Love Was Here First

An Album In Tweets

2009-10-11T23:35:00.000-07:00

LOVE WAS HERE FIRST was made in a couple of stages. The initial bed tracks (drums, bass and rhythm guitars) were recorded late summer/early fall of 2008. I blogged in depth about that process as it was happening.

My plans to finish the project in the fall of 2008 were waylaid by the health issues of my parents. Both they (and their busy restaurant) needed my help, and the recording was set aside for several months. Other than a day here or there, the project was not resumed in earnest until the summer of 2009. By that point I was a confirmed Twitter-user (@CarolynArends); thus most of the blogging about the later stages of the project was done in 140 character tweets. Here they are!

A FEW SPRING 2009 TWEETS:

AND THEN THINGS GOT GOING IN SUMMER 2009:

Days 7 & 8 (In the Making of Love Was Here First)

2009-10-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

The following is the second blog that was posted about the making of LOVE WAS HERE FIRST, originally published on the Carolyn Arends Newsblog on October 10th, 2008. (You can read the first blog here.)

DAYS 7-8

After a several week layoff we were back at it for a few short days this week. Tuesday, Oct. 8, I cut a rhythm acoustic guitar for THE LAST WORD. For every guitar part, there is a mind-boggling array of choices, starting with which of Roy's amazing guitars to use. I knew on this tune we probably wanted a dreadnought, so that "narrowed" the choices down to:

1965 Martin D28 (this guitar has been on every album I have ever made)

1977 Martin D35 (had some trauma and was rebuilt by John Larivee. Has a neck like a baseball bat, but sounds great)

1967 Gibson J45 (has a hole in it that we fantasized was a bullet hole, but the local guitar repair guy said probably not)

1970s Mark Beneteau

Handbuilt J Duncan "Chocolate"

Handbuilt J Duncan "Vanilla"

After trying 'em all, we decided the winner was ... the J Duncan Vanilla. (Not its technical name, but one of the Duncans is a dark brown and the other is light, so what would YOU call them?) This was my first time playing the Vanilla -- sounds amazing.

After we pick the guitar, there are always more decisions to be made. Which mics? Which preamp? Which compressor? Which EQ? At Whitewater there is an almost wicked level of unbelievable options; we are trying our hardest to use them for good.

In the end we went with a stereo pair of Neumann M-149s (why have one Cadillac when you can have two??), through the Portico preamps. I'm guessing Roy used the ADL compressor and maybe his API eqs, though I can't say for sure.

I am aware that 99.9% of the population doesn't give a rip what we used, but for the .01% of you that does ... cool, eh?

Anyway -- our guitar set-up looked like this:

Here's the fun part -- after cutting the acoustic, we decided it needed an electric rhythm part to keep it company. I hardly ever get to play electric. We had the same ridiculous overabundance of choices (which electric? which amp? which mics? which pre? which compressor? which eq? -- never mind which part I should play!). In the end, we went with the yellow tele through not one but two amps -- the Fender Princeton and the Vox. Sweetness!

Of course ... sweetness comes at a price. Whilst rocking, I sustained a finger injury. It wasn't a very impressive one. One of my acrylic nails (I get them just on my right hand for fingerpicking -- my Vietnamese salon technician calls me "One Hand Lady") flew off ... but I can play hurt. I rocked on.

After my rhythm parts were done, the tune seemed to be crying out for a lead guitar, so Roy strapped on his Les Paul, ran it through the not-so-ironically named "OCD" distortion pedal, and played great.

That brought Tuesday to a close.

Thursday, we cut acoustic guitar for ACCORDING TO PLAN (the chocolate Duncan through the 149s and the holy grail of preamps: the D.W. Fern) and then played endlessly with options for the song. Wound up printing a keeper Hammond organ part and scratch lead/arpeggiated acoustic part. It was a short day, so that was all she wrote.

Unless some studio time opens up, I won't be back at it until mid-November, so you will be spared obscure gear and instrument analysis till then. [ed.note - My parents got very sick that fall and thus my recording was delayed for several months and did not resume in earnest until the summer of 2009. More on that in later posts!]

Peace to you!

Carolyn

Next: An Album in Tweets

In the Beginning ...

2009-10-10T16:58:00.000-07:00

The following is the very first blog that was posted about the making of LOVE WAS HERE FIRST, originally published on the Carolyn Arends Newsblog on October 9th, 2008.

DAYS 1-6

I know, I know ... new releases are not, strictly speaking, "records" any more. More like "audio files". But they are still recordings. So I'm sticking with that terminology. At least I am not calling them "eight tracks".

Anyway, I've mentioned here and there that I am recording a new project. I haven't quite documented the process to date the way I'd like, so here's a bit of catch up.

We were slated to begin August 6th. My last disc, Pollyanna's Attic, was released back in May, 2006, so it's been a while. I've had a restless, antsy urge to get back to the studio for months. But as of this spring, I only had two new songs ("My Favourite Lie" in 2007 and "Willing" in Feb of 2008). This was a problem.

(I did have a reassuring conversation with my hero, singer/songwriter Steve Bell. He called about something and asked incidentally, "Are you writing these days?" I lamented my paltry two songs. "Two songs!" he exclaimed. "Well, aren't you God's favourite!" Turns out Steve's been writing even less than I have.)

I decided to book some studio days anyway, on the "If you build it they will come" theory. As the time drew nigh, one more song materialized ("I Am a Soul", which I blogged about here). That brought the grand total to ... three. I wasn't totally panicked, however. I've been wanting to do a hymn/old gospel tunes record for ages, so I started working up covers. That was going OK, but I liked the 3 originals I did have, and I wasn't sure if they would fit in with the vintage material. I was in a quandary.

Then, about 8-10 days before we were to begin recording, songs started pounding on my door, arriving pretty much as fast as I could write them. That never happens. If I recall correctly, they came in this order:

Something Out of Us

Be Still

Roll It

Nothing Can Separate

According to Plan (which I blogged about here)

The Last Word

So, for those of you keeping score at home, that was 3 songs in 3 years, and then 6 in 10 days. For those 10 days I was a manic insomniac, but a happy one. I was just so darn grateful to see the muse again. I had thought maybe it was gone for good. I got a brief chance to jam a few of the tunes with Spencer ... he gave them the thumbs-up, and he's not one to waste thumbs. So I was relieved.

Anyway, I am now recording 9 originals, along with 2 favourites from the covers I had been working on: A reinvention of the old classic, "Standing in the Need of Prayer", and my best attempt at my brother's brilliant tune "After the Flood." [ed. note -- Through a catastrophic computer snafu, the tracks for After the Flood were lost, and the song was eventually replaced by a new tune called "Never Say Goodbye" - which I'll blog about later. Someday I'm going to record "After the Flood" though!]

We began as scheduled on August 6th with Jonathan Anderson on drums. Jon plays most anything and is not known primarily as a drummer, in fact I know him better as a producer/engineer. (We collaborated on a Keith Kitchen project ... Jon produced 8 tunes and I produced 3.) But I had heard Jon do some drumming in pre-production for Keith's project and I LOVED the way he played. (It reminded me of Jon Brion, the multi-instrumentalist/producer who drummed on some mighty fine Aimee Mann records.) I asked Jon if he'd be willing to take a run at a few of the songs for my project and he was game.

Jon came in for 2 days and played on 5 tunes. I love his instincts -- he has a great way of dialing into my guitar rhythms and playing off them (probably comes from being a guitarist himself.) Very fun. While Jon was in, my co-producer/engineer Roy Salmond played guide bass parts ... and though I am planning on sending the tracks to Chicago to have my long-time bassist Adrian Walther do his thing, Roy did a darn fine job. Adrian's got his work cut out for him!

After our days with Jon, we had a couple of revered session guys come in -- Phil Robertson on drums and Miles Hill on upright bass. Phil played on Pollyanna's Attic, but I had never worked with Miles before. Phil and Miles have played together for years, and they have a freaky musical ESP; they feel monster fills and grooves at the same time without discussing them. Definitely goosebump -- and grin -- producing. Phil and Miles were in for 2 days and played the remaining 6 songs on the record. We also had Phil play some of the same tunes that Jon had played on, just to give us the too-good-to-be-true luxury of mixing and matching great drum parts. I love my job!

A bonus on the Phil/Miles sessions -- Miles had just returned from several months working with Van Morrison all over the globe, and he had some very strange and entertaining stories to tell. Wish you coulda been there!

Here are some blurry pictures from the Phil/Miles sessions:

After the four days of tracking, we spent a couple days cutting decent guide vocals and acoustic guitars and experimenting with various versions and approaches. All just enough to make me fall in love with the recording process all over again ... but then we were out of time. We didn't get back into the studio until this week, which I will write about in my next blog.

Right now -- gotta sleep. Have to be able to play in the pocket tomorrow!

Thanks for reading ...

CA

Next: Days 7 & 8

Also: An Album in Tweets