THE MAKING OF "RADIO LIED TO ME"
"Radio Lied to Me"
Studio Diary Day One, Saturday December 7, 2002. Written by Ken.
This was the first major recording session for us in over 2 years, we recorded our last full length CD with Chris Keffer at Magnetic North Studio in 1999. This time around we are at Closer Look Studios in Cleveland with our new producer/engineer Tommy Rich. Closer Look is located at 36th and Superior in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. It's a very cool place located on the third floor of an old brick building that has probably been there since the 20s.
... Wayne and Pugsley get ready.
We arrived at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon prepared to set up and get drum sounds for the 12 songs that would be Radio Lied To Me, our next full length CD to be released on Boss Tuneage Records. Tommy was there waiting for us to get set up. We arrived ready and willing. Pugsley came with us acting as drum tech, drum monkey, gopher, whatever we need.
... Wayne prepares the drums.
Most of the setup was relatively painless. We did run into a snag when we first arrived however. Of course Closer Look is located on the third floor of the building. Normally its no big deal, but for whatver reason, after we loaded up one load of gear, the elevator decided to stop working. Wayne blaims it on Ken for pressing the STOP button, but Ken says, fuck off Wayne .... So of course we had to carry all of the heavy shit (amps and cabinets) up three flights of steps. But it was no big deal really. We have had to do worse for shows. Ask Superdan.
... Pugsley sets up more drums.
After a quick smoke break, we got right to work. Wayne and Pugsley got right to setting up the drums, and Tommy got right to tuning them up to make sure we had the best sounds possible. Ken and Brian and Chris set up the guitar and bass rigs, and we were ready to sit back and take some drum sounds.
... Tommy Rich tunes the toms.
This is usually the longest part about recording. etting good drums sounds. We did this pretty quickly. Tommy is a drummer and has a pretty good idea of what he is doing.
... More drum setup.
It took about 2 hours or so to get the drums set up correctly and to get the sounds down that we would be using. When we record basic tracks we do it as a power trio of Brian, Wayne and Chris. Ken usually sits back in the control room with the engineer and listens to make sure the songs are played at the proper pace and there's no sever fuck-ups. The whole point of recording these tracks is to get a good drum track that we can build on. So essentially we are trying to get Wayne to the point where his shit is done and his take is OK. We can always go back and fix the bass or guitars later. In the process we set up a good bass sounds so that when we get a take that Wane likes, we can then see if Brian likes his take too. if not we do it over, if so, then the bass and drums are good for that song. So with that all set up, Ken, Tommy and Pugsley listened as Wayne, Brian and Chris proceeded to record basic tracks. We were recording 12 songs in this session. They are: Two Weeks, Radio Lied To Me, Postcard, Pushover, Things In Life, Say Goodbye, Do You Know That Girl?, Little Green Shirt, She's Sorry, Picture This, Merry-Go-Round, Teenage Dream.
... Tommy and Pugsley work on the drums.
The first song up was Two Weeks. It's a relatively new and fast song. Wayne wanted to try and get it out of the way as soon aas possible. It went fast. It only took about 3 tries to get a nice drum take. Next up was Postcard. Another fast and punky song. This is one of the oldest songs of this batch. It went very fast. Wayne nailed it on the second take.
... Tommy Two-Tone
The next song up was She's Sorry. This is when we had the first set back of the session. They were going throught the song, nice take, and then Wayne just stopped. We were all like whhat the hell" in the control room and then we could see Wayne holding up a broken snare head through the control window. All the heads on the drums were new, excpet for the snare head. And thhis was the second snare they had tried so far. So this was a bad thing. A very bad thing. We brought in the other snare and tried to get an acceptable sound out of it. The problem is that the snarethat broke was giving us a great tight poppy sound that was perfect for Postcard and Two weeks. The sound that this snare was giving us was more condusive to a heavy sound. So we decied to go on with it but only record the heavier, angrier songs. The poppiest of the songs would have to wait until tomorrow when we would have new snare heads.
... Tommy get sounds on the Neve.
It took abit of time to get a new snare sound going. We spent some of the down time watching the Young Ones on the TV in the lounge and pigging out on pistachios and later on we got pizza from the Rascal House.
... Wayne all miked up.
We got a visit from soon-to-be member Pete and his girlfriend Rita. And all-in-all we were having a good time. We didn't know what to expect working with a new engineer and in a new studio, and so far it was really good.
... More work by Pugsley and Tommy.
So with this new heavy snare we got 4 more songs finished up on the drums; Picture This, Pushover, Things In Life and She's Sorry. The session finished up at about 2 AM. We were all frazzled, but overall the takes and sounds we got were fucking great. Wayne was paying really well and about 60% of the bass parts were spot on as well. This would make for a quick bass overdub session later.
... Brian playing along.
Tomorrow was going to be a stressful day. We had to get the rest of the songs done on Sunday because we needed to take down the drums for a different session that would be in the studio on Monday. So day 2 was do or die for Wayne. He HAD to get the last 6 songs done, or we would be looking at a whole separate session of setting up drums again on Tuesday.....yuck!
... Changing the broken snare head.
The Making of Radio Lied to Me, Day 2.
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