On to business. I've had the great opportunity and pleasure of joining a very talented Old Time/String Band group known as Bud Heavy and the High Lifes. While attempting to stay true to the ways of Old Time music, many members - myself included - have also come from strong punk rock backgrounds. Thus the music reflects an interesting blend of traditional appointments and new energy. Having played electric music for the majority of my existence, I must admit that I felt rather naked at the first rehearsal with them, being armed only with my trusty acoustic.
After many shows, bottles of bourbon, bouts of nudity, and the like, it was natural for us to want to take our songs and amalgamate them onto a record. For those of you naive to the world of record making witchcraft, there different avenues to track the album. The most obvious is to spend some time at a legitimate business, and have an engineer - a person who makes it their business to actually know what they're doing- capture your magic. After much deliberation, we decided that is not what we wanted to do.
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| My lovely mistress. A Gibson Southern Jumbo - True Vintage a gift from my mother. |
I am a firm believer that an album, like a song, should tell a story. There is something to be said about hiding away in an audiophile's man cave filled with glowing tubes and magnetic tape, only to emerge with a finely polished record. It simply wasn't the story that we wanted this album to tell. Most of the songs are older than atom bombs and automobiles (even a couple of US states). It seemed fitting to do two things: to track the songs in the same fashion as traditional Old Time music and to do so in a historic location. So we put our feelers out to a handful of historic organizations, and received many enthusiastic replies.
In the end, Brownville Nebraska provided us with a deal much too swell to pass up. Brownville is located in Southeastern Nebraska, and with enough Bourbon you could practically urinate across the border into Missouri. The Brownville of old made much of its success operating steamboats down the mighty Mo' river, but also dipped its toes in clay mining and the business of the rail. According to the the locals, Brownville is a legendary arts community. The town used to provide local artists, musicans, and tradesman with grants and housing to sustain them while they honed their craft. Modern-day Brownville proudly displays the original signs of old shoppes, while young local entrepreneurs move into the old shells like hermit crabs, and carry on businesses of their own. The people are incredibly friendly and infinitely generous. Brownville was the perfect setting for our story.
Brownvillite - (?) - Thomas Rudloff welcomed our project with open arms, and offered up his old Antiquarium Bookstore and Bill Farmer Gallery as a haven for our recording endeavor. According to Thomas, the building was constructed in 1934, and has lived and been reincarnated in the forms of a grade school, gymnasium, artist residence, and presently a bookstore/art gallery. The building is two stories high, but is one vast open room with wood floors and is illuminated by massive arched windows flanking the North and South of the building.
(Photos courtesy of Maxwell Morrissey and Spencer Morrissey)
After investigating the place thoroughly, we scheduled a date and began preparations for a long weekend in Brownville. I will go more into detail on how we attacked the recording itself in Catching Ghosts Pt. 2, but the magnitude of the project requires multiple posts - sorry. There will be much more gear and nerdery in the following post, and quite possibly a ghost story.
- Stonewall
In the end, Brownville Nebraska provided us with a deal much too swell to pass up. Brownville is located in Southeastern Nebraska, and with enough Bourbon you could practically urinate across the border into Missouri. The Brownville of old made much of its success operating steamboats down the mighty Mo' river, but also dipped its toes in clay mining and the business of the rail. According to the the locals, Brownville is a legendary arts community. The town used to provide local artists, musicans, and tradesman with grants and housing to sustain them while they honed their craft. Modern-day Brownville proudly displays the original signs of old shoppes, while young local entrepreneurs move into the old shells like hermit crabs, and carry on businesses of their own. The people are incredibly friendly and infinitely generous. Brownville was the perfect setting for our story.
Brownvillite - (?) - Thomas Rudloff welcomed our project with open arms, and offered up his old Antiquarium Bookstore and Bill Farmer Gallery as a haven for our recording endeavor. According to Thomas, the building was constructed in 1934, and has lived and been reincarnated in the forms of a grade school, gymnasium, artist residence, and presently a bookstore/art gallery. The building is two stories high, but is one vast open room with wood floors and is illuminated by massive arched windows flanking the North and South of the building.
(Photos courtesy of Maxwell Morrissey and Spencer Morrissey)
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| Gotta include the artsy emotional photo. |
- Stonewall
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