June 19, 2002

  • So I’ve been listening to my old cassette tapes.

    Most people have old tapes of stuff like Hall & Oates, or Styx’ ‘Kilroy Was Here’ (and I have those kind of old tapes, too), but my pile of old tapes is informed by a certain distinction:

    I used to work at a recording studio, and during that time I was sort of in a band.

    So I have all these old tapes of rough mixes and remixes of music I was at least peripherally if not directly involved in. Today I found a piece of mine I recorded, and it’s much better than I remembered it being.

    The piece started and I thought, ‘Oh, geez…. THAT one..’ Then it continued and I remembered the specifics of it. One of the benefits of having the keys to a recording studio is that you can go in there during the night after the real gigs and screw around with all the instruments that were rented for the occasion. In this case, it was a Bosendorfer grand piano rented to record an album by Kelley Gray. You can play anything on such a piano and it sounds good, especially when you’ve got a whole collection of Neuman valve condenser microphones to mic it with.

    At the time, I’d been listening to a lot of Steve Roach and Harold Budd, so this thing is a little, ahem, ‘new-agey.’ But we could also say ‘minimalist’ and it would fit. I’ll have to find a cassette deck to make an MP3 of it.

    Also on the tape was a really good song by a friend of mine in Houston, one of the folks in the band. Though it wasn’t really a band… We had been one, and then we broke up, but some of us were still working together on music. I think Brett (who wrote this song) was calling himself ‘Suction Prints,’ after a Captain Beefheart song.

    Anyway, the song is called ‘It,’ and is a sort of pop reggae thing built around the wordplay between ‘Fought tonight about it’ and ‘Not to fight about it.’ I remember being especially proud of how I mic’ed the drums, played by top-notch session dude Todd Harrison. We got him in exchange for recording a demo of his cover band Wild Onions. THAT band was one group of talented musicians! They could all fart at the same time and it’d be artful.

    I miss the studio, but as talented as I was/am with it, it’s just not for me. Too much bullshit to deal with, not enough pay or recognition.

Comments (4)

  • Dude. I must hear those next time I’m over.

    I only have Laurie Anderson “Big Science” and The Cure “Standing on the Beach” on cassette. Oh wait, I also have a mixed cassette of music stolen from German radio while living over there. That one’s a hoot! (And good music!)

  • what utter coolness

    hooray for cassette tapes and the memories they bring

  • Isn’t it great finding some of your old work and being pleasantly surprised by it?  I would like to hear it, too.  And about those delivery guys, next time, just call me.  I can be as scary as you want me to be.

  • Wanna see my collection of 8-tracks and even reel-to-reels?

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