I had the pleasure of spending most of my day at London Bridge Studios with my old pal Jonathan Plum. He and I went to high school together, him graduating in 1989, me in 1990. Our paths crossed because of music, of course.
My first ever "recording session" was at his parents' house, around the corner from where I currently live now. I had my Peavey Basic 40 amp (which I still own) and we put it in his bedroom closet. I think he had a 4-track at the time and I played bass to a song by our school's best guitarist, Andre Maguire, called Marsupials. On drums was Todd Clineschmidt, and, fun fact, both Andre and Todd still play together in a local surf rock band called the Delstroyers.
Anyway, over the years, I've had a few projects record with Jonathan. First off was a band called Ethyl, where we recorded 6 songs with him in a studio in the Georgetown area of Seattle. Maybe 10 years later, after he was co-owner of London Bridge, I recorded with Lund Bros., doing several tracks that ended up on a record called Sanguine.
By total coincidence, Jonathan started dating a gal who happens to be my bandleader's wife's sister. Who also happens to live next door to where my bandleader lives (the sisters live next door to each other), which also happens to be where we rehearse. So by way of that, Jonathan and I have sort of stayed in touch.
With Planets, Robb has brought in some new songs (and by new, I mean over the past several months) and we've been working on them. We've played them live and decided to finally record with Jonathan. We've most recently done two stints at Robert Lang Studios, but I've really been pushing to work with Jonathan. We had him over to listen to the songs last week, and today we met up at London Bridge Studios to make it happen.
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| Legendary! |
LBS is nestled in the back of what seems to be a small, generic office park. You pull off of the main road, drive up a small hill and there, to the right of some apartments on the other side of the parking lot is London Bridge. From the outside, you'd never know that bands like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Candlebox, and more, have recorded there.
My little band was booked for the afternoon and we were planning on doing 3 songs to get drums and bass and as much guitars as we could. I got there, loaded in, and got set up. I had brought both my Trace-Elliot and Orange amps, my 210 and 115 cabinets, and all my pedals. I brought both G&L L-1000s, as well as my Precision. I also brought my work computer as, after all, it was a work day.
Cass set his drums up in front of the legendary brick wall. It seems weird, but once we heard the drums, it all made sense. All the platinum records for the other bands also lend credibility to that wall. I started with the HOG; I wanted to try recording with it as I've recorded with The GOLD before, so I wanted to hear how the other bass sounded.
We started with a song that was first known as "Misguided Head," which was then called "This Is Just a Blip," and now, at the suggestion of Jonathan last week, is now known as "I Unraveled," which is perfect. As with most of our songs (and with all 3 that we recorded today), this song starts with guitar. Robb begins and then Cass and I come in and do our thing.
Our first few takes are to stretch a bit, get a feel for the headphones, the mix, the room and each other. Those takes also get me thinking about what I'm hearing tone-wise for my bass. I brought the Orange but JP recommended on using the sound that got me here. So it was the HOG into my pedals, into my Trace and a pick and off we went.
With "I Unraveled," there's a lot of fast picking and some quick runs in the second verses. There are also some quieter parts where I was doing busier stuff, but toned it down a bit for the recording. We did a few passes, some in-room listens, and then a few more passes. Once Cass felt like he had a good take, Jonathan did some Pro Tools wizardry and cleaned up my timings (I am ahead of the beat a lot), and then had me punch in in some spots.
For the verses, I'd have my Spark Booster turned on, giving the bass tone some hair and grit. I could have used (and have in the past) the AGS circuit on my Tone Hammer pedal, but it was a little *too obnoxious for this song. Being able to toggle the SB on and off worked out just fine as I was able to get the volumes of clean/dirty to be pretty equal. With AGS, it would be too loud and would have to be on for the whole song.
Through the headphones, it sounded clicky and buzzy. Once I got in the control room with the monitor speakers? Wow. Gnarly and aggressive and definitely more affected than any tone I've ever had, but it worked for me. The guys liked it too and JP was down with it, so we worked with it.
After that tune, we busted out "Sit and Spin," a song Robb wrote about the first time he saw Darla at the old Seattle club, the Sit and Spin. It's a pretty basic number based on a bluesy riff Robb has had for a bit. We played it pretty bombastically during rehearsals and JP offered some suggestions based on crashing last week's practice. We used some of them and passed on others. For this tune, I had the SB on the whole time, as the song is pretty loud and dirty.
Weirdly, I thought this song would be more challenging to lock down as it has some E to D string picking, where I skip over the A. I have some trouble with it when practicing, but it seemed to be OK today when we recorded.
As with the last song, we got drums dialed in, then JP did his magic on my bass with the timing, I did some punches, and then it was onto the last song, "Nomenclature." Of the 3 songs, this is the oldest, having started playing it around the January/February timeframe. Robb brought it in and we really loved it.
At first, when we were learning it, I didn't know what to do on the bass. So much of what I do is busy or melodic or syncopated; for this tune, I kept it simple in the verses. Ride the A at the 12th fret in the verses, and then dropping down to the end of the neck in the pre-chorus and choruses. I tried to get Butterfly Boucher on the bass lines, going with octaves and aggressive picking as well.
Ironically, as simple as that part is, it gave me the most problems today. I think part of it was just the fatigue of a 6-7 hour day of recording, listening, punching, and not eating much. The mental part of it is tough enough. I have also never recorded as a pick player, so that muscle (despite playing with a pick for at least 18 months now) is still developing. I really tried to focus on precision and accuracy and found my right hand getting tired from holding the pick so tightly.
Anyway, with "Nomenclature," Cass was getting tired too. He beats the heck out of his drums, really getting his money's worth and by the end of the session, we were both dragging. Luckily, he got a take he liked after a few tries, and my parts were easy enough to clean up with a few more punches. Robb did some guitars, and the day was over before we knew it.
The plan now is for Robb to get the tracks from JP, and then to try mixing at his home studio. We could have JP do it, but that's another several hundo that we'd just as soon save. Besides, it was Jonathan that suggested it and Robb is super excited to try mixing as he's never done it before.
The three of us feel great after the session. Drama that we had had with other bands and band members was non-existent. The fact that we trusted Jonathan as we knew him before coming in, was helpful as well. Not that other engineers were bad or lesser than, but having history with JP was definitely beneficial, to me, at least.
Overall, super excited with what we did today and already looking forward to getting back to LBS again in the future.
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| photo by Mike Mitchell |
