DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Andrew sent two bass tracks for Groove95 — one bass and one melody (played high on one of his extra-stringed basses). He sent no suggestion for the drum part, even though he’d composed the tune to a specific pattern on his drum machine. He wanted to see what sort of groove I’d come up with without being influenced by the programmed pattern he’d initially used.

The melody was a great, bouncy line, with a loopy pickup that comes in on an offbeat. I struggled to come up with something equally cool… and then anything cool at all. Finally I settled for something that fit, but was basically uncool. I wasn’t pleased with it and told him as much. He offered to send a sample of the drum machine pattern he’d been listening to when he composed the song. I was grateful, because I liked it much better than what I’d composed.

The groove was a half-time shuffle, one of my favorite things. But it was really fast, as fast as the old JAR tune Pandemonium Clockwise). I felt my schedule shifting, because I would need time to work my shuffle up to this tempo again.

I decided to record the song with dowels rather than drum sticks, in order to get a lighter sound than I would get with sticks. I started with ProMark H-Rods, which have a nice bounce, but ultimately switched to Vic Firth’s Rute model, which is more durable although uncomfortably fat in the handle and crippled by a dumb sliding band that moves around during the song. (Note to self: well-designed dowel sticks should be the first “signature series” item, just as soon as that stick endorsement comes through.)

I worked that damn shuffle for a week. Days I thought sure I’d be able to record a final take became rehearsal days, when after a few hours of takes I had taped nothing I could use. I spent a whole Saturday this way.

On Sunday, my first pass was perfect, but some of my acoustic foam came crashing down during the second chorus, blowing my concentration and, two bars later, my flawless take. Still I managed to blast through a couple of strong performances by mid-afternoon. No single pass was good enough, but the first half of one plus the second of another would yield a decent result.

With all my rehearsing, I’d worked out a couple of neat fills that were tough to pull off. The challenge of a complicated song like this, especially one as long as this (6:40), is deciding whether to risk an otherwise good take by blowing a fill late in the song. I don’t care what the magazines might lead you to believe; punching in to fix drum tracks is very tricky. Seamless patching when 8 mics record one sound requires a delicate touch.

My solution in some cases is to leave a gap in the main take, then overdub just the fill. I did that for the two longish fills in this song.

The end result is about 90% of what I wanted it to be (and I was shooting for a Simon Phillips/Jeff Porcaro feel, i.e., far beyond my actual abilities). As usual, my favorite section is the one that I improvised, around 05:10 where the groove opens up but matches the rhythm of the bass (which you can’t hear in this sample, alas). Also I pulled off another three complicated dance moves that were giving me occasional fits — short passages requiring smooth 4-way coordination.

Tracking this song taught me an interesting lesson in concentration. Passages I could play without thinking about I couldn’t play when I was thinking about them. I play better on autopilot.

Anyway, the final take, presented dry and in genuine rough mix fashion, was assembled from two passes plus two tiny overdubs. I’m not happy with the snare sound yet, and there seems to be a sonic disconnect between the top of the kit (e.g. the china cymbal during the chorus) and mid/bottom (snare and kick), but overall I’m happy with it.

Groove95 (drums only, rough mix, dry) (Copyright © 2004 matthew mcglynn)

For Halloween, I pretended I was a musician. I set up a drum kit and a pile of studio gear and recorded demo drum tracks for two songs, Bleed and Groove95. I sent MP3s of these to Andrew for rehearsal purposes.

Bleed was my favorite tune from the post-CD JAR days. We had only cassette recordings of the song, such as the board mix that I published here a few weeks ago. We had actually hired a mobile studio to record our final public performance, back in 1996 or whenever, but the engineer recycled our ADATs when we waited six months before scheduling the mixdown. (Although I have no CD from that performance, I did take away one important lesson: never trust the hired help with your media.)

I was able to relearn the parts for the song, but performing them cleanly was a big challenge. Wait, did I say challenge? In fact it was an enormous pain in the ass, like a knitting needle hiding in a bean bag chair, like when Dr. Jellyfinger has a hangnail, like that monster shot of penicillin the second time you caught VD. It sucked, anyway. My perfectionist nature kept me working overtime because I refused to keep any take that contained obvious mistakes. The grooves in the song are not hugely complicated, but transitioning from one to another was harder than I remember. Also, my blues band doesn’t play many hard-rock songs in 9/8 with double-bass thrash grooves behind the guitar solo, so I’m out of practice.

The old live version of the song appealed to me because it’s really “live” — I was all over the kit. At first I planned to reproduce that feel for the new recording, but it just wasn’t happening. It didn’t sound energetic; it sounded like mayhem. So I toned it down, resolving subconsciously to compensate for the missing fills by hitting the drums as hard as I possibly could. By the time I’d captured a take I could live with, I’d pounded a crater into my snare drum, like one I’ve not seen since… well, since the last time I played Bleed probably. I don’t hit that hard any more. I guess you could say I’d recorded a very faithful reproduction.

The other somewhat new challenge was recording with no scratch track. For all of JAR’s history, the drums went down either with or after a scratch guitar and/or bass and/or vocal track. I always relied on such a guide track so I don’t have to so carefully keep track of my place in the song. In this case, no such track existed. But as it turns out, the arrangement for Bleed is simple enough that I could sing the entire song in my head even while playing the double-bass thrash groove through the solo. I was pleased with myself.

Here’s the final drum performance, raw and naked. (Disclaimer: The mix is haphazard; I did no editing, cleanup, or overdubs.)

Bleed (drums only, rough mix, dry) (Copyright © 2004 matthew mcglynn)

The Chron reports on an explosion in the wild turkey population in Marin and Sonoma counties. I can attest to that; the driveway between my front door and the compost heap is a minefield of fecalbombs.

After reading my previous post about shooting at turkeys with a cheap slingshot, a friend bought me a nice hunting slingshot for Christmas. In a nod to my preference for biodegradable ammunition, he gave me a 10lb sack of frozen Brussels sprouts. These have proved to be much more aerodynamic than my previous ammo (roasted almonds); they fly true, except when they unwrap.

I’ve managed to hit one turkey. The resultant squawkfest was enough to scare all the birds away, for a short time anyway. (Note: turkeys are, practically speaking, armored. Unless I manage to hit one square in the head, I won’t actually hurt them. Unfortunately.)

In related news, my co-workers frequent a deli near the office that I dislike because it assumes all its patrons are dying for a heap food-flesh — the sandwich menu contains two dozen preparations of meat, yet only one veggie item. On a recent visit I asked if the vegetable soup was vegetarian. “No, it’s made with turkey stock,” said the counter clerk in a defiant tone, “and of you don’t like it, get your tofo-eating vegan ass the hell out of my restaurant!”

A few weeks later, one of my co-workers noted (having heard my soup lament) that the cafe now offers vegetarian vegetable soup. In response I said something that still makes me laugh, even though at the time I got no love:

“I’ll bet they made it with Tofurkey stock.”

The studio blog I promised, like the process it would have documented, is running behind schedule. But it’s nothing that a few weeks’ worth of backdated entries won’t cure.

The initial idea was suggested earlier this year by ex-JAR bassist Andrew when he realized that the other two surviving* members of the band would be in the Bay Area at Thanksgiving for a mutual friend’s wedding. He had been working on a solo CD for three years and saw this as an opportunity to record some new material.

I loved the idea and committed on the spot to hosting the session. It would mean executing a plan I’d had for years already: to acquire sufficient gear to make professional recordings of my drum kit. It has never been hard for me to spend money, but for a change this seemed like a particularly good reason (although I said the same thing when I bought a plasma TV.)

Initially we decided to write two songs apiece. This would be a bigger challenge for me than the other guys, as I don’t play a melodic instrument. Even so, I managed to write one song (chronicled elsewhere), and for my second I pulled a previously-unreleased JAR tune out of the archives (a song called Bleed).

Steve, the guitarist, submitted one new tune plus one from his previous solo CD. Andrew submitted one new tune plus one from his in-progress solo CD (which I’d recorded drums for a couple years ago).

So, the final set list is:

1. Bleed (JAR)
2. Ode to Soup (matt)
3. Cincinnati Summer (Steve)
4. Best in Me (Steve)
5. Not Fair (aka “Bb Pop”) (Andrew)
6. Groove95 (Andrew)

“Groove95” is a working title. I believe Andrew named the song this because I’d taken to calling his previously submitted untitled instrumental “Ballerina Girl.”

My task list as of October 1 looked like this:

• buy a pile of recording gear
• re-learn the drum parts for Bleed and Ode to Soup
• write drum parts for Cincinnati Summer, Best in Me, and Groove95
• record drum parts for all five songs
• re-record the dulcimer part for Ode to Soup
• manage a 2-day recording session, allowing Steve to track guitar for six songs and vocals for four

(This story might continue…)

*The horn section died in a bizarre gardening accident.

This month’s UCS newsletter features a story on recycling consumer electronics such as cell phones and computers. (See also the list of cellphone charities published previously in this space.)