HEY, CALIFORNIA
me – electric guitar
Rob – electric guitar, bass
KING SHAM
Rob – electric guitar, piano
Me – cowbell
SHERMAN
me – acoustic guitar, vocals, melodica
Rob – bass
A good day in the studio, but a boring write up thereof…
For HEY, CALIFORNIA we did two electric guitar tracks, one of me playing a Les Paul gold top (Rob has a number of vintage guitars, all of which I covet), and then another of him on a Telecaster. This represents probably the first and only track on the CD that will feature any electric guitar from me. That used to bother me a bit, I felt as if I wasn’t participating enough in my own CD, but somewhere along the line, between expediency and realism I lost that blow to my ego. The songs are mine, all the vocals are mine, the majority of the acoustic work is mine, and Rob is doing his job as a producer, which is to bring the songs out in the studio. And, having read a lot of interviews, I’ve come to realize that this is a pretty common setup. I think what threw me initially was having been in the studio with a band, where the other parts I didn’t do were covered by other band members so this sense that the project isn’t your own never really comes up. Doing one solo, unless you happen to be a multi-instrumentalist, of which I am certainly not, means you HAVE to have this going on. I just never considered it, and didn’t realize it was pretty much THE WAY THINGS ARE DONE. It does give you an even larger respect for the work that a good producer does, because you realize how much of themselves is going into a project that for the most part will only bear their name in small print.
Somebody correct me if I’m mistaken.
KING SHAM had Rob playing a Strat through a Leslie, simply because I am constantly bugging him for that guitar sound from “Badge.” I am not a big Clapton fan, but I love that sound. Love. It. Couldn’t even explain why. Also, I played some cowbell, to the obvious Saturday Night Live jokes. It’s funny to see jokes become standard in the musician community. I suppose that makes it a musician meme, if I understand the concept correctly. I’ve watched precious little of that show over the past 5 years or so, but somehow I did stumble across that sketch (it’s the sketch involving the recording of “Don’t Fear the Reaper” by Blue Oyster Cult, which if you don’t know, features a cowbell through almost the entire song). I find that it has now taken it’s place alongside “Spinal Tap,” “the Rutles,” “That Thing You Do!” and “Tenacious D” episodes as THINGS YOU MUST BE ABLE TO REFERENCE WITH OTHER MUSICIANS. So, go up to a musician you know and tell him you want him to “explore the studio space with the cowbell” and see if they don’t get it immediately. If they don’t, tell them they better get it soon before the musician community shuns them.
For SHERMAN we did the acoustic guitar track and doubled it (one take each) and the lead vocal (one take). I did it sitting, for some reason, it seemed to feel right. I kept hoping the chair would creak a little more for atmosphere. I also played a brief melodica solo. It’s really horribly out of tune, I’m not even sure if I can take it somewhere to have it tuned, but we ran it through a tremolo effect which seemed to soften the tuning problem. And it works sort of out of tune anyway. Rob pieced together the bass track with his usual aplomb, always an impressive task and he’s generally learning how to play the track as he goes. Have I mentioned I am lucky to have him working on my stuff, here and with the band?
I also played him the new song I wrote last week, sans lyrics, which he liked, and also played what I had so far on the song that was in response to him and Pete challenging me to write a song that only has three chords. Which has so far been the hardest thing I have ever written. More on those later.