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The Artistery Recording Party + new live track

Statistics

Created: 07/29/08

Last Edited: 07/30/08

Appreciations: 3

Comments: 2

Project Info

Owners

Gejius

Credits

sean christensen, Grant Haro, Amy Kuttab

Tags

gejius, white car, masmod, nueva forma, recording, party, artistery, portland, oregon, division, polaroid, camera, song, track, gang, vocals,

Attribution Non-commercial
No Derivatives

Fields: Music Production, Songwriting, Music

From: Gejius's Portfolio

I have always loved the sound of "gang vocals." Not so much the California Love type of gang vocals, per se, but more of the choral type of gang voclas. If you're familiar with Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra then you'll know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I had originally recorded a 5-person "choir" for my 2nd track last summer with some friends of mine. It turned out great, but there were 2 other tracks that I felt could use more vocals than I could offer. So after brainstorming with my artistic collaborator Sean Christensen, we thought that recording at a venue would bring the best results. They would have an in-house sound system, mics to record the audience, and ample space to fit all the people.

We decided to ask Aaron at the Artistery off of SE Division in Portland if we could use his space for the Recording "Party" and he happily agreed. We worked out all of the audio kinks/questions in advance, so the next step was to grab some people to lend their voices for the recording. We had 20 people come out for the Recording "Party" and it was amazing. Thankfully our friend Amy Kuttab taped most of the recording session and video of that will become available after the album is out.

I keep forgetting that I'm not entirely clarifying what a Recording "Party" is. Basically we wanted to let people we were inviting to know that this was more of a recording session than a party. We wanted to capture the sounds and feelings of a party atmosphere, and we encouraged people to 'partake' if they so wished, but the session needed to be controlled and focused at the same time. This improbable balance was achieved with amazing results and I'm so thankful to everyone who made it out!

Here are some pictures that my friend Grant took of the event with his 1960 Polaroid camera.

Aside from the condenser mic, this is my usual set-up when I play out. But the set-up will change when I play tracks live off the new album a lot.

My best side. Don't you think? At least, it's my Adam's Apple's best side.

Me love lamp.

The Recording "Party" also happened to fall on the night before my wife's birthday, so we decided to go out for drinks afterward. The night before the Recording "Party," I wrote a song for her, pretty quickly actually, and I wanted to play it for her at the session. The song, like most of my songs, has a lot of room for improvisation, and I wouldn't be surprised if it sounded different the next time you hear it, but this is how it sounded that night.

And a note about the sound quality: yes, I know it's not-so-great. This was recorded by the Artistery, and I didn't save my take, which, in hindsight, I should have. But you'll get the idea.