Earlier tonight I found myself at the Apple Store in Soho to get my iPhone replaced and, along with a new phone I also got a concert out of it. Franti’s in store performance was great, especially considering he spent the last two days in a hospital. The guy is really upbeat, positive, down to earth and smart. I had never seen him live but I had heard of him a lot so I was glad to catch his live performance. He’s got a new album out. Good vibes.
…and I’m not talking about that hail that came down in Brooklyn a week or two ago… I’m talking about work! Studio life is such that sometimes you have a week with no sessions and then there are weeks like this one where EVERYONE wants to record!!! What is it about the third week of October??? I had to turn down SO MUCH work this week, I hate turning down work! This week I’ve worked with 6 different clients, sometimes two in a day! Crazy.
I had never seen Deerhunter or even heard one of their records but I really enjoyed their powerful but dreamy and spacious sounds. Half of Williamsburg made the L train trek over to the island for this (I thought I was on Bedford Av) and the sold out show sure pleased everyone. The four Athens-originating Atlanta-based musicians had good stage presence and attitude and to me sounded a lot more interesting and original than a lot of other indie rock bands out there right now.
My friend Robbie Angelucci (a great italian guitar player who moved to LA 15 or so years ago) has a band called Amberside and they finally launched their website, which has a player featuring two mixes I did for them (“Broken Paradigm” and “Don’t Hold Me Back”)… unfortunately it’s just compressed web-ready mp3s, but I remember being happy with those (uncompressed WAV) mixes and the band is rocking (if you like stuff like Incubus, you’ll dig Amberside!). Check out the songs and their new website at http://www.ambersidemusic.com
I just did an improv recording session with Michael Bisio today and he handed me a copy of his latest work by the three musicians SKM. I recorded this back in 2008 at EastSide Sound and my colleague Rueben Radding mixed it at Magma Studio. Came out on Trem Azul’s Portuguese label Clean Feed this year. At least three more records featuring ex-Seattle resident now NY-based bassist Bisio will be coming out soon (but there might be more that I haven’t recorded and I don’t know of) so keep an eye out for him and also Whit Dickey’s album (which I just tracked today).
If you are wondering whether the old-school jazz studio sessions of the past still exist… I can tell you they do because I just did one last weekend.
NY-native now Bologna-based sax player Steve Grossman was in town and so Joe Berger and producer Nakamura put together a great cast of musicians (including the great Larry Lewis on piano) to play some jazz! All the elements of the good old studio gigs (except for maybe cocaine and analog tape) were there: great musicians, awesome musicianship, late hours, great jams… And you (that would me!) better be rolling all the time!
This record might never see the light in the US but will be released in Japan on Nakamura’s label Cheetah (a subsidiary of the Tokyo based Pony Canyon).
