Jason Caddell.com | news
30 November 2006
Day four of mixing the new Travis Morrison/Hellfighters record here at Studio G with the masterful and hilarious Joel Hamilton manning the knobs. Producing this record continues to be a hugely rewarding experience, working with four great musicians and two amazing engineers on an incredible set of songs. We had a great time at Electrical Audio back in late September, and Greg Norman's immaculately recorded tracks have proved to be great fodder for Joel's and my ideas for the sonic character of this record.
Matt LeMay from Get Him Eat Him just dropped by this afternoon, and was happy to report that their final mixing session with Chad Clark down at Silver Sonya went swimmingly, and that the record, "Arms Down" will be mastered at Silver Sonya coming up soon. Tracking all over the place (Studio G, Inner Ear, Charles Bissell's place in New Jersey, etc.) and ending up with a coherent record seemed like a daunting prospect back in the spring, but we managed to keep everything organized enough for Chad and TJ to work their mixing magic. I'm proud of this record and the work that everyone's done to see it through, and I'm really looking forward to it's release.
The as-yet-untitiled Pash record that I worked on back in August and September turned out great. We tracked basics at Inner Ear, then spent a week in their rehearsal space tracking vocals and overdubs on my rig. After that we brought the files in to Silver Sonya and mixed them over a week. There are a couple tracks that we may revisit, but the record is largely done, and we had a great time doing it. I love working with those folks, there're great people, and this record is awesome.
In other news, I've been working with Eric and Joe (seems almost like a reunion these days) on a new project, Statehood, which started life as the brainchild of former Motorcycle Wars front man Clark Sabine. It's a lot of fun to work with these three maniacs, who've got a nice set of really catchy tunes. We've finished basics for all seven tracks, and vocals for five. Still have overdubs and a couple vocals left to do. Everything's being done in Joe's unusually high-ceilinged basement, with my gear plus some upmarket loaners (API 3124, UA 2108, Distressor, Soundelux e250). Here's hoping Leigh Thompson, who's started to fill in on second guitar in the band, will be contributing to the overdubs. He's a great guitar player, and used to be in one of the best bands to ever exist on the planet Earth: The Vehicle Birth. Nick Anderson of Parlor Press Records and The Hailing helped engineer and was kind enough to bring his rack along.
David Brown of Hellfighters fame has about a half dozen solo songs that we'll be working on over the next couple months, with Hellfighter Brandon Kalber, David Durst, and myself playing the session musicians. We're going to do some rehearsing, some recording, and maybe even play some shows somewhere down the line. The mix of the song we recorded a while back is really bangin'---I'm excited to get working on the whole batch of tunes and see if we can't
And DC singer/songwriter Rose and I are going to be working on some of her new material through December and into next year, still with an eye to making a full-length record in the future. I just saw her play a couple weeks back at the Galaxy Hut, and she was in top form. I'm excited to get back to work on her songs.