Aging rock act on new album: This time we wanted to go back to the basics

"With this we wanted it to feel like these guys in a room playing together. To that end it's trying to keep this side of it" (points to microphone) "as minimal as possible and get it out of the way so it doesn't fuck with the energy in the forward motion."

Trying too hard

just record in the dark ffs

No electricity is the new thing

Dude there was this whole thing a few years ago - American Epic. Jack White & friends recorded direct to vinyl on an vintage apparatus powered by gravity.

At one point the strap holding the counterweight broke, and Jack made a big deal about going to find an upholstery shop and sewing it himself, because of COURSE he did, as the world's most famous ex-upholsterer. Showboating prick.

I suspect it could have been fixed with a few safety pins and some duct tape but then it wouldn't have been Jack White saving the day.

It did provide this crystalline perfect performance from Ashley Monroe, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtD7LfsTnkY

I heard you and your band have sold your microphones and bought a room

Should have bought four guys

Recorded our last album at a Five Guys:

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-p/13/16/dd/10/photo0jpg.jpg

One room...a few mics...three screaming kids...and a ton of fries.

I feel like the phrase “it came together organically” is a close cousin to the BTB aesthetic

World needs an album by an aging act put together entirely by AI—so they can say it came together synthetically.

It’s maybe the whole point of AI.

Also this has been done already hundreds of times, right? Just um,without AI.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHUlfOD5lPM

12'34" incase the stamp doesn't work

in case you don't want to watch: "we want to bring back guitar music, and the band in a room sound."

well spotted i say

Zach Myers on Shinedown's new album, Planet Zero: “It's the sound of a band in a room playing rock 'n' roll – I think a lot of our fans missed that”

https://www.guitarworld.com/features/shinedown-zach-myers-planet-zero

It's not just you. I listened to some of Bigger Bang yesterday, noticing a real spark in the playing there that you get when it's a bunch of guys who've played together forever actually playing together and responding to each other in real time (or at least a better simulation thereof).

― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 23 October 2023 04:44 (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

The band went actual years without ever once playing in the same room.

On Nov. 17, Bissell’s new project Car Colors will release "Old Death," his first new song in more than 20 years

Some work ethic this guy.

Layne Staley on Jar of Flies:

“For us, it was just the experience of four guys getting together in the studio and making some music.”

A back to basics classic of the genre.

Just one guy, dying alone in his apartment

yikes

A cheat, because live concert, but Ned over on the Laetitia Sadier thread:

Just her, her guitar, some preprogramming, live loops at points and at one point her trombone.

Lot of this in the Black Crowes profile in the NYT:

As one of six brothers himself, Joyce said he “was expecting drama and fights, but there was very little of it.” They recorded the 10-song album in a few weeks, with the band playing live. “It was old-school: everyone in the same room, no click tracks, no B.S.,” Joyce said. “It’s rare to do a record like that these days. They’re a dying breed.”

Chris likens the compact energy of “Happiness Bastards” to “Shake Your Money Maker.” “It’s a rock ’n’ roll record. Focused. Riff-oriented. Before we get older and can’t do that anymore.”

I would listen to an unfocused black crows album bereft of riffs

“It was old-school: everyone in the same room, no click tracks, no B.S.,” Joyce said. “It’s rare to do a record like that these days. They’re a dying breed.”

He's obviously unfamiliar with this thread.

Not quite aging (yet), but -

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/mar/17/big-thief-adrianne-lenker-bright-future-solo-album-interview

Disconnecting from technology was crucial for the process. “The energy of a cell phone or a computer does something to the energy field,” says Lenker. “It can be this thing that almost latches on to your eyeballs and sucks you in and takes part of your soul or something.” The album’s recording process was fully analogue: recorded on tape, mixed on an analogue console and cut directly on to the acetate used to make records. Everyone recorded together, not wearing headphones; they left not having listened back to a single take, trusting that Weinrobe had captured everything.

sounds kinda awesome

what's it gonna taaaaaaaaaaaaake

record directly onto the WAV file you'll upload to spotify u cowards

jk it does sound kinda awesome

“‘A La Sala,’ I used to scream it around my house when I was a little girl, to get everybody in the living room; to get my family together. That’s kind of what recording the new album felt like. Emotionally there was a desire to get back to square-one between the three of us, to where we came from–in sonics and in feeling. Let’s get back there.” - Laura Lee Ochoa

Stereogum on Pearl Jam:

Spurred on by recording his 2022 solo LP Earthling with the young super-producer Andrew Watt, Eddie Vedder had an idea. He told Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, and Matt Cameron to come down to Watt’s studio in LA, with a “Let’s just see what happens” kind of attitude. In a complete reversal from their past several recordings, the five members of Pearl Jam gathered in a room, banged out ideas together, and wrote a host of songs in a matter of days.

A+

The album’s recording process was fully analogue: recorded on tape, mixed on an analogue console and cut directly on to the acetate used to make records.

The Night Dreamer label does direct-to-disc recordings, mostly by jazz acts but also by some others (Seu Jorge, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80). They're generally really good.

re-read the foo fighters' concrete and gold wiki article the other day and it has quite an enterprising paragraph

The band describe the album's sound as where "hard rock extremes and pop sensibilities collide",[17] comparing it conceptually to being "Motorhead's version of Sgt. Pepper"[18] or "Slayer making Pet Sounds".[19] Explaining further, the album's sound was described as combining heavy guitar riffs with "lush harmonic complexities".[20] Hawkins added that in contrast to their mindset in the previous albums going to "let's make a good rock n' roll record", Concrete and Gold was "the weird record."[21] Grohl described the title track, which features the vocals of Shawn Stockman from Boyz II Men, as sounding like "Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd" and explaining that they "built a choir" out of Stockman's vocal takes, overdubbing them so it sounds "like 40 vocals stacked".[11] Hawkins described the album as their "most psychedelic" and "weirdest" sounding.[10] Writers described the album's overall sound as hard rock[22][23] and progressive rock.[24][25]

still sounds like their previous albums alas

From that Adrianne Lenker article upthread

Everyone recorded together,

got it

not wearing headphones

uhhh...kind feel like the authenticity goal-posts are getting moved on me

they left not having listened back to a single take, trusting that Weinrobe had captured everything.

what?

We went back to basics. Didn't even take our guitars out of cases. It was like when we started, just four guys sitting in a room not playing anything.

If we need to, we’ll miss soundcheck and just sit under a tree and talk for four hours, because we can’t play music together unless we feel connected. We therapise one another.”

It does seem like if Big Thief wanted to pivot to making podcasts, their fans would be fine with that.

Recording in the same room without headphones is super nice (ie no iso booths, hearing your live sound, plenty of bleed, just like rehearsing), I get that. But yeah they lost me at not listening to any takes. I assume that means not breaking the momentum by going into the control room, and going back later to select takes and mix?

Our bass player just left in the middle of the album and walked outside and got hit by a bus.

Didn't want to jeopardize the album by "overplaying"

xpost re:foos-
i'm so pleased that the phrase "pop sensibilities" is still being used in 2024. i also really like sarcasm.

More like Poop sensibilities

Just five guys in a room, three of them high, arguing and being passive aggressive.

fwiw, sounds like it was 2017 (and the idea sounds cool! even if the results weren't?)

I love this thread so much, every revive is a gift

Just five guys in a room, three of them high, arguing and being passive aggressive.

― President Keyes, Tuesday, April 2, 2024 12:45 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I would love to see more big time bands be this honest in the promotion cycle/press release

I'm checking out that FF album... it def. (and sadly) doesn't sound like "Slayer making Pet Sounds," ha ha

Motorheadpepper?

We wanted to go back to sick bass

"Good Decapitations"

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