Thursday, May 21, 2009

three-in-one

Yesterday we kicked out the bed tracks for an up and coming artist named Beth Roesch. Beth has a sound that is influenced by some of the finer female singer songwriters of our day. Songwriters like Patty Griffin and Sara Groves, of whom she is a huge fan. So she was really excited when I told her that her backup ensemble for the tracking would be none other than Sara's band. Aaron Fabbrini played bass, Zach Miller played drums and I played electric guitar (okay, so I am not in her band but I used to be, so that sort of counts...) These guys are incredible studio musicians, bring tons of ideas, ample gear (Aaron even brings his own Telefunken preamp and Tube-Tech compressor!) and an unbelievable amount of passion and care. We will finish up these three tunes and when Beth is able to schedule more time, we'll hit another three. Ultimately resulting in a full record.


A few days ago, my very good friend Jason Gray called for some help on a song for his new record. He has been working with award winning producer Jason Ingram for this record and the tracks that I have heard sound pretty amazing. I am so excited to hear the rest of it. There was one song that still needed a little tlc and asked me to help. It was a dark but hopeful song that simply says; "could it be that everything sad is coming untrue." They had pushed for it to be a simple acoustic and vocal song to place at the tail end of the record. Jason had really hoped it could grow into something bigger, more emotive. With that kind of direction I added a big marching bass drum, piano, electric guitar and my friend Ben Rosenbush (pictured) who came in to work on mixes for his upcoming album (more on that later) got roped into playing cello on it. All in all I think the additional parts really helped the song and I am once again happy to be involved in another Jason Gray project.


Last week Ebony Jefferson came in to record a song called "Life Alone." Steve Goold made yet another appearance in my studio to play drums and a fantastic job he did. Ebony has a very soulful singing voice and has met up with a co-writer in Ben (pictured to the left) whose songwriting style is (in my humble opinion) a cross between Audioslave and Lenny Kravitz. Her voice blended with his writing style is a pretty cool combination. Ben brought in a Les Paul studio and an old Marshall half stack. I had to think whether I have actually recorded an old Marshall half stack before and came up with a solid no. These aren't as popular as they once were so my chances of tracking them have been limited in recent years. However, I totally understand why they were such a go-to amp in the studio at one time. Such a dark, meaty, trashy tone! That guitar/amp combination worked really well in this track. Eventually I will make links to these artists myspace pages once the songs are mixed and uploaded.

No comments: