Notes From the Studio With Geezer, Pt. 2
The more I think about it, the more impressed I am all around by what Geezer accomplished yesterday. If you, like most people, have never been in a studio setting either to record or just sit there and be weird while someone else does, you might not know just how rare it is for a band to roll in, throw down for about 11 hours with one relatively minimal dinner break, and come out of it with the better part of an album recorded.
Of course there’s more work to do. Four more songs, to start with, and then overdubs, non-scratch vocals, and so on, but even so. The work-hard-work-smart nature of the band’s hitting it yesterday — and more, their down-to-business-but-cool-about-it attitude — was what you would hope a best case scenario would be for a group going into their sixth full-length and then some. Everybody has their insecurities, and recording can be and inherently is a push on that — was it good enough that time? is it ever? — but the way they kept focused on the work, even when the work was jamming out the start of “Stoned Blues Machine.”
I wound up staying after the session at the Super 8 in Kingston, about 15 minutes away from Applehead Studio. Maybe I could have driven home the 90-plus minutes, but I was tired and it’s not like there’s a surging global pandemic on or anything. The morning coffee is pretty rough — I’ve still had three cups — but I’ll admit to some nostalgia looking around the room and thinking of the Super 8 in Frederick, Maryland, and Maryland Doom Fest. It’s all pretty standardized.
Shower, some other work, then maybe a bit of exploring around Woodstock if it’s not too cold before I go back to the studio for day two. It’s been a long time since I was last up here for a long weekend broke-honeymoon, right after I got married. If nothing else, it’s the kind of place where I might expect to find some better coffee.
There’s a stream that runs behind the studio, a big open field next door. The tea shop down the way is badass (yes I said that), and I took a few minutes to drive through Woodstock’s main drag before coming back here. Hippie tourists and hippie locals, yuppies with a passing interest in counterculture met head-on by Free Tibet-types and tie-dye shops. My only regret is having neither the time nor the funds to shop. First one to tie-dye a pair of sweatpants wins my heart forever. And probably whatever they’re charging for them.
I’ve got until about 4PM here today, so hopefully that’s enough for them to bang out the basics on the other four songs.
Notes from day two:
12.19.21 – 11:50AM – Applehead Recording – Woodstock, NY
“Stoned Blues Machine”
Pat’s a bit late. Sick kids at home. They decide to roll out with a revisit to “Stoned Blues Machine,” but if their warmup jam doesn’t end up on the record, I’ll be personally disappointed. Dudes walked in and hit it like they never left, except better rested.
The solo’s a scorcher. Unmixed, it reminds me of Chocolate & Cheese-era Ween in that combination of dreamy warm tone and punk rock fuckoff. There was a hiccup at the start, but the listen-back sounds right on, and yes, Bittner saved that initial jam.
Little fixes. Tom at the start, two guitar things, and a retake on the solo. Steve has drum stuff. Richie has a couple bass things. Pat will go last and I assume put down the scratch vocals at the same time. This is the process. Do the song, listen to the song, tweak what needs tweaking. It’s not an uncommon tack. What differentiates this experience for me being here is the mood and the vibe. Smoke weed. Calm down.
Applehead Recording is — have I mentioned this? — a beautiful looking, beautiful sounding place to exist for whatever measure of time. But it’s also relaxed. It’s not so pro that, unless you’re me, you’re afraid to sit on the couch for fear of something exploding. It’s pro-shop, no question — the board’s as big as my living room — and I imagine every session is different, but with Geezer here, the prevailing spirit is mellow, unrushed, despite a universal need for coffee. Everybody’s waiting on the pot to finish.
I very purposefully didn’t send the band the stuff I wrote yesterday, because the last thing I want to do is mess with the atmosphere here. When you come to do things like this, you’re a guest, but you also have to walk on eggshells a little bit. You try to make yourself small, to not impose yourself on things. Generally, no one will ask your opinion on anything, and if you have one, you’re probably better keeping it to yourself. It’s not that you’re an intruder, but if you were on the inside of the experience, you’d be in the band or behind the board, and you’re neither of those things. Be thankful for the coffee and the tunes.
Richie finishes quick, Pat’s next. Redoes the solo, tries some weird phase stuff on top. The door’s open the whole time. Super casual. Vocals follow, a little more of a spoken take in the verse to go with the roll, reminds me of the first album. Hook opens up fluidly, lyric about the world being a wreck, saying screw it, moving to the mountains and getting high. I mean, yeah. There’s 90 acres listed down the way I drove past on the way here. Wonder what that’s going for. Steve calls it “trucker vibes” when Pat comes back into the control room — my head immediately starts spinning with visuals playing off the Burn One Up comp. Geezer’s got some big shoes to fill in terms of cover art after Groovy, as it happens.
In any case, if this song is the title-track, it will have earned it.
12.19.21 – 1:30PM – Applehead Recording – Woodstock, NY
“A Cold Black Heart”
“Stoned Blues Machine” took a while, but it seemed like everyone was having a pretty good time with it.
An impromptu sing-along to Poison’s “Every Rose Has its Thorn” — sans Harrington, sans me — gives way to “A Cold Black Heart,” for which they do a couple takes of the intro first. It’s nothing so outlandish, but just a timing thing it seems.
The verse riff is a chug and a wind, reminding me of something I’ll probably need to hear it 15 more times to put my finger on, but it’s easy enough to hear where the chorus is going to be even hearing it run through the first time, and that’s probably a good sign. The solo take live sounds really solid, and there’s a turn into a different, slower chug for what I’d guess is a bridge that leads to another solo, they kind of jam on it with Richie’s bassline holding the tension of a build that tells me they’re bringing it back around, which they do, if just to finish.
Another take to work on the transition into that slower part, have some trouble getting it going, but do. The slower part seems to be a little faster, but the transition into it sounds more natural — it’s a split-second thing, but Steve got it — and in that later solo I hear a little “Heaven and Hell” between the bass and guitar. I will not complain about that, probably ever, though who knows if it’ll still be there after the mix, overdubs, etc. are done.
One more take. They sound more comfortable, like they’re locking in. That change again is no problem. I wonder if there will be vocals over this part, or some other trippy whatnot. Could hear keys there, easily. It’s pretty open before the lead line kicks in.
Third take was the best one. Hilarious as to how smoothly things have gone that that many times through a song seems like a lot. Drum mic broke. So it goes, probably expensively.
It takes some time to fix, which might honestly be the difference between my being able to be here for the other three songs and leaving before they’re done, but like anything, it’s a part of what happens when you’re in a studio.
12.19.21 – 3:07PM – Applehead Recording – Woodstock, NY
Work is still being done on “A Cold Black Heart,” putting some funkified bass parts in with what Chris Bittner calls the “Purple Haze” part, which is as good a name for it certainly as anything I’ve got. It’s swagger on swagger, in any case.
I think this’ll probably be the last song I hear while I’m at Applehead, by the time this gets done and the scratch vocals are done. I’ll take comfort in knowing that even though I’m not here until the end I’ve heard most of the record, whatever it ends up being called, unless they decide to leave some of what they did yesterday off. I won’t get to hear “Diamond Rain of Saturn,” which I was looking forward to just given the title, but I’ll look forward to hearing it when it’s done instead.
Today is colder but gorgeous and bright. I’m looking forward to seeing the sunset on my way back south, the mountains of doom that are the Catskill Appalachians — old, slow-rolling, eroded by time and a little sad about it — alongside the Thruway. I don’t get up here a lot.
3:15PM, Pat hits the vocals. “Late at night, I feel no pain/In the morning, I feel no shame.” Chris moves to one of the several key instruments around — an organ — to feel out ideas for that part. Seems reasonable.
Next song is “Little Voices.”
Today hasn’t been the crazy-productive jaunt that yesterday was, but I won’t be the least bit surprised when they finish the basics by the time they’re out of here tonight. I don’t know what the plan is for following up on the work they’ve done here, but if they came here to work with Chris Bittner and to work in that room — both pretty solid reasons from what I’ve been able to tell — then they’ve made a lot out of that opportunity. I guess whatever will happen from here will happen.
They’re talking food, which means it’s probably time I started packing up.
