We are already nearing the end of our time here at the Banff Centre and I can’t believe this is only my second entry; needless to say all four bands have been extremely busy and time has been flying.
When I last checked in legendary producer Steve Albini (Nirvava, The Pixies, etc.) had just arrived. In total the man was here for just under 72-hours and basically never left the studio. He recorded and mixed a full song for each band. I had the nerve-racking pleasure of working with him twice because the first song he recorded, “An Entaglement of Weeds” by Woodpigeon, featured myself on piano and Analog Bell Service’s Colin Cowan on bass. We recorded the 11-verse song in the morning and then it was my band’s turn to step into the studio.
We had to go through 3 takes of our song “Hey Mama” before the shock of whom we were working with wore off. Though I must say that Steve is a totally unintimidating guy and a very efficient producer. He has done over 2000 albums and there isn’t anything you can’t throw at him musically that he hasn’t dealt with before. The only thing that slowed us down a bit was he does everything on analog tape because he refuses to work digitally for philosophical reasons, so a 16-track tape machine had to be brought in from Calgary, which kept dieing but ultimately gave every track recorded a very warm sound. Basia Bulat recorded a beautiful new tune called “Silent Heart” and The Witchies did a minimalistic tune called “The Thing and I”.
All in all everyone enjoyed the 5 hours they had with one rock’s most revered producers, he was funny, never lost his cool and made us all sound great.
On Sunday night the four indie bands descended upon the town of Banff to put on a show at Wild Bill’s for the towns folk and the other artists in residence. It was a really special night – not only because of the caliber of performers but the light mood in the air. There was no pressure to draw a crowd or earn your nights pay because it was a free concert with a built in audience full of people appreciative of music no matter the genre. The whole show ended with an acoustic sing-along with all the bands intermixed with the crowd.
On Monday, all bands met with Howard Bilerman – the last of the 3 producers here at Banff. Unlike the other two before him Howard is much more like one of us. He’s been part of this program before, he’s Canadian, and has such a relaxed aura about him. In the meeting he let us know that he too will be working with analog tape, and that everyday he will be screen a classic Rock and Roll documentary to inspire us. The movies he brought are: Metallica’s Some Kind of Monster, The Band’s The Band, John Lennon’s Gimme Some Truth: The Making of Imagine, The Making of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and Lou Reed’s Transformer.
Alongside Howard we also met with classical arranger Claudio Vena, he let us know that if we wanted anything orchestrated for our tunes (strings, etc.) that he would gladly write the arrangements for us. The next day my band took him up on his offer as we entered into the studio to record a brand new song written this week currently called “Devil”. The song is now finished and features 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass, French horn, and flute.
Woodpigeon finished a song with Howard yesterday and it features orchestration too…orchestration played backwards through a tape machine.
Timing is running down here so I think I will do my final entry upon my return to the real world on Monday.
