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Friday Influences Thread... 07-18-14


Lee Knight

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OK then. It's slow around here. But you know... it doesn't feel slow to me. I'm reading posts from engaged people working on their craft. The tone of the exchange feels very positive to me. The other forums are indeed slow in numbers... AND life. But here? WE'RE ALIVE!!!!!! That's what banging your head against the wall to get that next couplet right will do to you.

 

 

So lurkers!!!!! Get your butts in here! Share an inspiration. There is no style you need to adhere to. Because you read the regulars presenting a type of music that's not your bag, does not mean this thread is not for you. Tells us what you hear in the music you present. What makes it so good, so... influential to you? Hmm? I want to know why you think Cannibal Corpse is misunderstood. Treat the material you present (and the fellow members) with respect, and you will be treated in kind. So COME.. ON... IN!

 

_____

 

Johnny Winter died. As a 13 year old kid that heard Jimi's Machine Gun and did NOT get it. Who preferred Peter Paul and Mary's Early Morning Rain, Johnny Winter was my introduction to edge. To the nasty ugly being beautiful. I Want To Be Free as sung by Davey Jones was more my speed. Then I heard the song Still Alive and Well. And yes, Johnny, you are still alive and well on your recordings. I got it!

 

Every now and then I know it's kinda hard to tell but I'm... STILL ALIVE AND WELL!

 

Written by Rick Derringer, but Johnny kills it. Ever heard Rick's version? I love him but, you don't want to hear it. Johnny owned the song.

 

Anywho, we all know that JW. But later in the year after releasing Still Alive and Well, 1974, her released Saints and Sinners. A bit more of a pop record in some ways. In the good ways. He enlisted his bro Edgar to add some polish. And he cut this awesome Allen Toussaint tune. Blinded By Love. I absolutely dig this tune. The singing, the Edgar keyboard funk up, and Edgar and chicks adding some gospel vocalizing. Just a great recording of a funky kick ass groovy song.

 

Dig it!

 

[video=youtube;IV8yCosY6QE]

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Speaking of Johnny Winter with Edgar Winter. How about this interpretation of a Ray Alfred tune produced by Quincy Jones and made popular by Ray Charles done on Edgar's 1971 White Trash?

 

 

 

[video=youtube;v6vRwr0Y_mE]

 

 

 

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oh, and a new studio release for rhino. A different sound than the last release. I've been doing alot of sets as of late with this type of line up. It's so much easier than coordinating an 8 piece band and having to do arrangements. Already have another batch of songs lined up to start on as soon as this one comes out next month.

 

Here's a sample

 

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Speaking of Johnny Winter with Edgar Winter. How about this interpretation of a Ray Alfred tune produced by Quincy Jones and made popular by Ray Charles done on Edgar's 1971 White Trash?

 

[video=youtube;v6vRwr0Y_mE]

 

 

I love that album. The awesome Jerry LaCroix singing his ass off. And a killer Edgar horn chart.

 

 

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oh, and a new studio release for rhino. A different sound than the last release. I've been doing alot of sets as of late with this type of line up. It's so much easier than coordinating an 8 piece band and having to do arrangements. Already have another batch of songs lined up to start on as soon as this one comes out next month.

 

Here's a sample

 

 

Dude! What the hell?!?!? That's REALLY good! Man... I need recording details. Tracked all at once in a circle? That's how it sounds. And where was it done. In a house? A commercial facility? I love this!!!! Is this a trad tune or something you wrote?

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80's Synth Dance

 

[video=youtube;BdZDhpkDziE]

 

Full Playlist:

 

I remember hearing Autobahn in 1975. My guitarist's older brother was the 19 year old music critic for the local college paper. We'd been digging ZZ Top and Johnny Winter and Deep Purple and he puts on Kraftwerk. Just the photographs alone were... WTF? And then I heard this toy music and I thought... why? Why would these weird robot guys make this, is this music? Make this music? Freaking Nazi Robot slicked back hair pasty white dorks!!!!!

 

By the 3rd cut we were sold. Great stuff.

 

 

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Thanks!

 

You know I'm not the best with the tech side of recording but I'll tell you what I know.

 

Guitars, bass, and main vocal were done at one time. Percussion was added next. With one room and no great way to do isolation it's easier to do it this way and gives the engineer more control instead of worrying about bleed. Harmony vocals were done next. He had what he called a stereo set up. Two mics on top of each other with one rotated around. They each pick up in a figure 8 pattern so you get a stereo picture of whats happening in the room. It was cool. The peeps actually stood where we wanted them to be in the mix.

 

It was recorded in Cubase and then mixed through an analog board. Not sure what kind it is. Apparently its from the early 90s, there were only 5 of them made, this one has been modded, and I don't want to know how much they payed for it. Hearing with and without, it adds alot of depth to the tracks.

 

It is a commercial facility that some friends of mine run, part of a music co-op sort of thing. There are some limitations that come with the space, but they're giving me really good rates so I'm going to stick with them.

 

That's a song I wrote. I got family that still farms cane. As a kid going to back to my moms home town, White Castle, LA. I always looked forward to getting some sugar cane. During harvest time the highways are literally littered with it. As you were driving along, you can stop and pick some up.

 

EDIT: I'll be posting a song a week leading up to release on the facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/ryanharrisandco

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Thanks!

 

You know I'm not the best with the tech side of recording but I'll tell you what I know.

 

Guitars, bass, and main vocal were done at one time. Percussion was added next. With one room and no great way to do isolation it's easier to do it this way and gives the engineer more control instead of worrying about bleed. Harmony vocals were done next. He had what he called a stereo set up. Two mics on top of each other with one rotated around. They each pick up in a figure 8 pattern so you get a stereo picture of whats happening in the room. It was cool. The peeps actually stood where we wanted them to be in the mix.

 

It was recorded in Cubase and then mixed through an analog board. Not sure what kind it is. Apparently its from the early 90s, there were only 5 of them made, this one has been modded, and I don't want to know how much they payed for it. Hearing with and without, it adds alot of depth to the tracks.

 

It is a commercial facility that some friends of mine run, part of a music co-op sort of thing. There are some limitations that come with the space, but they're giving me really good rates so I'm going to stick with them.

 

That's a song I wrote. I got family that still farms cane. As a kid going to back to my moms home town, White Castle, LA. I always looked forward to getting some sugar cane. During harvest time the highways are literally littered with it. As you were driving along, you can stop and pick some up.

 

EDIT: I'll be posting a song a week leading up to release on the facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/ryanharrisandco

 

Great info. So you sang and played guitar at the same time, you had another guitarist track with you then as well, along with the bass. Three guys on the basic? Then you had your percussionist do his thing as an overdub. then you set up the stereo mics (that's called a Blumlien pair and I use it a lot) to capture the backups in place naturally.

 

Great workflow. It has the advantage of live interaction but still the isolation from the percussion. then the Blumien for backups in the same space, all in place to capture the natural stereo layout. Really great, simple, effective production and engineering. And a very cool song!

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You got everything right except the percussionist is a she. ;)

 

Thanks.

 

This is the way I've found to be the most efficient time wise. I'd rather just knock everything out at once but I've found unless you have the right room with really good isolation you're just making more work for the engineer later because they don't have as much control. Plus, I think the performances tend to be better. With this lineup I don't think we ever did more than 3 takes a song. Which is about as many as I care to do. After that individual performances will start to suffer, then you get into, "but I liked my part better on that last take better... blah blah blah" and then the grudge **************** is on. If you start adding 5 and 6 people the likelihood of somebody screwing something up starts to go up, and it's not like I can dock their pay. We're all friends and play on one another's stuff and pay what we can when we can.

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Thanks Os, not especially, just the daily regiment of whiskey and cigarettes ;) We've had a residency at a club every Thursday for a few months now. Maybe that keeps me singing more and not just writing but also learning other songs. I've been getting real into traditional stuff like

 

[video=youtube;phLsYB1HA7o]

 

...except I found a book that's got an older version with a bunch more verses, so I learned 'em all! I found that the more songs like that I learn it gets easier to learn more. It's still a chore but once there in the brain they tend to stick around for a while. And when you got 3 hours to kill with a just a couple players, having some fun songs about murder and such you go on auto pilot for 7 or 8 minutes is nice.

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Herb Alpert. He went from doing what eventually became background music for cheesy TV game shows...

 

[video=youtube;cK5pl6W2CFE]

 

... to a #1 hit as a vocalist (a Burt Bacharach/Hal David song that had been written years earlier but never saw the light of day till Alpert asked Bacharach if he had any old tunes lying around) ...

 

[video=youtube;qFXzBoPFEJU]

 

... back to doing background music (on the Top 40 this time).

 

[video=youtube;YQuHRnFhE58]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQuHRnFhE58

 

He also created A&M records, recording artists like Waylon Jennings, Sérgio Mendes, The Sandpipers, We Five, The Carpenters, Lee Michaels, Captain and Tennille, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Quincy Jones, Stealers Wheel, Gallagher and Lyle, Rita Coolidge, Wes Montgomery, Paul Desmond, Cat Stevens, Paul Williams. Joan Baez, Phil Ochs Billy Preston, Joe Cocker, Procol Harum, Humble Pie, Fairport Convention, Free, The Move, Supertramp, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Chuck Mangione, Squeeze, Peter Frampton the Police, The Brothers Johnson, the Go-Go's, Bryan Adams, Suzanne Vega, Jeffrey Osborne, Oingo Boingo, Human League, and more...

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WTF? And then I heard this toy music and I thought... why? Why would these weird robot guys make this' date=' [i']is this music[/i]? Make this music? Freaking Nazi Robot slicked back hair pasty white dorks!!!!!

 

By the 3rd cut we were sold. Great stuff.

 

Oh, that is so awesome. Man, it must have sounded revolutionary in the 70s. Depeche Mode sounded weird to me in 1981!

 

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Well it's not Cannibal Corpse, but in my teens I was a huge industrial fan. Loved me some Skinny Puppy:

 

[video=youtube;CDKkRSUrTd8]

 

Nitzer Ebb:

 

[video=youtube;ENf3AiKKmvI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENf3AiKKmvI

 

and especially Front 242:

 

[video=youtube;lPpUFBVSyWs]

 

I honestly don't know if any of this has had any influence on my current output, but I do have some embarrassing recordings from 89-90 that I suspect got this out of my system.

 

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This band had me completely captivated for an hour in New Orleans this year... I was like a wet-pantied school girl... screaming and begging for more... dude on bass may be my favorite bass player to watch ever.

 

There is so much talent in this band, it's almost unfair.

 

[video=youtube;DdPDgdR9GPM]

 

[video=youtube;_z-hPdj6CxM]

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