Thursday, December 8, 2011

Mixing...


We spent 8 days mixing …These Black Snakes at Sunset Sound Factory in Los Angeles. Steve Churchyard took the helm and brought this thing home in top form.

Suzie Katayama wrote a wonderful cello arrangement for What You’re Feeding Me and stopped by to conduct Steve Richards, who played beautifully. Jamie Muhoberac was also on the session to lend some piano lines to the track.

Here’s a few photos from the sessions…






Sunday, November 6, 2011

Running It Down...

It's taken much longer than I'm used to and this record has suffered long periods of inactivity and many delays, but the tracking for …These Black Snakes is just about done. I’ve got a few things left to pin down and then on to the mix.

Diana Lee and Alice Tatum came by the Salt Mine to lend their voices to two of the songs on TBS. They brought a heavy dose of vocal voodoo to the studio that night, and the results were really special.

Tom “T-Bone” Scott was also by to lend a bass assist on a late addition to TBS. It’s a newer song I needed to close out the record. We got a great take and the song is turning out to be one of my favorites. T-Bone has become the project Mystic. He turns my Am chords into D9th chords at will. It’s pure Alchemy, I’m sure of it.

Mike Broening has been laying down piano, Wurlitzer and B3 on the tracks in various flavors and everything is clicking. He’s got a way of getting inside my head, rooting around in there to find the little bits of info he needs and then delivering the perfect track. It’s like witchcraft. I thought seriously of begging him not to shrink my head to a keychain-sized ornament, but the prospect of giving him any ideas was a little frightening. His Kung-Fu is strong.

More as this thing ramps up. Thanks for checking in.

-BA