Broo-Skeh-teh-ria?!?!?!
This one is almost as classic as a ‘panini sandwich’ shop!
Thanks to a totally random and serendipitous meeting (with the lovely booking agent of The Delancey called Dana) which took place in a London hotel lobby bar during the Lou Reed tour last month, tonight I am at The Delancey checking out Gary Hood (who was one of the guitar techs on the Lou Reed tour). Gary is touring with the Carrs and he happens to be in town for tomorrow’s Letterman show. The only times I’ve seen Gary jam was with our crew mates Joey Crifo and John Simpson and my friends in Italy, but tonight three SIR gentleman are sitting in on bass, cajon and shakers for this acoustic set.
Gary is killing it on guitar and harmonica delivering great vocals and words throughout his set.
Before Gary the Ashley, North Carolina based Aaron Wood played a set and he was really good as well. Go Aaron Wood!
Guess who’s going home with two new CD’s tonight? ;-)
Go Gary Hood!
For all those who missed this great night check him out online at Gary Hood and the Last Show Ever
Just returned after more than 4 weeks abroad. The Lou Reed tour took us to UK, France and Italy and then I spent 4 days in Norway at the Sommerfesten music festival (more about that in a later post).
The tour went great and we had a fantastic crew which made it so much better and more fun.
I want say thank you to all the people I worked it, had fun with and learnt from on this tour. It was great to travel with my old crew mates Stewart Hurwood (don’t worry baby, it ain’t nothing new!), Matt Brown (you will rule the world someday!), Aaron Havill (napkin please?), Bill Berger, Kerri Welsh (did she just say poop???) and my new friends Joey Crifo (like a brother!), Bungee Kovacs (yes we do have a bungee!), John Simpson, Gary Hood, Jesse Lucerne (thanks for the rubs!), Dave McPhee (zen out buddy! …and don’t worry baby, it ain’t nothing new!!!), Giles Floodgate, James Brown (…don’t worry baby, it ain’t nothing new!!!), Chris Bailey, Kartsen, Brie and everyone else involved!
A special hello and thank you to my day-off traveling buddies. You know who you are and I saw your true colors (and loved them!!!). Great to hang and glad you came along for the rides.
I did my best to show the whole crew a great time while we were in Italy (since I knew people, good restaurants and the language) and the parts of the tour I’ll carry with me are certainly the ones that involved water, chairs, skis, amazing meals, great ice cream, day trips etc… I think that’s what we will all remember from this tour. ;-)
I really didn’t have much time for taking pictures but I snapped some iPhone shots here and there.
Here are some of the most beautiful places we played at (iPhone pics don’t do these places justice).
And here are some gory tour injury pictures at the end there, for those who love that kind of stuff… Flying road cases? Involuntary stage diving? Pulley ropes? There are stories behind a these injuries, and they are hilarious, but we won’t tell anyone how these happened because what happens on tour stays on tour! ;-)
Sitting a JFK I’m thinking back on this busy month of June that is ending…
The month long European Summer Tour of Lou Reed and his great new 8 piece band (for which I’m doing FOH) starts tomorrow in the UK.
Less than 24 hours ago I was still in the studio with John Zorn, Bill Laswell, Rob Burger and Kevin Norton recording the soundtrack to a Polish theater production of Nosferatu that, as you can imagine, sounds sinister and creepy at times but also surprisingly different at other times (the presence of Bill brought some dub to the soundtrack!).
The day before I was recording the legendary drummer Bernard Purdie with Universal Japan recording artist Chihiro Yamanaka. Bugsby had some incredible stories about people he worked with, places he’s been and things he’s done as an adult and a kid. He was telling us about growing up in Maryland in the days of openly racist America and how he was the only black kid to eat at the white eatery and the first black student to graduate from his school. Of course his music stories were amazing. They would do a version of a standard picked by Yamanaka and Purdie would point out that he recorded the original that they were covering. This happened for three or four of the five tunes he recorded at EastSide Sound on Monday. Incredible!
The week before that we spent in the rehearsal studio with Lou Reed, the band and the crew preparing this tour down to every detail. It’s gonna be a great production, a great set list and a great bunch of people on the tour bus!
The week before that week I had a bunch of other sessions at the studio (such as the recording of Bojan Vuletic’s new piece) and another John Zorn file card piece recording and
prior to that I just returned from recording and producing the new Preachers Son album in Ireland.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be in the UK driving to our first gig up north and the Lou Reed tour will have officially started!
I am lucky to be working with all these amazing people and time is literally flying… at least it was until I got here to JFK!
I realize I haven’t posted anything in a while, not because I haven’t seen anything interesting but rather because I have been traveling and working a lot.
However I didn’t want to pass on the opportunity to mention the amazing performance of this historic japanese band called Haikashu at Japan Society tonight. Makigami Koichi’s unique singing and theremin-playing style is both improvisational and structured, wild and controlled… His band Haikashu opened the concert without Maki to support the first US visit of J-pop star Tomoe Shinohara, but I personally went to see Maki and the wait was worth it.
I’ll be recording Hikashu with Koichi in a few days at EastSide Sound and I’m very happy to have made his acquaintance (thanks to Zorn and Ikue Mori who brought Maki to my studio during the recording of her latest DVD release on Tzadik). It’s gonna be a memorable session… I’ll be lost in translation and totally dazzled by the music! Can’t wait!
I usually don’t post about who, what, when and where I work with in the studio because some artists don’t want for that information to be out, at least not until after their recording is released, but since somebody else did, I’m happy to repost the article.
In this article on Sonic Scoop, New York City establishment Avatar Studios highlighted some of their latest clients and mentioned me in conjunction with a recording session with Lou Reed that we did there. The song (which the article also mentions) was subsequently mixed by myself at EastSide Sound Studios in New York City.
You can read the whole article here (http://www.sonicscoop.com/2011/02/14/lou-reed-kurt-elling-bobby-mcferrin-recording-at-avatar/)
Feb 152011
To set the record straight I just wanna say that the “Music is Life is Music is Life is Music…” motto has been my Facebook profile description for years now, and those who know me on FB know that. You can imagine my “oh shit!” moment when I saw the Grammy posters in every NYC subway station… It was probably used even before me but I still wish I had copyrighted that slogan! ;-)
To be clear, am NOT complaining, I am thankful I have work when a lot of talented colleagues are struggling…
Today I worked 9 hours with Lou Reed in the studio mixing a song at EastSide Sound… then I went to dinner with my lovely girl for her birthday and at 9pm I went to do live sound at a gig for a lively up and coming band called Pants Velour who rocked the house… Now I’m on my way home to do some more show advancing for a gig with the Swiss-American band Grand Pianoramax at SXSW festival in Austin… and finally tomorrow I have a 10am load in for a 10.30pm show with Bryan Ferry in the city so it’s gonna be an early and looooong day.
In the middle of everything I found out that Laurie Anderson is up for a Grammy Award for a her latest and amazing album on which I did engineering work, so I wish her all the best, not only cause it would bring my Grammies to four, but because she is one of the most amazing artists out there and deserves all the recognition and praise!
I just finished a late night recording session with Lou Reed that went really well. We did a cover of an old song for a tribute record and great musicians accompanied him. Now I’m walking home in the snow from the studio and I’m thinking: say what you want, complain about the puddles and the slow traffic, but I love NYC covered in snow: makes the city look even more special and unique, even more so at night.
A few nights ago when the snow was coming down heavy I was standing at a light looking at musicians carrying their instrumental through a blizzard going to or coming from a gig which probably didn’t pay much… Now that’s priceless passion and love for music!
Check out a few shots…
Got back from Zorn’s gig in Milan two nights ago and after just one day at home (which I spent working in the studio on a soundtrack for a film called “Addiction Incorporated”) I’m back on the road again heading to JFK airport to fly to Brazil with Lou Reed for two gigs in Sao Paulo.
Looking forward to the gig but less so to the 9 hour red-eye.
I just hope that this time Brazil will treat me better than last time I was there when I was robbed of everything and had to spend time and money to get emergency papers to be able to get back home.
