The Woods

So it would seem that the promised Woods box set withered on the vine or worse. Not so! Everything takes longer than it should and this project has certainly followed that rule.

A little back history... We started talking about releasing and/or re-releasing the Woods recordings before David Enloe passed away last November. I had the multi-tracks that Jamie Hoover recorded in Clover SC. Jaime added his parts to those recordings and the multi-tracks need to be baked and transferred. We have the RCA recordings the Bill and Dan produced. We have pretty good copies of the TwinTone/Demon Records releases of It's Like This. We have various live shows of The Woods and the one reel of tape we thought was lost was discovered in Terry's house. This reel is the Woods performance in Chicago opening for Dixon/Jones on the WXRT Budget Night show. When Reflection Studio in Charlotte closed its doors all of the tapes that had anything to do with the Woods/Don Dixon ended up stored at Mitch Easters place in Winston. I met those guys early this year and we had a field day looking though old multi-tracks to find any and all of the Woods stuff. Along with the Woods stuff I found reels of Fabulous Knobs and Woodpeckers! We recorded Golden Light, Open All Night and Tell My Fortune. Mark Enloe has a live Woodpeckers that i haven't heard yet. Mitch has now transferred all of that stuff digitally so that we can mix it or at least get it ready for mastering. This has turned out to be a big project but one Terry and I want to complete as soon as possible.

So what has been goin on?

Hmmmm, updates are clearly lacking here at 411. The OAKTeam project is ongoing with about a dozen songs recorded and more to come. Soul, rock, pop... it's all there.

Jonathan has been working with Harbor View to get that project finished. They have great songs and an amazing singer.  Jonathan also started a project with Will Anderson and Adam Ferguson of Alesana. One word: HUGE. When the kids hear this they will be blown away.

Steve Boyle was in town last week filming more interviews for his Return To Comboland documentary. Steve interviewed Terry in the tall grass of my front yard. I served the wine... Since Terry took all of the good light, Steve interviewed me in the house. We talked at least two hours. It was fun trying to remember stuff from all those years ago. Dunno when this stuff will finally make it to a screen near you but you will be blown away when it happens.

Monty Warren's Trailer Park Angel

It's official! The master was approved, art was approved, and DiskMakers stamped out a bunch of shiny silver discs. The Trailer Park Angel will be available worldwide June 17, 2008. The cd is currently available at CDBaby.

check it out!

Monty Warren

We are winding up the final mixes for Trailer Park Angel. Mastering is scheduled at The Kitchen on February 5th. The cd should see the light of day by April , on Doublenaught Records. We started recording in March of 07 and finishing up Jan 08. Not bad for a long distance project. The recording features members of the OAKTeam and Tres Chicas for the rhythm section with guest spots by Caitlin Cary, Rick Richards, Alex Maiolo and Roger Gupton. It's rockin'!

OAKTeam

Terry, Jonathan and I have finally started some real work on the new OAKTeam record. Terry tracked electric guitar, then we tried a number of different approaches to an acoustic guitar part. We were having fun using some of the pre-made channel strips in Logic, but they ended up inspiring the approach. The song is called ' Lost Your Number'. Jonathan built a drum loop, Terry sang and I added a fretless bass part. All in all a very productive evening. We are planning on this approach until Dave and Greg get a break in their schedules to track as a band.

Ryan Hamlin

I met this kid several months ago when he and his father brought a track they had recorded at another local studio. I was blown away by the maturity in his playing and song arrangement. We arranged a session back in late spring. The original plan was to have Will Anderson track drums along with Ryan, unfortunately that did not work out. Ryan and his dad Rick came over to demo some songs. We tracked a few basic tracks with Ryan playing piano and when it came time to sing discovered that Ryan had spent his voice at rehearsal the night before with his 'screamo' band. We left it for a later date, which unfortunately didn't come around until August. He came this time by himself and we tracked another couple of songs and then decided to flesh out one of the songs with guitar, bass and vocals. He is good enough at most instruments so he played the parts and then we parked him in front of the Peluso to sing. Every take got better and better as his voice warmed up and he became more comfortable in front of the mic. He took direction well. We sent him away with with a few roughs. Hopefully we can get back together soon.

Sangin'

Terry came over and we sang some backing vocals for Monty ( 919, Luggage Loader). Terry sang a scratch for Keith's Little Stories and there was a knock on the door! It was Roger Gupton! He had a guitar and a bottle of old vine zin... guess that's means you are here to play and sang too! We gathered around the mic and sang the backgrounds for Photograph and Precious (Keith), Luggage Loader (Monty). Roger added a guitar part to Precious and we called it a night.

Keith Christopher

Keith came back to town a couple weeks ago to work on his record. He managed to get Dan Baird to drive in from Nashville for the weekend. We hung out a bit on Friday getting set up and started recording in earnest on Saturday. A new version of drunk song (title unknown), a crazy jam track called Crazy Lips, Little Stories, a new version of She Sings and She Dug Me Up, and Photograph (Ringo). Dan added more acoustic and electric guitars to several of the tracks. Greg played some keyboard. We had a few passes at vocals and called it a weekend. 12 tracks ready for vocals and guitar from Rick Richards. (Sept) Terry came over last week and added a second drum track to Photograph. It's sounds great! At this point we are on hold until Keith returns from a trip to Tunisia or somewhere with Dan. Looking forward to working on this record again.

CFam Mastered

Greg Rice and I spent 8 hours Friday sitting on the sofa at The Kitchen while Brent Lambert flew the plane. If you have ever had a project mastered by Brent you'll know what I'm referring to. He sits straight up and moves his arms like he is at the controls of a small prop plane. It's a sight to see... but man does he know what he is doing. He cleared all of the dust away and polished the mixes up real nice.

Greg and I walked over to Carrburritos to pick up some lunch while Brent continued to work. The special of the day was Mexicanos con Pollo (or something like that). The guy on the line asked what we would like and Kevin (from The Kitchen) had asked for this particular burrito.... I read the sign to the guy at Carrburritos and added por favor. He looked at me and said... sorry man I don't speak spanish..... uuuh dude I was reading the sign for special of the day. Note: don't take a job in a Mexican restaurant if you have no idea about the food on the menu.

Jonathan is very happy with the mixes, I'm thrilled, and The Cartridge Family have approved the master. I have a couple minor requests for Brent and the master will be ready for replication. I understand the cd has a title 'Shine Like A Bottle' and if is all goes to plan they should have a cd by October.

Cartridge Family

Well, it is finally gonna happen! We are scheduled to master the cd on August 10. We start at 10 am at The Kitchen with Brent Lambert in Carrboro. I have mastered several projects there and am always blown away by the magic that Brent sprinkles on the tracks. I uploaded the files a couple weeks ago so that Brent could have a listen and make suggestions about the mixes. We have a couple of tweaks to do when Jonathan gets back from Alaska and that will be that. I'll let ya know how it went and when the cd's will be available.

Your first recording

When you make your first recordings your initial urge is play them for everyone and anyone who will listen. It's natural, but very dangerous to the process of a project. Roughs are just that...rough mixes to get an idea of where you are at and what needs to be done next. I recently had a problem when I realized that one of our clients was sending out mixes and soliciting feedback on the tracks. I was forwarded a track by track review from an aquaintance of the artist. Someone who is not involved in the project and certainly should not have possession the tracks. I was not pleased. I had to call the artist down as we say in the south. The tracks were raw, missing additional parts, performances that were scheduled to be replaced and scratch vocals. Big mistake. The thrust of all this is you should hold your mixes close until the producer deems the project ready for primetime. That is the point in time when you play some of the tracks for family, close friends and more importantly, potential partners in the next step in the process. Labels, management, even musicians you may want to have in your band. Do not make copies and send them out. You cannot get them back.

Cartridge Family and Monty

Jonathan and I spent Friday evening and most of Saturday working on final mixes for the CFam tracks. Finally getting a mix of Do You Remember and fine tuning a number of Joe's songs. He sings through his nose so we had a time smoothing out the harshness in his vocal tracks. We spent a fair amount of time working on guitar tones. I'm pretty happy...we'll see what the guys think.

Managed to get a couple more roughs for Monty. We'll be back on those Tuesday.
cya

Not much yet

But I'll do better. I'm gonna use this blogspot for the studio. So you'll be reading about whatever nonsense is going on at 411.
To catch up, The Cartridge Family is nearly finished. We have a few tweaks to the mixes and then it off to the mastering house.
Monty's record is ongoing. All of the lead vocals are complete. Backgrounds need to be done. We still have some tracking to do...looking for a pedal steel player for a couple of tracks. Guitar solos and Mozelle will be addings some keyboard parts.
Will's band Harbor View, will be back as soon as we get a little breathing room. He's about to have a breakdown so I gotta get him in soon.
Reed Mullen has been hanging around lately. He and Jonathan are working on pre-production for new COC! That's all I can say about that.
The Olympic Ass-Kickin Team are way overdue...looks like we are gonna start around August 11.
I'll have some pics up soon.
jack