Busy Few Weeks

Jun 19, 2008 at 4:05 PM
1 comment

Mario here- I've missed a few days from the blogosphere but today I intend to make up some lost days. The studio was a busy the last few weeks and I got to record some great sessions with established musicians plus one new band. A couple of performances may have given some listeners flash-backs.

June 2nd - Aimee Mann

Watch or Listen to the Aimee Mann session here

Aimee Mann has been here a few times over the years and again she brought in some great players. If you get a chance to watch the video or see her live, watch the keyboard player. He manages to fire off sequences and play
keys and piano all at the same time and split his brain in three. They usually have two keys players but for our performance he was covering it all.

Watch Aimee Mann and her band perform "Miss Freeway"

Aimee Mann

June 5th - James

Watch or Listen to the James session here

James in the Studio

The Set-up for James was a little different. I had to put a small drum kit outside the usual isolation booth since musician Saul Davies was playing violin, guitar AND the small kit. Sometimes he played violin and hit the kick drum at the same time. With everything that was going on in the room, I ended up putting lead singer singer Tim Booth in the booth. And talk about pipes! Tim hit notes that most bands don't even attempt that early in the morning. On one of the tracks he holds a note so long that he must practice circular breathing or something aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhaaaaahhhh!

Watch James perform "Waterfall."

James

June 10th - Los Campesinos

Watch or Listen to the Los Campesinos session here

Los Campesinos is from a place you wouldn't expect, given their name...Wales. They filled the room with Casio keys, glock, violin, a mini Korg, guitars and drums; and they bashed away. Lead singer Gareth had me busy at the faders singing some very soft parts the some spoken parts and then going to a full blown abusing of the vocal cords. These guys are young and already touring the US and were on the way to a studio in Seattle to record their next chapter. Man I wish I was young again... aww forget about it.

Watch Los Campesinos perform "You! Me! Dancing!"

Los Campesinos

June 11th - Bajafondo

Watch or Listen to the Bajafondo session here

Bajofondo

Finally in this installment, Bajofondo. The band, led by Gustavo Santaolalla, on guitar and vocals just amazed us all. I enjoyed the session not only because of the music, but because of the out of the ordinary instrumentation. There was double bass, violin, and the traditional to tango bandoneon (button accordion.) The music is a little electronic, (think Bitter:Sweet, but with a tango influence,) with several instrumentals. But these players were not messing around and are amazing performers that have loads of fun together as a collective. Gustavo Santaolalla has many producer credits and has worked with people like Julieta Venegas, Molotov, Juanes and Café Tacuba. His many awards also include winning Grammys for scoring Brokeback Mountain and Babel. He a song live for the first time which he wrote called Fairly Right. They ended the show playing some instrumentals that had the KCRW stafff leaving their desks to find the source of this tango-infused music that made you want to get up and dance.

Watch Bajafondo perform "Miles De Pasajeros"

Bajofondo

Mario Diaz
KCRW Recording Engineer