Junebug Studio Diaries

10/28/11 - MasterMix

2011-10-28T21:14:00.000-07:00

As I type, we are working out some of Dustin's guitar overdubs. We're in MasterMix with producer Brian Jacoby. We're down to just the three of us now, since engineer John Kargol had to jet, as did label rep Paul Bolen. But we continue on into the night.

Anthony called on the way here and let us know he was pretty sick. He left it up to us whether we wanted to sit in a cramped control booth with him and eat his germs. I told him to drink some O.J. and go to bed. Hopefully he'll be able to come back this weekend for vocals, but the way he sounded on the phone, I'm not too confident.

Dustin got here, though, and knocked out his guitar parts for "Hell-Bent" woman. And like I said, as I type, we're working on "Fluffy Little Hands."

He's demonstrating to us why we call him the Sparkle Sprinkler, sprinkling sparkles where they need to be sprunk. These songs sound good as they are, but Dustin's textures and layers fill them out and give them exactly what they need. I love to see a project come together. We're in the midst of some pretty thick Beards right now, and it's going well. I can't wait until we can show this to the world. It's some pretty good stuff, if I may say.

I may.

10/16/11 - MasterMix

2011-10-16T21:13:00.000-07:00

Today's session was another good one with Brian Jacoby.

Long story short, we decided what the definitive structure of "Modern Age" was going to be and we got drum and bass basics on it. Solid. Settled. What you hear is what we got. And what we got is good.

After that, we worked on Anthony's guitar overdubs on these songs. Again - long story short, we got a lot of what we needed. More to come next session.

Short, to the point.

10/15/11 - MasterMix

2011-10-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

Today was our first session with producer Brian Jacoby. We tracked in MasterMix studio, located at IPR. We got there in the morning. I arrived a little bit late, but while they were waiting for me, they got the mics set up and inputs established. So that was all good. Dustin wasn't with us today. He works for a major retailer, which had a major release yesterday. It is a device whose name ends in "4S." Therefore, he had to be scheduled in order to deal with the traffic related to that. After I set up the drums and after Dillon, Paul and I got back from Foxtone, I entered the performance area to get some drum sounds.

When I entered, there was a really cool mood in the room. The lights were super dim. The performance room at MasterMix has this great blue stained glass window and there are candles on either side of it. It was really comfy and vibey. Dillon and I were both set up in the main performance room and Anthony was in one of the iso booths with his amp and vocal mic.

We had a really great session. We started with "Fluffy Little Hands." It took us a few tries, but we did finally fall into a groove. We tried a couple different tempos. We tried some stuff. And after a couple hours, we had bass and drums tracked.

Next, we worked on "Mystic Princess," which was a little more difficult than the former. Same kind of thing. We meticulously looked at tempo, mapping out different tempos for the song. We went over the ending a number of times, trying to get it right, which we eventually did. Bass and drums are tracked.

Finally, we ripped through "Hell-Bent Woman." It didn't take long. We had this one down. That is all. Bass and drums are tracked.

We called it a day and tomorrow we'll be working on "Modern Age." Will Dustin be able to be there? Will we finish all the basic tracks? Will we start overdubbing? Intriguing questions.

This entry was boring. Sorry.

9/28/11 - Tony's Home Studio

2011-09-28T23:59:00.000-07:00

Last night, when I was tracking Dustin's guitar part for "On the Sidewalk," he mentioned perhaps adding some hand drums into the song. I thought that was a great idea.

So tonight, before my studio mixing time, I decided to track some percussion in my basement home studio. Every year at Christmas, it has become something of a tradition for my mother-in-law to give me a fair-trade ethnic percussion instrument. So, I've got these toys that I've played with, but never really used for anything.

So I set up my Bluebird mic and played away. I had fun using several different things: cabasa, beaded gourd, claves, djembe, and bean rattle. Super fun. And the percussion is exactly what this song needed. I'm glad Dustin suggested it.

I headed to IPR to mix, which I did. And I liked the way it turned out. The end.

EDIT: Here is the official release of the song:

On the Sidewalk by Junebug

9/27/11 - IPR C-Lab 1

2011-09-27T23:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a quick session. It was a non-Beards session. I (tony) am currently in a Mixing & Mastering course at IPR and the song "On the Sidewalk" is going to be my final project and a semi-final mix is due on Thursday.

All I had left to record is Dustin's part. The previous parts were tracked awhile back, as you can read about in previous installments.

We had a pre-production session tonight at IPR, so afterward, Dustin and I took some time to get the guitar line laid down. We settled into a C-Lab and plugged directly into the DI on an Mbox 2. After a few takes, Dustin made it happen. It's all good.

I originally thought that all I had left to record was Dustin's guitar, but after we listened together to my reference song (Paul Simon's "Under African Skies"), Dustin suggested some hand drums. I thought that was a really good idea. So tomorrow I plan to make that happen.

9/20/11 - IPR Lecture Hall 1

2011-09-20T23:21:00.000-07:00

Tonight was an overdub night. We worked exclusively on "Destiny, She Drives a Rolls" tonight. To start the evening, Dillon replayed some bass, fixing some minor flubs.

After that, Anthony tracked some acoustic guitar to add a little flavor to the song. It was really good to have the points of view of both Eddie and John Kargol, his assistant. They worked with Anthony on figuring out just the right part for the acoustic. It seemed that in general, Anthony wished to lay down an acoustic layer throughout the song. But after we tried that, the song was kind of muddy and too thick. So John, Eddie and Anthony worked out a good ornamental part. The result was good.

After spending a good chunk of time on that, we moved on to Anthony's delay-soaked guitar solo. The only problem was that his effects pedal is currently in the shop, getting serviced. Eddie Ciletti, however, did not see this as a problem. "We have tape!" he said. So we did Anthony's delay the old fashioned way, with a natural hall reverb and a tape delay. It sounds really good.

That was all we had time for tonight. Sadly, Dustin lugged his gear two blocks after finding parking and didn't even use it. We've got a few more overdubs left on this tune and then we'll move on to overdubbing the others.

Stay tuned, Junebuggers! This stuff is good!

9/13/11 - IPR Lecture Hall 1

2011-09-13T23:38:00.000-07:00

Great session tonight.

Tonight was the first of the 'Beards' sessions since joining forces with Student Run Records. The previous sessions related to 'Beards' have been scrapped in favor of the professionals at IPR producing and tracking us. Furthermore, this is our first venture with our new bassist, Dillon Marchus.

Eddie Ciletti, IPR's resident analog wizard and mad scientist, had expressed interest in working with us. And we, who have worked with Eddie before, were interested in working with him again and tracking to tape, instead of digital as we normally have done.

Eddie was particularly interested in producing "Destiny, She Drives a Rolls," but we were told to bring two more songs in that we felt Eddie would do well with. We chose "Handlebar Mustache" and "Give Yourself."

Long story short, this session was great. We did a lot of good work. We spent most of the session on "Destiny" and moved on to "Handlebar." After those, it was late and we were tired, but we decided to run through "Give Yourself" a couple times. And awesomely, the second take nailed it. We got basic tracks for all three songs done tonight and overdubs will start next week.

The sounds Eddie got were great. It sounds really warm, rich and old school. Dillon and I discussed how we kind of wished that Eddie was doing the whole record. But don't take that too seriously. We're very excited to work with the other producers as well. It's always good to get multiple points of view.

We're off to a good start. Dillon is an amazing bassist. He's going to work out just fine. The album is going to sound gooood. You're going to like it, I know.

More to come...

[We did a fly-on-the-wall webcast of the session. You can watch it on Ustream if you feel so inclined. A few cool things happened.]

8/16/11 - IPR Lecture Hall 1 Hallway

2011-08-16T23:06:00.000-07:00

Tonight's session was pretty much just for fun. Eddie Ciletti, the analog techniques instructor contacted me, asking if we'd like to play for his class. And we're not usually one to turn down cool things like this. So if we can get a couple tracks out of the deal, cools. We're in.

We arrived and set up around 6pm, when the class starts. Eddie had us all set up in the hallway, since it offers a pretty great natural reverb. He put on mic on the drums. Yup. One. It was an omnidirectional mic on top of the kick, seemingly pointed at my crotch. Not so strangely, that's how it was referred to in all of Eddie and the class's notes -- the crotch mic. Nice.

There was a mic on Brandon's bass cab and there were two ribbon mics (bi-directional) on the guitar amps, which also served as room mics. It was an interesting setup. Anthony did vocals in the doorway to the studio, which served as a sort of isolation booth. It was pretty cool.

We tracked two songs tonight - "Sledgehammer" and "Clone You." We played them live with a possibility of overdubs later on.

Not much more to tell. It was fun. Studio stuff always is fun.

UPDATE (8/17):

It turns out the tracks didn't turn out as well as we had hoped. We are so used to playing those songs so heavily that we overplayed in the recording. It just didn't sound that great. It wasn't Eddie's fault. We just overplayed for that setup and we didn't realize it until it was too late.

Oh, well. That's too bad. But for you savvy people who like to seek things out, there are currently files of the poorly played songs that will never be released somewhere on the Internet right now. That is your challenge, if you wish to accept it.

5/14/11 - IPR Studio 2

2011-05-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

The phrase of the day -- technical difficulties.

The idea was to come into IPR's studio 2 and record for a couple hours and beyond. We were originally going to go from 2:00 - 4:00, since Brandon had to be somewhere at 5:00. As it turned out, Dustin also had to be somewhere. Luckily, Collin Crawford (fellow engineering student) and I were able to grab a couple more hours, so our session was set for noon to 4:00.

Collin and I both arrived at IPR at about 11:30, and the studio was open. So we were able to load in my drums and check out the necessary gear from the lab office. We started the setup process and got a pretty good handle on it. The others arrived before we were completely finished, and they patiently waited while we finished setup.

I'll spare you the technical details, but long story short, we had major technical difficulties. Signal was not getting everywhere it needed to go. And then it would be fixed in one area, but mess up in another. Troubleshooting abounded. When Collin and I reached the end of our rope, we called in lab staff. They were flabbergasted at the situation. They told us we had better just unplug everything and start over. Oof.

I know in the above description it doesn't really sound like much time had passed or much difficulty had happend. But by the time we were told we'd be better off starting over, the clock had already reached around 2:15. All the while, the other three dudes were waiting... waiting. Oh, so patiently. My band mates were a class act during the difficulties. No one complained, though anyone would be bored and frustrated at that point. They all said it wasn't a big deal, even though anyone would be annoyed. They sat patiently, got some lunch, hung out, joked around, played some guitar and discussed some good music. Dustin bumped his plans back, otherwise he would have had to leave before any tracking at all took place. All the while, Collin and I were scrambling to get things set.

By the time we were finally ready to track, we had about enough time to lay down drums, bass, and guitar and vocal scratch tracks for two songs: "Destiny, She Drives a Rolls" and "Soul Shaker," both to appear on Beards. After these two were satisfactorily set, Dustin and Brandon both had to jet. So it was just Anthony and me, with two songs tracked, and everything set up to record. After a bit of discussion, it was decided that we would track drums and scratch guitar/vocal on two more songs, just the two of us. As long as we had spent so much time setting everything up, it would have been a shame to walk away after tracking drum and bass on just two songs.

We didn't really have much material rehearsed enough to record with just Anthony and me. So we decided on one we knew we had, "Handlebar Mustache" and one other fun cover tune, which will remain a mystery at this time.

When it's all said and done, getting drum tracks for four songs is a pretty good day -- assuming the sessions turn out to be of quality.

This session marks the beginning of Beards. It has officially begun. Hopefully, this isn't an omen of what is to come. Hopefully, today was our "getting the kinks out" session.

Here's hopin'.

3/13/11 - IPR Studios

2011-03-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

Studio Diary - Tony (3/13/11)

This was the second weekend in a row that by happy circumstance I was able to book a lot of time in studio 4 at IPR. Anthony was there and Brandon was able to be there this time, too. Unfortunately, Dustin was working again. So we missed him again.

The day started with Brandon laying down some bass on "On the Sidewalk." This was my first time recording bass, so it was kind of an experimental day. I had spoken with my buddy Collin a couple days earlier and we came up with some ideas for bass mic setup and such. So I employed some of those ideas and had fun with it. Brandon came in and knocked it out of the park like a pro. We got all the bugs out and did a few takes and called it good on that tune.

After taking a brief break to go pee, we reconvened in 4 and Anthony taught Brandon the chords and structure of "Piper." Because, though the other members of the band had previously played the song incessantly, it hasn't been played for years, meaning Brandon had never even heard it. But Anthony laid it out for him and asked him he accepted the mission put before him. Not surprisingly, he said yes.

After a few practice runs, he got the feel for the tune, and added his own flava to it as well. He put some licks and fills that we would not have thought of into the tune. He really helped to make a juvenile and monotonous song a bit more interesting and enjoyable. So to those of you reading that were with us in the old days, this song is coming back (at least in recorded form) and it's better than it was before.

We wrapped on bass recording and I set up the room for vocal takes, since Anthony did not get a chance to track vocals on "Piper" last week. As usual, Anthony was very consistent in his vocal and double vocal tracking. It didn't take too long to lock it down. It went so well that we finished up all we wanted to finish with two hours to spare. The dudes left, I cleaned up and worked on some school work.

All that's left on these tracks are guitars by Dustin on both songs and some background vocals by me on "Piper."

It's coming along. I love doing this stuff, and I have ideas for more songs to work on in future sessions. If you, the reader, have any suggestions for songs of ours you'd like to hear recorded, suggest them either in the comments below or on Junebug's Facebook profile.

...tony...

3/6/11 - IPR Studios

2011-03-06T23:15:00.000-08:00

Studio Diary - Tony (3/6/11)

So begins a new chapter in this storied history of ours. Here's the thing: Junebug has so much material, old and new. Now that there are TWO members of the band (Dustin and Tony) that are capable of running recording sessions, there is no reason not to record our stuff. The way I (tony) see it, there should never be a time from here on out that we don't have something in production. So we decided to start.

As you may or may not know, we recorded our first studio album Share at the Institute of Production and Recording in Minneapolis. It just so happens that now I am a student at IPR and have access to the studios. So why not take advantage of that? I'm going to be in the studios anyway, recording stuff, so I might as well use it to Junebug's advantage, y'know?

We came in to record a couple songs. As you know, Anthony is a very concept-driven person when it comes to albums, and these are songs that may not have a place on any upcoming albums. These are intended to be ancillary to any albums we put out. They're simply online releases for our fans. But these songs serve two purposes: 1.) I (as a new producer/engineer) personally want to put them out, and 2.) we want to have a semi-regular flow of content even between our regular long-play albums.

So my buddy Collin Crawford and I booked studio 7 at IPR for the afternoon and by happy circumstance, we were able to book studio 4 for the evening. I set up my drums and Collin and I set up the mics as we had planned them to be set up. I told Anthony to arrive a little later than our initial scheduled time so that we had a chance to get good drum sounds without wasting his time. It was only Anthony and me today. Dustin had to work and Brandon's sister came to town last-minute. But no matter. We could easily get preliminary tracks with just him and me, with Collin's help running the session while I sat behind the drums.

If you're not yet familiar with our "new" song "On the Sidewalk," you may be familiar with a similar song from Share. Basically, we're doing a cover of one of our own songs, "Chosen Ones," just in a different style. Think of Paul Simon on the beach, and you might have an idea of how it will sound.

We got the drums done first, while we got scratch tracks of Anthony's guitar and vocal. It's a simple drum part, with a stripped down kit as you can see in the photo above. I got what I needed in three takes.

Next, we tore down the kit and reconfigured the room to record Anthony's acoustic guitar. He got it in about three takes as well. Pretty quick work. We grabbed some vocals from Anthony and some background vocals from me, and it was an afternoon.

But the day wasn't over, since our studio 4 time was just beginning. We trotted on over, and since we had already gotten everything form "On the Sidewalk" that we could get from the two of us, we wanted to do something else. We had free studio time, after all. You might as well use it. Anthony and I were trying to figure out what to lay down, and I recalled a conversation earlier in the day. I had asked Anthony what songs he might want to put out for this "flow of content" idea. He said he definitely wanted to do "Piper" sometime. It's a song from the old Junebug days. We played it at our first show. But by tonight, we hadn't played it for several years.

That changed tonight, however.

After sitting for years on the shelf, getting dusty, we pulled "Piper" down and decided breathe some life back into her. Collin and I got a drum mic setup going and Collin set up Anthony's guitar amp and a scratch vocal mic. We recorded live, at the same time, which is pretty appropriate for this song. It's kind of a dirty, gritty, twangy, surfy kind of thing. So it fit.

We got all the drum and guitar takes we needed. We figured we'd get vocals for that tune, but we were having technical issues and Anthony had to get going anyway. So then we actually did call it a night.

Well, for Junebug stuff anyway. Collin and I stuck around to work on stuff for school since we had the studio time. As it turned out, I was at IPR, in the studio, from 1:00 p.m. until about 2:30 a.m. It was a long day, but it was productive and great.

Junebug is officially back in the studio. And now I hope we never leave.

...tony...

4/21/10 - Fur Seal - Tony

2010-04-21T23:52:00.000-07:00

Dustin, Anthony and I met one last time at Fur Seal studio in Minneapolis to work out the final mixes for Modern Day Fairy Tales. Nick regretfully couldn't be with us tonight, but he said he trusted us to make the right decisions.

Earlier this month, Joe was able to get the first mixes to us and we all listened to them and made notes. We all got together and compared our notes for the purpose of making sure we were all on the same page before going back to Fur Seal. We thought it would suck to get there and completely disagree on some minuscule thing and waste Joe's time arguing.

So after we were all in agreement, we went back to where the magic happened two months ago. For the record, we all really like the initial mixes, but we are nitpickers and end up bordering on perfectionism sometimes. Joe did a really great job on setting us up, and our notes just finished it off. Dustin and Anthony hadn't yet heard the mixes for "Bumblebee" and "Like a Dream," so the night started with listening through those tracks and writing down some tweak ideas. Then we gave Joe a copy of the notes and jumped right in.

It was a really smooth process. Joe would bring up the session files and simply tweak, nudge and dial up or down as we told him. We ate some pizza, drank some soda and had some laughs. That's about as much as I can say without elaborating on the boring details of every single thing we worked on. Let it suffice to say we got a lot of good work done; tedious detail work. And it made all of the tracks even better than before. We started at 8:00 p.m. and left around 2:30 a.m., with the final mixes burned to discs in our hands.

Now all that's left is mastering, artwork and printing. It's happening, and hopefully it'll all be said and done by the end of May. No promises, though.

2/20/10 - Fur Seal

2010-02-20T22:39:00.000-08:00

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.

----------------------------

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

2010-02-17T23:18:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-16T23:06:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-15T23:38:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-08T12:51:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-07T22:30:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-07T20:26:00.000-08:00

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.

5/12/09 - Urban Ventures - Tony

2009-05-12T23:16:00.000-07:00

May 12, 2009
Urban Ventures
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (5/12/09)

A long time ago, we were asked by Rising Sounds on Cities Live internet radio to write and record a theme song for their show. We came up with one a long time ago, too. But finally tonight, it was recorded.

But of course, it wouldn't be Junebug if there wasn't some kind of issue with the whole process. When I (tony) arrived, Dustin was there, waiting in the car with Sarah, eating his supper. We chatted briefly and then I decided I'd go find David Perez, the engineer, and start getting set up. When I found him, I introduced myself and asked where I should unload my gear. His eyes got big and he said, "Oh no, this was just a planning session." Well, obviously there was some communication gap, because all of us were bringing our gear and planned to get this thing banged out tonight. Medium-sized story short, we talked and David finally said, "Okay, let's do it." The plan was to get as much of it done before his eight o'clock appointment. Luckily for us, his appointment didn't show up, so we worked until 8:45 and finished it.

It was kind of a rush job, but that's fine. Since I only used a few pieces of the kit, I used the drums he had there. This amounted to only four drum mics and two overheads, which made for a quick setup. Also since it was a rush job, there was no run-through for rehearsal or anything. Which is also fine, because it's an 18-second song. So the bass and drums tracked at once, followed by Anthony's guitar, followed by Dustin's two guitar parts, and finally vocals, including separate tracks of each of us shouting "starts now!" It makes sense in the song. Don't you fret.

When we were finished tracking, Dave said that since he had an eight o'clock appointment that he'd mix it and get it to us sometime on Wednesday. However, his appointment didn't show, so he mixed it right then and there and emailed us each an mp3 of the track. So, we went from "Tonight's a planning session" to finished product in our inboxes within the span of two and a half hours. Not bad. But again, it's only 18 seconds.

But it's fun too.

Listen to Rising Sounds on Cities Live internet radio!!

...tony...

4/12/08 - IPR Studios - Tony

2008-04-12T23:14:00.000-07:00

April 12, 2008
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (4/12/08)

Hey there, true believers.

There have been many one- or two-person sessions since I last posted a studio diary, but I decided that last night's session warranted an entry.

Well, to back up a bit, last week we ventured to a different studio in Minneapolis to record some organ parts. Dustin and Anthony had their way with the organ. That's what she said. The organ is good. You will enjoy it. All what she said.

Last night's session was indeed quite productive. While Dan and Anthony were working on vocals in Studio 7, Gabe and I were listening while a fella named Dylan Lewis laid down some banjo in Studio 2. Yep. Banjo. In one section of one song. Pretty sweet. After Dylan was finished, Gabe set me up to record some auxilliary percussion. I laid down some congas on a couple tracks, some shaker, a few tambourines and some hand claps. It has sure been awhile since I played auxiliiary so much. My hands are actually somewhat sore today. Not what she said.

After that was finished, we did some sweet gang vocals for a track, others to be added to the gang later. Very exciting stuff.

My wife, Liza, got a nice sneak peek last night. She showed up at the studio to visit and we played back a few tracks for her. She loved them. Success!

After I left at about 2 a.m., Anthony stayed behind with the intention of finishing up his acoustic guitars and vocals. I haven't spoken with him today, so I'm not aware of how that ended up.

Regardless, this album is really coming along. Every session we have is moving us one step closer to end. The tentative goal is to have all parts recorded by the end of next weekend if at all possible. That's when Elizabeth is reported to be visiting from Aberdeen to lay down her violin tracks. It's going to be great, folks. Be excited!

...tony...

3/2/08 - IPR Studios - Tony

2008-03-02T23:14:00.000-08:00

March 2, 2008
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (3/2/08)

Drums for Share are finished! Tonight was our final drum session at IPR Studios in Minneapolis. It was also the most successful session in terms of time efficiency. In the past, mic setup has seemed to take a long time, but it turns out that perhaps we, the band, were just in the way! The studio was booked starting at 4:00 p.m., so Gabe and Dan got all the mics and stands ready and we loaded in about 4:30. We got amps and drums set up, and then went to eat at Grumpy's. By the time we were done eating, we were nearly ready to roll. Our first take came in at around 7:15 or so, rather than our record latest start of about 8:45. And by 9:30, we already had drum takes solid for two out of three songs.

A fun little tidbit about this final drum session is that we ended on the song, "M'Lady." That was also the very first track we recorded back on December 2 – exactly three months from this session. After a number of successful sessions, we listened back to the very first tracks, and they didn't sound good at all. We realized that we actually learned how to better play in the studio, listening to one another and to the click track. We decided that we could definitely do "M'Lady" better justice. So it served as a bookend to the drum experience for this record.

It's surprising how well this session went. Dustin and I had both expressed concern that perhaps we weren't quite ready yet on two of three of the songs; that maybe we were rushing ourselves by recording these songs right now. That, and our rehearsal this afternoon was only the first or second time Kai has joined us on "Aphrodite" and "So True." It was hard to tell once we got into the studio, however. We got several solid takes on all the tunes, and we were all satisfied with what got put down. We wrapped at about 11:15. After listening to a few takes and packing up, we still had time to go back to Grumpy's for a drink and karaoke.

The karaoke performances were as follows:
Dustin – "White Wedding" by Billy Idol
Anthony – "All These Things I've Done" by The Killers
Tony – "Tomorrow" by Silverchair
Kai – "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by Crash Test Dummies
Gabe – "Hey Ya" by Outkast

...tony...

2/24/08 - IPR Studios - Tony

2008-02-22T23:12:00.000-08:00

February 24, 2008
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (2/24/08)

Tonight, the four of us made it into the studio and to my surprise, in all of this, tonight was the first time that Kai met Dan. Strange.

Tonight we decided to hit two of our bigger songs and a third if we had time. Well, we didn't have time for a third, but that's okay because we got some good work done on both "Chosen Ones" and "Share."

We haven't played "Share" for a long time. We played it at some shows in 2006, but not really much since then. But tonight was fine. We got drum and bass tracks down. It'll come out fine.

"Chosen Ones" underwent a lot of discussion in rehearsal. Some parts we felt were too long, others felt out of place. Sometimes it felt like there wasn't enough differentiation between sections. Our rehearsal seemed to bleed into the studio. The start of the takes was delayed, because we were still discussing the structure of the song! But in the end, it all worked out. I accidentally came up with a new portion of a drum part while sound-checking the kit. That single part seemed to give the song what it needed. Now it's unstoppable, baby. And other words like that.

Gabe wasn't with us all night, as he had a previous engagement. Dan ran the show tonight, with Gabe present at the beginning and the end of the night.

...tony...

2/22/08 - IPR Studios - Tony

2008-02-22T23:11:00.000-08:00

February 22, 2008
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (2/22/08)

Tonight's session was a quickie, focusing on specific aspects of "Moon Over the Water" and "Last Night." I came in to record vibe parts for both songs and all three of us recorded our vocals for "Last Night" as well. Both Gabe and Dan are entering each of these songs into a showcase sponsored by the school, and the winner will be working on projects with industry producers.

To keep it short and sweet, the vibe parts were simple, and the vocal parts were straightforward. It was a quick, efficient session.

...tony...

2/10/08 - IPR Studios - Tony

2008-02-10T23:10:00.000-08:00

February 10, 2008
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (2/10/08)

It was another good night at IPR. We ushered ourselves into Studio 7 for a shorter session, focusing exclusively on "Moon Over the Water," which is a song that probably nobody else has heard, except the Junebug girlfriends and perhaps Danny Ch. It's coming along beautifully.

First of all, we nailed down Anthony's vocals and then Dustin and I tried our hands in the vocal booth. We threw, down, baby...and that's a fact. Amongst the three of us, we put down a sweet four-part harmony that you are looking forward to. That's also a fact.

After the vox were wrapped, Dustin threw down some pretty sweet guitar tracks that will rock someone's face off. Probably yours.

Afterward, there was discussion of ogran, vibes, chimes, and more. We'll see how this one fleshes out. The rock is happening. Fact.

And Danny Ch. gets HUGE props. You know what I'm talking about, nuge. Rawk it.

That is all.
...tony...

1/27/08 - IPR Studios - Tony

2008-01-27T23:09:00.000-08:00

January 27, 2008
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (1/27/08)

Another decent studio session took place, focusing on bass and guitars. We worked on "Moon Over the Water," "Spring Fever," and "M'Lady." "Spring Fever" is sounding nice and "Moon" is sounding really beautiful thus far. We've half-way decided to scrap what we've done with "M'Lady" and do it over, since it was the very FIRST thing we've recorded and we've gotten better at playing in the studio since then. So that may take up a little more time than we had originally expected.

There was a lot of reading of The Onion, attempts at crosswords, viewing of YouTube videos and re-hashing of dirty jokes involving family members. It was a good day. Yeah. That's what your mom said last night.

Rawk it!
...tony...

1/19/08 - IPR Studios - Tony

2008-01-19T23:08:00.000-08:00

January 19, 2008
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (1/19/08)

It was another good night at IPR Studios in Minneapolis. We put down some solid drum tracks on Spring Fever and Moon Over the Water, and some guitar keepers as well. We were working with Gabe and Dan tonight, on a sort of low-key session. Spring Fever and Moon Over the Water don't exactly BRING THE ROCK, but they do bring the VERY NICE VIBES.

Also recorded was a Spring Fever reprise, currently titled "Summertime." Along the same theme, "Winterlude," which became instantly available for download from our MySpace profile. We are brilliant. That is all about that.

Next weekend we plan on working on guitars and vocals on a few things and in a couple weeks, we'll be back for more drum tracking. Nicely nicely.

We ate Taco Bell last night. Gotta go.
...tony...

1/5/08 - IPR Studios - Tony

2008-01-05T23:07:00.000-08:00

January 5, 2008
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (1/5/08)

After taking a few weeks' break for the holidays, Junebug went back to IPR Studios with Gabe and a new assistant, Matt.

It wasn't too hard to get back into the swing of things. However, there was a problem at the studio regarding the closing of some door and some boiler room not venting and a board nearly frying or something. None of this was due to us, but it caused some minor complications. We recorded drums on "M'Lady" in our very first session a month ago, but we were going to attempt to lay down the guitar and bass tonight. But as it was, right when it was set up to record, the studio we were in was to be occupied by another group. So we abandoned it for the night and moved on in to studio 2.

We started off with a seriously solid three takes of "Last Night" in which we captured very usuable drum and bass tracks. The third take of "Last Night" was by far the best thing we recorded in this session. Look forward to it. It sounds great.

Regarding the bass, we have a new bassist in studio with us now, which is very welcome news for us. We've been bassless since our last show in August, and it feels great to play with the low end again. Anthony knows him from his Fargo days, and I actually met him in 1994 at the North Dakota state one-acts competition. He's a tough guy to forget. His name is Kai Catudio and he's living in Minneapolis and he fits our groove quite nicely. We had two rehearsals with Kai earlier this week and he was ready to jump right into the studio with us tonight and he had a great showing.

The other song we recorded tonight was "Good Vibes," and like "Last Night," we got some pretty solid takes. We knocked down the drum and bass parts on Good Vibes as well, and everything is really shaping up to be fantastic.

Out of the (currently) eleven tracks slated for the album, we've got drums tracks for five of them and we're nearly finished with two songs. We talked briefly tonight and it looks like at this point we're shooting for a mid-summer release of the album. Don't quote that, however. We never know what may come up to delay production and such. There was also talk of a possible pre-release EP including a couple of album tracks and a couple non-album tracks as well. Again, it's just an idea at this point, but it's a good one, you know.

So 2008 is off to a good start for us. We're back in the studio, we're playing with a bassist, we've got some finalists in the new name pool, and we're looking to the future.

On and ever upward. And stuff.
...tony...

12/14/07 - IPR Studios - Tony

2007-12-14T23:07:00.000-08:00

December 14, 2007
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (12/14/07)

Just a quick note to say that we recorded another session last night at IPR in Minneapolis from about 7pm to 2am. We recorded acoustic guitar on Place, which I had never heard until playback, and it sounds sweet. We spent a majority of our time on Poet. We also laid down bass, vocals, guitars and even tambourine on Poet. Poet is really starting to come along. I'm very pleased with how it's turning out. Oh, and on Place, we also recorded the legendary handclaps (Gabe joined in on the clapping). It is fun.

We also spent quite a bit of downtime trying to determine what the new incarnation of our name is going to be. There were many suggestions, some good, some not. One of the most hilarious, however, was as follows; Junebug Turtle of the Habitual Flip

Whaddaya think?
Rawk on,
...tony...

12/8/07 - IPR Studios - Tony/Anthony/Dustin

2007-12-08T23:06:00.000-08:00

December 8, 2007
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony/Anthony/Dustin (12/8/07)

TONY: (10:33 p.m.)
We're back in the studio in Minneapolis with Gabe as I type this. We listened back to the drum track for Place and got it in working order so we can continue on that tune. I'm proud to announce we've now got a studio bassist. He's a guy we actually ran into in the Jamestown days and played with in Aberdeen as well. His name is Dustin Marks and he's actually really good. Not that it's a surprise, but you know. As I type, we're listening back to some of his bass tracks and they sound great. The plan is to move on yet tonight to guitars and vocals on Place as well. It's going well, folks. And now I give you Anthony.

ANTHONY: (10:50 p.m.)
So here we are recording with Gabe and it's great because he has all the technical knowledge and is really excited about getting our stuff down and making it sound lush. Right now Dustin is playing the bass track so we have the bottom layer to work off of. This thing is pretty fucking cool and it really helps to be working with someone who is genuinely excited about our material. Time will tell what will happen next but for now it is pretty cool to be in the situation we are because we have way too many songs and not enough good recordings of them. TO THE NEXT EPIDSODE!!!!!

DUSTIN: (10:58 p.m.)
Yeah, I guess I play bass now...it's good...I like it...genitalia.

UPDATE:
The night lasted a lot longer than we expected. At about midnight, we went to a different studio to track guitars and we didn't close up shop until well after 5:00 a.m. That's hardcore rock and roll dedication right there. Rock it.

12/2/07 - IPR Studios - Tony

2007-12-02T23:04:00.000-08:00

December 2, 2007
IPR Studios
Minneapolis, Minn.

Studio Diary - Tony (12/2/07)

Tonight, we began our first sessions for the upcoming album, Share. After a practice in Asbestos Heaven, we packed up our gear and headed down to IPR studios in Minneapolis, where Gabe Masterson, one of the engineers, introduced us to the other guy who would be working with us, whose name is Dan Hartwig (as if we don't already know enough Dans). For those Aberdonians who may know him, we also ran into Grant Cutler working the front desk at IPR. Small world, isn't it? Well, maybe not, seeing as how probably 75% of all Aberdonians who leave go to the Twin Cities. Anyway, we said hello to Grant and then moved on in.

This session marked the first time the Junebug boys recorded in a bona fide studio, with isolation rooms, and unparallel walls and ceiling and all that. It was indeed exciting for us, and then after a couple hours of setup, drum mic'ing, etc. were complete, we ran our first few takes. We started out the night working on "M'Lady", a song which we have practiced and performed many times, so we figured we'd be able to knock it out of the park right away. I actually had a little bit of trouble playing to a click track, since I've never really had any experience doing so in the past. This problem would persist through the night, but we worked around it.

When we went into the control room, however, to listen to the playback, we were blown away. It was a raw recording, no mixing or anything done to it at all, but we were all just amazed that it sounded good and like an actual recording. The quality was outstanding, like nothing we have ever applied to our music before.

Tonight's focus was drums. We worked on three songs, and I'm proud to say that we rocked out quite a few solid drum tracks. Drum tracking on "M'Lady," "Place" and "Poet Who Didn't Know It" are done. Now it's up to Dan and Gabe to pick and choose the best parts of each take and create a stellar base for the guitars to work off of.

IPR is a fun place, right down in the midst of the city. When you step out the front door, you see Déjà vu Showgirls (a strip joint) right across the street, a lot of traffic, and when you look up, you see the Minneapolis skyline, very close and right in front of you, bright lights shimmering against a black night sky. It's kind of what we hoped for when we packed up to come out here – to be in the city and to be knocking out some killer tracks. Now we just need a bassist and some gigs and we'll be living the dream.

The first session was a real treat and we're really excited to keep this project going. Keep your eye out for further updates as they come along!

...tony...