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.

This session was originally supposed to happen two weeks ago, but Geezer’s recording plans were derailed by drummer Steve Markota contracting what was apparently a mild case of Covid-19. It turned him into a newt, but he got better. In any case, I was invited to come hang out — because it’s not weird unless I’m there to make it that way — and I wasn’t about to say no to watching the Kingston heavy jam/psych/blues trio lay down even just the basic tracks for their next full-length after mid-2020’s it’s-okay-that-it’s-a-miserable-year-we-can-still-dance-a-little-bit Groovy (review here) as their debut on Heavy Psych Sounds who, one assumes, will also be releasing this one sometime in 2022.

Fostering that supposition is the fact that Geezer are already booked to return to Europe — a second appearance at Freak Valley has been confirmed and I’ve heard murmurings of more shows besides — so I don’t know if there’s a hard deadline for the new record, since it’s not like they got to tour the last one, but in talking to Geezer guitarist/vocalist Pat Harrington over the summer, he expressed some urgency to get it out. Can’t blame him or them. Gotta do something.

A rainy day did little to lessen my appreciation for the scenery on the way up here. Drive was about 90 minutes, a 60-mile shot up the NY Thruway to Exit 19, and by then the sleepy Catskills were lording over the sides of the road like forgotten gods, and the landscape was pockmarked alternately by lived-in-the-woods-forever, stare-long houses, escape-from-the-city money, ski facilities and, because it’s how it goes up here, plenty of artist studios and places like Applehead Recording, which is a beautiful, pro-shop with a 32-foot ceiling in the live room. Apparently Markota was the one who argued to record here, which, given the drum sound in that room, is easily understandable.

I’m here for two days. Here are some notes from the first.

12.18.21 – 12:39PM – Applehead Recording – Woodstock, NY

“Mercury Rising”

Got here maybe an hour ago, had some coffee, settled in, took a couple pictures, gonna take some more. Bassist Richie Touseull was getting sounds when I came in, Harrington was next. It’s almost 1PM and engineer Chris Bittner — who co-owns Applehead with Michael “Mike Boom” Birnbaum and opened here in 2013 — has them sounding tight, full and killer through the board mix. Listening in the room now to a jam they did maybe 10 minutes ago, just shaking off the dust, and… well, it’s not a room sound I’d fuck with.

It is apparently the biggest, most studio-ish of the studios Geezer has recorded in, and I’ll agree: this couch I’m on is like a Neve console for my ass right now. I’ll be perfectly happy if I can stay here for the duration, and if the rest of my afternoon is hearing Touseull’s bass tones and the band jamming — if that’s what the process of “basic tracks” is — I’ll be perfectly happy to have spent the time. Shit sounds tight. Of course, nothing ever sounds so good as in the studio monitors, but still.

Best case is Geezer come out of the next two days with 10 songs done. “Mercury Rising” to loosen up, then I guess hit it for real.

A couple songs in, Bittner suggests Marokta lose the click in the midsection of whatever song this is. It is the right suggestion. Continuing through “Mercury Rising” with a couple quick punch-ins on drums and bass, then a doubled guitar solo. Also the right choice. Bassline is killer. Mellow opening, more driving verse, some killer drum jabs as moves between parts, a couple starts and stops.

Printing the song after it’s done, bouncing it down, makes it feel complete.

12.18.21 – 2:39PM – Applehead Recording – Woodstock, NY

“Logan’s Run”

I think the cab in the isolation room next to the control room is humming. It’s a kind of relaxing backing drone. With “Mercury Rising,” the band are moving on to “Logan’s Run,” trying it first with the click track, then probably without again as they get together a take. Vibe in the studio is pretty chill. Sometimes you get into a place like this — especially a nice studio — with a band and it’s a gotta-go-gotta-go-time-is-money kind of thing. Sometimes you get in and everybody’s stoned and/or not there.

This is in between. The band loaded their gear in last night and clearly some sounds were gotten last night as well ahead of starting work properly this morning. Smart not to waste that time this morning. It’s real easy to lose four hours on some minor thing, and better that happens when you’re not trying to also make an album before the day is over.

But Appelhead is gorgeous. There’s a stream in back. I pulled in the wrong driveway the first time, but once I made it here, following the little ‘Studio’ signs on the trees of the long pull-in, it’s clearly designed as a getaway kind of spot. Stream in back, woods out front. Bittner’s house is next door.

Before they start playing, there’s some adjustment with the rack tom. It’s all good though. I’m so into this vibe. Everyone’s tone sounds right on. I hear Touseull with some fuzz on in there and Harrington noodling around while Markota’s drums are adjusted. It all sounds warm and killer and these guys know what they’re doing and they know the songs and they’re here to hit it and have a good time. They’ve got some Sabbath swing going now that I can only hope is actually part of this song and not just something they’re playing to get sounds.

2:48PM, rolling. Bittner takes notes while the band plays, Markota decides quick not to use the metronome. Indeed the swing is the core riff of “Logan’s Run.” Classic stoner janga-janga shuffle. Can’t argue. Evens out to a smooth hook and builds weight as it goes. Harrington crushed vocals for “Mercury Rising” on the quick. I wonder what he’ll do with the pulled-note sections here ahead of the solo, if anything. Song is somewhere in the neighborhood of five minutes long. Another banger.

They do another take the dampener off the snare. Kill it. Listen back to confirm. Yup, it’s dead. Or not. One more take to get the second verse, and then another to punch it in. A few more punch-ins. Pat wants to double the solo again — one doubts it’ll be the wrong choice this time either — and there was a wah-bass part, which, well, yes obviously that’s going to work. Riff is pure stoner rock in how it builds to a finish. “Hole in the Sky,” or Blues-era Kyuss even. Thicker though.

Some more dug-in work on this one, but everybody’s still pretty relaxed.

12.18.21 – 4:47PM – Applehead Recording – Woodstock, NY

“Atomic Moronic”

Talk of dinner leads to pizza. I’ll get a salad and because I’m embarrassed at my own dietary preferences — low carb, no sugar, no pork, etc. — I offer to place the order. Seems the least I can do.

Another speedier boogie, “Atomic Moronic” comes together pretty easily, or at least seems to. Lead lines peppered in, a bit of sass toward the end. Scorched. Could hear on “Mercury Rising” Pat’s pushing himself vocally.

Steve nailed drum punch-ins while I was on the phone with the pizza place. Richie next with one or two bass fills. Pat next with a fix on the solo, then guide vocals I guess for later. Very much a pre-dinner affair, but a fun one. There was some discussion as to whether or not to do a more complicated song before eating. Arguments in favor of “pizza power” won out against implied hangry. I’m glad I could contribute there and bring my homemaker skills to bear in another context. The answer is eat first and do the hard thing after.

Lines “Ignorance is sacred/Crucify the truth/Gotta let it burn/Burn baby burn/Put your faith in stupid/Self-inflicted wound.” Clearly Geezer aren’t going into their first true release of the pandemic era with blinders on to the world around them, and fair enough. Most of these riffs apparently come from lockdown time, so maybe it makes some kind of sense that the three songs I’ve heard so far are all movers in terms of tempo. I’m not sure that makes more sense as a channel for energy than anything else — that is, if they were diving headfirst into jams, it would be easy enough to frame the narrative of pandemic-effected creativity the same way — but when Geezer write songs, they make it count.

This one apparently might start the record. There is some talk of adding a gong, but I don’t think it’s serious. You never know.

The gauntlet is thrown down at two more songs tonight. If they all go as smoothly as “Atomic Moronic,” or even “Logan’s Run,” that’s probably possible, unless the next one is a real burnout deal, I don’t know. I don’t get told these things.

Ate dinner to the soundtrack of a Metallica/Huey Lewis mashup. “It’s Hip to be the Sandman” or some such. When civilization collapses, I hope the mashups are the only piece of modern culture that survives so that future archeologists can be like, “Wow, these people sure liked screwing around with shit. Also they killed the planet.” Guess that’ll be a double-edged sword. Also the archeologists are hypersentient dolphins, or octopuses, or pigoons or some such. Definitely not people. Gotta figure by then humanity will have long since “burned it down.”

12.18.21 – ~7:05PM – Applehead Recording – Woodstock, NY

“Eleven”

Everybody’s cruising post-dinner. Harrington warns that “Eleven” has a part where they might, probably will get hung up. So be it. I drink a bottle of water. Brought a whole gallon with me but it’s in the car. Saving for tomorrow. I’m a firm believer in hydration.

“Eleven” feels shorter, but I’m not sure that was the full song. Going through again. Boogie riff, still uptempo, but feels a little brighter in its turns, if that makes any sense and I’m not sure it does. Steve, Pat and Richie seem pretty locked in, and the bass in this room sounds amazing as Harrington takes a quick solo.

I know from experience that nothing that’s ever come out of a studio has ever sounded as good as on the studio monitors, but the work they apparently did put in last night (I asked) getting sounds and preparing for today is paying off in the fact that they’ll be able to do five tracks before everyone’s too tired.

They break for a solo section, then turn it back around to what I think will be the chorus. It’s got some strut to it with Steve on the ride cymbal but still rolls over fluidly. They run through it again. And again. Change something with a drum fill in the back half. The song is now a beast.

As a producer, Bittner’s very diplomatic in his suggestions — “tell me to go fuck myself, but…” — but I’ve yet to hear him put something out there that didn’t make a song better. Which is the ideal. They’re riding that last verse groove now. I assume the track is named for how loud they’ll be playing it in a live setting.

Listening back, the pace is relaxed in picking out parts to punch in or redo altogether. It’s easy-peasy. Feel like I’m stepping into a situation where the band has done their homework and the studio has been prepped for them. Unless a ceiling caves in right now, I feel like this has been one of the smoother sessions I’ve sat in on, and at this point I’ve done a few.

Steve goes back in for a fill. Fixed. Richie punched in a transition. Pat’s over guitars. Onto vocals for the guide track. Lyrics some bit of stoner escapism. “What is real? And where do we go from here? Nothing is real.” Done.

One more for tonight.

12.18.21 – ~8:30PM – Applehead Recording – Woodstock, NY

“Stoned Blues Machine”

Maybe the title-track. Hell of a title to live up to. Thudding start into slower nod, drums crashing in a way a little more open, pulls up for what might be between-measure shifts, gives it a back and forth feel, but that center groove is a gut puncher and they know it because they keep going back to it. Trippy solo over a rolling bassline. I must be getting tired because I’m running out of ways to say something sounds cool.

Can hear the blues in “Stoned Blues Machine” as they progress. Geezer started out and to some extent has kept a heavy blues underpinning, but I can also hear the other stuff going on in their sound as it’s progressed over the last eight years or so. They hold out distortion at the end of “Stoned Blues Machine.” Noise and delay. First take is solid, but won’t be the last.

They do another take. Warmer. Closer. Pat floats an intro idea they’d apparently talked about. Tape, as it were, is rolling, so they feel it out and it sounds about as solid as something so purposefully molten could want to. Not sure if that’s a slide in there or just the delay making it sound like one, but I like not knowing so I’m not going to sit up and look. Oh, okay, I will. Yeah, it is.

This is the jammier side of the band coming out. Nothing to complain about. They bring it around on the quick to the rest of the song they played earlier and it seems to be a little slower this time, keeping some of that vibe going, though it’s been a long day at this point and that could completely be my imagination.

Harrington calls out “hits!” and some follow, shifting into what’s either another verse or bridge, hard to know until the vocals (or whatever) go over it, but pick up with more drive coming out of the solo and into the ending. They’ve put work in at this point — it’s after 9PM, I got here at 11:45 and they were already working getting sounds — but have a lot to show for it.

Come in to listen. There will be some parts to fix. Doesn’t matter. Everyone knows the day is wrapping up sooner than later and the mood remains as it was. Any fatigue I discern is probably just me projecting because if I was at home right now I’d have probably been in bed for the better part of an hour already.

Nah, everyone’s tired. Talking about doing one more instead of the fixes for this one, get the basics down.

12.18.21 – 9:30PM – Applehead Recording – Woodstock, NY

“Broken Glass”

Richie switches basses. Pat warms up on some chug and noodles. The song starts with snare hits, like death metal, only not at all. It’s a strutter, twisting around Hendrix leads, well punctuated by toms and kick drum. Fucking a. Easy to see why they thought they might be able to sneak this one in before the end of the night. It’ll probably work.

Two takes, in to listen. Second take is the one, but everybody wants a piece of the end again, so they decide to take it from somewhere in the solo ahead of the transition to the last run. They do. No drama.

Pat goes back in for vocals. “We gotta get up and dance/We gotta get up and go/But where are we going?”

This one’s a ripper. Pat fixes a guitar thing after. Quick. Steve has something quick at around 2:16, but he and Chris decide to leave it.

Uptempo kick in the ass. Way to end a long day.