larcollins|music - Heads Will Roll Part 3 - A Day In The Life In The Studio

"Look, if you had, one shot. Or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment. Would you capture it, or just let it slip?"

Now add to that not having a drummer.  I decided to go with Jon's guy.  And here's the embarrassing part - right now I can't recall his name (I'm sooo sorry!).  Honestly, remembering names is a big problem for me.

Anyway, day saved.  I had a drummer for the session.  Great sigh of relief.  I hoped.  We would soon see as we all sat down for the first time to run through the song.

Okay, first run through a little shaky and a lot off.  But only Jon and I had played together before.  We have a new guy and it may take a few run throughs for things to start clicking.
Okay, a few run throughs and it's still sounding shaky.  Maybe turn up the click in all of our headphones.  Let's take five and get some goodies from the Fish Lounge.

After the break we take another stab at it.  Trying to play the basic backing track live to tape (or computer if you will).  At this point I'm starting to worry.  I don't think this really nice guy who graciously volunteered his time for my session can play to a click.  Two hours in to the session and the three of us playing the song together just does not sound good.

At that point I asked Jamie the engineer if we could record our parts separately.  I really didn't want to squander any more precious studio time in the hopes that the drummer would at some point hit the mark.  Sometimes you have to make that decision to call a spade a spade.  I knew individually Jon and I would be able to hit our parts.  We've recorded together before.  As for the drummer, maybe if he had more than just a click to work with it would help.

I 

I go first.  And I nail my bassline IN ONE TAKE!  That's how we do it, b*tches!  I felt like throwing down the mic, raising my hands and walking out.  At the end of the movie "The Breakfast Club," Anthony Michael Hall's character gives himself a congratulatory punch in the shoulder for a job well done.  That was me.  I will never be the greatest bass player in the world.  But I will always be solid and dependable and I'm immensely proud of that.

Up next ... well I wanted Jon to go next, but, logically it was better if the drummer took his turn.  Okay, given the new direction we were going with recording and having my track and the click to guide him with no other distractions, this could work.  *Sigh* ... take after take after take after take ... he'd start off good, lose his way, find his way back, meander hither and fro...  I looked to Jon.  He has had more recording experience than I do, but he deferred back to me.  It was my song and my session.  Ultimately, it was my decision what to do.  Victor, oh Victor, why had you forsaken me!

In that moment I realized there were two things I could do:  I could pout and be pissed off that Victor bailed on the session; be mad at this drummer for not meeting my standards and declare defeat that my session was completely ruined.  Or I could take a step back and and ask myself what the greater lesson was for me in the grand scheme of things?  I've always wanted to be a music producer.  In that moment, when Jon deferred back to me, I knew these difficulties were meant for me so I could step up and BE that music producer!

From then on, I took over my own session.  I decided to do one more take with the drummer.  Still not good enough, but I felt we had enough takes to stitch something decent together.  I had him add some percussion instruments - tambourine, shaker, frame drum - gave him some direction on what I wanted him to play for those takes.  When I wanted him to play.  Called it when I felt I had enough decent material to work with.  Just like a real producer.

If this were my career, if this is what I did every day, then challenges such as these would be par for the course.  It was such a great lesson to learn.  It's also one I've had to re-learn throughout this process.  Getting the recording completed in the studio that day was only half the battle.  But you know what?  Facing those challenges and taking command was a lot of fun!

larcollins|music - Heads Will Roll, Part 2 - Up Sh*t Creek Without A Drummer

Back to December 2012.  My birthday that day had already been special after receiving the gift of studio time at a major recording studio.  But my day was far from over.  I had been invited by my friend and former bandmate Victor to meet up for birthday drinks at the Culver Hotel.  Victor and I share birthdays and have celebrated ours together in the past.  It had been a while since we'd seen each other.

I got there as most people were leaving but to my pleasant surprise another former bandmate of ours was also there  - Jon!  I hadn't seen Jon in years either since he moved back east.  I had been in a few bands with both of these guys.  The last one together being The Lula Stream, which to this day is the band that deeply broke my heart when we broke up.

I don't believe in coincidences, but it took me a few days for it to dawn on me.  How interesting was it that I'd unexpectedly run into two former bandmates right after I offered studio time?  Not just any two bandmates, but musicians I admired and absolutely trusted.

My session was set for January 4, 2013 in Studio A at Hensons.  I was nervous, anxious and excited as hell.  We wouldn't be starting until that afternoon, but of course something like this could never go smoothly, right?  That morning I hear from Victor.   He can't do the session.  

F***!!!  I have no drummer.

For the next few hours it was a mad scramble trying to find someone to replace him.  I mean someone who would work for free!  The one thing I was counting on with Vic was I knew I could trust his timing.  It's my biggest musical pet peeve - you can do all the fancy crap in the world on your instrument - flames could shoot from your fingers - but if you can't play to a click?  As far as I'm concerned you're completely useless. (Kids, always practice to a metronome.  You'll thank me later.)

 

I had friends who had friends willing to fill in for Victor.  Even Jon, who was still on for the session, knew someone.  But I was flying blind.  I was up sh*t creek without a drummer.  I needed to know whoever was coming in, had good timing.  I decided to go with Jon's guy.  I trusted Jon so I figured anyone he brought in had to be pretty good.  Right?  Right?

larcollins|music - Heads Will Roll, Part 1 - original demo

My latest music production project and the one I am learning the most from.  In December 2012, I was given the ultimate birthday gift.  It was something I had dreamed of getting since I was a tween - studio time at a professional recording studio.

Yes, that is an odd gift for a 12 year old to wish for.  But at that age I had decided I wanted to be a music producer.  I didn't want to be the famous singer or in a successful band (those fantasies would rise and die later), I wanted to be that guy (there were virtually NO female music producers back then) in the studio, putting everything together.  Deciding which echo effect goes where.  What instruments should be together.  Somehow at that age I understood the role of a music producer and I knew deep down that's what I wanted to do.

So 30 plus years later, I am back to focusing on making that 12 year old's dreams come true.  Imagine how floored I was when my co-worker arranged with the manager and head engineer at Henson's Recording Studio to let me record there for one day!  I'm almost collapse to the floor and cried.  Most amazing gift ever.

My session was set for January 2013.  I had to decide which of the songs I had written throughout my lifetime was going to get the full blown audio day spa treatment.  It came down to what was currently my favorite among the songs I've ever written, a song called "Girlcrush (Won't You Come Home)" and "Dark Rotary"

"Dark Rotary" didn't even have an official title until long after it had been written.  But, duh, in the chorus I repeat the line "Heads will roll" so the name of the song was staring me in the face.  I posted "Dark Rotary" on SoundCloud along with several other original tunes I had written but for some reason this particular song seemed to inspire the most listens.  As much as I love "Girlcrush," more people were connecting with the other song - so "Dark Rotary" won out.

I had taken the demo of the song off SoundCloud since I was going to be recording a true professional version.  Today I put the demo back on the site as a way to demonstrate the evolution of the song from home demo to professional recording.  And also to document what lessons I've learned along the way.