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

Extraordinaires EP - Dreams come true!

Hello internet, sorry I haven't blogged on you, I've been waiting for my friends, The Extraordinaires to release the ep that we recorded before the New Year.

The Extraordinaires are a band that I've admired from afar for many years. Ever since I saw them perform their musical, "Ribbons of War" at a warehouse in North Philly, I've been a fan. Joe and I would actually sometimes kick back and drink beers and talk about the way we would record them if we ever got a chance while listening to their music, so it was extremely gratifying to finally get the chance to do it after four years of wishing.

This song, "Big Show" was my favorite of the three that we did together. I recorded the drums to sound very tight; no room mic needed. I taped a t shirt halfway onto the snare drum to get it to sound very immediate and dead. Jay, the singer, recorded rhodes keyboard live with the rest of the band, (trumpet was recorded afterwards, as was the korg keyboard in the choruses and vox). The band did all their backing vox together around one mic (impressive!), and they knocked it out in about 3 takes (also impressive). It was really a pleasure to work with such proficient musicians.

Matt, the bass player, described the song as "a hip hop ice cream truck". To me, it sounded like an old show tune set to a beat. I really wanted to take that feeling a little further. After discussing it with Jay and Matt, I sent some of the mix: the snare drum, the rhodes, the trumpet, and guitar out of my tiny ampeg amp, and blended it into the mix in order to make part of the song sound like it was coming out of an old radio. As a contrast to the grainy lo fi sound, I made Jays voice very clean and present, and the kickdrum very punchy and full. Both the band and I were really happy with the way it came out, enjoy!

-kyle

Big Show Mix 2 C by The Headroom