MGMT Live Session

MGMT, the budding wunderkinds of the indie pop scene, visited our studios today delivering their brand of electro dominated songs.  The live versions in this session feature a little more prominent guitar than you'll hear on the studio album.  MGMT is Andrew Vanwyngarden (guitar and lead vocals) and Ben Goldwasser (keyboard maestro and vocals), joined today by James Richardson on guitar, Matt Asti on bass, and Will Berman on drums.

Mr Murphy Law  was also in attendance!   Who invited him?

To start things off, the band's gear was delivered to the wrong location --- and MGMT uses a lot of gear!  Our best laid plans of loading in a little early this morning were shot. 

thump, thump, -- thump, thump.  110 over 70.  What?  Me Worry?

With help from our venerable, do-it-all, mailroom guy, Jason Groman, we actually got the stuff in studio a little after 9AM.  THANKS JASON!!  

We have about two hours before we're on the air.  After a brisk set-up, we had maybe 30 minutes to sound check.  Should be enough time for a band as talented as MGMT.  No problem.

But, James' guitar amp wasn't working.  Their crew had a back-up in the van.  Hurry to go get it.

thump, thump, -- thump, thump  120 over 80.  --- 25 minutes to air.

So James has a new amp up and ready.  Sounds good!   But ---- The Juno keyboard (which is key to the song "Electric Feel") starts buzzing and wheezing.

thump, thump, -- thump, thump  125 over 85 -- 18 minutes to air.    

The battery in an effects pedal was dead/dying.  replaced.  We're on again!

But, but --- then our headphone system mysteriously stopped working.

thump, thump, -- thump, thump  130 over 90.  10 minutes to air 


Finally, I got that sorted out, but we were just about out of time. 


The band went through one song before Nic gave me the thumbs up that we're going on.  So, what you hear on-air was pretty much without a sound check.  Major kudos to the band's house engineer, Billy Bennett, who cued me on everything coming up and manned the effects channels in the mix.

This was a little like music festival mixing, where no band really gets a sound check.  Up you go, and it is what it is.  A mix engineer has to call on their experience in situations like these, and ride it through as best you can.  Oh, and compressors are indeed your friend.

The session still came off sounding pretty good considering the circumstances of the morning.