Sunday, January 21, 2018

Peter Pan's Lemonade Stand


At its core, this song is about marketing strategy.

A few years ago my wife, Lynn, and I were talking about my 'music career,' such as it was.  The phrase popped into my head as the perfect explanation for how I like doing things.  'Peter Pan' refers to the fact that I'll never grow up.  And a lemonade stand is a business where it's not important to make any money.  It's more about hanging out on a sunny day and sharing with the neighborhood.  I own the lemons, the sugar, the water, the cups, etc. 

This was one of those songs that, as soon as I wrote it . . . I hated it.  But I liked what it said.  The original groove was more of a cut-time 2/4 thing.  I piddled around with a little, played it for Jonathan and a couple other people, got good feedback, but still didn't like it.  And then, I played it for Rocko.  He put a whole new spin on it, and now it's a favorite of mine.

This might be one of those one-take songs, two at the most.  Including the guitar solo.  Jonathan does a really nice little harmony on the chorus, but he wasn't there when I went in to re-do the vocal, so I did that one myself.  Sorry, Jon.

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Heartbeats, pg. 2


I got so involved with telling how the song got written, I forgot to mention how it got to be recorded.

The original plan for our album was to record it ourselves. That would save a lot of money. Then, Rocco gave me a copy of Stovepipe Mountain's CD. One listen was all it took to convince me that you get what you pay for.

I made arrangements to visit the place where it was recorded, and meet the man responsible. Wes Chapmon owns and operates Studio Bohemo in Bath, NH. I hope I'm getting this story right; he used to co-own a commercial studio in Texas and wanted to open a little one of his own. His wife happens to be from New Hampshire, so they found a place and set up shop.

We hit it off immediately, and I was very impressed with the facility. He even offered to cut us a break on the price, and we set a date for the first session. Jonathan, Rocco and I got there about 9 am on a Saturday, set up, and started. The plan was to do basic tracks for as many songs as we had time for, and build the finished product from there.

By the middle of the afternoon, we were pulling out songs that the three of us had never even played together. Every song on the CD was begun that day, and most of the bass and drum parts are from that first session. A lot of the rhythm guitar, and even some of the leads and lead vocals all happened in that one day. I don't think we needed more than 3 takes of anything, and some we nailed in 1. It was quite exciting.

This song in particular is an example of the magic that Wes worked from that point on. The rhythm guitar parts were done with a Fender Strat, through my Deluxe Reverb. I went back in to add leads with a Les Paul and one of his Fender Princetons. I also re-did the vocals.

At that point, Wes took over. We did the original guitar parts dry except for a little reverb, so he added some effects. He also pulled the rhythm guitar completely out of the first half of all the verses, which I thought sounded great, so we do it that way live now. He also put a little synthy-thing in that same spot, which gave it a nice little edge.

I have made it a point to not ever ask Wes what he thought of the music, whether or not he liked it. Jon and Rocco, yes. It was important for me to know what they thought of what we were doing, because it was as much theirs as mine. If I find I've brought them a song that either of them don't like, it's gone. Wes, on the other hand, is essentially a sub-contractor we hired to perform a service on our behalf.

The mark of his professionalism is that he tackled the whole project with a passion, working hard to make every note as good as it could be. I would like to think he would put that much into any project he worked on, even if he didn't particularly like the music. Whatever his opinion was of what we brought him, he truly became the 4th member of the band.

So anyway, thanks, Wes, for a job very well done.  I'm honestly amazed at how good the finished product came out.  It sounds better than I could have expected, and much, much better than what we'd have done on our own.

Studio Bohemo has a very good web site, http://studiobohemo.com/ and they sell gear on the side.  I've got my eye on one of those D'Angelico archtops.