Getcha Some Productions Podcast Episode 33
https://reverb.grsm.io/GetchaSome
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_nc0nleQ5Yk_eKuNpkDFvQ
A podcast covering all things related to music production: from the first note to the last fan and everything in between. Our mission is to create music and to inspire others to do the same.
Not your typical podcast, each episode is a live business meeting. We are in the process of building a media empire (a music production company) and listeners/viewers come along for the ride. This is a chronicle and archive of our progress.
This podcast is always candid and unrehearsed.
In this episode we discuss:
We’re continuing on from last episode where we talked about Jollyship the whiz-Bang
Jollyship the Whiz-Bang was a pirate puppet rock opera musical performance and also a electro indie rock band.
For this episode (episode two of the series) Dan and I decided to talk about our experiences recording the various albums that we made over the many years that we were in the band.
https://www.thewhizbang.org/about.html
We started talking about our first record that we made in 2005 called songs to drown by. Dan reminds me that even though this record was mostly recorded and mixed in a studio in upstate New York, it actually had humble beginnings on Raja’s laptop this is a detail that I actually forgot.
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/jollyship-the-whiz-bang/206483963
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2T0h5YpMsRDS1SOVh1ll7C?si=mB7VnVrgSAiTp79Cyl0u4A&dl_branch=1
When we realized that the record wasn’t going to get made or it wasn’t going to be as good as it possibly could be in Raja‘s makeshift space, we decided to move the project to a real studio. The studio we chose was that of our friends who lives upstate near Bard College where we all went to school. And, the studio was built into a large farmhouse and possibly legit farm at one time with lots of good equipment and lots of space and a place for the band to sleep etc. Or, we can’t remember, was it a large house in the woods near Ray train track?
I think the people involved were Kale Kaposhilin, Jason Martin RIP. Peter Craft?
We’re not sure but I think we decided that the studio was in Germantown, New York. North of Bard College where we all went to school and where we still had a lot of connections. Apparently, we had connections to people who had a recording studio.
This was our first album. We talked a bit about some of the individual songs we like and some memories of the recording process. Dan talked about how many of our best songs are actually on that album. We did write some really good ones back then. I go on to say that I think our songwriting actually got better, or maybe not necessarily better but in someways more sophisticated. We almost became a little bit more progressive in our approach to songwriting so the songs got more intricate and dynamic.
The second recording we made was an EP which we made and Peter Kohl’s place in Long Island City, NY.
I believe the distributor of all this music to see the baby so these albums and other recordings should be available on all streaming platforms. Links above to Apple Music and Spotify.
Despite the rawness of the actual studio, Pete got so much great music out of us. And got such great rock ‘n’ roll sounds for us in that small space and with relatively limited equipment. Pete is, of course, the lead singer and one of the guitarists for tragedy a heavy metal tribute to The Bee Gees. Streaming Links below:
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/tragedy/1462355285
We pay tribute to one of the unsung members of our band Kris Anton. Chris was our sound guy, our lights sky, and our A/V producer. In addition to our rock ‘n’ roll shows, even when we didn’t bring puppets and we were playing just traditional rock ‘n’ roll shows at a bar, Kris would put on projected audio visual productions that were coordinated with our songs. They were often very beautiful and creepy And interesting and fun to watch. Half the time or for a good while, I actually had no idea they were even going on or the extent to which they were going on because as the guitar player I was often facing the audience so I didn’t know what was going on behind me for a while until one day I turned around and realized that I had no idea that there was a whole other aspect of our show that was very significant.
The final record was recorded in Hoboken, New Jersey.
This was, essentially our arrival as a band. A not for profit off of Broadway theater called Ars Nova (https://arsnovanyc.com) decided to pick up our show and produce an off Broadway production of it plus a record to go along with it. So they spent a lot of money. I won’t say how much but it’s a significant amount of money producing some thing that was really quite impressive which included this record. The show itself was a highly produced off Broadway run with the full visual components you might imagine like elaborate set pieces and cast members and all that junk. But, to go along with the show we sort of got an album to commemorate it. Sort of like a cast recording. The album of course was a full professional audio production so it was very high-quality. The studio itself was very luxurious.
Dan was really at the top of his game at that time because they had him go in and record bass. Actually, just play along on bass guitar while Jesse our drummer Jesse Wallace (https://www.jessewallacedrumlessons.com) would record the drum parts. Dan remembers that a lot of the takes that ended up on the album were Dan‘s first takes on bass. Probably just because he was well rehearsed having played the songs 1 million times both in rehearsal and in front of audiences.
Dan remembers that the song, I Killed the Cabin Boye was definitely a first take.
I remember the fact that the band let me put in a lot more interesting bebop and jazz style lines in certain places. Not a lot but I just snuck them in here and there and no one objected. In the olden days I think people would object to a lot of that stuff so I got away with a little bit more on this record.
Dan actually is remembering suggesting that we might have benefited from the inclusion of a producer. I actually totally agree with him.
Dan brings this up because he apparently took issue with the inclusion of some skits in the context of the songs which we had a few. There would be parts of songs where we would have a vamp in the middle and there woould be dialogue or a monologue within the context of the song. I actually don’t mind that so much but Dan points out that a producer might have led us in a more musical direction in some cases. I think that’s probably true. Dan also suggests that a producer would have helped us with some of the transitions between songs and maybe ordering the songs better. I actually feel that a producer would’ve helped a lot in keeping us honest. It’s really probably very effective and important to have an outside voice to tell you “hey this is shit don’t put this in.” Or, “you have to delay this because this is not quite there yet.” Or, “look your guitar part is not happening, you have to cut that.” My specific example is the song Cool Lessons. My memory is that Nick really wanted to get that onto the album and I think the sense was that there was a lot of money put into the album and it would be a shame to not try to capitalize on it and put as many songs on as possible. And I agree with that. However, Cool Lessons was a relatively new song and I was not ready with my guitar part so I didn’t feel that that song was ready to come out for me. I would’ve preferred to actually have my part cut entirely and have the song released without it. But here we are.
If you like They Might be Giants you might like Jollyship the Whiz-Bang.
I bring this whole story back to the topic of the overall topic of the podcast which is music production in general. And Dan is very wise to say that we could’ve benefited from the inclusion of a producer especially an impartial third-party producer. And I agree with him. And, the name of our podcast is the Getcha Some Productions podcast because we are trying to be producers. Or at least we’re trying to learn to become producers. So to bring it back I think this is a good lesson where I think we have to re-focus our efforts on becoming bona fide music producers by changing our focus for the podcast a little bit or at least redirecting the focus. There are many ways to do this. My idea is that we should find a book or a series of books about music production and start reading them a chapter at a time and do podcast features of little blurbs that jump out at us. We then can learn together. So my task is to come up with some books to read and get at least one of them in each of our hands.
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