Afternoon snap

 

Afternoon snapshots: With my trusted guide Rosie. I've seen her take down two milkbones with her bare paws. Total badass. #urbansafari 

Horoscope

 

So fitting for my adventure today! 

The walk back

 

The heat rises. Alas, it is time to end my urban safari. I walk the half mile or so back to the home of my host. An ancient dwelling constructed in the 1920s. More Angelenos have stirred awake and head to the bazaar. They do not speak as they pass. I do not speak as I pass. It is their way. I do my best to blend in. And bid a fond farewell to the Mid-Cities shopping and restaurant district. #urbansafari 

Indigenous food - part 2

 

While the cuisine of the Angelenos borrows heavily from all corners of the world, this is unmistakably part of the local culture - the juice cleanse. #urbansafari 

Indigenous food

 

Further exploration of the bazaar I found "Farmer's Market," an area where I could sample the indigenous food. Amazingly, the native cuisine bears the extraordinary influence of cuisines from around the world. Spectacular! I chose French. #urbansafari

Local village

 

Happened upon a local village whose name is pronounced in native tongue "The Grove". This village plays host to a sort of bazaar where locals exchange coin for goods. Fascinating! #urbansafari 

Shadow portrait

 

Portrait of an urban safarist. An early start was important before the blazing 80 plus degree temps with cool ocean breeze from the west kick in. #urbansafari 

Pan Pacific park jungle

 

 To the east of the Broadcast Center Falls we have the beautiful landscaping at Pan Pacific Park. Wonderfully crafted to give the illusion a wild beast could burst thru the brush to pounce upon it's prey at any moment. #urbansafari 

CBS fence

 

 Amazing how nature will burst it's way thru any manmade constructs. Here the bougainvillea gently crawls over the CBS Studios fence. Making it's slow escape to better, purer pastures. #urbansafari 

Daybreak

 

Day breaks upon the city. First stop - the cascading falls of the Broadcast Center Apartments. #urbansafari 

Hat

Because of the heat and because I have to do a lot of walking in it for the week, I've been wearing this hat. It makes me feel like I'm on an urban safari.

 

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.

larcollins|music - "Boyfriend"

I'm starting a new feature here to showcase my work in music. Here's entry number 1!

I've never been a prolific songwriter. I love the process, but inspiration tends to be a fleeting thing. I may crank out one to two songs a year at the most. To be a professional in that area you have to crank out at least one a day! It doesn't always have to be good, but that's the workout you have to give yourself to build up your songwriting muscle.

Because of this I decided to shift my focus to music production. I've always produced my own stuff - stuff I've written - but I wanted to see what the process would be like producing someone else. Low and behold, it's a lot more fun to play with someone else's song! I've discovered doing your own stuff is kind of like giving yourself a haircut.

Below is a song written and sung by my friend Cyndi Vellmure. I played bass in Cyndi's band for a few years and had some of her demos laying around. I decided to take one of those demos, chop it up in my recording software (Reaper) to fix the timing and see how well I could frost that cake. For comparison here is the original demo with just guitar and vocal I consider this my first official foray into music production work.  Now I need to find more songwriters to work on my production muscle.  If you know anyone who wants their song produced for free, send them my way.

Music: Great Remakes "I Can't Go For That"

Oh Hall & Oates, you have returned to my blog. However, Nicki Bluhm and The Gamblers this is, surprisingly, your first appearance. Which is a shame because performing great cover versions of songs while riding around in a van seems to be something you at which you excel. Excellent!

The interesting thing for me is that if you knew me really well, you'd know that I don't particularly like covers or cover bands. The true treasure is finding a band whose original material is just screaming for the world to discover. But even I can admit to a good cover when I hear it. And being that said, "I Can't Go For That" is one of my favorite Hall & Oates songs. The fact that they do an great cover of it with stripped down instruments in the confines of a vehicle is really pretty darn cool.

Aaaand as I watch more Nicki Bluhm cover song videos, the gimmick sort of wears off. I'd be more interested in them as a band if "I Can't Go For That" happened to be a one off goof kind of thing and the rest of their videos were of original material. But, nice try guys.

Music: Great Remakes "Rikki Don't Lose That Number"

I stumbled on this one because I am an avid reader of AVClub.com's TV reviews. Just the reviews. A lot of times I don't even watch the TV show their reviewing. I mean just yesterday I couldn't pass up reading the review for the series finale of "Rules of Engagement" because I was fascinated the show lasted 7 seasons. It just seemed kinda there for millions to watch and simultaneously forget about while they watched. Anyway, I decided to click the music tab on AVClub one day and saw their Undercover series. Bands covering other bands songs. I saw someone decided to redo Steely Dan's "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" and couldn't resist. I love the Dan and this is one of my favorite songs by them. The cover artist, Hospitality, I had never heard of...
Hospitality covers Steely Dan Color me impressed! Hospitality impressed me so much with their solid musicianship I decided to check out their own music. Color me impressed, again. Although they've got this precocious hipster alt rock sound which I figure some could find annoying, they're just a solid, good band with good songs. Period.

Music: Great remakes "What A Fool Believes"

A while back (way back) I did a couple posts about remakes of songs I thought were better (or at least as good) as the original.  Today I present a remake of the Doobie Brothers "What A Fool Believes" done by one of my favorite, criminally underrated, under-served, spectacularly unknown, auteurs of the ridiculously catchy pop song, "bands" called Self.  But before I get into how good this remake is, I'm going to slightly detour into personal confession space.

Damn, this song.  You ever notice how how certain songs you love really paint a picture of your life?  It's like my TV theme song.  You know, if there existed a TV show about me, the opening credits would be of me blissful and ignorantly walking down the street waving hi to all the co-stars portraying my friends - with this song playing along in the background.  Oh the misadventures we'd have!  All because of my dogged insistence of trusting my feelings.

Of course I'm learning it's good thing, nay, great thing to trust your feelings (gut instincts I say).  It has served me well in many instances of my life.  However, what is really weird is how the things I feel the most impassioned and sure about have yet to pan out.  And I'm stuck with what seems to be.  Well it's better than nothing.  Better than nothing at all.

Back to the song.  I love Self.  I love this remake.  But I do feel the original is the best version.  However, due to the fact this version was recorded entirely on toy instruments elevates it to equal status in my eyes.  I mean, try fixing stuff with toy tools and see how far and frustrated you get.  Well done, Matt Mahaffey.  Well done.

(side note - why I call Self a "band" is because it's mainly the outlet of talented producer/songwriter Matt Mahaffey.)

First African-American Olympic Gymnast

Documented

Sigh

I need something to write about.  I miss writing.  I've been out of work since April and had the best summer of my life.  Now it's October 1st and I've started to do some work again.  I don't want to go back into an office full time.  Rather do part time job here and odd jobs here and there instead.  Sigh.  Such is life.