I let her get all the way through the song before suggesting she change the melody to something subtly different. I got up and tried to sing it myself, but my voice wasn’t warmed up and I sounded like a frog. It was late and I wasn’t communicating well, and everyone was all sung out and had had a couple glasses of wine. So the evening kind of ended with a whimper with everyone slightly frustrated and cranky because of the “Don’t Look Down” downer. We agreed to leave it alone for now and come back to it later. Should have quit while we were ahead. I take the blame!

Even though the hour had gotten really late, Joe was still nice enough to do a mixdown of a few of the songs so Rod can work on “Edge” at home and Lexi can play “Pretend” for her dad. Quite a guy, that Joe Stile. I hope he lets us back in his house after that long night! Joe, if you’re reading this – you are the best. Thanks for being such a good friend to the Aviation Blondes.

Recording report: 1/28/09

It was guitar night at yesterday’s session of The Aviation Blondes Winter Recording Blitz and our featured bandmate was guitarist extraordinaire Daryl Cross. He and I recorded guitars for three songs: “Pretend,” “Catch and Release” and “Edge of Forever.” We fell just short of our goal because we ran out of time before we could get to “Don’t Look Down,” but that will be easy to make up at a later date…not a very guitary song anyway.

Daryl didn’t bring his Mesa Boogie so he played his Telecaster through Joe’s amp. We had an early scare that Daryl’s pedal board wasn’t working – it’s crucial to his sound – but he got it working and all was well.

I was reunited with my old Marshall head and cabinet after two years – Jason was kind enough to load them into his car and bring them with him. Naturally the pots were dirty, i.e. dust in the knobs, but it still works. Probably needs some tube work after all this time but it sounded surprisingly good. I decided not to use the Les Paul. It’s a mess and needs work…intonation problems, fret problems, and the side of the neck has little chunks missing around the frets, which causes the high E string to slip over the side as you play…bad scene. One of these days I’ll get the cash together to get it worked on. For now I decided to use Rod’s Telecaster instead. Which turned out to be an excellent decision. First of all, it’s not just any old Telly – it’s a gorgeous, black American Standard that plays like a dream, never goes out of tune, and is just an amazingly solid, kick-ass guitar. The combination of that Telly through the cranked-up JCM900 4x12 half-stack with lots of gain + preamp resulted in a sound very much like Joe Strummer’s guitar on the first Clash album. Nice big, aggressive tone with just enough distortion but good clarity too. So there was no need for pedals. I’ve decided I hate my distortion pedal. When we play live I use a Boss DS-1 but I think I’m done with it. It generates a harsh, overly bright buzz of shapeless noise that makes your guitar sound like bad 80s hair metal no matter what you do. It’s always better to just use the right guitar into the right amp with nothing in between.

Since we had enough mics and headphones, we decided to try recording both guitars simultaneously, figuring we might get more of a live Aviation Blondes sound that way and save time as well. I wasn’t sure how well that would work, but it turned out to be a good idea. Daryl and I played off each other and interacted musically more than we would have otherwise, I think. Joe’s rehearsal/recording studio is a big room, so the amps were separated by a good distance and with the SM57s there was minimal bleed.

First up was “Catch and Release.” We did a couple passes and laid down the rhythm parts. Then Daryl overdubbed a new descending line he came up with for the chorus that works well, and I added a cleaner, chorused guitar on the prechorus. Finally, we added Daryl’s solo and did a few takes of that. I liked most of the takes (except for one that wandered off hilariously into some kind of bizarre modal thing at the end), but then Daryl brought his “A” game and fired off an awesome Joe Perry-like solo on the 3^rd or 4^th take that we all knew immediately was the one. Jason – who is normally very low-key – stood up grinning, spun around in a circle and did an odd little dance, exclaiming, “Yes! Yes! That’s the one! That’s the keeper! Oh yeah! Ohhhh yeah baby!! Wheee!!” followed by unintelligible gurgling sounds. I figured that such a spontaneous display of excitement from our producer was a good sign.

From there we worked on “Pretend” and got both parts in a couple takes. Daryl’s part on the coda sounded slightly out of tune so we had him go back and redo just that part. This song has a nice, raw, live sound that I think will be a good addition to the CD. Dave and Rod sound especially good on it, very live and rocking. We just have to do the girls’ vocals and we’re done.

“Edge of Forever” was trickier and we had to listen to it a few times and play through it before we were ready to record. This song has changed a lot from the original demo – including a new key and a complete revamp of the structure. Because we raised the key from A to B since we recorded the basic tracks, and the bass hasn’t been re-recorded yet, we had to play along with only the drums and Lexi’s scratch vocal (in the original key) to guide us. Fortunately Dave’s drums are rock-steady and the quiet parts have a rhythmic vocal, so we were able to get it done. Still plenty of production left to do on this song: bass guitar, keyboards, Daryl’s solos, some acoustic guitar I think, maybe some extra percussion, and lots of vocal overdubs with all of us in the band plus some special guest singers. This song is going to be one of the bigger production numbers on the CD and I think it’s going to sound great when it’s finished. Even with just the drums and rhythm guitars, it has a good groove already.

Finally, an ANNOUNCEMENT! We are playing our first show of 2009 on Saturday, March 14 at Club Café opening up for our buds Seven Color Sky, who are celebrating the release of their new CD. It’s an early 7:00 PM show and we will probably go on right at 7:00 on the nose, so start making plans now, call the sitter, cancel the trip to Cancun with your mistress, whatever you have to do. Watch this space for further details.

Recording report: 1/21/09

Last night's session was all Lexi, never a bad thing. She did the lead vocals for "Catch and Release" and most of "Edge of Forever." We had to quit before "Edge" was finished because it was getting late, but there are only a few choruses to finish up. Jason also got all the remaining files transferred and set up on Joe's computer so there's no further fussing with files that has to be done. From here on out we can totally focus on the recording.

First we had to figure out which of the two versions of "Catch" we intended to use - we saved two takes from the session at Rick's. They were both good takes but we were unanimous that the 2nd one just felt clearly better. Hard to explain but it's one of those things you know when you hear it. Dave sounds great on this song, very rocking and in control of the whole kit à la Keith Moon. I've always thought the main guitar riff is kinda Who-like so that's appropriate. Rod did a really good job with the bass on this one too, so the whole rhythm foundation is totally solid. This song is gonna rock like hell if I may say so.

Lexi brought it just the right amount of attitude and sass. She sang it once through to warm up, then we "rolled tape" and once again she hit it right away. There was clipping (peak levels in the red where the signal distorts) on her track on the louder second half of the song, so Jason made the necessary adjustments and we went back and did the 2nd half again. Then we went back and listened to the whole thing, Lexi found a couple lines she wanted to re-do, we did those again, and we were done. (We might have had her sing the line "You can have me tonight" a few extra times...just for kicks.) Lexi is extremely focused and disciplined about recording. When she steps up to the mic she's all business. It reminds me of something I read recently in the New York Times, where Bono is talking about Frank Sinatra and being "in the moment":

"Fully inhabiting the moment during that tiny dot of time after you’ve pressed “record” is what makes it eternal. If, like Frank, you sing it like you’ll never sing it again. If, like Frank, you sing it like you never have before."

Lexi fully inhabits the moment when she records, seems to be living the song in real time. Kind of like an actor who has not just memorized their dialog, but fully internalized it, so when the cameras roll it's like those words are being spoken for the first time, and the character is not a character, it's a person. So there's no reason to do take after take - it was perfect the first time.

I need to learn to record that way.

Once "Catch" was finished we moved on to "Edge of Forever." This one is tricky because there are a lot of dynamics, and overdubbing is difficult because the song was arranged by the whole band and we tend to look at each other and cue off each other when we play it. So, for instance, at the beginning of the song there's a chorus sung almost entirely a capella. When we recorded the backing tracks, Lexi sang a "scratch" vocal line for us to follow, and we cued off that. But to re-record the vocal for real, she can't listen to the scratch vocal because it would throw her off, but without it, there's very little else to cue off to make sure she lands in the right spot at the end of each line, if you see what I mean. So we decided to move on and record the main part of the song first, then come back and do the intro when the rest of it was done.

The verses came quickly and Lexi sounds angelic on them. Then we got to the chorus and hit a little speed bump. When I wrote the chorus of this song, I was aware even then it would be a beast to sing. Not because of the melody but because there's nowhere to take a breath...the lyrics just keep coming at you and you have to get the entire first two lines out in one breath, then take a deep breath and sing the last two all the way to the end. After watching our lead singer make several valiant attempts to sing the chorus all the way through without stopping, we decided to break it up and have her sing the two parts in separate passes. People do this all the time when making records, so if it's "cheating," it's a very common, standardized form of cheating. Hell, even Johnny Rotten sang the verses and choruses in separate takes on Never Mind the Bollocks, so if it's good enough for Johnny, it's good enough for us! Anyway, it worked like a charm and we got a couple of choruses finished before our time ran out.

Another good session! We're humming along nicely.

Recording report: 1/18/09

A Sunday mornng session to record sax for "Don't Look Down." Our special guest was Bob Catalina, a highly talented musician who had sat in with us at a rehearsal a few months ago when we were first working on the song. He sounded so good that we asked him to play on it for the CD. The Catalinas were in town this weekend so we jumped on the chance to lay down Bob's sax track.

The plan is to ask a few horn-playing friends to do a formal, written horn section that appears throughout the song, with Bob's sax providing the improvisational lead. Procedurally it might have been a little odd to do the sax first, but it worked just fine. Bob took some gorgeous solos that add a whole new dimension to the song. He can really play - I couldn't be happier with the results.

Did I mention that Bob is Jen's dad? Now we know where she gets her talent!

Recording report: 1/14/09

Productive session last night, though time was limited. Lexi did the lead vocal for "Crash and Burn" and Jen did her backup part for that one plus "Duet By Myself." We only had about 90 minutes to work with so I thought it was a good night's work, considering. I thought they were both in good voice and sang their parts very well. Everybody's been hitting their parts in just one or two takes. Occasionally three. But still, that's nothing. Things are going well.

Now we just have to do the male vocals on "Crash" and Daryl's part on "Stranger," and those songs will basically be done!

Done? What's that?

Which will clear us to dive into the other four songs that we did basic tracks for more recently: "Pretend," "Catch and Release," "Edge of Forever" and "Don't Look Down." I'm anxious to get started on those because they're all songs written in the past year and are fresher to us. And you always like your new stuff the best. But these newer songs really feel to me like the band hitting its stride and finding its sound, finally. None of them have ever been performed live yet...I can't wait for everyone to hear them.

I can't give the girls enough credit. They've been singing their asses off and as a result this project is really starting to take shape. I think if we keep working hard we're gonna have a killer little CD when all is said and done.

This week it looks like we have a Sunday session coming up with a special guest that would be very cool - I don't want to jinx it by giving details yet. Fingers crossed.

I'm really starting to hear the band in these songs. Now that a few of them are approaching completion with all or most of the vocals recorded, they are really coming to life. What's exciting to me is that for a long time, in some cases years, we've lived with the only recorded versions of these songs being my initial demos, which, even though they sound OK, don't represent the band. The version of "Crash and Burn" on our Myspace page isn't really the Aviation Blondes. It's me in my home studio playing all the parts, including artificially programmed drums - only Lexi's and Jen's vocals are "real." I'm just so bored with the demos and the false impression that it's the band playing on them. So to finally hear those songs coming to life on a proper recording, played by the band, is incredibly invigorating to me. They have so much more spontaneity and spark now than in the demos. It's like before the songs were in some kind of suspended animation, but now they're alive.

Especially since we made the choice to play them without a safety net - no click track. Nowadays almost everyone plays to a click. The whole point of a rock band, it seems to me, is that it's human-powered. Your drummer is the motor. We have an awesome drummer by the name of Dave Klug who among other talents, has excellent timekeeping. So to me it was a no-brainer that we would not play to a click. I think that decision now is paying off in what I hear as that extra bit more life and excitement in the songs. It's hard to explain, but songs with a drummer keeping time just *breathe* more than when you play to a click track. Sometimes very tiny, subtle variations in tempo are natural and desirable. Especially in rock 'n roll. When you play to a click, you rob a song of its natural respiration. Some kinds of music have to be played to a click track, I do understand that...anything that uses MIDI, for instance, any kind of dance or electronic music. But a rock 'n roll band? No.

It was great to see Daryl and Dave at the session last night - haven't seen those guys for ages. We need to start doing more full-band stuff. It looks like we will have some gig announcements in the very near future so stay tuned.

Recording report: 1/7/09

Happy New Year to our faithful blog readers (all 3 of you)! Hope everyone had a nice holiday break. Good riddance, I say. (The character “The Grinch” was based on me.)

We got back on the recording horse last night by charging through three of the four vocal parts for “The Stranger in You” (the remaining part being Daryl’s). (I use too many parentheses in my writing.) We were graced with the presence not only of Lexi, who had been planning to be out of town yesterday but made a welcome surprise appearance, but also of Jennifer Fisher, a/k/a Jennifer Catalina as she is known in the World of Rock, making her debut at these vocal sessions. Joe also graced us with his presence once again – less, I suspect, for the music than for the company of hot babes. Understandable.

“Stranger in You” has kind of a round-robin vocal line, with all 4 of us – Lexi, Jen, Daryl, and me – singing parts of the verses alone, then harmonizing on the chorus and bridge. We went in chronological order so I was up first. It took me less time than usual to get my part finished, possibly because I only sing a little bit of the song by myself and the rest is blended into harmonies…hence less pressure/nerves and being able to relax more. It is crucial to be relaxed when recording vocals. Sometimes the pressure of singing the lead vocal on a song, putting your naked voice out there for all to hear, can lead to a little bit of nervousness while recording and can prolong the process interminably – nerves are public enemy #1 in the recording studio. That’s why a lot of singers have little rituals and fetishes, i.e. having the lights dimmed, kicking out everybody but the engineer, scented candles, etc. I have no rituals myself other than trying to sing on key. I think I did OK last night.

Next up was Jen, who nailed all her parts in just a few takes. Actually I think she hit the verse part in one take, maybe two for the chorus. She has such a pure, clear voice and it really sounds wonderful on this song. You gonna like. By the time she was finished, we were really starting to get a sense of what the multi-part harmonies on the chorus were going to sound like.

Then it was Lexi’s turn, and she did really well too. I love the contrast between her voice and Jen’s. They have such different voices, and yet when they harmonize, they blend so beautifully – it’s really magical. They just have that musical chemistry that’s impossible to define but it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Lexi’s harmony on the chorus really made it all come together and it sounds great with the three of us now. She also added a nice little improv bit going into the guitar solo that I never would have thought of. I’d forgotten what a good job Daryl did on his solo on this song. The whole ending section has a nice, live feel, almost like a ’60s jam band like Traffic or something. Quite cool.

So the big news is I think we have decided to reduce the amount of time it will take to put out a CD by releasing a shorter, “EP”-length CD of 7 songs. Thanks to Daryl for pushing the idea…I was resisting it but I’ve come around. We had been planning to release a full 14- or 15-song CD, but realistically it might have taken us until summer to finish and that’s just too long. A 7-song CD is much more manageable given our time constraints and I’m hopeful that we can get finished by the end of February for possibly a March release.

I was just thinking it’s now been 3 years since our first rehearsals for the Graffiti Rock Challenge back in Troy’s basement. We were a very different band then, of course…but 3 years! And nothing officially recorded that represents the band, just a lot of home demos. That situation is unacceptable but will be corrected in the very near future. We are all very psyched about that. Finally we’ll have something we can play for people and say, “This is what we sound like.” Very exciting.

Band photos coming soon, too, at long last. Three years and no band photos! As far as I know, no one has ever taken a single picture of the Aviation Blondes. That has got to be some kind of record…but we are planning to work with the talented Matthew Kleinrock, who took those gorgeous photos of the WXXP reunion show (two of them grace this page) a couple Octobers ago.

Anyway...a fun session and more solid progress. All is well.

Next session: Wednesday, Jan. 14, 7:00 PM.

Interview in Trib-Review

The article about local songwriters that I was interviewed for was posted on the Tribune-Review's website today. My bit aside, I think Rege and company did a really great job of putting it together and getting a good range of music and opinions. To view the video (mine is at the end if you scroll over), you may need the Flash and/or Shockwave browser plugin.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/living/music/s_605220.html

The text of the article, for those who don't feel like clicking the link:

Great songs stick with a listener
By Rege Behe
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, January 2, 2009

Some songs make young girls cry. Other songs, sung blue, everybody knows. There are songs that make you want to dance, sad songs that say so much, silly love songs.

But what makes a song memorable?

Songs like "Satisfaction" and "Respect," Hey Jude" and "Maybellene," "Born to Run" and "Running on Empty" ring bells of recognition from the opening notes. What gives these songs a certain acknowledged greatness?

"Songs are great for different reasons," says Joe Grushecky, the veteran Pittsburgh musician who is one of the few songwriters to have teamed with Bruce Springsteen. "Some songs have beautiful melodies. Some songs have a great beat. Some songs just capture your imagination because they have beautiful singing, a singer that sells it, puts it across.

"The songs that mean the most to me are the ones where someone is singing something I wanted to say or wish I had said," says Grushecky, who lives in Dormont.

Greg Dutton, a vocalist and guitarist with the Pittsburgh band Lohio who lives in Lawrenceville, defines it this way:

"A good song should be able to stand on its own with just the melody and an acoustic guitar," he says. "When you look at songwriting in that way, it kind of boils down to having a strong melody, the type of melody that gets lodged in your head."

What the best songs seem to have in common is the ability to elicit a response. Whether it's the provocation of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" or Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," the rebelliousness of "My Generation" by The Who or Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," or the naked, unvarnished sentiments of the Ronettes' "Be My Baby" or "One" by U2, the best songs seem to have an inherent emotional component.

"It doesn't matter about the structure or the genre, it's whether it makes you feel something," says Steve Morrison of Shadyside, a musician who is in the band the Aviation Blondes and was in the legendary '80s group The Affordable Floors.

What triggers this emotional response, however, is harder to quantify. Bill Payne, the longtime keyboard player in the nationally touring Little Feat -- and also a photographer -- thinks greatness is the residue of "a reservoir of emotional highlights and buttons that are pushed when we look at something, when we hear something, when we are enveloped by that art."

"That it says, hey, this is warm water, this is challenging, this is great, this is cool, this is familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it," Payne says. "All these things that bring you to a piece of work, be it auditory or otherwise -- poetry, for example -- and you sit there and listen to it or read it and you think, 'this strikes my heart, and my head, in a certain way.' "

A lyrical recipe

The elements that comprise a great song are often as tangible as the ingredients that go into a cake. Instead of eggs, flour and butter, there are vocals, lyrics and melodies. But every songwriter, like every chef, knows a few recipe variations.

Bob Corbin, who with Dave Hanner, arguably comprises the most accomplished songwriting duo from Western Pennsylvania over the last 30 years, says the best songs are built on "the strength of the hook, the strength of the message, which is usually the title of the song."

"In the structure, the hook is repeated," says Corbin, who has written songs covered by Alabama, the Oak Ridge Boys, Mel Tillis and Kenny Rogers. "There's a certain amount of repetition in the lyrics, the chords, the melody."

Hanner -- who lives in Bakerstown, while Corbin is from Wexford -- tries to make sure the focal point of every song he writes is evident.

"To me, everything else in the song serves to make that hook have one focus," he says. "As I soon as I have a hook in place, I'll work on the structure of the song."

Greg Joseph of Hampton, the bass player for The Clarks, agrees that a good hook is essential. But he also says it's necessary to come up with "something creative, something a little different from the standard thing you may have heard before. Just a little twist or turn that you can put into a song and people will say, 'Oh, I never heard that before.'"

Heather Kropf, a solo performer from Highland Park, puts her emphasis on lyrics, and then melodies, when writing songs.

Carol Lee Espy, a songwriter and singer from the North Hills, says lyrics are the most important element, although it's only when it's the "perfect marriage of music, lyrics and feel, then will people love it and listen to it," she says.

The musical nuts and bolts, however, are just that. The employment of the various parts is an ephemeral, incalculable process. It's hard to say why a great song lingers in the consciousness.

"You hear the melody, you hear the lyrics, you hear the basic part of the song," Payne says. "For instance, 'Under My Thumb,' (by The Rolling Stones). That had a certain sound to it that attracted you first, a kind of marimba sound, and the rhythm is kind of snakey, and you go ,'Wow, that's cool.' So why would you dig that and a Gershwin tune? ... I'm not sure of this, but I think there are songs that pull you along enough to explore them, and you either discard them or think, 'My God, I've found a treasure trove.' "

And great songs are written, as Payne indicates, by composers of various stripes and styles.

"I try to be openminded about what I listen to and not close myself off from anything or any categories of music," Morrison says, "because as soon as I decide there's a type of music I don't like, then I'll hear a great song in that genre and have to totally reset all the buttons. I'll say I don't like heavy metal, and then hear a great heavy metal song."

The work ethic

In the 1950s and early '60s, the Brill Building in New York City was home to famed songwriting teams, including Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. They took the concept of craftsmanship and wed it with an assembly line-like process that churned out some of the most memorable songs of that period. "Leader of the Pack," "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?," "One Fine Day" and "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" came by way of the Brill Building ethic that was fostered by Don Kirshner and Al Nevins, the founders of Aldon Music.

Every day the teams went to work, and every day they wrote songs. Hanner thinks this simple, time-worn approach is still the best way to produce good material.

"I've had the most success when I sit down and write every day," says Hanner. "I've had the best luck with just starting to sing and play and hoping something pops out. If you give yourself the opportunity to do something every day, you're further ahead."

His partner agrees.

"You have to sit down every day and try to write," Corbin says. "I spend about three hours a day trying to write. And I think you have to do that in a zone ... Some songs are up there in the ether somewhere, and if you get your inner radio tuned to the right frequency, you can just pull them down."

Other songwriters need a goal, an endpoint, to stir their creativity. Grushecky admits that he writes best when he's working on projects.

"If' I'm doing a record, that always gets me started," he says. "And I certainly approach it like a person writing a book or a movie. I like for it to have, in my mind, anyway, a beginning, a middle and an end for whatever particular story I'm trying to tell. Once I get a few key elements, I write in spurts. I'm not a guy who writes constantly. When I'm playing a lot with the band, I don't write that much."

Joseph also thinks that deadlines can spur creativity.

"There are times (The Clarks) are putting an album together when I will sit down every day and knock something out," Joseph says. "And I'm real comfortable with that. But years ago, it was strictly an emotional thing. It was only when the emotion hit me, when the theme hit me, that I could sit down and write about it."

For Dutton, the more he works on songwriting, the more likely inspiration is to strike and yield a good song. But Morrison says his best songs often reveal themselves unexpectedly.

"You can write a lot of songs just through sheer work ethic," he says. "I can sit down and write a song today. I know how to write a lyric. I know how to structure it. But most of those songs have no real inspiration and end up getting dropped. The songs you live with in the long run are the ones that are inspired by experience, or you're sitting there with a guitar and lightning bolt goes off and you have a great idea. It doesn't happen very often."

Those lightning bolts, however, often fall to earth and disappear. Espy thinks truly great songs are generated by those who wed inspiration with ability.

"Everyone's creative, everyone has the ability to create," Espy says. "But then you get into the artistry. When you learn how to take creativity and craft it, that's when it becomes art."

Inspiration points

Who are the songwriters that musicians from the Pittsburgh area admire? Here's who some of area's best singers and songwriters tab as their favorites.

Greg Joseph, The Clarks: One of my favorites has always been Elvis Costello. Even in the midst of his rock 'n' roll records, there have always been twists and turns. And through the span of his career, of course, he's often doing country records, all different genres of music. He's No. 1 in my book. Bruce Springsteen sort of has a thing where he challenges himself, although his themes tend to be similar or in the same pattern. He's got a songwriting element that nobody else does. Regardless of the fact that he's a multi-, multi-millionaire, he can still put on a folksy thing.

Joe Grushecky: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen. Those guys, their music is every bit as good and exciting as their words. They touch me in an emotional way, especially the Stones. What I liked about the Stones, when they first started, and the Beatles, is they had so many different influences in their music. You can hear R&B, country and western, and blues and Tin Pan Alley stuff. Within the framework of the bands, there are lot of different types of music, and that always appealed to me. I liked the fact that they turned me on to a lot of great American artists -- Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf. I like the fact they turned the spotlight back on those guys.

Heather Kropf: I really admire Rebecca Martin; she used to be in the duo Once Blue back in the '90s. She's got a great lyric sensibility that's really poetic, but really sort of every day. I don't know how she does it, but she becomes the characters in the songs. I also like Paul Simon, Kate Bush, Meshell Ndegeocello.

Bob Corbin, Corbin-Hanner: I don't know if I have favorite songwriters; I have favorite songs. But there's Kris Kristofferson. (Songwriting) crosses the line of genres for me. There's the Beatles, of course, and Paul Simon.

Dave Hanner, Corbin-Hanner: Of course, the Beatles. That's who we grew up listening to, thinking we could probably be like them. It wasn't quite that easy. As far as older songwriters, I've always admire Irving Berlin, mainly because of his lyrics. Some of his lyrics are so famous, and yet he never sounds like he's trying to impress anyone.

Carol Lee Espy: I really like Bruce Robison. He's kind of an obscure writer out of Austin. His wife is Kelly Willis. He's got that marriage of lyrics, melody and feel, and that great Austin sensibility. And recently, I was revisiting Hal David and Burt Bacharach songs. There's also Paul Simon. I think each person, each songwriter, if you ask them their current favorite, it changes.

Greg Dutton, Lohio: I really like songwriters that write in the pop vein but mess around the common rules and the structure of it. Growing up, two of my favorite songwriters were Neil Young and Damon Albarn, most famously from Blur. Aesthetically, they come at it from very different places, but both tend to be really good at creating very economical songs with amazing choruses. Some artists I listen to with the hopes of learning more about songwriting would be Ray Davies, Jimmy Webb and Carl Newman.

Steve Morrison, Aviation Blondes: My favorite songwriters are the ones who straddle the line between rock and pop without leaning too hard one way or another. They have rocker credibility. The music is definitely rock 'n' roll, but stands out because it has a great hook. They can write a catchy chorus without being over-sugary. People like Ray Davies of the Kinks, Chrissie Hynde, Paul Westerberg -- people like that who are rockers but have a great pop sensibility. I try to emulate them, but I don't know if I'll ever get there.

Rege Behe can be reached at rbehe@tribweb.com or 412-320-7990.

Recording Report: 12/17/08

Worked on "Duet By Myself" last night. Another song that I sing the lead part and Lexi sings backup - usually it's the other way around. We're getting my stuff out of the way first before we delve into all of Lexi's songs.

We recorded both parts and were pretty happy with how it was sounding by the end of the night. We still have to do Jen's harmony on the chorus and then that's it for vocals. Once again, it took me a while to get my part to where I was happy with it. After a few takes I tend to lose all perspective and have to be told "That was good, keep it" or "That was off, do it again" and occasionally, "You suck, who ever told you you could sing was lying." I always reach a point eventually where everything sounds bad to me and that's why it's critical to have a producer/engineer who knows how to work with singers. Which is why Jason is so invaluable. He's very patient and has a good ear for vocals. And doesn't seem to mind the tedium of listening to me record take after take.

We double-tracked Lexi's backup vocal part to get that cool 70s effect and it sounds really good. She has a knack for singing something exactly the same way twice, which is not as easy as it sounds.

No recording next week as it's Christmas and everyone has plans of various kinds but we'll be back at it after the holiday.

We have a couple gig announcements coming soon - one definite, one probable. Stay tuned...

interview

I did an interview tonight with Rege Behe from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review as part of an article he's doing about local songwriters. Rege seems to be focusing on songwriting itself and tracing how songs are written from start to finish, which is a cool approach and allows for some substantive discussion of the creative process. Some of the people he's interviewing are real luminaries on the local music scene - I won't name names before the article is published - and some are songwriters who maybe aren't as well known but are distinguished by their talent, so it's a good mix and a real honor to be asked to participate. (I fall into a third category, "Hacks who were interviewed for no apparent reason.") The interview itself was fun - Rege started off with some questions about influences and songwriting philosophy, then had me talk about how a specific song came about, the whys and wherefores, and then at the end I played the song I'd been talking about. The song I picked was "Don't Look Down," one of our newer songs that Jen sings. It'll be on the CD. I can't wait for everyone to hear the finished version of this song. Jen sings it beautifully.

The article comes out sometime early in January I believe, with a multmedia component on the Trib website with video of all the interviews and songs. Again, I won't say who else is in the article, but let's just say it's good company and I really feel honored to be part of it. Thanks, Rege.

Recording Report: 12/10/08

So we had our first recording session at Joe’s last night. I thought it went really well. We only worked on one song (“Team Doubtful”) because there was some setup time necessary to get the song ready. That was my fault for mistakenly picking a song from the 2nd batch that I thought was from the 1st. The 1st batch songs are already set up, tracks named, etc. – those were the ones that Daryl, Jen and I have already done guitar/keyboard overdubs for. We could have saved time last night if I had picked one of those to work on but I’m a little slow sometimes, as you know.

It actually didn’t take Jason very long to get the song set up and me working on my vocal. Over about 90 minutes I managed to stitch together what will hopefully be the final lead vocal on the song. We eventually settled on a system where instead of singing the entire song all the way through and going back in search of things to fix, we took it section by section, doing a little bit at a time, playing it back and deciding if it’s OK or needs another go, then moving on to the next section. That’s probably how I’ll record most of my vocal parts. It always takes me many takes to get my vocals right. Jason was great about making sure we didn’t move on until it sounded good in every way - pitch, energy, feel, etc. I asked him to be strict when we record vocals but it was obvious I didn't have to ask - he has good engineer's instincts about that and has a great "bedside manner" when it comes to pushing a singer to do better without bumming them out. We picked a good producer.

So of course after the grueling hour and a half it took me to record my part, Lexi sauntered up to the mic and nailed her part in two takes flat. Didn’t even set down her wine glass – didn’t need to. Great job. I never really heard her harmonies on this song clearly before and they’re very cool.

I was also relieved to discover that the guitars on Team Doubtful are only the scratch guitars from the original session at Rick’s – since I thought at first it was a “1st batch” song, I thought it was one of the ones we had already done final guitars for. Freaked me out until I realized they were only the scratch guitars. I can confirm that the scratch guitars do NOT sound good. At all. God almighty, they sound horrible. Looking forward to putting the real guitars on there.

Joe was also a huge help last night too, sticking around and helping Jason get accustomed to the setup, listening and offering a lot of good suggestions and opinions. Joe, please feel free to sit in on these sessions anytime you want (the fact that it’s your house notwithstanding) – your input is highly valued. And huge thanks once again for letting us do this at your place and on your gear. You are the coolest.

So I’m going to map out a little bit of a recording schedule so we know who’s on deck and what songs we’re doing. We’ll put Team Doubtful aside for now and go back to the first batch of 7 songs that already have most of the basic tracks completed. They are: Crash and Burn, The Stranger in You, Lovers Hell, Ain’t It Better Now, Mechanical Heart, Haight St., and Duet By Myself. We'll keep the focus on vocals for now, although there is plenty of guitar and keyboard yet to do. The vocals are always the hardest work and I would like to start making some headway. Then we can go back and do the other overdubs.

So even though we only got one song done, I felt like it was a good night’s work and I’m optimistic that now that we're rolling, we’ll be able to knock out at least two, or maybe more, songs per session. It’s going to be exciting to hear some of these songs start taking shape! I know I’m excited, at least. The rest of you, just rattle your jewelry.

Next session: Wednesday, Dec. 17, 7:00 PM.