Secondly, sorry there’s so few photos in this post.  I’m collecting stuff from everyone, including some good video bits, and will post stuff as I get it.

However, here’s a shot Dave took from the plane to set the scene:

Yes, it was the week of the big freeze here in Chicago.  It just so happened that the four days the guys were in town were the coldest days I’ve ever seen.  Ever.  -35 below (with windchill) at it’s worst.  Perfect weather for staying cooped up in a recording studio for 12 hour a day:)

PREGAME : High of 13˚

The guys arrived Wednesday night at the KEROSENE offices shortly after 5 and after hugs and handshakes we headed over to Shirk’s for a short reunion and a tour of the studio. From there we all headed over to Schubas Tavern near my place for some dinner and reminiscing.

Things were pretty much the same since the last time we got together:)  John and I debated politics and his ultra-liberal to my moderate-liberal discrepancies; we got filled in on Dave’s love life and the trials of his continuing battle to balance his music and computer career….  same ‘ol John and Dave.  No music talk that night  (that I can remember)… just catching up, a few beers (tea for Dave, as usual) and easy conversation.

DAY 1 : High of 7˚

We met around 10am at Shirk’s and jumped right into working on drum sounds.  As with most things this time out, everything went much faster than I’d remembered.  Dave was set up and Shirk had gotten the kit sounding great in under an hour. Before I knew it, we were tracking “Flora”.

We decided to track John and Dave separately for most of these session tracks. Since the material was so new to both the guys, we all agreed that tracking the two voices independently would give them a little more freedom to experiment and hone the parts while we recorded.  I assumed there would be a little writing on the fly….

However, once we started, it was a moot point… the first tune coulnd’t have gone smoother. Dave was really on point right out of the gate.  He’d clearly rehearsed this one and got his part in place relatively fast, within 2-3 hours. After a few hours, John jumped it and, in usual Johnny-Ace form, he locked in the part in just over an hour.  I think Shirk will agree, there are few bass players we know as good in the studio (and out) as John.  Rock solid focus and impeccable taste.

“Flora” was in the bag.

After a brief lunch we moved onto “Wedding Song”…

This went even better than “Flora”, and I think we were all knocked out at how well this song was turning out, even in it’s raw un-mixed state…. the trio blends really nicely here.  John and Dave both knocked there parts out quickly, by 10pm we were closing up shop and heading home for the night.

Day one was great!  Stress free… looked like it was gonna be a breeze.

DAY 2: high of -1˚

Well, as the deep cold set it, the sessions became more challenging.  I won’t lie… Day 2 was a struggle.

Over the last few weeks, I’d been telling the guys how I thought “Spinning On”, besides potentially being the title track of the record, was the standout tune of the set.  It’s probably the most catchy, upbeat tune on the record, and the song’s message really defines where I’m at in my life right now.  Perhaps a little too much pressure?

Drums took some time.  There was a lot of refining and re-taking, and section-by-section taking (which we know is never a good idea.)  Shirk was sounding pretty sick too, to the point where I took over all the producing so he could rest his voice. To top it off, we had to break mid-day for a PR interview with a local magazine that’s doing a piece on KEROSENE.

By about 9pm, we were just finishing bass parts, and I think we were all irritable, frustrated, and just plain spent. We listened back to the progress so far, and I hated ALL OF IT, even the stuff we did the day before.  So at this point, even though I had set a 2-song per day recording schedule, we called it a night.

What I had forgotten was…. this happens!! In all the years I’ve worked in the studio, it’s never a breeze and it’s USUALLY frustrating.  It was a good smack in the face for me, and I think helped keep things focused on Day 3.

Day 3: high of -3˚

Yes, it got COLDER. But Day 3 was the highlight:)

We arrived at noon (some rest was needed after the night before) and started tracking a new song that I wrote just before I left for the holiday in December.  The writing of it had come together very very quickly, and the drums and bass fell into place just as fast.  In 3 hours, it was locked, and things were looking up!

We moved onto “Taking Time” next, one of my favorites on the new album. After some noodling, Shirk and Dave found an incredible drum sound for the kick and toms… with some massive, MSG verb that really heightens the emotional peak of the song.  John quickly layered in a simple complimentary bass part, and we were done.

Holy crap!  We’d made up the lost time… I thought we might actually pull this off.

After a quick dinner, we set up for “The Knowledge Tree”.  This was the first song I’d ever written, back in art school when I first picked up Steve Steigbigel’s crappy Squire electric and began teaching myself how to play. The three of us had performed this song SO many times… so Shirk changed the set up for live tracking.  I was in the control room on a scratch mic, playing electric DI so that the guys had a reference point.  John and Dave were in the main room, all listening on headphones, playing simultaneously.

IT WAS A BLAST.

After all the stop-and-start tracking and nit picking, it was so nice to plug-in with the guys and just PLAY! This is the part we always enjoyed most (and excelled at best I think), and it flowed like wine.

We tracked the song from beginning to end 10 times…. each version having a little character of it’s own.  Some of the best playing we’ve done together….

by 10:30 pm, we’d gotten all 3 tunes in the can – an extremely productive day, and headed out for the night.

DAY 4: high of 4˚

Well, the temperature was slowly beginning to climb back up as the session were coming to a close.  We had 7 hours and 1 song to track, so I had no doubt we’d be in great shape.

And we were.  We tracked parts for “Mystified and Bruised”, which the guys hadn’t really had a chance to prepare for at all, and in the end, it’s one of my favorite tracks from the 4 days.  Fresh, vibrant, and smart.  Can’t wait for you all to hear.

Before we all left, we kicked back and listened to all the work we’d accomplished in that short span of time.  Low and behold, days 1 and 2 actually sounded great and all the newest stuff was as solid as we’d remembered.

Big thanks to John and Dave for sticking it out and delivering the goods. And thanks to you for reading this huge blog post. As I said, I’ll be posting photos, video and audio samples from the stint as soon as I get em.

Shirk and I will start mixing and tracking vocals next week.  Stay tuned.

PJ

Don’t as me why.  I don’t even remember how we ended up there.

But DAMN is it catchy.  Yes, it’s totally 80′s cheesy, and some of the lyrics actually make no sense at all, but it’s been stuck in my head since.  In fact, I found myself doing the different voices while I was singing in the shower the other day (Lionel/Stevie/Paul Simon/Kenny Rogers… go ahead, I know you wanna try it.)

Regarding WATW, some thoughts:

- The Globe intro is AWESOMELY terrible.

- Stevie Wonder kicked ass on it.  holy crap.

- When MJ sings “When you’re down and out, there seems no hope at all” in the bridge… Awesome. Best part fo the song.

- Who the fuck is Kim Carnes??? I didn’t know then and I don’t know now.

- Huey ruins his solo with the fist pump thing.  He looks silly.

- I felt bad for Lindsay Buckingham.  He doesn’t get a solo and shows up in the video for a milisecond, and in the group chorus no less. Yet, Al Jarreau and James Ingram get solos. And where’s Stevie Nicks… was she even in there?

- I love when Bob Dylan comes in.  great placement of his solo.  same with Ray Charles.  Great that they save those two for later in the song.  nice work Q.

- Why is Quincy Jones so insanely famous?  “Thriller”, Off The Wall”, “We are the World”, I get it… but what other huge shit?

OK, so here’s the question I pose to the viewing audience, if “We Are The World” were done today, who would be on it?  There are so many timeless artists on that tune that were very current then and are still pretty relevant… so who do we got now?  Shirk and I were at a bit of a loss.

Feel free to make suggestions.  Maybe we can get them to make another one.

Here’s the original:

- PJ

With the sax put away, PJ borrowed my acoustic guitar (I think?) and we got started.

We cut one basic rhythm guitar track from beginning to end.  Then punched in a couple overdubs for second acoustic guitar parts.  Then we cut one take of the main vocal.  Here’s what it sounded like:

Shoebox (First Demo)

shoebox-first-demo

I get a kick out of listening to PJ’s voice on this version.  He was far less confident and comfortable in his abilities at this point in his musical career.  He hadn’t done much live performing yet as a solo singer/songwriter, with the exception of a few open mics here and there.

I hadn’t heard this demo in a long time and when I first listened to it I was startled by the amount of vibrato PJ had in his vocal delivery.  I’d never really remembered him using vibrato at all.  What I have noticed is that singers that are just starting out tend to overuse vibrato a lot.  It’s almost as if they don’t know that it’s OK to let your natural voice just be what it is.  Or perhaps it’s just an exploratory exercise.  Either way… as singers develop their vocal skills, many learn that all that vibrato is overkill.  In my experience, simply locking on the note and holding it, showing the purity in your voice, is what really takes the skill and confidence.  (I suppose that could be considered a matter of opinion)

As PJ’s vocal control developed over the years that followed, he really began to excel at being able to lock on to a note and hold it.  In fact I think it is one of my favorite parts of his vocal skill set.  I remember hearing him perform his ballad, “Boston” a number of times (live at Mercury Loung in NYC, Uncommon Ground in Chicago, or recently in his kitchen) and just being floored when he’d get to that point in the bridge.  He’d nail a note in his high falsetto voice and just lock on to it for like 4 bars!  It has the affect of a soft violin line just floating along with the music.  PJ has come a long way.  It’s great to hear an artist progress….and even more fun to be there to watch and document it as it transpires.

To show the progess, here’s where Shoebox ended up a year or so later on PJ’s first studio release Selections from the Shoebox.

Shoebox – Selections From the Shoebox

Last time we got together it was like riding a bike.  I think it was two summers ago, my manager had booked some gigs on the east coast and a Living Room date in NYC at the end of the run.  I had been very nervous about these dates since it had been over a year we’d played together, and it looked like our schedules would only allow for 2 rehearsals before the run of dates. The three of us (along with Doug Derryberry on lead guitar, the most recent addition to the last version of our crew) got together over a weekend, and after about an hour, it all came back.  I was shocked and pleasantly awed by how much we all retained and how immediately in sync we were.

Early on, we rehearsed like crazy.  We used to drill and drill and drill the arrangements so that the breaks and fills and all the little bits that make a show sound tight were VERY very tight. It probably helps too that John’s got IMPECCABLE time, and Dave has a great way of relaxing the beat so that the preciseness of the arrangements never feels too robotic.

So, that all being said, you have to hear it for yourself.  This recording is one of my favorites, of “Madison” from the Living Room back in ’04 around the Holidays… turn you bass up a bit and you’ll hear how comfortably the guys lock in together.  It also features Alfredo Hidrovo on percussion and our virtuoso pal John Putnam on Guitar.

madison_04_lr

This recording always reminds me of the context of that day. Just before the show, Alfredo and I had an argument about money (always the worst kind of argument), and I had probably had one beer (or Gin?) too many.  We’d just come off a string of dates so everyone was a bit worn, but we were also in a very optimistic place then due to all the management and industry attention we’d started getting.  Emotions we’re high and I think this recording has a great vibe to it because of that.

Here’s a video of the same song, same venue, a year later, about 9 months before I moved to Chicago.  Things were really peaking at this point… I had a full 9 piece band that night that sat in on various songs, and John Leventhal (big producer, Shawn Colvin and others) was in attendance. Another great night and a prime example of how rock solid my guys are/were.

Ah, great memories.  looking forward to making some new ones.

PJ

The band was made up of Aaron Mitchell (vocals), Michael Preston (guitars and vocals), Eddie Rubiez (djembe/percussion) Mark Sakamoto (Monster FRETLESS Bass) and one PJ Loughran (Sax). We did a weekend recording session in February of 2000, using my living room as the live room and my bedroom as the control room.  The end of the elevated N train (Can anyone say Ditmars Blvd.) was about a block from my house so trains were roaring in and out every 5 -10 minutes.  We got pretty good at spacing out takes.  I’m amazed that my elderly Greek landlord that lived above me never said a thing about the thumping Djembe in the apt below him.   Anyhow, we cut basic tracks for 5 songs that day.  Djembe/percussion, Bass and Acoustic Guitar.  We’d overdub vocals, and sax another day.  I’ll always remember this session because, A) it was my first session in NYC that I ran using my own gear and space and B) it’s the only recording session I’ve run to date, where the artist(s) brought homemade cookies.

Fast forward a month, through lots of vocal overdubs, drum and bass edits, countless engineering mistakes on my part and probably over a thousand playbacks of these 5 tunes.  Now it’s time to record the saxophone parts that PJ had planned out.  Up until this point I had actually never met him, only seen him on stage.  So he came in and we got started.  It was my second time recording saxophone.  My first time (seriously) was when we had Michael and Randy Brecker in to Pink Noise (the Jingle/Music Production company I worked at) to do some kind of funk track for a Canon copier ad.  I literally setup a mic and they made it happen…we had a take in 10 minutes.  This time it didn’t come as easy.   Not because of the talent, but because we were working with denser arrangements of instruments and it was hard to figure out where to put the parts PJ had in his head.  But after 3 or 4 hours we had what we needed and were happy with how it fit together.

Here is a track to give you an idea of what we did that day and where we were in our musical journey’s back in early 2000.  Listen to PJ cut loose at the end of this one.  I think he broke his EWI the last time Shagg palyed this one live.

“Shiela” Written and Performed by Shagg

Following the recording of the horns…PJ asked, “Do you have time to record some of my songs?”  My next post will fill you in on what was to come.

PJ

I bought this thing like 10 years ago used (so it’s gotta be about 14 or 15 years old).  I pulled it out of storage a few days ago to start experimenting (for the record potentially), and when I turned it on it sounded like R2-D2 when he got shot by the Jawas.

Truth be told, I never really found a practical use for it. I think I played it out at shows maybe 2 or 3 times, but it never really fit.

Really, I don’t think its fits in much. but, on paper, it should!  it’s just a midi controller, so if I can find the right sounds to run through it, and apply the right voices, ideally, it should work on something… either way, it’s fun as shit to play.

But, if you’re at all curious about what this is, enter EWI into the search on YouTUBE.  You’ll see it’s many, many, many abuses.

PJ

These days, things are a bit more challenging.  I own a small advertising/creative agency called KEROSENE Creative Services and I’m still illustrating steadily, so my days are pretty packed. I also have a family and, as you know, I’m writing and recording another record. So needless to say, my schedule requires a bit more attention to detail than before.

The nice thing is, since I own the shop, I have control of my time, and my work space….

I’ve set up a little writing area in my office.  So on the slow days, and spare moments here and there, I write.

The dark blue double pedal there is a looping device, which lets me play an idea through the guitar (or any instrument I can plug through it), and then arrange additional parts over it.  It’s got a USB connector built-in, so I can transfer these ideas to my computer, spit them out as mp3s for my ipod, and mull over the ideas on the drive home from work.

The rest of the pedals are sounds effects that give the guitar additional voices.  So when I’m over laying parts, I can also try other textures and sounds, creating what starts to sound like a room full of musicians, rather than just me playing.

This is an electric mandolin I picked up in NJ after a recording session one night a few years ago.  I’ve always loved Bluegrass and specifically, the mandolin… hoping to work it in to a couple songs. however, I still have many miles to go in terms of playing the thing.

Here’s the view from my office… not bad, right?  My wife and I moved to Chicago from NYC about a year and a half ago. incredible city…

SO, back to it…. as I said, free time is a bit more precious these days, but there are still some great pockets of time I use to write. Most of KEROSENE’s clients are Hollywood Studios (WB, FOX, SONY, MIRAMAX, etc…) so I fly to LA every 2 or 3 weeks.  Most of the lyrics are finding their way out on the plane.  Actually, most of my writing has always seemed to happen when I’m en route to somewhere.

My first album, “Grenadine” was written on subway trains and planes.  Most of “Sunrise Run” was written on the subway.

I think it’s something about being in your own space, or your own head, when you’re traveling that helps.  It’s great thinking time for me… very little distraction. Sitting in a seat for 5 hours (or even 1/2 hour) with nothing to do and no one to talk to kind of forces the focus out of me.

As far as recording goes, I’ve scheduled full days off from work to work with Shirk.  His studio is only about a 1/4 mile from my office, so its extremely convenient.  And if there are any work emergencies that I need to attend to, I’m not too far away.

So, yeah, it’s a lot to juggle I guess, but I’m not sure I would do it any other way.  I love all these things that I’m doing.  And as long as I can figure out a way to make them all work, I plan on continuing to do them all.

More later.

-PJ