Stone Bridge Coffee House was packed, nearly standing room only when I arrived at 7:15. By the time I actually starting playing, the staff had to bring in chairs from the neighboring gallery and there were still people standing on the margins.

My brother Chris and his family were there, which is always a treat: I don’t get to see my brother often enough. A friend and his wife that I haven’t seen in more than two years (hi, Tangblade!!) Friends from high school. Several people I’ve never met who are now fans.

A. Maze. Ing. Thank you for a terrific night.

Don’t forget St. Patrick’s Day! I’ll be at Stone Bridge from 7:00 or so until the corned beef and cabbage runs out.

Last night, third Friday of the month, was the Englewood Art Walk. Englewood’s parking – a double line of spaces in the center of the avenue – was full-ish: I had to park about a block away which is unusual. Knowing what that sort of traffic brings in I’d happily walk farther. Here’s hoping that when the weather warms up that will actually be the case.

Because of the people there for the art, and the gallery in the back of the coffee house, my first set was reasonably well attended. As I started, Rae lowered the “house” lights so it was just me on stage under the glare of two tiny spot lamps. A hush fell over the crowd…though they got chatty again after a few songs. Eventually, the group at house right retired to the gallery to where they could talk without fighting the music. That’s okay. It’s a coffee house, after all, so you expect that. They were generous: give me money, I don’t care if you listen or not.

Two highlights for the evening.

A friend of mine from high school was there last night. While we weren’t the bestest friends ever back then I do remember her fondly, and we had the opportunity to catch up when the music was all done.

I met a man named Dave. He is sixty-seven, has a degree in music theory with emphasis in pipe organ, and tunes the coffee house piano. He owns two guitars, a Fender and an acoustic whose brand I didn’t recognize. He has perfect pitch, and identified that I’d capo’d my guitar to E without looking.

Well, he wouldn’t have to look because he is also, as it happens, blind.

I was standing at the counter passing the time with Rae (the lady behind the bar) when Dave came in. She was busy and couldn’t direct him to a table and asked me if I would. I introduced myself and led him to a table. He said, “I hear there’s going to be some Irish guitar tonight.” “Yep,” I said, “and I’m your man.” We chatted about guitar tunings (apparently he’d spoken to Larry about me) and I invited him to place his hand on mine while I played the D progression, explaining the fingering and why it’s useful in Celtic music. I’m willing to bet he retuned his guitar when he got home. Hee…another convert

My recording booth is in my studio…my studio is in my office…my office is in my living room: if you follow the logic carefully, you’ll see that I’m doing my recording in my living room. With two children under the age of ten, in our 1400 square foot house, this is a  huge challenge: sound carries, and the living room is the pathway from the family room to the bathroom.

For a long time, I would produce a song like this:

1. Record a scratch track. Me, singing along with my guitar with one microphone. Do the whole song. Two, maybe three tries.

2. Record the guitar track. Play along with the scratch track’s volume turned way down so I could hear myself. This would typically take six or more tries, depending on the song.

3. Record the lead vocal track. Could take a few tries, but easier than the guitar part.

4. Record each harmony track. Just like #3.

5. Add a bassline or piano.

6. Mix, mix, mix, equalize, reverb, compress, mix some more, get a song.

Between day-job, kids, household duties, it would take about a week, if I was lucky. Usually more like two.

I don’t remember the day the “click” happened, when that particular set of synapses fired up and the realization dawned: you can produce small pieces successfully with little effort…small successes chained together equal larger success…and so on. I tried it. It worked. I was hooked.

Typically, I’ll record two or three verses and two or three refrains, an intro, and an out-tro¹. In my software, then, I take each of the pieces and assemble them, copying and pasting as needed, until the musical base of the song is complete. Having more than one version of each verse and each refrain allows me to mix and match and provide some randomness to the performance. Unless there’s some quirk in the performance, like a particular fret buzz or breath or an errant note, you’d never know.

I don’t usually loop my vocals; as there’s no need for it. Usually. We’ll get to that in a moment.

To my mind, it’s no different from a musician recording and combining several tracks for several instruments, a guitar, piano, and bassline for instance, or going back and punching in a few seconds of correction to a mistake made on the last recording.  To this solo musician producing his own CD, it gives several benefits.

First is a more consistent performance. By the time I’m able to record on any given day, I’m pretty wiped out; playing an up-tempo song with seven verses is tough even when I’m in top form.

Second is faster results in less time. If you’ve ever tried to record your own music – or had someone record it for you – you know that performing in front of a microphone is different than sitting on your couch just running through a song. On my couch, I can do a song a dozen times flawlessly. In front of a mic, I can barely get past the intro on the first several tries.  Somehow, I can produce one or two verses without mistakes much easier than I can the aforementioned seven verse song, and not having to start all over when I make a mistake on the last verse is a real time-saver.

Third: I can fit in a recorded verse between commercial breaks, when my children are occupied with whatever episode of Sponge Bob they’re watching for the eighty-third time and are therefore unlikely to move into audible range.

I said before I don’t usually loop my vocals, and that’s true. There are times when it becomes a real benefit, though. Wayyy back in October, 2009, I had a run-in with H1N1 that eventually made it into my lungs. I got over the flu part pretty quick, but the cough – even now, three months later – lingers.

I have pretty good breath control – years of acting and singing helps, eh? – and can usually work my around most issues, but at one point when I was recording South Australia, a cough tried to work its way out on one of the “heave away, haul away”s, and the phrase came out sounding rather bad – like I was drunk, actually. I would have punched in a correction, but just as I was getting up to turn on the mic and get that done, the kids came blasting through in the throes of some life-or-death struggle over a toy helicopter, and the opportunity was lost.

Did I despair? No sir. I grabbed a previously successful “heave away, haul away” and plugged it in.

There’s another instance where looping comes in real handy: if you have a song with pauses – Jamie Raeburn, for instance – coming in with the vocal at the precise moment when the guitar starts up can be frustrating as hell if you’re doing instrument and vocals separately. Being able to…okay, I’ll use the word… “cheat” the opening phrase so it enters at the right moment solves that problem handily.

So, is looping appropriate for every circumstance? Probably not, though in my body of work I’ve not found that circumstance yet.  When I do, I’ll let you know.

Oh, and the errant “heave away, haul away”? Don’t bother listening for it: you’ll never find it.

¹ Is that even a word? Heh…it is now.

Performance, January 10th, 2010

Luckily for me, it’s not a Christmas, Yule, or even Winter theme, so I didn’t have to scramble through my song list to find the most appropriate songs, of which there are, at most, two. I’m grateful my costume closet is organized, as well. The big question was my contacts since I wear them so seldom, but I did find them.

The fundraiser is not, in my experience, well attended, but those that are there are appreciative. I had to follow Miss M’chelle, a beautiful,  young, and amazingly talented belly dancer, but I don’t dance and she doesn’t sing so it worked out. Two song sets, six or so songs (I wasn’t counting), and even the scowlers in the top row were grinning.

Side note: through my involvement with renaissance festivals, I have seen dozens of belly dancing performances; I have never seen a good one until last night. Her control was astonishing.

The highlight of the evening came during my second set, but the setup for this story happened while M’chelle was dancing. During her first performance, Emily (of Bawdily Harm fight group) remarked that someone should tuck a dollar or two into her skirt’s hip band. As Michelle danced her second set, Emily crawled up all sexy-like with a dollar clutched in her teeth, and tucked it in. Beth (the clown) followed. That opened the gates, and the audience got into the act. Michelle must have made an easy $10.

After she finished, I stepped up with my guitar. As a part of my costume, I wear tights with a functioning codpiece (look it up if you need to), and I glanced down past my guitar at it and said, “Ya’ll are welcome to tuck money wherever you like, but I’m making no guarantees what you’ll find when you do.” Big laugh from the crowd, and I figured that was the end of it.

Not so.

As I’m singing an amusing little song called Miss Fogarty’s Christmas Cake I see Emily crawling toward me, dollar in her teeth. I fought mightily to keep my composure as she tucked it into my codpiece. On the next verse, Beth followed. Shortly after, John C. (the Scotsman character of Bawdily Harm)…that nearly broke me, but I persevered and came away $3.00 richer.

I quipped to the crowd, “When I get home and toss my costume into the laundry, my wife is going to question the unexpected windfall and, more to the point, why in happens to be there.”

Yeah, I talk like I write. It’s a curse.

I also tossed myself, so to speak, into the auction hat. A one hour, private performance, $100 value, start the bidding at $40 sort of thing. So, I’ll be performing at Californos on Westport the first Wednesday of March for an organization whose name I cannot remember, but where I believe there will be people with money and influence, and thus more opportunities for paying performances. Fingers crossed, there.

So there it is; it’s now Sunday afternoon. I spent my morning in church, coordinating seven video cameras (including the one I was handholding down by the “stage”) to record the annual semi-organized chaos that is the kids’ Christmas program. I am one tired, but satisfied Bill.

I introduced a few new songs. I’ve been working on “The Irish Girl” as performed by Lissa Schneckenberger, a song that, as a solo guitarist, is a real challenge to make interesting, at least in my head. “Auld Lang Syne” found it’s way in – using James Taylor’s arrangement – and I was surprised at how well it turned out, considering that I’d never played it before putting it behind the mic. I totally blew “Hackler from Grouse Hall” as performed by Christy Moore – I’d just done “Maid on the Shore”, and the two are similar enough in my head to be almost the same song. It’s rhythm totally jacked me as well, but with a small audience composed mostly of friends I didn’t sweat it so much, and neither did they.

The highlight for me was a duet with Mary Espinosa. After the singing was over – officially, at least – I was asked for “The Water is Wide.” I knew Mary knows it, so I invited her to take a microphone: she sang melody, I played and sang harmony. It was beautiful, and a good finish to the evening.

How, indeed? It was marvelous, boyo, thank you for asking. The Stone Bridge Coffee House was packed, with a dozen more people on chairs outside on the sidewalk listening in – we came to call that group The Lions Club, after the Hope Day School Lions, the high school that I and most of them attended. They were the rowdy bunch, them. Several folks up from Oklahoma, Bruce, Susi, Chester, Shannon, Jenny. Many folks in the shop I’ve come to think of as “regulars”, people I do not know but whose faces I recognize.

Holy crap…I have fans. That’s kind of a new feeling.

So, surrounded by fans, friends and Chosen Family, it was, at least from my perspective, a terrific show. I added two new songs, “The Athens Queen”, by Stan Rogers; and “You Can Close Your Eyes”, by James Taylor. Love, love, LOVE that song. By this Friday, I hope to have at least two more, but it’s going to be a busy week so I’m not sure I’ll have the time. Definitely by the 20th, though.

Thank you to every one who came to hear me. You made the evening for me.

I’m scheduled to play again this Friday, 7:00pm – 9:00pm, with a jam session to follow.

Other, Upcoming Events

December 5, 2009, 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Stone Bridge Coffee House

January 9th, 2009, 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Stone Bridge Coffee House

February 6th, 2009, 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Stone Bridge Coffee House

There’s probably an extra November date in there, too, the 20th, but that’s kind of up in the air. I’ll post here when I know for sure.

I’m tired in my bones with a long day of roofing ahead of me, so I’ll be brief.

Very warm audience response. Several people were there who had just “happened by” and found that the evening’s entertainment was Celtic/Folk. They stayed. They loved the show.

A few complaints that there was not enough seating – we were standing-room-only a few points in the evening, which was nice. The audience was attentive, appreciative, hearing the stories in the songs and riding the ride, so to speak. I have several new fans and my mailing list is expanded by several email addresses.

There’s talk from the owner of the shop and the music coordinator of making my performance at the Stone Bridge a regular, paying gig. Must…finish…CD…

Highlights of the evening:

Kiri’s Piano. I didn’t announce the song or tell the story, and I know the precise moment several of the people in my audience found the current of the story and hopped on.

There Were Roses. I love hearing sniffles from the stage.

I Don’t Want To Live on the Moon. Thank you Steve. I’m sure I’ll never be able to get through that song again without laughing.

Singing a command performance for Mary’s cousin and friends: they arrived late, after I’d finished for the evening. Mary asked for a few songs, which I was happy to sing. I think it made her night.

To gush a little about the shop itself, when I first stopped in I was unconvinced. It’s a small space, and I was afraid it would turn claustrophobic, but full of people it turned cozy and comfortable.

The coffee is good – Russ gets it from the Broadway Café – and the food is even better. I had a mediterranean roast beef: roast beef with greens, onions, tomato on really good bread and drizzled with oil and – of all things – balsamic vinegar. Delicious.

The location is nice too, with plenty of close parking thanks to Englewood’s median parking areas.

For my part, I’m recording the cd in my basement. I have good quality mics (as detailed in an earlier post); a reasonably powerful computer; good software; a comfortable space in which to work; and friends with experience willing to help me create the best product possible.

I like my house. It is the only house I can remember living in. It’s about ninety years old, subject to all the aches and pains that such a house is heir to, though for the purposes of this post the one I’m most concerned with is squeaky floors.

The house was never well built to begin with. The original builder worked with what he could get his hands on: this was just after WW1 when there were shortages of…well, almost nothing, but apparently measuring tapes and decent wood were very hard to come by. In the same way as the accuracy of satellite imagery is measured in meters, so also the accuracy of the measurements in this house: anything less than the builder’s outstretched arms is probably measurably inaccurate.

Case in point: from where I’m sitting at this moment, in my basement office, I can see 2″×6″ floor joists¹ on 18″, 6″, 20″, and 24″ centers; single, double with a gap, single, doubled with no gap, and so on. The variety of spacing is remarkable, and I consider myself lucky that I wasn’t stuck with boring ol’ 16″ centers².

The short of it is that it makes recording very hard: every footstep is heard, every squeak transmitted like a telegraph, and every dropped crayon or lego sounds like a bowling ball. I can only work when the family is gone (which is almost never) or in bed, which during the summer time doesn’t happen until after 9:00 in the evening, and when the furnace/ac isn’t running. In late July into August, that is likewise, almost never. I can turn off the unit from my office, but that leaves the upper floor of the house sweltering until I’m done. Such action makes me unpopular, and so is to be avoided.

Progress is slow.

¹ For the record, floor joists should be at least 2″×8″.

² Yeah, that was sarcasm.

I’ve finally got Jamie Raeburn to a point where there’s a few places that can use some touch-up, but overall it’s good and if push came to shove I could release it as is. I’m going to try to have Brett Gibson come and lay down an accordion track for it.

Next step is sometime in the next week or so to build a portable sound booth. The floors in our eighty year old house are just too damn noisy! I hung some acoustic foam behind my microphones (amazing what you can do with a queen-size, $10 Craig’s List egg crate mattress pad) and even that small – admittedly jerry-rigged – touch made a difference.