Column: Gordon Raphael #27 - August 2007
By: Gordon Raphael
Ohio! To the readers of Rockfeedback.
It's been another small forever since I checked in, so here goes a little catch-up from the views of Gordon Raphael, Shoplifter Records and The Silver Transporterraum of London.
The last two years have been mainly centred in the up-and-coming neighborhood of Kreuzberg in Berlin, a little area that recently has made it into the British press for having mass protests against the planned new McDonalds Burger Joint there. Seems the organic/artsy/laid-back good folks of Kreuzberg have taken to dressing up like Sir Ronald McDonald and shouting riotously in front of the proposed building site. I'm proud of 'em for that.
Berlin is an interesting blend of people coming to take advantage of the large housing spaces, nice parks, cool music, cheap beer and creative energy that is plentiful there. So I've been riding my bicycle along canals and into desolate communist monuments abandoned in small forests. In between good healthy meals, and fine milk-coffees I've found the time and space to listen to my vinyl-record collection, unpack all my guitars, recording equipment, synthesizers and guitars, and find some time to practice piano.
When I first moved there, I recorded two amazing bands: Husky Stash and Super700, both of which I can't recommend highly enough. In fact that is what I think I am writing columns for, and doing with my musical career; discovering fascinating unknown bands, recording them and then trying to tell everyone who will listen... to go check them out. Hmmmm, it's a funny job, but I like it and am super-compelled to DO IT!
This year I requested to the universe to send me a sign that I was still somehow connected to the world of music (specifically rock-and roll!) and that I hadn't lost all contact by hiding out in Berlin for two years. In grand fashion I started getting requests for recording sessions all over the place, left, right and centre, and it's been a major travelling year for me.
The Silver Transporterraum (now also known as Urchin Studios) has been cooking in 2007. Matt and Dan run the place when I am off fishing, hunting and playing golf (not!!) and then I come the last half of the month and try to bring in as many bands as I possibly can, with only one requirement - that is, I have to really think the music and songs are totally unique and that both the bands and myself will be having a major good time creating sounds together.
The recent crop of rock outpourings has included Skin, (back with me for our second record together! Believe me she is in top form vocally, and I love her new songs), The Skuzzies - a kind of classic Skag-based rock band with tales of dementia and mayhem, Caroline Taucher; a young lady from Finland, who is working on a collection of songs with me, utilizing some top London based and Swedish musicians. She really knows her songwriting craft and by selecting a stellar crew has succeeded in creating a very powerful and direct sound full of surprises and killer grooves.
I also spent a month in Paris mixing a very cool record by Deportivo. It isn't often I get to stretch out on a huge SSL mixing desk, and between that and the amazing croissants; a great time was had by all!
Two other very interesting musical guests stopped by to record with me in Limehouse. One was George Demure, a man who gets busy making hilarious video-podcasts and is quite theatrical in nature. I was impressed by him long before I found out that he had a record deal, and we agreed to do two tracks together. His music is very innovative and he creates his own scenes and impressions unswayed by any sense of compromising to please others. I am really glad I met him, and please keep your ears open for his sounds.
Next up, I recorded Rebecca Jade, a Welsh lady who is firmly transplanted in London. She has very unusual musical influences and has a strong resonance with the Canterbury music scene from the late 60's and early 70's. Rebecca does DJ sets under the name The Lost Chord Of Atlantis, and has her own longstanding band called Science. We worked on one track called 'The Dawn', which features her playing acoustic guitar and singing, whilst yours truly added some Hammond organ flourishes and a wee bit of Wurli-piano. The song is about a girl waking up in her dream-lover's room after a wild night, only to discover his other girlfriend's belongings and clothes scattered neatly 'round the place. Oh, I hate it when that happens...
In the coming days, I get to meet The Teenagers! Their irreverent, modern approach to mixing electro-digital technology and live rock fascinated me enough to try a few songs together. I'm hoping I can show them my "stuff" where guitar and vocal sounds are concerned, as I have been really getting fetishistic about how these sounds are produced lately. The Silver Transporterraum / Urchin Studios has a banging concrete room that makes drums sound like shattering explosives, and the right microphones and pre-amps to make guitars have a million cool ways to sound perfect. For vocals, I finally scored this really old Neve 1073, and run it into a Distressor for the most crunchy, completely sick vocal tone. Sounds like Frank Sinatra on steroids, well, if that isn't an appealing reference - it's kind of like singing and hearing yourself already pressed onto vinyl on a warm sounding stereo-set (hi-fi stereo set = ancient predecessor to the iPod!).
Sometimes I liken CD's and mp3's to a silver space blanket. It's not so comfortable, but will keep you warm in your space capsule. Analog circuits and old records are like a fluffy old blanket that you're really attached to. It's a bit hard to buy it new, a bit bulky and worn at the edges, but, yes, rather smooth and very comforting.
Later in the month, I am going to Manhattan, NYC, the city of dreams (one of them anyway - London has its moments, too!) - to record my pal Kenyon Phillips (vocals, keys, drums and beard trimmer, according to his Unisex Salon website). It's gonna be a super-fun party of make-up, sexual tension and a cast of Lower East Side allstars. I think he's flying in his brother Steven from Hollywood who co-wrote the songs.
After that blast, I have been invited to Buenos Aries, Argentina to speak about what I do (guerilla style production, and stumbling onto shockingly cool music?) at the largest music conference for the Latin American music industry - BAFIM it's called. They are also hilariously open-minded enough to have asked me to DJ at some events. I can't wait to see if my "floor-clearing" musical tastes are still up to my expectations! A little Seattle pre-grunge punk rock (The Telepaths, Clone), some psychedelic shit- (Bubble Puppy, Legendary Pink Dots for example!) and some of my favorite bands that I have recorded (Kill Kenada, Satellites, Miss Machine) that should teach them to invite me back next year! Wish me luck.
OK, there's a little more stuff I want to discuss, so grab a soy cafe e latte and sit down for a few minutes! There, that's better.
First off, I have to warn you that I have met a fantastic "Mastering" guy in Berlin. No, it's not a BDSM kinky thing, it's the final process before a recording is pressed onto a CD or released. It's how a final mix gets pumped up to the loudest waveform possible, and still sound like it's supposed to. It's always seemed a black-magic trick to me, cuz just when you've written, played, recorded, and mixed a song to its ultimate perfection, and are - frankly almost sick and tired of it! - you then have to let someone change song in the final stage, when you are grumpy and ears tired. As Julian from The Strokes rightly pointed out to me, sometimes instead of being so excited about how the bass just got warmer and fatter, you have to notice how the hi-hats and guitars got smaller and duller as a sacrifice!
So, yes, meeting a soulful, highly musical Mastering guy (named Pascal!) has made my life better. I made him master 54 of my best original songs - yes that's right, ones I have written, co-written or played on. I now have two Gordon Raphael collections, 'I Lick the Moog' and 'Im Sinne Des Erfinders' ('In the Intention of The Inventor') and one 5 track EP, called 'The Lifeboat', available to be released and heard by unsuspecting members of the public.
The curious, the brave, the experimental among you, those used to "crossing over to other worlds", yeah - them type of people will probably love this stuff. People with bad attitudes, horrible addictions, those tripping on mind-bending substances, those who can't possible mind-bend one more time for fear of snapping - all of the above probably will get where I am coming from musically. Additionally, I have prepared two collections of my Absinthee songs; 'Manhattan Moonlight' and 'Seattle Stars'.
These songs feature Anna Mercedes, whom I have worked with in many situations and have publically declared my admiration for her creative and vocal abilities many, many times. These songs are among my favorite I have ever co-written, performed and recorded. It's heavy as hell, pretty as sin and shattered hearts and infused with the spirit of outer space rock and roll all the way through. One label in Berlin already has offered to release some of these tracks on-line, although only in the German speaking nations (Switzerland, Austria and Deutschland!).
I am trying to get smart, so Shoplifter Records, my own "imaginary mega-corperation" can become real enough to sell 'em. Till then, contact me through Rockfeedback if you want some advance copies of any of the 5 CDs that are now ready! I dare you.
Last but certainly not least, I wish to discuss Emily Breeze. Invited by a friend to see her play in Shoreditch 2 weeks ago, I had no idea what to expect. Emily Breeze and her band hail from Bristol and I was quite bowled over by her music and their sound. I asked her what Bristol was like (I vaguely remember being their on tour with The
Libertines a long time ago!), and she replied that, "It's great, everyone there is ugly and very poor!." Well, if that didn't make me want to go visit right away - once she hit the stage (following a very glamorous band with only a modicum of self-identity or musical prowess - in my opinion) I was instantly in rock heaven. The girl can sing, like bonkers with a crazy sound that's highly threatening, touchingly poignant, explosive, revolutionary and f**king dangerous.
There's a huge darkness beaming out of her songs, and one is connected to all the teetering feelings of a war between opportunity and hopeless despair. Emily plays a semi-hollow body guitar and crosses a USA countrified harmonic with a punk rock delivery. Her bassist John Vistic is a natural, who moves through the music like a generator, and plays a completely personality-filled, overblown rattling tone while all the time adding to the songs in a gigantic way. Drummer Dan Hunt is terrifically dynamic, showing how quiet tastefulness in drumming is the key to being alarming, when - the next thing you know - he's bashing the living hell out of the drums with a relentless psychotic prowess. A purely punk-rock aggression seemingly fuelled by adrenaline and perhaps living in a world of uninvited pressures.(Perhaps my friend/guru Sarah Maguire would tell me that though these pressures are not consciously invited, that through our subconscious dysfunctions we actually DO create certain abhorrent situations as a learning experience for our souls.... note to self; beware!)
I did the "fan routine" and went up to Emily and her band confessing my undying love and asked them to retire to my nearby studio for some "refreshments"! Once they were there, I craftily begged them to play a few songs for me, while I adjusted certain microphones and twisted some dimly lit dials on my Amek BC II sound-recording gizmo. Two days later, when they left by train back to Bristol, I laughed. Clutching 4 brand-new tracks that sound wicked and wild. I hope that these recordings get heard all over the world by people who sincerely crave rock-sounds as much as I do. Emily Breeze even let me create a sonic-sculpture on her amazing song 'Tombstone Bed' (a 'Funhouse'-era Stooges vibe, that!) wherein I baked several layers of Pro-One synth (hard to make a synth sound punk rock, but if Iggy could make a saxophone sound scary and f**ked-up, I was sure gonna try to do the same for my little old synth!) and added a sprinkling of Wurlitzer electric piano - then mashed up some spoken dialog from Emily's band. The result was a delicious, abstract formation which really confuses the ears and quite frankly, messes with my head! Best wishes to Emily Breeze and her super-band, long may they conquer and divide the spoils of musical victory.