Tough Knuckles: Ariel Panero RIP

Here is a song from the latest Famous Class Records release, "Vanna White", by Tough Knuckles. Tragically, their guitarist, Ariel, committed suicide this past winter before the record even had a release date. It was truly heartbreaking news. Although I didn't get to know Ariel too well, he was a pleasure to work with, a true professional and a talented musician.

This was a record I recorded with the band last summer over the course of 4 days. We tracked drums and bass live with scratch guitars and scratch vox. We set up the first day, tracked drums and bass for all 10 songs the second day, and did extensive guitar overdubs the third with various amps and guitars. Tough Knuckles demo was extremely lo fi, and they wanted to retain some of that grit while making the recording more palatable at the same time. I decided to record the drums as I normally would, and focus on making the guitar sounds lo fi and unique sounding. The fourth day was left for vox which were recorded with a U 87 with an sm 58 next to it that went through several pedals and then into a pa in another room, which was recorded at the same time. All the vox were double tracked. As I remember, the sessions were long and grueling in order to get the whole thing done in such a short amount of time, but we got it all done!

The band took the tracks back up to NY, where friend and producer Jamie Ayers of Snakes Say Hisss, edited the songs, added a few overdubs, and sent it along to be mixed. Although there are a couple things I might have done a little differently mix wise, I think Jamie and the mixing engineer did a great job! Enjoy!

-kyle


03 While We're On The Phone by The Headroom