The Righteous Hillbillies

Saturday, August 29 th 2009
Kevs guitar tracks

HEART...GUTS...and FEAR!
After a very effd’ up previous week...I was very excited to get into the studio and get some work done. Brent’s tune “Before the Devil Knows” is one of my favorites, and I had to cut and acoustic track and about 3 or 4 electric tracks. I used my Taylor 314CE Acoustics, and all the electrics were done on Brent’s Fender Mexican “Dia de los Muertos” Stratocaster (souped up with the hottest pic-ups straight from the depths of hell) and tuned to what I call the “outer space” standard tuning...stolen from Eddie Van Halen! I worked a solid week on that damn song at home and decided because of the haunting and dark subject matter...well, that’s the way I had to play it. I refused to use a pick and forced myself to finger pick every thing from chords to fills to solos. Let me tell you as much as I love goofin around, I have never seriously done any finger picking on the electric especially on a big song like this one. Apprehensive was I ? Yep! For those of you that may be wondering ; “what’s so big about fingerpicking”?..let me just answer that with 1 word......TONE!

I have worked with a lot of young bands in the past ie;( The Projection, Epic Fail, South Side Bandits, and New Beginnings to name a few.....what’s up guys?) I have always loved being able to bring out the musical best in these guys and gals during recording sessions, and I realized during my session on Saturday that I need that very same thing! Don’t we all??? In my heart of hearts I want this record to be the best one I’ve ever done...hell it may be the last one I ever do who knows? So I approached this session very cautiously..and to my musical dismay...I was a little too cautious. The licks and fills I pride myself on in this band were very laid back and not how I practiced them. I was getting frustrated and pissed off and Brent says to me..”how come I ain’t hearing any that screamin blues stuff”? and “come on man.. how would your guitar heroes squawk them notes”? Little things like that are what we sometimes need to allow us to just be ourselves and cut loose. Its so much more than motivating somebody to do something. It’s their ability to show you how to believe in yourself. Dig ? So I did! I get kind of sad thinkin about all those ego infested guitar genius skilled-swarthy ass heads who think they got it all down and don’t open themselves up for a little motivation once and awhile.

I’ve always felt comfortable being able to prepare an over abundance of guitar parts to pick from and let em get sorted out during a session, not too mention all the extra parts other folks hear while your noodlein around during a practice pass to the song. So a great studio lesson is to always open yourself up to suggestion...its a serious integral part of recording folks! Don’t let it crush your ego...instead let it gently stroke your ego very lightly like a soft and lovely hairbrush! My guits are done on “Before the Devil Knows”. It was a damn good day!

For the Gear heads:

Electric Guitar:

The amp was miked with a Shure SM57 about one inch away and offset to the left of the speakers cone, an MD421 was next to the 57 on a 45 degree angle pointed directly at the cone and a Cascade Fat Head 11 was placed 4 ft. from the back off the amp giving us some righteous low mellow tone.
The amp was an Fender Blues Deluxe
Guitar was an Mexican Custom Strat.

Acoustic Guitar:

The mics used were a Shure SM81 placed at the 12th fret where the neck meets the body and an AKGC414 BXLS11 as a room mic that I placed by listening in headphones while Kev was playing.

I put Kev in a place where he is very comfortable and spends alot of his time. The bathroom, sitting on a toilet. Tile Floors + mirrors = natural reverb.

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