January 24, 2025
We missed a snow and minor injury recovery day a couple weeks ago, so the last two weeks we've been busy laying foundation tracks for several other songs. The studio does pose a bit of an access challenge in snowy weather, and we've not only had snow, but frigid temperatures turning every footprint and tire track into thick ice. Thankfully we've been able to work around those challenges with only one temporarily stuck vehicle and no frostbite. All in the pursuit of making art!
These have been some musically interesting sessions for a variety of reasons. Last week we laid down the pieces of our medley of two traditional tunes, a nod to the influences of our elders including the legends with whom Les and his bandmates once upon a time made a record. Unlike a “traditional” approach like a bluegrass or oldtime band might take, ours involve some creativity in openings, segues and arrangements. While “Red Haired Boy” and “Salt Creek” will be familiar to fans of that music, our arrangement includes some quintessential Beyond Borders twists!
Because we are using a click track for all of the ensemble recordings, and each of these bits might be at a different tempo, we have to record them as separate pieces and then assemble them into a single production. If we screw something up in the pre-production planning, the ripple effect can be significant!
Each of us plays multiple instruments, but when we do shows we generally can only each manage one at a time (although Lisa and I both do change instruments mid-song on a couple of songs). In the studio, those limitations disappear. So today's agenda included two Lisa classics, her hilarious “I Love Lincoln” and the sultry blues of “Heavy on Your Lips”. In concert she takes center stage with her guitar and voice, but today she created drum parts for both and played them for the first time. And Stephanie, normally on bass, plays Lisa's drums set during “Lincoln,” so we actually have recorded two complementary drum tracks along with Les's regular jazzy bass line. On both songs, I did my best to cover Lisa's guitar parts adequately enough on a guide track to “feel” right for each of us overdubbing our parts later on. She's a fine guitar player, and her rhythms are obviously pretty sophisticated to copy!
We've also got the video cameras running now, capturing us at work and at play between tracks too. It sure would be nice if we had a couple people dedicated to helping us manage that content capture and crafting some social media clips. It was wonderful today to have Larry Zarobinski again helping Dustin running the recording and the filming.
My job, aside from making sure everyone is fed well when we break for lunch, is planning and managing the production schedule. We're being efficient, using the drum and bass set up we took the first day to dial in, and recording all of the songs that use that configuration first - get those 12 mics and triggers tuned into the drums once and record them for three months.
So I'm always looking at the next 2-4 week horizon and giving a heads up what songs are coming up on the schedule. Each session I have a goal and an additional song ready if we have time; a “stretch goal” that we've reached at each of our recording sessions. We've been good, but we've also been efficient; most everything is captured for final in 2 or 3 takes.
Coming up next: my first acoustic guitar overdubbing session of the record. Les will be busy doing shows with John McEuen quite a bit over the next month, so the big goal was to get to this point, where we could individually start overdubbing our instrument and vocal tracks. Since Les is producing the recording as well as playing and writing the music, not only is his to-do list of overdubs getting long, but the mice will play while he's away and he'll surely find we've left him some surprises ;)
We're also happy to have your questions and comments - please feel free to ask away or just chime in to cheer us on!
LUNCH 1/17 - Steph's tomato soup and Lisa's chicken salad, fab!
LUNCH 1/24 - Sausage, sweet potato and kale stew, mmmmmm!
The man chilling while supervising.
What IS that chord you play there Lisa?
It's this one. (Abm7b5, of course)
Our crew is SERIOUS!
And our band…..
is not!
Pretty fancy cameras capturing the day's work, and thanks to one of Dustin's Swiss Army Knife of high-tech skills, he's got them all synced to time code. That lines the different camera angles up perfectly for editing.
