Ram's Dead, Vol. 1: Studio Notes
Recording notes from these sessions, from winter 2023 through late summer
The album cover art from “Ram’s Dead, Vol.1“ another collage of hand stitched elements from a the custom suit I commissioned from Judith/Rose Cut Clothing based in LA.
Garcia (and Hunter) were some of the best damn storytellers to have ever lived. Even so, I’m trying hard to come up with a good reason why I decided to start recording Grateful Dead covers when I have more than enough original music to finish up. The music knows where to go, it’s up to us to follow the signals, sometimes taking the scenic route is the best way to get to where we need to be.
2023 was a good winter for woodshedding, more snow than I had seen in my life in the Sierras, and San Diego was constant rain storms. Many trips to Mammoth last year, so much so I was just about snowboarded out by new years. Surf was abysmal last winter, luckily music was there for me back in the home studio.
In 2023, below the snow line heading back to San Diego, CA. Some of the best powder days I’ve seen in my life, along with some of the gnarliest weather.
I had just purchased a Universal Audio Dream ‘65 FX pedal and was test running it through every guitar and amp that I had at my disposal. My goal was to improve my live sound. I was in the process of updating my live rig and honing in my sound for the first performances for the spring of 2023. Even today, my life rig is ever changing and evolving. During this particular time, I kept coming back to the tone of my 1952 Gibson ES125 through the pedal into a Fender ‘57 Tweed deluxe reissue, it was pure Ennio Morricone Spaghetti Western goodness.
The 1952 ES125 I bought from my uncle for $200, funny story. I gave him the money, which was a small fortune to a teenager, he went upstairs. and pulled it down from his attic. When we opened the case, the entire guitar wast covers in a few inches of a putrid green moldy fungus. I thought, faaakkkk! We wiped off the mold and the guitar was pristine, untouched, perfect finish. Mint. All of the blemishes on that poor guitar were sustained by my own clumsy hands.
Once I had the tone, It was time to choose the songs. The first few ones I dug into were “Sugaree” and “Me and My Uncle”, the latter sounding so good that I lost myself in the story set to high plains reverb and country twang.
Yes, you can get twang from a Gibson, the ES125s of that era had a single coil neck p90, like a telecaster’s lipstick neck pickup it’s pure buttery lushness on rhythm. Pictured here with the Deluxe and the Dream pedal.
Usually when I get to the point of inhabiting the song, it’s time to record. During this part of the creative stage, it’s important to record everything. Resist the urge to judge, and save the self criticism for a later time. Otherwise you’ll never know if you’ve tapped into anything. As I began to record this first song, it sounded so good, I decided to proceed. I began to search for some Afro/Cuban percussion sounds that matched the Bolero type rhythm that was sounding so tasty on the guitar.
This time I wanted to try something different. Could I make the tracking/mixing process more efficient?
After some deliberation, I choose to create 2 matching projects in Logic Pro X using the same exact vocals/instrumentation to mix the entire side of an album with the first song. It was the same way we did the studio live recordings for the “Sessions” EP, and a few cuts off of “Songs of Wanderlust“. True, it proved to be a bit more complicated than that during the final mix down, but while recording, I could lay down each instrument in a single 22 minute pass.
I also had more control over the final prints to vinyl. If I wanted the songs to bleed into one another like they often do in live Grateful Dead shows, I could do so as part of the mix/master process. Inevitably, I’d have more power over the shape of each song’s intro. Looking back, it proved to be a cool way to work.
An early iteration of “Me and My Uncle” where I was still playing with various percussion sections and editing the midi bass line with both the keyboard, and Jam Origin’s MIDI Guitar 2
I like very much arranging within the guidelines of an album, even if I plan to release singles. The idea being a small collection of works, a snapshot if you will of a specific time and place in my life. The same way Picasso had his blue and rose periods, a musician can track their own progress and evolution by timestamped recordings. The only trick here is to finish the song in a timely manner. Picasso was prolific because he finished shit.
I wish I could practice what I preach. Looking at my back catalog of unfinished songs, it’s clear I’ve failed to do this time and time again. As it stands today, I’m looking at roughly 4 albums that still need lyrics which were follow ups to my first album “To Love a Wild Fire”. There’s not need to beat myself up about it, as long as I commit to completing the art. I have my work cut out for me in 2024.
How do you return to a song that you leave incompleted?
For every song or musical project that I have successfully completed, there are 50 that have been left by the roadside. Perhaps by doing what it took to get through this project, it will help me finish the other I’ve neglected. My guess is most artists have incomplete works which hang around the neck like a 300lb gorilla. Organization helps tremendously, taking detailed notes on paper, on the phone camera and whatever songwriting tools you have at your disposal.
It doesn’t feel right sometimes doing everything but songwriting. It feels like just plain ignoring the task at hand (songwriting), but there’s a lot of work on the peripheral that compliments songwriting. It feels like procrastination, but it’s not. I write charts, lyrics, and videotape the neck of the guitar so I can easily reference the voicings and rhythm (left and right hand duties on the guitar). It’s a tremendous amount of work, and for me, this work helps me fully internalize all aspects of the song. Once you record something, you need to perform it.
Whether I like it or not, as a bandleader it’s my job to teach the rest of the band each composition prior to performing. This upfront work comes in handy when taking the recording to the stage. Here at the set lists I make for myself and the band so that I remember how to perform a song once I’ve recorded the demo:
Set List v1.0 on the ram.io
URL: https://www.theram.io/seta/
Set List v2.0 on therammusic.com
URL: https://www.therammusic.com/local-music-san-diego/seta/
To get back to “Ram’s Dead, Vol.1”, you can see that the technical aspects of this entire effort were not that complex. That of course was by design. I wanted to set a goal that I could actually complete in a reasonable timeframe. I’m pretty fast at editing MIDI, and working with software instruments to make them sound more natural. Eventually, I’d like to perform some of these songs with real jazz players in the next few years, perhaps. My goals were simple:
To simplify the mixing process where I could.
Determine how many songs I could fit within 22 minutes (length of a single vinyl side), create a single Logic project for each side.
Force myself to complete the project with limited time an instrumentation.
Live with the results of the effort and to release it in a timely manner.
The last point being the most important. Years ago, when I released my first album, I told myself that if I couldn’t release an album I was proud of, it would be best to just sell all of my musical instruments and recording gear and give it up. Part of the job, it release the art back in the world which inspired it in the first place. We can search for perfection, but that’s not the point. Perfection for the sake of perfection rarely expresses emotion. Trusting yourself enough to fail, is an expression of the purest form of love. Trust your songs with the right musicians, the right engineers.
Commit to releasing the song if you ever intend to finish it.
A I near completion of so many posts related to my current release, it’s clear to me that even writing this documentation here in Substack is a necessary part of the recording and release process. I’m and independent, DIY artist. If I can’t commit to these responsibilities, then it should come as no surprise when the music fails to reach anyone.
We have all the tools we need to directly interact with our audiences globally, it’s up to us as artists to figure out how to do this properly.
Cheers, for now. Releases on October 20 and November 17.