I used to write a squishy blog where I talked all about my feelings and what I was going through after a particular tragic event in my life. It was great therapy but pure crap to read. And I fear I’m gonna get a little squishy again for a minute.
I guess I used to do a lot of things actually.
For instance I used to be a musician. Not just a musician but a Seattle musician in the days of Pearl jam and Sound Garden and Alice In Chains. When wearing flannel on summer days was cool! Not only that but I was an audio engineer. I produced and engineer albums and demos for said Seattle bands. Even worked with Alice In Chains once. Notice I have made NO mention of Nirvana. I do not accept them as a true Seattle band. Nuff said.
I was listening to This American Life today and they were replaying an episode from a few years back where they got a band together for one day to record one song. And they got all the musicians from the classified want ads. It was the most unlikely group you can imagine: old guys, a Christian worship leader, fusion bassist, acid jazz drummer, a violinist who was in anger management because he tended to destroy the studios he worked in.
I instantly thought, “So a typical studio session then.”
The person narrating and kind of leading everyone through the experience was pretty worried that this was going to blow up in her face. In the end it was magical. They all gelled. The old guy was like a grandfather to the anger-management violinist and everyone walked away amazed at how good it all went and feeling a little more hopeful about life in general.
My friend Doug says that people wonder what happens in a recording studio; like it’s some magic factory run my Willy Wonka that you need to find a golden ticket and bring your Grandpa Joe if you want to get into it.
Well, it IS like that!
A recording studio is a magic place. When you work there you don’t know it. It’s your day-to-day job. But then there is the time when you hear someone at the book store or at The Market talking about their job and you realize you are making magic between those sound proof walls.
I remember a guy named Lee James McCormick who showed up one day and he wanted a discount right away. I gave him one because he looked like he needed it. I didn’t expect much from him he looked like he was going to drop dead any second. Over the course of 3 months he put his heart and soul into an album that no one would buy. It remains one of the most profound recordings I have ever heard. And I got to be a part of it! 2 weeks after we finished there was an announcement in the paper that he had died of complications from aids. Suddenly all the times he ate my dinner and the picky way he would go about seemingly stupid things made sense. This guy WAS dying and this was his last wish.
Then there was the time that some old guy called me up and said that he wanted to “cut” a “record” in an afternoon. I said a slightly more polite version of, “OK old man. Why don’t you come in and we’ll see how long it takes.“ Well he did. And he and his group of old guys played for 8 hours and recorded some really awesome polka an Zydeco music that blew me away. Every song in 1 take. Shut me up real good.
Then there were the relationships I built there. The real ones. The ones that lived through screaming at each other over artistic differences and stupid 20s “I’m an ARTIST” B.S. The snowy Seattle nights when clients didn’t show and my friends did and we just recorded the most soul capturing music I have ever known.
When my first wife left me it was those people who rallied around me. It was those people who helped me not jump off the cliff that I so desperately wanted to plummet from.
On the occasions that there were no late-night clients I used to catch the bus and slip into Compline at St. Marks to listen to the monastic office and the sense that I got there was the same as those golden moments in the studio – it was always a fitting end to the day.
I love my life now, it keeps me from burning so hot that I burn out too soon. But I will always remember that I was extraordinarily blessed to be a part of the Seattle music scene 24/7 when it was the searchlight of music scenes for the world. But if you want to know what it’s like to be a recording musician … it’s everything they say it is.