3 WEEKS OF HANGERS

Overdubbing Pat Gagnon.

I’ve finished over 3 weeks of working with or on The Hangers material. We just finished the final 14 days of overdubs and it’s taken me a couple of days to recover. Just in time to prepare for a solo set tonight at C’est What? I’m probably doze off part way through the set. It remains to be seen whether or not the snow fall will affect the attendance.

Today, I’ll be starting the mixing process on the Hangers album. In between naps.

The past two weeks have been sprinkled with musical reference points as we searched for examples of sounds and ideas that we wanted to bring to the record. I’ve included some of them in this Blog’s Grooveshark sampler.

Radio Kong

1. The Kid by Marc Ribot – ok, this is not ref point, but he did come up when we were tackling some of the guitar solos and through that I discovered this solo guitar record of his. I will be downloading this off of iTunes when I do my round this month. I connected with this right away, it never says too much while it continues to moves forward. Complete with a few little blemishes.

2. What’s The Ugliest Part Of Your Body? by Frank Zappa – An astounding record (We’re Only In It For The Money). Turned to this because I was watching a Zappa documentary about the early days with the Mothers Of Invention. A creative playground, this record almost covers too much ground, but this song brings up one of the most relevant questions ever asked in song.

3. Loved Ones by Elvis Costello. Imperial Bedroom is a record I like to come back to every now and then. It has the snap of sharp colourful arrangement ideas, quick lyrical jabs, a constantly shifting melodic line powered by the ever driving rhythm section.

4. Speaking of, Do Me by Jean Knight. This came up as a reference to the use to doubling the bass line and stripping the tracks to voice and the bare parts. We got here from the Superbad soundtrack which has a wealth of funk going on. Ideal for breakfast time.

5. Roda by Sergio Mendes. Another slice from Superbad and it’s all about the claps. Hard to beat that. There were numerous clap inspirations.

6. Opus #7 by Dustin O’Halloran. I’m back at it with this piano album. Blame Sofia Coppola.

Julian on the drum

7. Reverbere by Ariane Moffatt. Another ref. I like the combination of open acoustic drums with electronic tones. But it was the reverb tank hits that we checked this out for. Ariane has a great ear for cute little melodies.

8. Legal Age Life At Variety Store by the Rheostatics. In the middle of reading Around The World In 57 and 1/2 Gigs. It made me nostalgic for Whale Music which was once a popular play in our CD player. Eventually, our copy got damaged. I love to hear their individual voices warble together in harmony.

9. Columbine by Townes Van Zandt. This legendary writer came up in the book and I realized that I don’t know much of his material, so I’ve been starting my days with a bowl of cereal and a heaping plate of Van Zandt.

10. When You’re Near Me I Have Difficulty by XTC. This is from the BBC sessions. It really captures the guts of their performance. The interlocking guitar parts by The Hangers brought to mind some of my favourite XTC arrangements.

11. Faster Than Light by Neil Finn. I own this on CD, but I had it tucked away. Hearing that Sean Lennon track from the previous blog gave me the Finn bug. I particularly enjoy how the arrangement makes the chorus almost float to the surface and then sinks again into the verses. A real sense of slowly bobbing in and out of water.

12. You Can Never Hold back The Spring by Tom Waits. Digging through the Marc Ribot ref tracks reminded me that I’d never listened to this triple CD release by Tom Waits. There’s an odd vintage tone that he’s got glossing the surface of this track. It’s something beyond the out of tune piano and horn parts. It sounds as if it’s projecting through a phonograph horn.

Phillipe At The Keys