2/20/10 - Fur Seal

For this, the very final session of the Modern Day Fairy Tales project, all we had left was laying down Lil Buddy Mclain's guest vocals on "Casanova." I (tony) was not able to attend, since I was in northern Minnesota with my in-laws at a mushing race. So the following is a studio diary from Susio Sanchez, who was in attendance.

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Last, but certainly not least, Lil Buddy McLain entered Fur Seal Studio tonight to add the final touches to Modern Day Fairy Tales on the track "Casanova." "Lil Buddy and Junebug," you say? "How the hell did that happen?" The Junebug boys owe that to their good friends over at Six-Ton Productions. The same people that gave you the videos for "Last Night" and "Chosen Ones" also did Lil Buddy's video for "Giggalo." So they were just keeping it in the Six-Ton Family. Thank you Mr. Tesnow and Mr. Sidenberg. The consummate professional that Lil Buddy is came in, listened to the track, and gave Junebug sixteen bars of one of the Twin Cities' finest. He was feeling the track immediately and put pen to paper. Five minutes later he was laying it down. He spit lyrical panty-remover all over that track. Anthony was in the control room holding it down with Joe while Nick was nerding out with the cameras. So you can be sure to see Lil Buddy in the upcoming studio documentory. I would venture to say that this won't be the last collaboration between Mr. Mclain and Junebug. We'll just have to wait and see.

For All things Lil Buddy Check out: http://www.lilbuddymclain.com

2/17/10 - Fur Seal - Tony

We got started a bit earlier today than the others. Since we had to quit earlier than we had wished last night, we were able to come in earlier this morning. Anthony and I both arrived right about 9:30 a.m. Nick would be arriving later in the afternoon and Dustin, we would find out, was scheduled for a shift from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. So for the earlier bulk of the day it was just Anthony and me. Which is totally fine, because the bulk of what was left was vocals (his and mine) and percussion (mine).

Anthony made himself some tea and mixed some honey into it, since he was somewhat worried about how his voice was holding up. Admittedly, I thought his voice sounded shot. He went through a couple tracks early on and I wasn't sure he was going to make it. Thankfully, though, he just had morning-voice, and those first couple tracks ended up serving as a warm-up for the rest of the day. But the takes were kept. I don't remember what songs they were, but you may hear some vocals in morning-voice. We'll see.

Anthony finished lead vocals somewhere around 11:45 or so, and then I was up next on background vocals. It didn't take us long. Joe mentioned that many bands come through that get guitars done in minimal time and spend more time on vocals, but we were the opposite. He also said he appreciated that the background vocals were already established and not being experimented with too much in the studio setting. It's a testament to our preparedness, I suppose. Anyhow, I knocked a whole bunch of backgrounds out pretty fast. In the process, we discovered that there was a guitar part missing from "Found My Boogie." In the attempt to get all guitars done yesterday, Anthony's guitar solo was overlooked.

I saved "Jumpstart" for last, because I knew it would be a strain on me. I have always sung a harmony on the mellow portion of the song, but recently, in particularly energetic shows, I've been singing a high harmony in the chorus immediately following it as well. I don't do it all the time, because it tends to be more than I can muster, but I did what I could to scream it out. It was a good thing I saved it until last, because it did seem to cause some temporary fatigue in my vocal chords. Nothing that a Shamrock Shake™ couldn't heal, however.

After my vocals were complete, we still had gang vocals left to record on a few tunes, but since I was the only member of the backup gang present, we decided to wait until Nick and Dustin arrived. Looking down the instrument list, we decided that I would go grab something to eat (I didn't have breakfast) and pick up the bells from home (I forgot them this morning) while Anthony recorded his nearly forgotten lead on "Found My Boogie." Oh, and he wanted to redo his guitar part on "Jumpstart My Rocket" (see yesterday's entry).

I returned from my break to find Nick in attendance and Joe fast asleep on the couch in the control room. After everyone got up and got going, we started my percussion parts, which were easy enough, I suppose. Earning its Junebug debut on this album is... the cowbell. Nice, right? I had planned on putting it into two songs, but if I remember correctly, only one made the cut. I don't recall.

"Fargo Gypsy Girl" ended up getting a cool percussion break that consisted of me playing all but one of the parts. There's shaker, triangle, guiro, claves, beaded gourd and more, including the box drum. I have never played a box drum before, so when were going through all the available percussion instruments, I said Joe should give that one a whirl, since he is a drummer/percussionist himself. It's a good'n, I tells ya. It's one I look forward to hearing all mixed and purdy. Joe also lent his triangle skillz to "Casanova."

Just as I was finishing my percussion tracking, Anna Wosika, Nick's wife and one of our guest musicians, arrived with baby Cooper in tow. We promptly put her to work. She tracked a very brief, but delightful blurb in "Casanova" to start out her evening and quickly moved on to "Bumblebee," which, it turns out, she has never heard. It appears that she wasn't told she'd be singing on this track and therefore wasn't able to prepare. But, being the consummate professional she is, she didn't fret and just went for it, and performed beautifully. Next on the docket was "Lullaby." Anna had been able to prepare for this song, and what she came up with was just lovely. There were a number of takes with various harmonies and such, resulting in a small choir of Annas singing along with Anthony. While she was tracking, I looked over at Anthony in the control room a few times and his eyes would widen and his mouth would open, as if he had just been pleasantly and unexpectedly shocked with every cool thing Anna sang. Finally, we had her sing the chorus on that ol' crowd favorite, "I'm a Bad Mamma Jamma (Who Works at Wendy's)." You know that part in the chorus that I normally sing? Well, she sings it on the album and really takes the song to a whole new level. She made it what it was meant to be, in my estimation. It's another one I'm really looking forward to hearing once Joe is done with it. With that, Anna was finished and headed home.

I had heard from Dustin by this time and he told me that we could go ahead and do certain things without him and he wouldn't be bothered by it. So Nick and I decided to step in and do the gang vocals that were slated for certain songs. "Refrigerator," "Found My Boogie," "To the Next Episode" and "Bad Mamma Jamma" all have some form of group vocal in them, and since we are only two, we double tracked them. We slightly altered our voices in each second take to make it sound like it was actually four people instead of just us two clowns. That's studio magic, people. Two become four.

We knew that Hannah Murray, the violinist, would be arriving around a certain time, but strangely it seemed that we were somehow ahead of schedule again. We had about an hour to kill before she was to arrive. So I decided to attempt an organ part for "Casanova." Some of it turned out all right. We're leaving it up to Joe to put the pieces together into something usable. There was still a little time left, so Joe recorded a triangle part for the same song, and then I decided to add some more vocals to a portion of "Bumblebee."

Just as I finished with that, Hannah arrived, and Dustin very soon after. You may or may not know, but Hannah was a member of A Whisper in the Noise and she is currently a member of Wive, of which our Dustin is also a member. A few days ago when we were trying to figure out who we were going to get, Anthony asked Joe if he knew anyone. He acknowledged that he had a few names and numbers. Dustin piped up and said, "I could call Hannah..." I jumped at that idea, knowing that she is pretty much amazing. Joe said she was actually one of the names he was going to give us. So it all works out. Hannah has recorded with Joe at Fur Seal in the past. So it was all old hat for her. Like Anna, Hannah had been given two tracks to work with, but had more sprung on her when she arrived. She played on "Cake," "Like a Dream" and "Lullaby." When she was tracking on "Lullaby," what she was playing was so moving, I wanted to lay down and weep. I don't use those words lightly. She's incredible and we're very pleased that she agreed to be a part of our album. She took those songs to heights we could not have reached on our own.

For all intents and purposes, we are now DONE. All of our tracking is finished on time, with periods of spare time in the midst of them. All that's left is a special session on Saturday with rapper Lil Buddy Mclain, who will be throwing down some guest vocals on "Casanova." But aside from that, we're wrapped.

Fur Seal was a great place to make a record. The atmosphere was just right. We were all laid back and light-hearted. There was a perfect mixture between goofing off and getting work done professionally. Although we were getting things done in a short amount of time, we didn't feel all that rushed. There was no stress or any real conflict of any kind. We got in, got the job done and got out. And we're going to have a record to show for it.

2/16/10 - Fur Seal - Tony

Day four at Fur Seal started out just fine. When I arrived and pulled my van into the parking lot, I noticed Anthony remained seated in his car. So I didn't bother getting out of my van because I figured we had somehow arrived before Joe did and the door was locked. Nope. After about five minutes of sitting and waiting, I was reminded what assuming does for me. Anthony got out of his car and headed into the studio where Joe was patiently waiting for us. Dustin arrived soon after.

We were introduced today to Marshall, another intern at Fur Seal. Joe gave him a majority of the engineering reigns for the day.

If you recall yesterday's entry, we ended the night on "Bad Mamma Jamma." Well, that's where we started again this morning. Finally, Anthony nailed it to his satisfaction, though we all felt he played it perfectly last night. Sometimes the man is a perfectionist. But I'm not saying that negatively. He only wants what's best for the song.

Anthony plowed through a lot of songs like a work horse. He then worked a bit on "Jumpstart My Rocket" and according to us, he nailed it. But, much like "Bad Mamma Jamma" last night, he wasn't quite satisfied with the tone on his guitar, so he tweaked and went through it again. He then decided to take a break around 3:00 or so.

He handed the torch off to Dustin who then went back to work on a few more songs while I went down a couple blocks to Taste of New York for some pizza. By the time I got back and finished my lunch and had a nice little check of the ol' email and Facebook and such, Dustin was getting started on "Vacation to Oblivion." I had been looking forward to this one, to hear what Farmer D was going to come up with. It's a sort of spacey track with some ambient atmospheric elements. He delivered. It'll be fun to hear this one fleshed out and finished. After this tune was done, he had accomplished a solid number of takes and was attempting solos. But by his own account, he wasn't feeling it on the solos. He was kind of at a loss and not too sure what to do about it.

Well, we gave him a bit of a rest and we decided that I would track my guitar. Yes, folks. I actually play a very small guitar part on one track. "Fargo Gypsy Girl" was written by us many, many years ago. Dustin wrote the guitar part, Anthony wrote the lyrics and I wrote the main solo part. In recent times when we've played the song live, Anthony has taken the solo, since I've obviously been behind the kit, but I wanted it on the album, since I originated it. Graciously, Anthony agreed. So I gave it a whirl, and after a few takes from which we could pull a composite, it was settled. So goes my guitar credit on this album.

Well, we discovered what Dustin's magic ingredient was. All we needed to do was to get about a beer and a half into him and he was rippin' out solos the way he usually does. "Like a Dream" worked out quite well, due to this magic potion. Note: It was Miller High Life, which has "The Champagne of Beers" written on the label. Dustin read it aloud as "Le Champignons of Beers." Which translated from French, of course, means "The Mushroom of Beers." It did the trick, though. The solos are good.

Nick arrived later. He had to work today, but he still made it, with A/V equipment in tow. There was a bit of cliche snafu, tonight, though. We all gave interviews -- all four of us. They were good, too. Probably pretty decent keepers. Except the microphone on the camera was turned all the way down. Oops. No audio. But plenty of footage of our faces talking.

We got a good start on vocals tonight. Anthony went through "Refrigerator" and "Bad Mamma Jamma" for sure. I can't quite recall which others he went through. After awhile all the songs start to bleed together in your head. The point is after everything was all said and done, we got all guitars finished and we got a good start on vocals.

As it went tonight, Joe had to leave because he had a meeting and Marshall had a rehearsal with his band at 9:00 p.m. So the goal was to be out of Fur Seal by then. After Dustin's solos were finished, there was just enough time for Anthony to go in and redo his "Jumpstart" guitars, since he still wasn't quite happy with his guitar tone. We ended up leaving at about 9:15, making Marshall late for his rehearsal, but he was very kind about it, which we are grateful for.

Since we were cut shorter tonight than we had planned to be, Joe told us to come in tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. instead of 11:00. So that's the plan. We have to get everything finished tomorrow. Vocals, backing vocals, percussion, organ and piano if we want it, Anna Wosika's vocals, and Hannah Murray's violin. It'll be a full day, but I'm sure we can pull it off.

2/15/10 - Fur Seal - Tony

It was day three and we were ready to roll. Our start time was set for eleven a.m., but we trickled at times either earlier or later, I won't say which. Let it suffice to say that this is rock and roll, and there are no rules.

The main goal today was to get a good start on Anthony and Dustin's guitar work. Anthony took the helm first. The recording area is called a "drum riser," but it has been acoustically designed to record anything there -- guitars, vocals, percussion -- not just drums. Anthony set up in the riser and Joe double amp-ed him, set up mics on both amps, and he was good to go.

We worked almost entirely with Travis today on our tracking. It was all good, since he also seems to know what he's doing behind the board.

Anthony burned his way through a good number of songs while Nick and I filmed and took photos. Anthony began tracking probably around 11:45 this morning and, taking a rest, handed it over to Dustin for a bit. Dustin got some of his preliminary tracking done today. No solos -- that's tomorrow. Dustin knocked a few of them out of the park and Anthony took over again to finish out the night.

Recording an album seems so easy compared to some of the reading I've done on studios a couple decades ago. It's all so smooth. There's no fear of wasting tape. There's no literal cutting. We have click tracks and punching in and all kinds of fantastic technology. The only thing to waste is time.

And waste time, we did. I introduced Travis to Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg's "Motherlover" video, as well as the original "Pants on the Ground" followed by Jimmy Fallon's impression of Neil Young performing said song. I then sought out Fallon's Young performing the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme song. Classic videos all.

It was all good, though. When you're in the studio from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., you sometimes need a distraction to break up the monotony. After about nine hours of recording and engineering, your brain turns to mush. But we insist on going beyond that. Because it's what we do.

We ended tonight on Anthony's guitar part for "I'm a Bad Mamma Jamma (Who Works at Wendy's)." He went through it a few times and we thought he had nailed it. Anthony really wanted to do it again, though with a tweak on the effect. So he did. Then we thought he nailed it again, but he still wasn't happy with it. We decided that all of our heads were melted and it was time to call it for the night.

So we wound down a bit by telling wildly inappropriate jokes and we put the process on pause until tomorrow.

2/7/10 - Fur Seal - Tony

Fur Seal Studio
Minneapolis, Minnesota
2/7/10

Since we got so much more done yesterday than we expected, we were almost at a loss for what to do today. I had left my drums set up over night, just in case we needed to re-record anything after sleeping on it. But alas, we did not. So the day started with Travis striking the drum mics and me striking my drum kit, while Nick listened back to yesterday's tracks to get a feel for what bass tracks needed to be redone. Striking, of course, means taking down and putting away, rather than physically hitting them with hands or sticks. Listening back means hearing with ears and paying attention to the sounds. Just wanted to clear that up for you.

Nick overdubbed some bass parts while I took photos and video of him and the engineers. It only ended up taking about an hour and half to finish up the bass tracking, leaving us still ahead of schedule. So Joe sent Travis out to pick up some lunch for all of us from the SoHo Cafe (he is an intern, after all) and we regrouped. After some amazing pizza and gyros, along with funny and inappropriate stories, it was decided that Anthony and Nick would track "Lullaby," since it had not been recorded at all yesterday. There is no drum set on the song, so there was no need. Today, however, Anthony's guitar and Nick's bass were laid down, meaning that all of the songs have now had some tracking done and finished. As I understand it, both drums and bass are done recording.

We finished all of this stuff up fairly early in the day. After some discussion and deliberation, it was decided that Joe would take the rest of the day to do the essential editing on the drums and bass that is necessary to continue with further tracking. This way, he doesn't have to cut a day off of the end of our schedule to perform these tasks. So we will convene once again next week to track guitars, vocals, percussion and everything else from Monday through Wednesday. Then Joe will mix after that and we'll be done, minus mastering and printing.

It seemed to be a pretty brief day, but we got stuff accomplished. And I was home in time to watch the Super Bowl with my wife. We have a week off from the studio now, but we go back in on Monday the 15th.

2/6/10 - Fur Seal Studio - Tony

Fur Seal Studio

Minneapolis, Minnesota

2/6/10

The goal today was to get a good start on drum tracks. Additionally, we planned to track as much bass as possible along with whatever drums we got finished. We hoped to get at least half of the tracks done today, which would have been eight songs, with the remainder being tracked tomorrow.

What we actually accomplished today exceeded expectations. We arrived at 10:00 a.m. and began tracking around 11:00 or so. By lunchtime at 2:00 p.m. we had already finished drums for seven and a half songs. By 6:00, we had finished ALL drums for Modern Day Fairy Tales. So we decided to record drums for a couple cover songs that we regularly play live, just in case we want to record and release them sometime down the road. So, in all, drums were recorded for eighteen songs, all today. Furthermore, about 80% of the bass tracks were finished by the end of the day as well.

This is a testament, I think, to our preparation this time around. When we recorded Share, there were frantic cram sessions the night before. Heck, the drum part for "So True" was written the day we recorded it. We had to learn how to play to a click track. There was a lot of time wasted in the studio mapping out tempos and arrangements. With Modern Day Fairy Tales, however, we had routinely rehearsed with a metronome and (for the most part) had tempos settled prior to arrival. We were more prepared than we realized we were, and most drum tracks were captured in two takes. A few tracks took a little more work, and two tracks in particular, "Bumblebee" and "Like a Dream" were each captured in one take. We nailed the parts quickly and didn't even feel rushed.

We finished the night by listening to some of the takes and trying to figure out what we're going to do tomorrow, since both days were set aside for drums. We're a day ahead of schedule now, and that's not a bad position to be in.

So far, Fur Seal has been a really comfortable atmosphere. Joe is a real easy dude to work with and he fits in perfectly with our vibe. He seems to understand what we're doing and we're glad to have him on board. Plus, his dog Ajax is awesome and humps our arms whenever he gets a chance. One of the coolest Ajax moments I had was in the middle of tracking "Found My Boogie," while I was busy playing, Ajax ran up to me with Anthony's empty soda bottle in his mouth and he wanted me to play tug with him. As I was playing, he just sat there so politely with his head tilted, waiting for me to play with him. So after the song was over, I did. The dog rules.

We'll be back tomorrow, same Fur time, same Fur channel.

2/5/10 - Fur Seal Studio - Tony

Fur Seal Studio

Minneapolis, Minnesota

And so it was that Junebug decided to record our second full-length album, Modern Day Fairy Tales. After touring a few studios around the Twin Cities area, it was decided that Fur Seal studio in Minneapolis was the best fit for us. Strangely enough, it seems that even in the Twin Cities, our old hometown of Aberdeen, South Dakota is never far away. The chief engineer at Fur Seal, and the guy recording and mixing our album, is Joe Johnson, Aberdeen Central class of '99. We met him tonight. He knows my (tony's) wife and used to go to parties at her family's lake cabin. He used to shop at Pauer Sound where Dustin worked. Furthermore, on September 30, 2000, Joe's band, Spor, and Junebug were on the same bill at the Red Rooster's End of the Year Party. But we apparently never met.

We met tonight, however, when Nick and I arrived to load in our gear. He said he thought he recognized me but wasn't sure. Regardless, tonight was the start to this little adventure. It was decided that tonight we would load in drum and bass gear in preparation for tracking this weekend. Nick was there when I arrived and the A/V club had already started session. This means that we're shooting video for a mini-documentary on the making of the album. He got some shots of me loading in and setting up my kit and it was all good.

Earlier in the day I had spent the better part of an hour tuning my drums, in an attempt to get them sounding sharp for the sessions. Well, I'll be the first to admit that drum tuning is not a strong point. That combined with the cold weather on the drive over made for crappy sounding drums. Luckily, Joe the Engineer is also a drummer and studio drum tuning is a specialty of his. Ten minutes with a drum key was all he needed to make my drums sound sweeter than they ever had previously. Travis Palmer, the Assistant Engineer and Fur Seal intern set up the drum mics under Joe's tutelage and we captured the drum sounds we'll want for this weekend's sessions.

As we were getting ready to leave, another Aberdeen connection walked through the door. Grant Cutler, a dude we knew back in South Dakota, and now established in the Twin Cities music scene (look up his current project, Lookbook), came in to see Joe. It's weird because not only did we not expect to see him, but when we were working on Share at IPR, he happened to work the front desk there at the time. Seeing Grant show up might just be a good omen. Or just nice to see him.

We're really excited to track this weekend. This will be a good experience.