Aselin Working the Magic Boxes
I think it was all the way back in April when I sent Aselin and Larry a trio of songs to learn for possible recording down the road. The date we’d set to get together was this past Wednesday. Actually, I thought we were just getting together to tighten up the songs, not to record per se. But Aselin’s got such a seamless setup at his space that he thought we should go for it, and it ended up being a good thought. We ended up doing live trio tracks for two songs, and I think the remote, asynchronous learning (apologies for the invasion of job-language) of the songs led to fresh, loose takes. Which might actually fit better with my Garageband doodles than I’d thought. But as for the night in question…
At first, I was pretty uncomfortable, to be honest. It’s been a long time since I’ve played with other people, and whenever that happens, I feel extremely uptight and/or just plain OFF rhythmically. It’s NOT like riding a bike, unfortunately. But with a little encouragement (and beer), I got over myself and loosened up. The first song we did was “The Oldies Station,” one from my current batch that I’m most proud of. The chords stay the same across a pair of long verses, but Larry mixed up the beat half-way through each, changing along with the vocals. That was a cool method, actually: At their request, I played the songs solo before we recorded, to remind the guys of how they “went.” We did three takes, then “just one more” “just in case,” and of course this last one nailed it.
I thought the second song would prove more problematic, and it was…but not for the reasons I’d anticipated. Basically, “You Are Not Your Own” is a rambling country song; I think of it as “Louvin Brothers-like,” when all I really mean is that it’s “Gospel Jubilee-like.” Each verse tells a different story about a different person. Kind of like “The Next Thing You Know,” but a little deeper, description-wise. There are points in the verses where, for dramatic effect, a chord could be played for twice or even three times as long “as usual,” but this would be more of a live conceit, and I was worried that dynamic would be lost in studio. It didn’t help that I didn’t have lyrics done for the last set of verses, which were the most dramatic/pausey ones.
What we ended up doing was setting up a mike that wasn’t plugged into anything, and John and Larry encouraged me to just sort of mock-sing the thing, to “telegraph” when the changes were coming. It felt corny at first, but it worked in the end. It’s a weird paradox of playing live, playing with other people. I know I’m supposed to look at the other guys, to arch my eyebrows and tilt my head in order to steer my ‘mates through things, but I’m so used to playing alone at this point that I feel awkward doing so. Thankfully, all that OVERT signaling isn’t so necessary when you play with folks like John and Larry, who have gobs more experience in this realm, and so can “read” an extra bend of the knee, or the hair-toss that precedes stepping to the mike. In short, bless those guys. They’re awesome.
No but so the “difficult” thing about recording the second song was just m’damn FINGERS. Playing a pair of songs over and over, especially a pair of (for me) “fast ones” is an intense workout for the ol’ digits and callouses. When I’m in the basement, plowing through an hour of my repertoire, there’s plenty of room to breathe, but not here. I know Aselin could have kept going, and I appreciate his enthusiasm, but I. Just. Couldn’t. Larry’d had a late night previous, so it was just me and John at the Matchbox afterwords. I don’t normally stay out late weeknights, and I’m not sure why. Especially in the summer, with a nice sidewalk table, friendly company and traffic-watching…
I’ll post what comes of this, probably. Or at the very least, just to be sneaky, I’ll get “The Oldies Station” as a one-mike demo recorded, just ’cause I like it so much. Thanks to John and Larry for their willingness to do this. They said they’d be willing to do some occasional “two-song sessions” going forward. I’ll have to think of songs I got now that would work as trio pieces. Hmm…
