Imagine driving a third of the way across the US. Now add to that a six-month-old, beautiful, baby girl in a carseat in the back and your spouse sitting beside her. Then picture a cranky Chihuahua in your lap the whole way. Pile on tons of music gear (yours and some of your bandmates) plus luggage for everyone in the car. While you’re at it, place yourself at the driver’s wheel of a twenty-three year old Volvo wagon driving through multiple early spring thunderstorms. After picturing all this for, I don’t know, thirteen hours or so, imagine arriving at the destination, unloading everything, and then attempting to record the funkiest, most danceable album of your career straight through without screwing it up. I just did all of this, and I loved EVERY minute of it.

The band that I’m lucky enough to play bass in, Abby Wren & What It Is, just tracked our first album. We did so at East Hall Recording located in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a groovy town of 75,000 folks or so tucked away in the mountains in the northwest corner of Arkansas. The significance of that is that we’re a band located in Atlanta, Georgia which is around 700 miles away from Fayetteville. While many of us in the band are old hat at traveling for music, the band itself is new and hasn’t played outside Atlanta yet, much less traveled hundreds of miles to try to record some music.

You may be wondering why we went so far away. Are there studios in Atlanta? Yep, there sure are, but none of the ones in the ATL would be a good fit for us. Well, I should say none of the ones that we could afford would be a good fit. Plus we had made the decision to track to tape. There are not a lot of studios doing that around here. That’s a lost art amongst my generation and a lost sound. Certainly, there are studios in Atlanta that have tape and know what to do with it, but it might take me years to find the right one for this band. There are other reasons, too. East Hall has some cool gear that I knew would be right for what we wanted. A lot of the gear is stuff like vintage amps, synths, organs, leslie speakers, a baby grand piano, multiple drums kits, killin’ mics and vintage mixers. All stuff that gives off a vibe. Being away from town also removes a lot of distractions. Also, there is a sense of urgency because you’re pressed for time, because you soon have to trek back home. I could keep going with reasons, but my main reason is none of the studios in Atlanta have Chris Moore.

I’ve known Chris for almost half my life now, and I’ve done a few albums with him—all of my solo bass albums in fact. I knew him when he first tested the waters of recording, and I’ve watched him become a master with his own style. It’s a style that’s perfect for this band. You see, Chris didn’t go to recording school. While there is a diploma on his wall, it’s not from Full Sail or the like. He mastered his craft the hard way by doing his own research, gaining experience, testing theories, failing horribly, succeeding fantastically, and most importantly of all, following his instincts and using his ears. There’s some heavy Juju in knowledge found through trial and error as opposed to that declared by a fancy piece of signed paper. On top of all this, Chris is a great musician and thumpin’ bassist.

Since we were recording to tape and we had East Hall’s big live room in which to record, Chris convinced us to track live the bass, drums, and rhythm guitar. Dane played sax in the isolation booth, and Abby sang in the control room. We also decided to track without a click. What that meant for us was, the band had to play through the song until the drums, bass, and rhythm guitar played a keeper take. If we wanted, we could splice between takes, but since we didn’t record to a click, each take would be slightly different in tempo and waver differently time-wise throughout each take. Splicing would have been tricky and overly time consuming. After we got what we felt were keeper rhythm section takes, Dane could redo whatever he wanted for the sax, solos could be added for sax and guitar, other layers could be added, and Abby could do polished vocals. This worked very well for us, and gave us an end result of an album full of energy and vibe.

I hadn’t recorded this way in years. Needless to say, it can be nerve wracking for a bass player. I bet it’s more of the same for drummers and rhythm guitarists. You see, you don’t want to be the one screwing up and making everyone do a retake especially if someone else is having a ridiculously good take. Adding to the drama of it all, we had to wear headphones. Those never sound right for bass. The tone is all screwed up, and it’s like having a microscope held up to you—you can’t help but focus on the imperfections. We’re a band of listeners, too. When someone was having a burning take, the rest of us picked up on it. Listening to it now, you can hear the energy intensifying as each of us was trying to be musical while merely attempting to hang on and try not to screw up that good take.

Stack on top of that the dialog of doubt that rolls in your head while you’re doing anything of merit. You know the one. It’s that endless procession of thoughts that try to tell you you’re wasting your time, what you’re doing is trite, that no one is going to like it, that your art is laughable, and so on and so forth. The Buddhist personified it as Mara, the demon who bugged the Buddha as he was on his path to spiritual enlightenment. Whatever you want to call it, we’ve all got it, especially us creative types. I’ve been recording for eighteen years, but I’m still so green that it takes me a long time to ignore the demon and invite music in to stay for a spell. Lately, I’ve quite trying to ignore it. I just ask it if it wants to hang out for awhile and get funky.  I don’t know how the others in the band deal with it, but however they do, that do so masterfully.

While doing take after take can be taxing for bassist, I feel drummers have it worse. Playing the drums is pretty darn physical. With my doughboy physique, I’d be winded after two takes. Not Scotty, though. He’s a beast. He came out of the gate ready to rumble. Take after take he was funkier and funkier. His fills got tighter and tighter and more spectacular. That dude only had a few flubs here or there that I noticed. We tracked one song on Thursday, but the other eight were Friday. Scotty neither griped nor faltered. Afterwards, he even tracked synths, organ, piano, percussion, and backing vocals. All of it was musical, too. To say he’s a powerhouse is an understatement. Scotty, you’re my hero.  

I want to tell you about Jason, too. He came to this band just a couple of months ago. We’ve had a handful of rehearsals with him and just a couple of gigs. He really gave this band a kick in the pants due to him being a smoking guitarist and downright sick musician. We re-wrote songs that we’ve been playing since we were a band just to give him room for you guys to hear more of him. His rhythm is clever and tight, and his solos make jaws drop to the floor. He’s a bearded funk machine, and his tone and taste are here to grab your ears and turn ‘em in our direction. He hung with every take me and Scotty pounded through. Then he came back and overdubbed some of the most face-melting, head-bobbing solos. He did all this while being humble, soft spoken, and cool to be around. He gave this band a real edge, and I can’t wait to make more music with him.   

Then there’s Dane, our mad saxman. Let me start by saying something that may come off as a little obnoxious and self-important, I typically don’t like sax players. Many of them are only geared up to solo, have horribly astringent tone, are always out of tune, and look at their bandmates like we’re some sort of lobotomized servants placed in this world merely to shoulder their litter aloft for all to bask in their royal glory. I’ve got a short list of sax players that I truly admire. One is named Bob, one they called Cannonball, and one is named Jeff. At the top of my list, though, is Dane. Not only is he none of the things that annoy me about sax players, he’s got everything that the other ones on my adore list have. Plus, he’s a stellar harmonic player and flutist. His composition skills are also spot on. He’s the main author behind our song “Lucid”, which is a tight pop song if I do say so myself. He’s easy to communicate with musically and that includes while we’re not playing. To cap it off, he’s a laid back, super intelligent fellow—one that’s easy to become instant friends with. I love making music with this guy.     

Lastly, let me mention Abby, the member that makes us more than your average band. We’re all good players, but without her, we’d be just another group. She connects to the non-musician listener because most of us humans sing in some fashion or another. If you don’t sing, you at least relate to a good singer more so than you relate to something like a rockin’ tuba player. Abby sings so fantastically that people usually say, “That gurl cahn SAAHNGGG!” They’re right you know. If there are angels, I believe they sing just like Abby… or at least they try to. Her lyrics are very cool, too. She’s always telling a story with song, and her stories are honest and interesting. She kicked major butt in the studio, too. That’s not easy.

Let me explain how hard it is to sing in a studio. If you’re used to singing on a stage or even the shower, vocal booths can be intimidating. Many musicians call it the box. They’re usually tiny, maybe the width of three or four coffins, dark, and poorly ventilated. The walls are covered in sound-insulating foam and the walls themselves aren’t all parallel to each other leaving one or two walls askew. It can feel like you’re in a room that’s about to collapse from structural failure or like watching the camera angle go askew on the main character in a movie. You know, you’ve seen it in a film when the line of the character’s stance is no longer 90 degrees in the frame but more like 45. Regardless of what is going on in the scene it gives off a subliminal thought that something wicked is about to go down. You start feeling panicked and anxious.  More times than not, you don’t know why. Then there’s the high-end condenser microphone looking like some unforgiving body cavity probing device staring at you unblinkingly while daring you to screw up so it can document it for the whole universe to hear and scrutinize. Next, there are the headphones playing back every nuance from slightly off pitch notes to random nose whistles. All of it comes back to your ears in a timbre that sounds alien compared to the voice you hear in your own skull. You have to deal with all of this AND that demon dialog I mentioned. While you’re dealing, you have to go ahead and try to make some good music. Abby did this like a queen, and she did it all in a one-day marathon session. Rock on with ya bad self, Abby!

As you can see, I’m a big fan of each of the members of this group. I love them as people, too, which is the greatest gift of all. Even if no one listens to the music when we release it, I still have that love. For those of you who do us the blessing of stopping and listening, I hope you hear that love, too. You know, I’m gonna go buy some Ray Bans, because for this band the future is so bright, I’ve gotta wear shades. Thanks for reading and see you at the show.

I dreamt the strongest dream last night. I found myself in a dark grey room with walls so far apart I couldn’t see them. The ceiling was beyond sight, too, but I somehow knew it was there. There was very little light, and it, too, seemed greyish. I could only see the area directly in front of wherever I was looking. It was very much like wearing a bike helmet lamp on a cloudy, moonless night. Everywhere I turned my head I found ends of string tied to somewhere past the reach of the light. There were all sorts. Some were like yarn, fuzzy and brightly colored. Some looked like kite string and others like package twine. There were even thin, frayed ones that looked like used dental floss. A few strings appeared to be fine gold.

 

For some reason, I took it upon myself to try to tie them together, each to another’s end, one at a time. Each time I knotted two strings’ ends, they would pull tight and begin to resonate like a plucked bass string. The room would brighten. That’s cool, I dream-thought. I quickened my pace.

 

Many strings were pretty simple to tie. My hands adeptly took the ends and rolled them together into some well-practiced knot that would be impossible to remember and replicate in the awake world. A few of the strings felt like they jumped from my hands and tied themselves together, almost as if they had waited their entire existence to entwine with each other and were excited to have the chance to do so. There were a few knots that didn’t come together quite so easily. One would feel like rebar and refuse to budge. I’d have to spend time with it and really lean into it with all my weight to get it to loop with another string end. A couple of strings unraveled again and again, but persistent retying prevailed. Still a few others seemed too short to reach each other, but I would tug and tug until the coupling could happen. String pairings ranged wildly. There were the unlikely, such as a bit that looked like fine silk clumsily tied to one that looked like a trash-bag tie, and there were the ones that seemed logical, like ones that looked like electrical wire that tied together in what seemed to be a solder joint.

 

The room brightened to an oscillating green and a sound emerged from the vibrating connections. Some strings thrashed about alone, and it hurt to look at them. Others merged together into huge ropelike segments only to unravel further down their length. I looked down at my hands. They were growing wrinkled and pale. The nails were splitting and chipping. Blue veins stood out, and on the backs of my hands liver spots sprang up to spite me. I gritted what was left of my teeth and hastened my duties.     

 

My work seemed almost complete as the room radiated so intensely I could only peek at my knots through clenched eyelashes. The glorious sound grew so deafening that my ears just shut down, but the air pressure from the vibration was strong enough to pummel my guts. I felt my breath give, my knees let go, and I was falling.

 

Luckily, my brain refused to leave me to such a fate and switched me to a safer dream. I became a monster truck named Tornado, but everyone called me the more redneck sounding ‘Nadar. I was laser blue with lime green racing stripes. My cartoonishly large tires were a ridiculous tangerine and I had Barney-purple mud flaps with a silver silhouette of a crowing rooster on each. I’m pretty certain my back window had a sticker of Calvin peeing on something. The rest of my night I spent doing titanic donuts and rooster-tailing colossal amounts of gravel.