November 29, 2007: Catching Up

It's been quite a while since the last entry - a lot has happened between posts. Bassman John moved to Milwaukee this summer and we have yet to find another bass player. However, we continue to move forward as best we can and have amassed plenty of new material. We are still focused on completing a CD of original songs asap. The challenge from this point forward is to finish the many song 'sketches' we have come up with so far - all have been recorded as rough demos. Among the backlog of new material: Enuff Is Enuff; Lies; Call Me; Midsummer Rain and Hold The Phone.

We have talked with Mike Shoaf, a bass player and old friend of Bob's, about adding bass lines to a couple of our songs to help finish them up. We are focused on 2 songs in particular: Call Me and Enuff Is Enuff. Mike Shoaf has demo copies of both songs, so we expect to make this happen sometime within the next month or so. Mike Casey has stepped up to handle the vocals, although we still have thoughts of finding another vocalist to help out. We have a unique situation in that we are doing this strictly for the fun of it and as an outlet for our creativity and love of music, i.e., we are not interested in playing out on a regular basis or trying to make money, which we realize would involve more compromises than we are willing to make at this point. The downside of this is that it makes it that much harder to find other musicians with the same mindset and goals.

Meanwhile, we have completed the first 3 songs and put them 'in the can': Bad, Bad Man; Lightning and Rhythm Of The Radio (Favorite Position). We added the final touches and completed the final mixes ourselves using the Korg D888 recorder and Adobe Audition. We've learned a lot along the way about how difficult the whole recording/editing process is and know that we still have a lot to learn. All in all, we're pretty happy with the final results and are proud that we have come so far.

July 24, 2007: Cakewalk

Mike and I spent about 3 hours in Alan's studio trying to finish the 3 songs. The first step was to import the Audition tracks into Alan's Cakewalk software and confirm that this process will result in perfectly aligned tracks. It worked exactly as we had hoped it would, so we now have a 'proof of concept' that we can do all of our recording in Doug's basement (Korg D888 and Adobe Audition on the PC) before going to Alan's studio for final polishing by Alan. This process will speed up our recording efforts significantly and give us the flexibility to do as many takes and tweaks as needed, independent of Alan's studio. It also addresses the 'red light' factor (the stress of trying to produce a perfect take while the clock is ticking and the cost is rising). We'll be able to record in a totally no-stress environment in the basement.

As for the songs, Mike added some vocal harmonies to Lightning and a new lead vocal to Rhythm Of The Radio (Favorite Position). We decided to double-track Mike's vocal to Lightning, which added significantly to the song. We also remixed all 3 songs and came away with what we think will be the final versions. The final test will be to listen to the remixes on the home and car stereos.

July 15, 2007: Still Recording

This morning, after reviewing the latest mix of Lightning, Mike suggested that we re-do the drums in the last third of the song, because he felt they were too out of sync. We debated about the need to re-do the drums, then decided to go ahead and give it a shot. The major issue of doing this is that the bulk of the original recording for this song was done in Adobe Audition on the PC (because we only have 8 tracks on the Korg D888 in the basement). We can punch in the new drum track on the Korg D888, but whether or not it will be in sync with the rest of the tracks on the PC remains to be seen. Once the drum track is recorded on the Korg D888, the next step will be to transfer it to the PC and see if everything is still in sync. We proceeded with punching in the new drum track.

Once we were done with the drums, we then focused our attention on Bob's song, Hold The Phone. He had a setting on his drum kit for a ringing phone, barking dog and a knock on the door. The plan is to use these effects in a short sequence, with a spoken vocal track on top of the effects, as an intro for the song. We came up with a decent intro and will record the vocal later, once Bob comes up with a full script. At this point, the practice was over. The next step will be to insert this intro at the front of what was recorded last week and see how it sounds.

Mike also wants to re-record his rhythm track and re-do his vocal track (at Alan's studio). We also need to finish the vocal on Rhythm Of The Radio (Favorite Position). This should complete the three songs.

July 8, 2007: Working Out The Funk

This practice session was spent working out the structure and sounds for Bob's funk song, Hold The Phone. We recorded a 3-4 minute demo of the song and will let it sink in before expanding it further. We are anticipating having a bass player, a friend of Bob's, sit in on this song.

July 7, 2007: In The Studio Again

Went to Alan's studio with the wav tracks (from Adobe Audition) for all 3 songs. Once there, we discovered that the Audition tracks were not usable - the clips that did not start at the beginning of each track could not be synchronized. I will need to revise the Audition tracks and figure out how to export all the tracks with the same starting point. While we were at Alan's studio, we went ahead and recorded a new rhythm track for Bad, Bad Man, then remixed the song. The purpose of the new rhythm track was to add a harder sound.

A few days after our trip to Alan's studio, I discovered the secret to exporting 'bits and pieces' from Audition in a way that will keep them all in perfect sync when imported into Cakewalk (Alan uses Cakewalk in his studio). The solution in Audition is to mute all tracks in the session except for the one that is to be exported. Then, when the export is done, a full export wav track is created that is the identical size as the largest track in the session, i.e., any space preceding the actual sound bit in the track is filled with blank audio space. All tracks can then be imported into Cakewalk (or any other software) and left-aligned to sync up - an easy and effective solution.

July 1, 2007: Lightning And Other Things

No one ever said it would be easy. And no one said it would be fast. But one thing for sure - it's definitely fun. Over the last couple of weeks, we recorded and tweaked a new version of Lightning, which has evolved nicely into a much faster 'snappier' version, complete with a David Lindley-ish chunk at the end of the song. It's fascinating how a song can morph over time. Our next task is a Thursday session at Alan's studio to touch up and remix the three songs we have been working on, Bad, Bad Man, Rhythm Of The Radio (Favorite Position), and Lightning. The goal is to walk away from the studio with all three songs finished, which would certainly jump-start our efforts to put together a CD of original songs.

We've already starting working on the next song, drummer Bob's Hold The Phone. This one is a funk tune, with Bobby Delicious 'chatting' over the rhythm. Lots of room to improvise and be creative with this as we transform Bob's concept into a finished song.

May 28, 2007: Moving Forward

It's been a month since the Mainman/Mainsqueeze reunion in Vegas and we are still feeling the 'rush', so to speak. It's inspiring to reconnect with old friends and to have those moments that remind us of what we can accomplish musically and that the possibilities are endless. This summer's goal is to complete our CD of original material - an ambitious goal, true, but certainly do-able. We have a large backlog of originals that just need to be polished up for recording and we now have the tools and know-how to get it done. So we are off and running once again.

We took advantage of Bassman John being in town for last Sunday's practice and came up with what we think will be the final version of "Rhythm Of The Radio (Favorite Position)". It's a rockin' version with a particularly strong drum performance by Bobby Delicious (he did the dishes at Frisch's). With the addition of a final vocal track, a couple of tweaks and some mastering, it should be a wrap. This song was another of those 'moments' - we got it all in one take, essentially a 'live' recording with no overdubs or do-overs. Funny how these things happen when everyone is 'feeling it' at the same time. Just wish we could figure out a way to capture the process and re-use it on demand.

It looks like our earlier recording of "Bad, Bad Man" is a keeper, so these two songs give us a jump start on our CD project. Mike's "Call Me", Bob's "Hold The Phone and Doug's "Back To Bimini" are next in line. Bassman John is now living in Milwaukee, but we are counting on him to record more bass tracks from time to time when he is back in Columbus. In the meantime, we keep moving forward.

The Korg D888 recorder has been a great addition to the recording toolkit, making it possible to do the bulk of the recording (up to 8 tracks simultaneously) in the Prince George Studio, then transferring everything to the DAW (Adobe Audition) for additional tracks and editing. We still plan to use Alba Studios for the final editing and mastering. The learning never ends, but we've reached a point where we can now create credible recordings independently at our own stress-free pace with only minimal cost. Ain't technology great?

April 26, 2007: Windrush In Vegas...and more

Ok, as good as it sounds to say Viva Windrush In Vegas or Mainmen Play Las Vegas, it wasn’t exactly a paid gig for anyone. But, hey, we actually did play and record in Vegas, although the real truth is that we were the ones who actually had to pay to play. Nonetheless, it was definitely something even better than a paid gig: it was a magic moment in Vegas with the Mainmen and Mainsqueezers, i.e., old friends from WRHS, reuniting once again at One Vibe Studios, Las Vegas, for a recording-jam session, thanks to Walt’s idea to book a studio and make it happen.

It all started when a couple of close friends from 'back in the day' decided to go to Vegas for a weekend. Once word spread, about 20 or so others, now scattered all across the country, jumped on board and turned the weekend trip into a WR mini-reunion and magical mystery tour. It was Walt who came up with the idea of booking a recording studio for a jam session with all our guitar-playing and singing friends.

Back in the 60's on the far east side of Columbus, it seemed like everyone was in a garage band. For those who didn't experience that era, it's hard to describe how immersed in the music of the day all of us were in one way or another. Music was always a part of everything we did back then, whether it was playing in garage bands, watching Shindig, listening to WCOL, hanging out at Valley Dale, going to street dances or going to big-time concerts at Veterans Memorial. The music was always there. So Walt’s idea to reconnect in a studio and see what happens was the perfect fit.

Saturday, we found our way to One Vibe Studios in Vegas for a 4-hour recording session. The studio was filled with guitars, wires, mics and friends. Players at the session included Windrushers John, Doug and Mike, plus friends from ‘back in the day’ Walt Coleman and Jack Vanderzee. Filling in on backup vocals, percussion and general inspiration were The Mainsqueezers Chorus: Debbie, Sharon and Joyce (hope I didn't forget anyone). Jack’s son, Todd, who lives in Vegas, provided a guitar for Jack and a bass for John and spent the day hanging out with us and hauling us around (Can’t thank you enough, Todd).

The plan for the day was that there was really no specific plan other than just getting together, playing some music and seeing what happens. We did have a couple of songs in mind that we thought we might take a shot at: While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Beatles) and Handle Me With Care (Traveling Wilburys). Plus, we were hoping we might get some free-style rapping from Neal (former Deadly) on his original creation, Talking WR Blues.

After spending some time solving some studio equipment issues, we quickly knocked out versions of While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Handle Me With Care, with everyone joining in on chorus. Very nice. And very very special to have everyone jump in and have such a good time. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

The finale of the session was an impromptu and slightly altered version of Steamroller Blues (James Taylor), with Walt and Mike on vocals, that turned out to be the best song of the day. All three songs were recorded and mixed by One Vibe at the close of the session, so the magic moments were preserved . . . the studio chatter and the good stuff as well as the mistakes - a priceless audio snapshot capturing an event that we now have digitally preserved forever.

All in all, a unique and wonderful way to re-connect with friends. and yet annother chapter in The Most Hallowed Book of Mainman Stories.

By the way, drummer Bob was unable to go to Vegas, so we filmed a shout-out from him to all the WR Vegas touristas. You can view the video, titled Bobby Delicious, on YouTube by clicking here or by searching YouTube for 'wr67'.

In other Windrush news, Bassman John announced that he and Sandy are moving to Milwaukee in a few weeks, a great move for them but a difficult change for Windrush. “Life comes at you fast”, as the commercial says. Windrush loses a part of its soul and will never be the same. However, we will carry on, stay in touch with John and look forward to John staying connected to the band, either by sitting in when he and Sandy's travels find them in Columbus or maybe even by sharing and recording tracks electronically.

What happens next will be another leg of the Windrush journey. All of us have had a life-time passion for the music, so that will never change. We will keep playing, keep writing and keep recording and look forward to the next place this road takes us. The immediate target is to keep working on recording the CD of originals, hopefully getting it done by the end of the summer. We'll keep everyone posted on our progress.

February 19, 2007: At Last

Monday evening found Mike and Doug back in Alan's studio once again to try to finish off the first two songs: "Rhythm Of The Radio (Favorite Position)" and "Bad, Bad Man". for "Favorite Position" we wanted to replace the original drum track with a new drum track that used a setting with a harder edge. As we quickly discovered, that's not an easy thing to do. A few weeks earlier we had taken a stab at it by recording 3 different versions of the drum track, hoping that we would be able to stitch together the best sections of each. A few days ago, we sat with Alan as he worked his magic on the 3 drum tracks. We really weren't sure how do-able this would be, but once Alan finished, we ended up with a result that works. Alan did some additional mixing on this last take and presented a near-final mix to us tonight. The result? We think this song is finally done. At last!

Next, we did some more work on "Bad, Bad Man". Specifically, we thought the overall rhythm guitar sound was a little thin, so we wanted to experiment with a couple of new rhythm guitar parts that have a little more bite to them. We also wanted to shrink the song from it's original length (almost 8 minutes) to around 4 minutes, without having to re-record the whole thing. We accomplished both goals tonight and were happy with the new guitar parts that definitely give the song more bottom end and a grittier sound. Once Alan does the next mix, we'll add a 15-second intro, which we came up with at last week's practice, and that will complete this song.

What next? Probably Mike's "Call Me". We've got a number of songs ready to follow including Bob's "Hold The Phone", John's "Watch It What You Say" and Doug's "Back To Bimini".

January 23, 2007: Back In The Studio

To parody Rod Stewart's hit, 'the first cut is the hardest'. Windrush was back in Alan's studio this week to try to put the pieces together for our first recording, "Rhythm Of The Radio (Favorite Position)". A week earlier, Alan had given us an excellent near-final mix of this song, but after listening to it closely, we decided that we wanted to take a shot at replacing the drum track with a new one using a different sound from Bob's V-drums. Plus, we wanted to add some cowbell in a couple of places, as well as a new guitar accent by Mike.

Adding the cowbell and Mike's new guitar parts were a snap. However, replacing the existing drum track while keeping every other track in the song intact proved to be tricky. Bob played 3 live drum track 'keepers' from which Alan will try to stitch together a new single drum track that fits the existing tempo of all the other tracks. If this proves do-able, our first recorded song is done and we can move on to the next one, "Bad, Bad Man". If not, we'll go back to step one and record the song all over again. Either way, we are inching closer to the milestone of completing the first song. It's been a great learning experience that no doubt will help us move faster on subsequent songs.

For future songs, the plan is to record the basic tracks on the new 8-channel Korg hard-disk recorder in the basement practice studio, then take the basic tracks to Alan's studio for tweaking and final polishing.

In the meantime, at the last practice session we recorded a quick demo version of "Watch It What You Say", which is a song that John's 60's garage band, the Trojans, recorded in Iowa way back when. The new version rocks, featuring lots of delay, trippy guitars and wah, while staying true to the flavor of the original - definitely a 60's throwback sound on this one that we are excited about. Doug will probably do the vocals on this one. If you want to hear the original 60's Trojan version, check out the Dutch internet radio website, Beyond The Beat Generation, which has the song on it's playlist. The story of the Trojans can be found at the 60sgaragebands website.

January 7, 2007: More Cowbell!

The regular Sunday morning practice (or, as we like to think of it, "The Prince George Church of Rock 'n Roll" revival service) was another solid one. Our technical problems transferring the digital recordings from ADAT to Alan's studio DAW (a sampling rate discrepancy) have been resolved, so now we can move forward with our plan to record basic tracks in the Prince George practice studio, then take them to Alan Alba's studio for finishing touches and polishing.

We spent much of this morning's practice re-visiting "Rhythm of the Radio (Favorite Position)", playing it 'live' a number of times and recording a demo version, complete with the addition of more cowbell (Will Farrell would be proud). We've come to realize that, as a practice discipline, we need to play through our growing inventory of songs at the start of each session before working on and recording our new material. We have found ourselves lately with new song overload (a wonderful problem to have) - spending all of our time on new material at the expense of practicing our existing material. We are fortunate to have so much new original material, but realize that we may have opportunities to perform in the near future, so we need to have an inventory of performance material ready to go when we get a chance to play.

In particular, we're beginning to hear talk of a possible high school reunion (Walnut Ridge) this summer - maybe even a multi-class reunion - that may be an opportunity for us, as well as our friends, the Marquis66, to perform. And even if there is no reunion, it's likely that we'll find a place that can accommodate a live band and throw our own private party, so we need to be prepared to perform live.

Thanks to our friend Pat McGloughlin (Gas Pump Jockeys), we recently learned of a new music distribution site, Tunecore, that makes songs/CD's available for purchase via iTunes, Napster, etc. While we don't expect revenue from our original songs (no private jets and villas in France just yet), anything is possible, so it is an intriguing thought to consider. If nothing else, we are learning quickly that it's prudent to copyright songs and maybe even set up a business entity to at least protect what we create and allow for the possibility that the 'next level' might occur.

The next item on our 'to do' list is checking out the repaired studio version of "Rhythm of the Radio" and finalizing "Bad, Bad Man" (maybe a shortened re-recorded version), so we can move on to some of our other in-progress material.

January 4, 2007: The CD art has arrived!

It's been a while since I've posted a Windrush blog entry, so it's catch-up time. It's not that we haven't been busy - we've been practicing as usual and continuing to create new material. It's just that there has not been a significant milestone to report . . . until now.

Drummer Bob's younger brother, William McCarthy, is a nationally renowned artist and was kind enough to create custom artwork for our CD cover. Bob brought copies of the artwork to the last practice session and we were collectively stunned by the Will's magnificent paintings. We were also surprised to find 2 paintings instead of one, so now we can cover the front and back of the CD. And now that we've seen the paintings, we're thinking that we may have to press some vinyl LP's (anyone remember vinyl?) so we can have a larger cover space to better display Will's artwork. This is a very special thing for us and is much appreciated. You can check out Will's art at: www.williammccarthyfineart.com.

I guess maybe now it's time to report on a few of the non-milestone Windrush happenings just to keep the flow going.

Recent practices have been devoted mostly to working out Bob's new-but-not-really-so-new funk song, "Hold The Phone", that has been rattling around in his head for so many years. We've recorded a couple of 'sketch' versions on the ADAT and are still searching for the right feel, i.e., the one that sounds like us. We're still not just just what 'sounds like us' really is, but figure we'll know it when we hit on it. That's the way it goes when you're creating originals as opposed to covers. And that's a good thing, no doubt. It just makes the process a little unpredictable, i.e., you never know when lightning will strike, as it already has a few times for us in the recent past. For "Hold The Phone" it looks like we may have a guest contributor in the near future, a certain person who will do vocals, as well as add a little sax. Definitely something to look forward to.

Given that we practiced on Christmas Eve day, it's timely that Mike unveiled to the rest of Windrush his newly written Christmas Song - another excellent tune from our prolific songsmith - this one done in a quiet acoustic style. We also experimented with recording acoustic guitars, capturing sketch versions of Mike's Christmas Song, a new yet-to-be-named song from Mike and a song in progress from Doug, "If You Could",, which will probably end up as a rock-oriented electric 12-string piece.

We are finding that we have accumulated a number of song sketches - songs that have the core constructed, but need finishing touches, final arrangements and production polish. We probably have around a dozen song sketches in varying stages of completion. We are confident that, once completed, these will be songs that we can be proud of. The challenge for now is to complete these songs, one at a time, and get them recorded in their final versions.

The freedom to create songs in any way we choose is extremely intoxicating, but we finding that the process of completing a song from A to Z is much more challenging than we at first envisioned. Finding the right arrangement, the right overall sound and the best performance are all challenging, but the most challenging of all is knowing when to stop and let the song be what it is. The technology is seductive, because it's now possible to add and change without end, making it a temptation to over-do a song. It's all part of a fascinating and inspiring journey.