This was Jamie's and my first attempt to go play live in front of real live people. It was an incredible success thanks to all the players that joined in to make the party memorable. Sean Palmer sat in on the drums for most of the night. The effervescent Alena Wooten also rocked out a few drum beats. Andre Vanegas played some drums and guitar. At some point Dan Barker may have joined in to play drums or something. There was a lot of beer and it's hard to remember who played what. I think someone said Bonno showed up... Anyway, there were too many hours of music to edit so here's what I could do in one night. I'll post the rest later ... enjoy!
Sorry it's been so long... I'm backed up about 5 jam sessions. This is the 2nd "novax jam" that I've had with Jamie. The first jam will come later, I'm mixing and posting in reverse order... This time I recorded using the stereo microphones on the Edirol field recorder and they got distorted so I apologize for the crappy sound. We're still getting used to the Novax "CH" (Charlie Hunter) guitars which are a bass and a guitar combined into one instrument. Jamie is playing a 7-string and I have the 8-string version.
And we're back with yet another jam session. The main thing that stands out from this jam session is that Jamie and I both attempted to do the dual-wielding guitar/bass combo. My attempts were less successful but still interesting. I haven't had a good chance to listen to all of the tracks but I think I've found a favorite. I recommend checking out fuzz.03.18.10d-experimental.mp3 . I found a new way to play the hihat and jamie's dual-wielding rocks.
This jam session took place in room 13 at Astoria Soundworks. It was a pretty small dead-sounding room. And while we were setting up some kid stops by and asks "Are you guys about to start playing? Good luck! Hehe!" We weren't sure what that meant but we definitely prefer to play in the bigger rooms (A, B or C). Jamie an I brought earplugs this time. I put new strings on my guitar and added a compressor to my pedalboard. I was really happy with my guitar sound this time, both the clean and overdriven sounds (check out track e). In the last jam Jamie plays bass and guitar(left) at the same time Stanley Jordan style.
For those just joining us, Fuzz is what happens when 4 technical directors that work in cg animation get together and make noise with their instruments. We all kind of play guitar, bass, and drums so we have fun switching instruments to make things challenging. Eric usually brings a crazy stereo guitar fx rig, bunch of mics, a 4-track field recorder and records each jam. Sheldon usually brings his guitar/fx rig, which is also crazy. Jamie usually brings his vintage bass gear with vintage pedals (jealous). I usually bring my SG and my pedal board and some cymbals. I also bring my 4-track field recorder so we can link them together and get 8 tracks. We use the drumset and amps provided by Astoria Soundworks. For the past few weeks I've been mixing the jams on my old TiBook using Digital Performer. This time my TiBook almost blew up (again) because I used too many effects again. Almost time to upgrade, not yet...
Feb 4 2010 Jam Session: I recently added my old "crybaby" wah pedal into my guitar rig. Sounds great! I hope you'll agree. This was a very challenging mix with lots of tracks bleeding through and sync issues along with other mayhem but I scraped it together. Not the best balancing of tracks but pretty listenable I hope.
her jam from 12/17/2009 on Eric's drive. I just finished mixing these down. I'll post track notes later. Hope you like them!
I've been planning for a couple weeks to test my home studio setup to see how quickly I can put together a piece of music. So, what I did was this:
Dec 3, 2009: Sheldon returns from hiatus and we're back with 8-track goodness. Among these tracks are some of my favorite jams since I started playing with these guys. (the photo is from a Sonic Youth show). I believe we booked 4 hours or something which would explain the plethora of material. I was really happy with my guitar tone which is rare. Eric, Jamie and I took turns swapping instruments. I believe Sheldon stuck with his Steinberger Guitar rig for most of the jam. Unfortunately, the amp he chose was acting badly on a few tracks.
