It was brief, at least compared to their overall four-day session which began Friday and is finishing up today, but I popped into Hoboken‘s famed Water Music recording studio yesterday to visit Kings Destroy as they put to tape their first full-length (nine songs) with none other than the ubiquitous Sanford Parker, who I imagine was in at least three other places at the same time. Like the genuine nerd I am, I was psyched to meet Parker after hearing so much of his work — and I do consider the fact that I didn’t fall to pieces thanking him for producing the last YOB record a personal triumph, given how much I loved that thing — but what really blew me away was the board.

The picture above doesn’t do it justice. You could kayak using the board in Water Music‘s main control room. You could build a house on top of it and finish the basement. I mean, it is large. Ditto for the live room, where guitarist Carl Porcaro was working on the tracks for one of the songs when I arrived. I’m pretty sure I could have camped out there for a week and no one would have noticed. The ceilings were high enough to make you dizzy and the acoustics so good someone could have farted across the room and I’m sure I would have heard it standing by the door. This place was the real deal. In a word, I was outclassed.

It was July 4, and Kings Destroy was gleefully drinking Canadian beer (who could blame them?), setting up the grill for a barbecue, and working through their tracks one at a time, fixing guitars and bass in preparation for the vocal recording still to come. Drummer Rob Sefcik was the only one not present, but his tracks certainly were, and hearing them, even unmixed, come through the studio monitors, it was clear why the band chose to work where they did. If you can afford it, to do otherwise seems foolish.

I heard two songs before I had to split, one of which had the working and hopefully soon-to-be-permanent title “The Dusty Mummy.” It was heavy, and doomed, and guitar-led, though I wouldn’t be at all surprised if what really shines through when the recording is done is the bass of Ed Bocchino which is an element of Kings Destroy I’d underestimated before, unless it was just Parker bringing it out, which is possible given his reputation for sonic largess. It’s easy for the bass to get lost in a two-guitar band, but Bocchino definitely was a standout in the tracks I heard, his low end giving gravity to Porcaro and Chris Skowronski‘s guitars and shining on its own as well. I know this music is all about the riffs, but if you’ve got killer bass tone and good drum sounds, that’s more than half the battle right there, and that’s a fight Kings Destroy seem to have won already.

The coal pyramid was built and lit in the grill, but obligations pulled me in another direction, so I made my way back to my car, paid the miserable dude working the parking lot, and headed back westbound on 80. I don’t know what Kings Destroy are going to do with this recording, and according to vocalist Steve Murphy, neither do they, but hearing just the small piece of it get put to tape I heard, I’m even more looking forward to the final result.

Tags: Brooklyn, Hoboken, Kings Destroy, New Jersey, New York

This entry was posted on Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 10:48 am and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.