A message from Projectland: recording with Brave Radar is messy

The blog is feeling a little lonely right now, I suppose everyone spent this weekend doing vacationy things as they well should have. I wish I could argue that I’ve been equally busy, but I’ve just been m.o.b. (missing on blog) while my laptop sits 2 feet away from me at all times. I’ve been vaguely sick since Friday, suffering from some sort of stomach bug, combined with mile end cabin fever. All this to say, it’s time for an update.

In project land (where I live in a charming 5 1/2), Brave Radar has been working on an album for about a month now. Tomorrow is our last day “in the studio”. I use quotations because we recorded the entire album at three locations: our friendship cove jam room and both of our bedrooms, each time using Conor’s vocal mic to record bass and guitar through the same shitty amp and then picking up random instruments from the floor to add percussion. But it’s really not as pretentiously lo-fi as I’m making it sound. We’re putting care into the sound. We’re just lazy and poor.

We’ve described our recording style as akin to Ed Wood’s filmmaking: “But I was out of tune on that take and you can hear me setting up at the beginning and I only got the bassline right on one of the six repetitions…” “Sounds great, press it.”

So we cut pieces of takes and move things around and gain an ear for playing in tune to an out-of-tune dummy track and in time to an out-of-time clicktrack. Yesterday, we ended up using one vocal take that has me telling a punchline at the beginning before quickly noticing my part was coming up and deadpan switching to singing, but a bar too early, then continuing singing normally: “..which comes from a reliable source!! oh, laaaaa–fuck. laaaaaaaa” Cut and continue.

This is what originally drew me to filmmaking; I loved discovering the tricks behind the images. At a certain point in most projects, I finally get over my infatuation with making the fancy from the cheap, and can aspire toward good things, with the process coming through where it does naturally, not where I’ve forced it to. I wonder, are we there yet?

I think the funniest part of working with Conor is that we’re both dangerously laidback. We walk into the jam room, sit down on the couches, and then barely move for 6 hours, occasionally sipping from a coffee cup or stretching an arm to hand back and forth a guitar cable to switch who’s recording. We basically lie around all day; a film of the event could be sped up like a Warhol time elapse and it would look like a photograph.

But at the end of the day, we have these upbeat pop songs. It’s incredible actually.

After tomorrow, we’ll spend a few days mixing. Then we’ll have a listening party over the weekend to get some feedback from people who know stuff about stuff. The cover is going to be a painting that was made by our friend, Justyna. From there, we’ll master and burn and print and have an assembling party with friends who don’t know better than to say yes.

And then the cd will be in our hands, and here on indyish, and lots of other places. Maybe in your laptop cd drive? I think it’s gonna make for a nice little cd. We’ve taken some time off from playing shows to focus on the album and it’s great to have a chance to develop recording skills, even if they’re sloppy. After the cd’s done, we’re gonna look for a drummer to help us take our new songs on the road. And then it’s back to school, I suppose.