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"
Watch or Listen to the James session here
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."
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!"
June 11th - Bajafondo
Watch or Listen to the Bajafondo session here
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"
Mario Diaz
KCRW Recording Engineer
Watch or Listen to the Mia Doi Todd session here
A few weeks ago, Mia Doi Todd performed hauntingly beautiful songs in our studio, from her latest album, GEA. With a classically trained alto voice, accompanied by sparse instrumentation, the session set a contemplative mood to start the day.
While small, the portable harmonium like the one used in this session, is quite loud. A reed instrument, that Mia activated by pushing bellows with her foot, is similar to the sound of an accordion but the dynamics are a bit more consistent. The harmonium has the look, feel, and sound of what might be considered an ancient instrument, but it is actually relatively modern, being invented in the mid-19th century as a way to bring an inexpensive organ sound to rural churches and chapels in the old West.
Mia uses it as a major 5th drone on a couple of her songs. -- shown here in D.
Setting the beats was Andres, with a personal take on using brushes for his snare drum. Actual paint brushes! Hey, it works.
Rounding out the trio was Miguel on viola, who provided commentary to Mia's melodies through well crafted counterpoint delivered with reverential subtlety. I pulled the mic back from the viola so it would occupy a space that wasn't too intrusive to the vocals. Both Mia's alto vocal and the viola sit in the same octave, so if the viola was too close mic'ed or direct in, it might fight, rather than support the song. The goal was to be close enough to get clarity from the viola line, but far enough away to hear the viola as a sort of calling from a distant lover.
Mia Doi Todd might be the most interesting singer/songwriter of this era that you've never heard of. Her music blends American folk with a hint of something vaguely eastern. It has a timeless quality that conjures both the modern and distant past.
Inspirational artistry with a truly eclectic flavor.
Ray Guarna
Here's the jump to the video and audio of the MOBY session
After a long absence, Moby returned to the basement studios for another live session to perform songs from his recently released album, "Last Night". He was last here to perform in 1999. Moby does stop by now and then for a guest DJ set, as he did in 2003 and 2004.
Perhaps it is only fitting, since "Last Night" marks a return, of sorts, to the rave and house influenced music that made him one of the preeminent forces of electronic dance music in the 90's.
The band featured guitarist Patrick Maters, Elan Pelushko on keyboards, Adam Marcello on drums, vocalists Shayna Steele and Amber Edwards, and rap vocalist Aynzli. Moby played bass.
Two of the songs, Alice and Natural Blues were straight out rock arrangements featuring just the band. The rest of the session incorporated pre-mixed tracks in combination with the band. The challenge for a mix engineer working with some elements being pre-recorded, is trying to match the live parts with music that was recorded in an entirely different space. Moby displayed his legendary talent as a producer by suggesting just the right combination of processing to create a seamless illusion. With Moby's help, we got the mix right in short order during sound check. This is most aptly demonstrated in the song "I Love to Move in Here", which is the 3rd song of the set, just before the interview. The pulsating rhythm and sensual groove is really enhanced by the tasty guitar playing of Patrick and the beats are carried by Adam.
With so much time on our hands after sound check, Moby and I turned to conversation of politics, considering this was a primary election day. We traded stories from eminent domain, to the state of the Democratic nomination. The dude is engaged and impressively informed.
Ray Guarna
Listen to the Bostich and Fussible live session here
Bostich and Fussible are two members of the Tijuana based ensemble known at Nortec Collective. Years ago as I started in my recording career I worked as an engineer in a South LA studio that recorded Mexican music. This session brought back some memories of that as I heard the Trumpets hitting the lines along with Clarinet and Accordion. Electronic musicians Bostich and Fussible made it a party in our performance studio with their sample layered tracks and that Mexican touch of get up and dance rhythms. They switched back and forth with tracks and manipulated sounds with two Tenori pads
Be sure to check out our video coverage. We tapped into the video graphics usually projected onto screens at
live sessions and incorporated them into the web video.
Mario Diaz
KCRW Recording Engineer
Watch or listen to the Cinematic Orchestra here
I had a great time with the Cinematic Orchestra after one of the worse ever commutes to KCRW that morning. Despite the early load-in, the guys were here waiting for me and almost set up.
Many times when we get an input list and there's a laptop listed, it means the band will most likely be playing along with tracks that are pre-recorded. But with Cinematic Orchestra, band leader Jason Swinscoe was using Pro Tools (and it's newest sampler software) to fire off elements, and then controlling them with a midi keyboard. So he was actually performing as an electronic musician and manipulating elements within Pro Tools, finally feeding me a stereo
mix. The band performed along with Jason's cues and created a nice mix of cinematic swells and jazzy riffs. With some bands, the length and tempo of the songs are fixed, and dictated by the computer. In this case, Jason could stretch out a verse or chorus, lengthen or shorten songs or change them all together.
Adding to the great musicians were vocals from Heidi Vogel and guitarist Grey Reverend.
Mario Diaz
KCRW Recording Engineer
Watch or listen to the Chris Pierce live session here
Watch or listen to the Tjupurru live session here
I mixed two feel good performances this week... Chris Pierce with his "neo-sou"l and Tjupurru playing the digiribone. Chris Pierce and band just made me feel good that day, they were excited to perform and a bunch of nice and talented guys. Among the band was Jon Butcher on guitar, who has had a long and successful career of his own with a Grammy nomination.
Tjupurru walked in with a didjeribone, ( see above) fx pedals in his bag and a few tricks up his sleeve. When members of the KCRW staff walked into the studio to watch, they asked me if he was playing to recorded tracks. When I showed them that there were no recorded tracks, they were amazed that everything was coming from one person. I think of the music as aboriginal trance music with some hip hop in it. This is a performance worth watching if you get a chance. (here) There was a great trick with a pitcher of water that he did live on the air.
The interview ran out of time before the conversation could touch on some of his incredible stories: From his plight to share the stories of his aboriginal heritage and the suffering of his people in their own country, to the people he has met and played with over the years. He has many stories to tell and uses his unique talent as great way for him to spread the word and open doors.
Watch or listen to The Black Keys live session here
Hold on to your seat here come the Black Keys! With all the sessions Ray Guarna and I do in our studio, the goal is to bring you big time studio quality sound. Sometimes We get in a groove and reach for a certain microphone that we know works all the time. But when guys like the Black Keys come in- anything is game.
The two-man duo comprising the Black Keys is singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney. They definitely have an ear for what they want their signature sound to be. They asked me to get some grit on the vocal and get that squashed drum sound in the mix and helped me acomplish this in a few ways. For Dan's vocals I ran it not only through our trusty Grace mic pre, I also ran it back into an Avalon 737, hit it with the compession and gave it that overloaded sound. For the drums we used a room mic going thru another Avalon (squashed) and a grouping of the drum mics going into a vintage 1176 limiter (pegged the meter the whole time).
During sound check we taped a song and then the guys would come into the control room to listen. When the blend was right, I got the aproval and we went to air. Although I was aware of what I was doing, it kind of played with my mind. Usually, hearing distortion and the overloading of the gear makes me quickly back off the gains and try to fix something. The guys are also their own engineers so with their aproval I knew I was doing something right.
I made a note on our archive notes thinking how funny it will be when years from now somebody listens and wonders what was going on... I wrote, "Distortion Intentional."
Mario Diaz
KCRW Sound Engineer
Watch or listen to the Liam Finn live session here
Over the last 10 years I've had the opportunity to mix the members of the Crowded House / Finn Brothers musical family dynasty in all it's configurations: The Finn Brothers as a duo, Neil and Tim each solo, plus Crowded House itself. And now, it was Neil's oldest son Liam on his own in the KCRW performance studio.
Coming from a family of musicians it was no surprise when I got the input list. Liam was listed as playing guitar, loops, drums, and Vocals. Doing the mix, my faders and mutes were really busy, while Liam switched from guitar to drums after creating a full arrangement playing guitar and looping it, and then playing a bass line and looping that into the mix while singing on top. Finally, he ended the songs by sitting down and slamming on the drums and singing. EJ Barnes helped out with her beautiful voice, adding vocal loops, auto harp and percussion. We have had a few players come in who use loops and layering; creating a one man (or woman) band. This was the first time for me seeing Nirvana-like drum bashing added as well.
Today marks the launch of our new video player! Check it out at KCRW.com, it couldn't be a more perfect session to watch and see Liam's diversity first hand.
Mario Diaz
KCRW Recording Engineer
My Groups
-
KCRW's Good Food Updated: Yesterday
-
Music News from KCRW.com Updated: 2 days ago
-
The Global Gig Guide on KCRW Updated: 2 days ago
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
