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"We went out with a bang for 2006, we opened a new Years Eve Chuffer of a show with Earthless playing first, Drunk Horse & then The Fucking Champs headlining into 2007. Absolutely glorious night! We weren't quite sure if we would actually start recording the next day due to the previous night activities and the toll that it took on us. But alas..." Words | Mario It's the end of 2006, and Earthless is scheduled to record with Tim Green up in San Francisco, CA at Louder Recording studio. This would be our first time kinda recording in a real recording studio. The first LP, "Sonic Prayer", was recorded in the print shop that Matt Anderson [owner of Gravity Records] worked at. We literally just set up in the print shop all around these huge print machines and layed down those songs pretty quickly. We just asked for the 10 minute warning. This time we would actually have to be somewhat prepared as time was a factor as was just usual circumstances of being under the gun in the studio. But before Earthless was to go in to the studio we played a few shows before hand to keep up the chops and keep warm.  We went out with a bang for 2006, we opened a new Years Eve Chuffer of a show with Earthless playing 1st, Drunk Horse and then The Fucking Champs headlining into 2007. Absolutely glorious night! We weren't quite sure if we would actually start recording the next day due to the previous night activities and the toll that it took on us. But alas.... at around 4 or 5 pm we got up and started to bring our stuff into the studio. I just started to set up my drums and we figured we might as well start getting some sounds going. Within a few hours we had reached a starting point for the drums and let me tell you, Tim Green has his shit down! He is fast yet super efficient; he knows his shit and how it sounds, what microphones kick ass and blah!!! My only cent was to put a Mic on both sides of the kick drum so that it still has punch but is still closed head sounding. Wahoo!!! Our nights up at Louder when we weren't recording were spent watching some of Tim's awesome dvd's, drinking beers and smoking a little chuffy stuff. Simple good times. We are very into ZZ Top, Thin Lizzy and Deep Purple, and watching these dvd's provided subliminal inspiration for thee next morning of recording. The day of truth. The actual recording went really fast. A couple takes for the jam that is now called "Godspeed", which was our newest piece of material. The "Sonic Prayer" song / jam we have had for a little while but has mutated over time, and we hadn't played it for a pretty long time, so when it came time to record the 2nd side of the LP we went with "Sonic Prayer." Coz it is familiar but also since we hadnt played it in a while it would be fresh, and that would mean that there would definetely be a good chunk of improvisation in it. Which is always very exciting to make happen.  Sure enough, after the "10 minute warning" and the 22 minutes of jam put to tape, we had a listen back and we were happy with the 1st take of it, and decided to move on to the mixing. Then I had remembered that there was some room on another reel of tape. With that in mind, I had always wanted to get a decent studio version of our cover of the Groundhogs lovely song "Cherry Red". So we rehearsed it a couple of times and put that down to tape. Mike nailed the bass parts and Isaiah did his vocal takes with ease, quite a difficult task in my opinion seeing as we don't have vocal's for any of our material. But it worked out great and we were pretty stoked with things as a whole. Onto the mixing.... After a couple of overdubs onto the essentially live recording [we added some organ ala John Lord & a couple guitar enhancers] we started to trickle the knobs to the finish line. Tim once again knows his shit so well, and was like a genie dude making our every wish come true out of the speakers, and spew into our eardrums. Four days total of recording and mixing and we had ourselves a new record. When it came time to take all of our equipment out of the studio and back into our van we got all quiet, and feeling of seriousness came over everyone. What now??? This is what! Back upstairs for some coffee, and we watched one more hilarious dvd of Tim's that was about a guy / friend of his that made this documentary about cover bands & the trials & tribulations of the cover band circuit. Totally different world! Hilarious! The guy who is doing the documentary actually goes to audition for one of the cover bands, and the audition... let's just say doesn't go too smoothly. But that is a different story. So in a ballsack, that is a little insight into the recording environment for EARTHLESS when we made "Rhythms From A Cosmic Sky"... what a great time it was. Now go and toast yer mind to something!!! |
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