This past Saturday I trucked up to Quincy, MA to record two songs with Darkbuster at Fallen Angel Studios.
Initially, I have to say that Bill Powers’ Fallen Angel is a great place to record. It is a very comfortable space located in the basement of small neighborhood office building. It is extremely clean and it is well-stocked with beer, booze, coffee and lots of cheese and crackers. If that’s not enough there is a Dunkin Donuts and a convenience store located about a block away.
Although there is no large main room with high ceilings for doing live recording as I’m usually accustomed to, there are a number of separate isolation rooms that all connect to a main control room. Each room is set up to be the drum room, guitar room, etc. and all rooms are viewable from within the control room via closed circuit tv.
Using a Pro Tools platform, Eric “Rice” Edmonston helmed the controls for the recording of the two songs, which included a new original, “All My Lovin’ Back” and a Hank Williams cover, “I’m So Lonseome I Could Cry.” I had previously sent the guys a very rough mp3 of “Lovin,”consisting of just me and an acoustic guitar, but by Saturday they had come up with a rocking version that evoked hints of Social Distortion meets The Band. Danny’s drums were crisp and were interlaced with some awesome fills. Lenny added some beefy licks on his Les Paul while Mike and Amy plowed through the rhythm section on the bass and guitar respectively. Amy also added some Sunday morning-style organ on “I’m So Lonesome.” As the session winded down Rice got into Brian Wilson mode, adding some amazing three-part harmonies to again, tweak the overall feel of the songs.
What impressed me most about the session was watching Darkbuster move through the recording of the songs as true musicians-coming up with different parts, trying new techniques and really immersing themselves in the playing. I could see the musical wheels turning all afternoon and at the end of the day, I left the studio with a revitalized sense of inspiration and purpose as I continue to work on this project.
