(no subject)
Last Tuesday Jason Songe from Live New Orleans came by to check out the progress of the studio and interview me for an article he's writing for Antigravity about us. This is what he sent out in his weekly email for Live New Orleans:
THE LIVING ROOM
Even though it won't be open until next July, I dropped by Chris George and Daniel Majorie's Living Room Studio yesterday to check up on their progress. George founded the Living Room Studio in, you guessed it, his living room in 1997 and started to record artists like Silent Cinema, Glasgow, Big Blue Marble, Suplecs, Spickle, Hazard County Girls, and Mangina. Friends since high school, George and Majorie had recorded together during semester breaks back in the day, so when Majorie called up one day to say he was returning from Tennessee, they started looking for a bigger studio. In October of 2004, the duo purchased a 1930's wood frame former church directly across the river from downtown New Orleans in Algiers to serve as the future location of the studio. In January of 2005, they recorded their last client at the old studio--Sam Sarah--and started work on the church. It sits on nearly an acre of land, and thanks to Majorie's plumbing and electrical skills and George's painting and designing talents, the place is already looking pretty fly. I'm gonna go ahead and say, with no disrespect to Piety and Truck Farm et al, that the Living Room will be the most requested local recording space when all is said and done.
LNO: So, this is gonna be a lifetime investment. Is that what you're thinking?
CG: Yeah.
LNO: You're putting enough work into this so that you make it so nice that hopefully, not only will everyone want to record here, but it would be something that, if you had kids, you could hand it over to your kids or whatever?
CG: Yeah, this is an actual house. This right here (points to main room) is bigger than the house I used to record in. We also have a workshop in the back and a huge yard that part of it we'll turn into a courtyard. In the shop I'll have a TV. I already have a pinball machine and a pool table. I'm gonna set up some fans so that the bands can go back there and smoke and do whatever. If the singer is doing vocals and everyone else is bored, you know, they can go into the shop and play basketball. The key thing is to keep them enertained. The shit can get so boring. Imagine if you're the drummer and the singer is doing 87 takes of a chorus part and he keeps fuckin' up, he's probably ready to kill himself. Especially if he's from Missouri and he can't go anywhere.
LNO: What about bunk beds? Is it that big?
CG: Well, the ultimate goal is that Daniel and I can move out and turn these two rooms (points to plans) into bunk rooms for visiting bands. Temporarily, when I buy sofas for the studio, I'm gonna buy sleeper sofas. I may even buy some cots. I'll make it so that they can stay here, because if they have to stay in a hotel, it would suck. That's just more money they have to spend...It's like we willed this place into our existence. We knew that if we didn't get this we'd be fucked, emotionally, because we like old cars, I like darkroom stuff, Daniel likes buidling electronics, so we knew that with that workshop, we'd be able to do whatever we wanted. When the guy from the state came to show us the building, he didn't lock the shop door. You could raise it this much (a couple feet). So we came in one night with a flashlight. There was no electricity. We had tape measurers and I had a sketchpad, and we measured the entire building, inside and out.
LNO:(laughs)
CG: Every room I wrote down all the dimensions, and I was working on this drawing before we owned the place. Like 2 or 3 months. We'd discuss what we should change and what we shouldn't.
LNO: You were so ahead of the game and they didn't even know.
CG: Yeah.
LNO: That's funny. Are there any qualities that people enjoyed from the old Living Room that you're gonna incorporate into the new one?
CG: I think it was because they felt comfortable, maybe. Most of the bands I recorded I saw live. Half of 'em I went up to 'em to a show and went, "Hey, I have this studio. You should come check it out. I'll do it for two weeks for this much money." They can't pass it up because if four guys in the band put up fifty dollars each and they record for two weeks, you know?
LNO: That's probably exactly what bands want. They want someone to come to them who's passionate about the music instead of having to go to someone. You're gonna invest more of yourself 'cause you're passionate about it.
CG: It's equally terrible for me if I'm not into the band and they ask me to record them. It goes both ways.
LNO: Yeah, and if you're into the music, you don't wanna screw it up because then you're a fan. How did you get the ideas for the studio? Are you modeling it after other recording studios?
CG: It comes from stuff that aggravated me in my old place. You know, "if I can ever do it right, I'm gonna have a retarded amount of shelves to put everything." (Points in the main room) These two rooms will be isolated rooms. Both of 'em are gonna sound different. One of 'em is gonna be extremely dead, like record a bass amp at 2 a.m. kind of room, and one of them is gonna be a little more live.
LNO: How do you make a room live and make a room dead? What's the difference?
CG: Depends on what you treat the walls with. The one that's gonna be really dead is gonna be lined with a rubber that has a lead liner in it. It's comparable to a concrete wall.
LNO: So, when you walk in, there's nothing, like a vacuum. You can't hear anything.
CG: Hopefully.
LNO: Are there things you can do in a dead room that you can't do in a live room?
CG: It's all about options. A dead room could give you more options as far as adding effects. If you've already got a vocal recorded in the live room that's already wet with natural room sound, you don't really have a lot of room to add more reverb, 'cause then that would overdo it. You may want a certain effect so you track it in a different room (dead room) so you can add it artificially later.
Read Pt. 2 of this interview next month. Until then, check out www.thelivingroomstudio.com for more info.
THE LIVING ROOM
Even though it won't be open until next July, I dropped by Chris George and Daniel Majorie's Living Room Studio yesterday to check up on their progress. George founded the Living Room Studio in, you guessed it, his living room in 1997 and started to record artists like Silent Cinema, Glasgow, Big Blue Marble, Suplecs, Spickle, Hazard County Girls, and Mangina. Friends since high school, George and Majorie had recorded together during semester breaks back in the day, so when Majorie called up one day to say he was returning from Tennessee, they started looking for a bigger studio. In October of 2004, the duo purchased a 1930's wood frame former church directly across the river from downtown New Orleans in Algiers to serve as the future location of the studio. In January of 2005, they recorded their last client at the old studio--Sam Sarah--and started work on the church. It sits on nearly an acre of land, and thanks to Majorie's plumbing and electrical skills and George's painting and designing talents, the place is already looking pretty fly. I'm gonna go ahead and say, with no disrespect to Piety and Truck Farm et al, that the Living Room will be the most requested local recording space when all is said and done.
LNO: So, this is gonna be a lifetime investment. Is that what you're thinking?
CG: Yeah.
LNO: You're putting enough work into this so that you make it so nice that hopefully, not only will everyone want to record here, but it would be something that, if you had kids, you could hand it over to your kids or whatever?
CG: Yeah, this is an actual house. This right here (points to main room) is bigger than the house I used to record in. We also have a workshop in the back and a huge yard that part of it we'll turn into a courtyard. In the shop I'll have a TV. I already have a pinball machine and a pool table. I'm gonna set up some fans so that the bands can go back there and smoke and do whatever. If the singer is doing vocals and everyone else is bored, you know, they can go into the shop and play basketball. The key thing is to keep them enertained. The shit can get so boring. Imagine if you're the drummer and the singer is doing 87 takes of a chorus part and he keeps fuckin' up, he's probably ready to kill himself. Especially if he's from Missouri and he can't go anywhere.
LNO: What about bunk beds? Is it that big?
CG: Well, the ultimate goal is that Daniel and I can move out and turn these two rooms (points to plans) into bunk rooms for visiting bands. Temporarily, when I buy sofas for the studio, I'm gonna buy sleeper sofas. I may even buy some cots. I'll make it so that they can stay here, because if they have to stay in a hotel, it would suck. That's just more money they have to spend...It's like we willed this place into our existence. We knew that if we didn't get this we'd be fucked, emotionally, because we like old cars, I like darkroom stuff, Daniel likes buidling electronics, so we knew that with that workshop, we'd be able to do whatever we wanted. When the guy from the state came to show us the building, he didn't lock the shop door. You could raise it this much (a couple feet). So we came in one night with a flashlight. There was no electricity. We had tape measurers and I had a sketchpad, and we measured the entire building, inside and out.
LNO:(laughs)
CG: Every room I wrote down all the dimensions, and I was working on this drawing before we owned the place. Like 2 or 3 months. We'd discuss what we should change and what we shouldn't.
LNO: You were so ahead of the game and they didn't even know.
CG: Yeah.
LNO: That's funny. Are there any qualities that people enjoyed from the old Living Room that you're gonna incorporate into the new one?
CG: I think it was because they felt comfortable, maybe. Most of the bands I recorded I saw live. Half of 'em I went up to 'em to a show and went, "Hey, I have this studio. You should come check it out. I'll do it for two weeks for this much money." They can't pass it up because if four guys in the band put up fifty dollars each and they record for two weeks, you know?
LNO: That's probably exactly what bands want. They want someone to come to them who's passionate about the music instead of having to go to someone. You're gonna invest more of yourself 'cause you're passionate about it.
CG: It's equally terrible for me if I'm not into the band and they ask me to record them. It goes both ways.
LNO: Yeah, and if you're into the music, you don't wanna screw it up because then you're a fan. How did you get the ideas for the studio? Are you modeling it after other recording studios?
CG: It comes from stuff that aggravated me in my old place. You know, "if I can ever do it right, I'm gonna have a retarded amount of shelves to put everything." (Points in the main room) These two rooms will be isolated rooms. Both of 'em are gonna sound different. One of 'em is gonna be extremely dead, like record a bass amp at 2 a.m. kind of room, and one of them is gonna be a little more live.
LNO: How do you make a room live and make a room dead? What's the difference?
CG: Depends on what you treat the walls with. The one that's gonna be really dead is gonna be lined with a rubber that has a lead liner in it. It's comparable to a concrete wall.
LNO: So, when you walk in, there's nothing, like a vacuum. You can't hear anything.
CG: Hopefully.
LNO: Are there things you can do in a dead room that you can't do in a live room?
CG: It's all about options. A dead room could give you more options as far as adding effects. If you've already got a vocal recorded in the live room that's already wet with natural room sound, you don't really have a lot of room to add more reverb, 'cause then that would overdo it. You may want a certain effect so you track it in a different room (dead room) so you can add it artificially later.
Read Pt. 2 of this interview next month. Until then, check out www.thelivingroomstudio.com for more info.