I sit here on a flight to Detroit for a gig with Audra McDonald.  As often happens on planes, I find myself rifling through my iPod, and I end up settling on the track we all played on for a tribute record to the wonderful Rachel Bissex.  Rachel had breast cancer and died in 2005.  She was a shining light on the folk music scene; as much for her spirit as for her music.  You couldn’t help but be touched by her, and if you knew her, you can’t help but miss her.  This recording features many of her closest friends performing her music, and all proceeds go towards the college education for her two children, Emma and Matt.  The song that GrooveLily played on, and that Brendan arranged and produced so masterfully, is called “Starting Over.”

For most of the gigs we did during our folk venue touring, I played a hybrid drum kit consisting of djembe (played with my hands), bass drum, hihat, and sometimes a snare drum (played always with “blasticks,” a sort of hybrid brush/stick made of plastic and specifically designed to have the impact of a stick — imagine me rolling my eyes as I display air quotes — and a volume closer to a brush).  While I sometimes enjoyed the challenge of generating the requisite intensity using these limited resources, I often longed for “my instrument” … drumset.  Don’t get me wrong, I love playing dynamically and being able to go from a whisper to a roar, and pride myself on being able to play very quietly without losing intensity when the situation calls for it (as it often does in my freelance work with singers and jazz groups in small venues).  But, I’m a drumset player first and foremost; the sounds and colors produced by wooden sticks on cymbals and drum are my natural palette, and I really missed it during those years.

Although many of those situations were uncomfortable for me as a result of this limited palette, they were also often very loving and full of community spirit … not to mention some truly incredible musicians, and just amazing people overall.  There were also some transcendent musical moments, both as GrooveLily and while backing up or sitting in with other artists at club or festival gigs that we would play.  One of these moments for me was the drum tracking for “Starting Over,” and to this day, I smile broadly when I listen to it, tears come to my eyes when I let myself get carried away by it, and I get shivers up my spine at the end.

There’s something about listening to this song while on a plane 30,000 feet up that really makes me feel closer to Rachel; while she and I were very friendly, I would not count myself lucky enough to call her a very close friend … but I swear I can close my eyes and smile up at her from this altitude, and she sees me and smiles back.  The way this track came together was a real testament to the best of the folk music scene; people making music together for both a greater good and for the sheer joy of it.  It also is a testament to how portable current recording techniques have become.  Brendan arranged it and recorded a fantastic demo, and all of us contributed the “real” parts separately: Val’s rocking violin and sweet lead vocal recorded at home along with Brendan’s and my vocal parts, my drum tracks recorded at my old fave studio BeatStreet, Tom Prasada-Rao’s near-perfect guitar part,  Rachel Garlin’s lovely lead vocal and Stephanie Corby’s heavenly (and I really do NOT use this adjective lightly … her vocal on this track really can’t be described accurately without reference to some sort of spiritual inspiration; it is THAT moving) lead vocal all recorded at Neale Eckstein’s FoxRun Studios in Sudburry, Mass.  Finally, Neale’s incredible mix, also done at FoxRun Studio.

In addition to sharing a passion for making and recording great music, we also all share a love for Rachel Bissex, and this recording is the result.    It’s so beautiful when talent, inspiration, and love can come together the way they did on this recording.  It’s really nice to sit here in the clouds and reflect on it … this is what folk music is really all about, bashing drums and all.

Gene tracking

Ok … truth be told … there was only one blister, which is healing nicely, as are my knuckles and arms. But my weekend in the studio recording drum parts for our upcoming “Sleeping Beauty Wakes” record was a whirlwind for me. We are currently planning on 18 tracks on the record (note: things often change at this stage, so don’t quote me!), 17 of which have drums, so I had my work cut out for me. Happily, we rehearsed a lot, and made sure we were happy with our arrangement and drum part choices, so I was ready. We finished 13 tracks on Saturday, leaving only 4 for Sunday, which left us time to record drums on some other songs (details below).

Saturday: we arrive at 10:30 at Beatstreet Studios, the same place we recorded drums for the Midsummer record, as well as several other projects. Joe Franco, the owner, is a drummer’s drummer, with years of experience in the studio and on the road, and is also author of the well known “Double Bass Drumming” (which, for those of you who have ever heard my incredibly spazzy attempts to play double bass will surely know, I have never read … if you don’t know what double bass drumming is, check out this article). Joe and I have many mutual friends, and always love to kibbitz whenever we see each other.

Our excellent engineer, NickPhoto by Mark Diamond, www.diamondimages.com

Nick, the fabulous engineer, is a total pro, sweetest guy in the world, and a total ace when it comes to getting drum sounds; what takes hours in most studios at the beginning of the session takes Nick 30-45 minutes. We were up and running by 11:30 AM, and from inside the drum booth I have my now familiar view of Nick at the computer, Val and Brendan at the “producer’s desk” listening, taking notes, encouraging me after every take (some day I’ll have to take video of Brendan’s reaction after a particularly good take … you just can’t describe it in words!).

Val, Brendan, and Nick from the drum boothPhoto by Mark Diamond, www.diamondimages.com

The day goes very well, and I’m proud to say that I didn’t require tons of takes on anything. I was very happy with everything except possibly “Bring it On,” which I chose as the first track of the day. I played 2 or 3 takes, which were fine, but didn’t really bust out the way I wanted. We moved on, and I suppose I would have been happy with what we had … but … we ended up doing one more take at the end of the day strictly as a photo op; my cousin, Mark Diamond, is an amazing professional photographer and holographer, was in town and I was thrilled that he could visit the studio. He was willing to take some pictures, and we figured we might as well get some of me playing. So, trying to figure out what to play, we decided to do another take of “Bring it On,” mainly because it’s high-energy and would make for some (hopefully) good photos; I suppose there were some outside hopes of having moments we could cut and paste if needed, but mostly it was for the pictures. As a result, I was really just trying to have fun; not posing, but just relaxing and enjoying the moment because I figured that would look best. Well, as you may have guessed by now, it ended up being the take that we’ll use on the record … it was joyous, relaxed, and had the intensity my slightly tentative earlier takes lacked.

Mark

It’s funny to continually re-learn the same lesson in life … that things happen when you relax and stop trying to make them happen. I’m really happy with the pictures, and the track.

Finally, on Sunday we finished up the Sleeping Beauty tracks in equally quick fashion, and even had some time to add drum tracks to some of the “Hooked on the Bible” songs that Val and Brendan did years ago … those should be available shortly in the “Odds and Ends” section of the web site … pretty fun to make them feel more like GrooveLily songs.

Thanks to Joe and Nick at Beatstreet and big thanks and much love to my cousin Mark for letting us use some of the photos from that day on this page.