Recording Session

Felix Reyes, Producer, Chicago House of Tone

In January we recorded our first album. That is only stage one. I have to fly to Chicago in March to mix it with Felix. Before that I have to figure out how to get and use Pro Tools so I can at least start the edit. After the mixing it will have to be mastered. But that does not involve any learning. I send it to somebody Felix knows in Texas, along with money. 

You may remember how we met Felix. He came to The Harlem Flophouse on his way to The Midnight Ramble in Woodstock NY. He was performing there with somebody he referred to as Hook. Hook plays blues harmonica. Hook is famous or notorious, actually both. I have not met him yet.

When Felix booked the room he did a little research on its owner, me. He found out I had a band. He asked if I was playing that weekend and I was, on Sunday, which was perfect. Felix came in the afternoon and rehearsed with us.He played with us to the an almost empty bar, Paris Blues in Harlem. It was magic.

I took him around the darkened streets of Harlem on the Friday before. I showed him Bill's place, PB and a quick stop at The Lenox Lounge. He liked how at Bill's Place you had to stop in at a local liquor store, the kind with a thick plastic bullet proof shield engulfing the entire establishment. You bring your own brew to Bill's. Bill only provides the music.

We kept in touch on Facebook after that. During the following summer Felix suggested coming back to The Harlem Flophouse to record the band. We worked out the dates of January 6th — 13th. 

I closed the entire house. Kosi and I went shopping and loaded up on food. Amos and she stayed for the session. We were still up in the air on bass players. At the last minute a neighbor stepped in. Craig. The other Craig, not the shitty one. 

The first Sunday was grueling. As soon as Felix arrived he and Craig went to work figuring out a setup. We had to lay down "bed tracks" for all the tunes we wanted to do. Bed Tracks are essentially the drums and bass for a given song. The rest of the band has to be there performing sotto voce and unplugged so that the rhythm section knows where they are. I had pretty ambitious plan. We ended up getting six done.

Craig flew to Vegas on Monday. I spent it with Felix recording all of the rhythm tracks. On Tuesday we started doing the vocals. One at a time we went to the mic. Luckily we have been doing these tunes for awhile and one or two takes got it. I was wiped but Kosi suggested we go back to work at 7pm and get it all done. Wednesday was me doing lead guitar in the morning. That evening Craig returned. We had all the elements for the first six. We made a group decision to move on and do bed tracks for two more pieces. Thursday was spent going through the process again. 

We were more or less done. Felix and I were certainly finished. Exhausted. Felix made bounces and I got a listen to the raw tracks. They were good. Plenty of cuts and scratches and cigarette burns but good. Special. I think it will be like the Eraserhead of music for us. You know. The David Lynch film he made for 5 grand when he was in art school. Lots of imperfections, charming, and perhaps his best work.

Pick Migration

I have this problem with pick migration. I have about 9 picks that I have acquired over the years. A few i have even bought. Guitar teachers, music stores, friends all have contributed to my collection. The thing is that one by one they will start to disappear. Slowly they will dwindle down to one or two picks, not including the red one which I never use. Then I say to myself "I'm gonna have to buy some picks." Once I make that decision they begin to reappear. I will find them in random places such as; in between the couch cushions, gingerly placed on a mantle or on top of the cloths-dryer.  In less than a week the entire original group will reunite.

Kosi's Hypothisis is that they say "Damn, he gonna replace us if we don't all get back in there." I find that compelling. I like to believe in Animism. I also like to believe there might be some synergistic principle of physics at work.

I was explaining this to Stacey. Stacey lives in an ashram in Virginia called Yogaville. "Basically it's a cult" she says. Probably true but mitigated by the fact that it's charismatic founder is dead. Stacey came and played with us at Paris Blues last Sunday. She had played in and out of country bands and kirtans for decades now. The first time I ever played in front of a crowd of strangers was at a salon she hosted in her Brooklyn apartment. She also was the one to get me to sing at an open mic for the first time at Common Ground in the East Village.

The Sunday before last we had a wonderfully appreciative audience. The weather was fair and good crowd showed up. Old friends and new I like to call them. I think some radio personality used that as his sign off. The joint was full and the clapping was loud. People laughed. The band was hot. We even had some people on the verge of dancing.

On the Solstice we played at the new community garden on my block. The Lakshmi Community Garden. You can guess who the founder might be. The cedar platform we performed on is nestled in the middle of the lot right where the two buildings end. The acoustics were stellar. Music drifted up and down the block but was never loud. We played an incredible hour and a half straight without a break. We didn't even play every song we knew. I called it The Mega-set.

Last night I was on the stoop with some friends and Larry, a blind musician was hanging with us. He lavished praise on my band. I figure you must be doing something right, when a blind man likes your music.

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Blaxplosian

The rhythm section is like a marriage. It can take months for bass and drums to lock. And it can take years before they begin to look like each other and their dogs. That's the advantage of scoring a pair  like Jerome and David. They have been playing together since Texas.  Texas was a long time ago.

The first time we all played together was last fall. Both Jeff and Amos had subbed out. It was like standing on the deck of a battleship. Kosi looked at me sideways across the room.
"There's a whole lot of blackness going on here."
"Yeah." I said. " It's The Goddess Lakshmi Blaxplosian Band."

We were reunited last Sunday. It started out a little tentatively. But by the end of the first set somebody jumped up and started dancing.  That's what's up.

Count: 2775 

The Bad Night

From time to time it happens. The angels desert you and you have a bad night. Last Sunday was bad. There were a few moments when the bar was entirely empty. Zack smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders. "It's just another rehearsal." This was the consolation offered. I had to take it.

We didn't have the excuse of the rain. We have been teetering back and forth this season. A good week then a bad. Sometimes we fill the joint. There is a convergence. I thought the good weather and the super moon would be the breath in our sails. They sure were for me.

We rocked the joint anyways. I took the opportunity to take several extended solos, blasting the amp, as I attempted to tame the it's snarling, wild-cat feedback. Kosi took up the gauntlet and employed her full range of ghostly, jazz vocalizations and screaming rock incantations. Zack tripped out with us on the bass as we descended on LOVE, tearing it to pieces and then reassembling it.

An old man at the end of the bar applauded dutifully. His eyes were downcast on the watery bourbon before him. In a distant booth a lone couple also sprinkled on their appreciation. The high point was the woman outside. Not having a dime for drinking, she danced and jumped and sang along on the side walk just beyond the door. At intermission she dashed into the bar to hand us a dirty, crumpled dollar. "I love your music." she gasped, her eyes darting around for Jerry the bouncer.

It's been a long slog building an audience here. We have many more good nights then bad. But the bad ones are vivid reminders of how it was just a year ago. Back then I told Kosi that the joint was like an audience black hole: "The problem with Paris Blues is... " I said. "Is that you invite 100 people, 20 say they will come, 10 actually show up and still you only have 5 people in the house."

Count: 2686

Bass Notes

jerome, kosi, zack

Zack is leaving mid may. That will be bass player number 7.

Jeff was the first. A stout guy with Clark Kent glasses and a penchant for Hawaiian shirts  it was actually Jeff’s idea to start the band. I was playing guitar and singing at a party in my house. Jeff liked what he heard and offered to be the bass player, that is, if I ever wanted to start a band. I had been thinking about doing that for some time but I wasn’t sure how to go about it. So I decided to just let it manifest. It did.

The second Bass player was David. David is a slender, handsome, black man in his mid forties, who prefers wife-beaters, dark sunglasses and khaki army surplus pants. I met him walking down 123rd st. He had a guitar bag slung on his back. I asked him what he played. I told him I lived down the street and if he wanted to jam sometime to let me know. He plays the bass like a clock, you can literally set your watch by it. A few months later I looked him up and called him to sub for Jeff a few times. Jeff was now on a decaying orbit. David learned quick. That was also when we came up with Kosi's signature hand signal routine. A trick that has helped us get through this period of personnel turmoil. If the bass player gets lost, Kosi holds up the number of fingers that indicate what chord we are on. The beauty of this system is it works in any key.

After David left for Texas I got Alison as a sub. Alison is a breezy kind of a Janis Joplin type. She learned two sets worth of original material, made charts and then never showed up for the gig. An hour late, she texted me with her lame excuse. J. Y. the gifted guitar player who had recommended her jumped in to save the day. Kosi was able to guide him through. Somehow we managed to perform.

Then there was Otto who subbed for a Wednesday night gig at Shrine. Otto, tall with long dark hair plays in a metal band. My eccentric song list was a stretch for him. He was not as schooled as the others and it took several rehearsals to get him up to speed. He did a fine job though and contributed some new musical ideas. I offered him the chair when Jeff finally left for good, but he declined. One day, weeks later, while I was loading gear into the car he stopped by on his bicycle. He told me he had realized that he was not ready to make the kind of commitment we needed to be successful. Fair enough.

Then there was Joanna. Joanna is a nerdy girl. She is painfully shy and never looks you in the eye.  She played melodic bass lines that made me feel like we had Paul McCartney in the band. When I told her that she beamed. It turns out McCartney is her favorite bassist. But Joanna is just another gun for hire and plays in several bands simultaneously. She was constantly having to cancel rehearsals for gigs. With attempting to write a rock opera I needed somebody who could rehearse.  I finally convinced her to let go of the chair.

That was when Zack came on board. When I first met Zack he told me he was 19. A few months later he told me he was 18. Zack has an angel face with curly brown and a perpetually deadpan expression. He subbed a few times with us before joining the band. 

I was in Dubrovnik, sitting at the restaurant in the Excelsior Hotel, when that went down. The Excelsior has free internet which for the price of a cappucino I was availing myself to. Beyond the terrace the ocean crashed against the medieval walls of the fortress city. Behind me the lobby wall was adorned with a picture gallery of the celebrity guests who had stayed there. That coterie included the likes of; Queen Elizabeth, Yul Brynner, Jean Paul Sartre, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Carlo Ponti and Orson Welles. Joanna quit and the whole thing was arranged from thousands of miles away via email messages on my smart phone. Zack was in.

Zack plays with a mad intensity. At various times we have called him “Killer” and he has also earned the appellation “White Nigga”. Zack's only problem is he has too many ideas. He is climbing up and down the fretboard like a sailor on a ship's mast during a squall. It’s hard to pin him down to a groove. He was making some sweet contributions to the space opera though. And I loved how he fought for 6/8 time when Kosi was saying it was no different from 3/4. But now Zack is leaving. He is heading back to Seattle and home for the summer.
 

Right on cue David returned from Texas. He called me a few months ago to tell me he was heading back. He said he hated it down there. There were no gigs to be had in the tiny berg where he had landed. He told me that a house was a liability. The first time I ever heard that. Right now he has nowhere to go and he and his wife are living in their car. I told him we could use him again in the band again and we set up a rehearsal for next week. I hope he makes it.

Recently while traveling I saw a documentary about Nirvana. They had a secession of drummers. It took awhile before they got someone who could really play. That was when the band took off. The rhythm section. That’s the key. Rock lore is rife with tales of the right drummer or bass player at long last making their appearance. A Ringo or Keith Moon manifests and shortly after that, anything is possible.

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