First batch of the Old Settler’s recordings: Railroad Earth, Greensky Bluegrass, The Blue Hit, The Bluegrass Outfit, Country Willie, Hendrikz McLeod, Sam Baker, Carrie Elkin & Raina Rose

Folks,

Instead of waiting to release these all at once, I’ll just put these out there in small batches. Old Settler’s was a blast, as usual. I have to thank the festival for being gracious enough to use their vans to transport bands and equipment to and from our portable studio. They really went out of their way to accommodate us, and in general just couldn’t have been nicer people if they tried. The people that make this festival happen are some of the most helpful and welcoming people I’ve come across.

During the day we brought musicians over from the main stages to our little recording outpost.  Late at night we packed up our gear and went to Camp Goodtimes to record until the wee hours. For a guy (me) who enjoys recording acoustic music, what more could I really ask for? That’s what I lived and breathed for four long days and nights. There was not a lot of sleep, but there were many good times.

The Bluegrass Outfit:

The Bluegrass Outfit is a bluegrass supergroup based in and around Austin, Texas. For this recording there were at least 12 musicians all pickin’ their hearts out. The little stage at Camp Goodtimes was so full that some people had to stand offstage and play their instruments. Featuring members of the Two High String Band, Green Mountain Grass, Milk Drive, Wood & Wire and The Blue Hit, this band’s talent speaks for itself. http://archive.org/details/TheBluegrassOutfit-liveFromCampGoodtimes2012

 

Railroad Earth:

Railroad Earth came over to see us and play a few songs while they were killing time before they headlined the main stage. We were dealing with some insane wind, but managed to fiddle our way out of the worst of it. This link will take you to 4 tracks. The first three are the three songs they played for us, and the fourth is one long track that includes all songs and the short between-song interviews we did with them. These guys are really a fantastic band, check ’em out: http://archive.org/details/RailroadEarth-liveForKaosRadioFromOldSettlersFest2012

 

Greensky Bluegrass:

Greensky Bluegrass had a hard time finding us, but we’re glad they did! One of them (Dave) is the spitting image of our good friend Dirty Charley, and their mandolin player Paul gave a special shout out to the Austin Facial Hair Club. We should have invited them to play the Goodtimes stage, but didn’t know they would have the time until it was too late. Their guitar player Dave ran into my cohort El Demento in the campground and insisted they swap shirts, because he just had to have a Team Goodtimes shirt. So both of them took their shirts off in the middle of everyone and swapped. How long has it been since you’ve swapped shirts with someone right on the spot? That’s good stuff. Anyhow, these guys are super nice and are also most excellent pickers. As it turns out, next month at DelFest they’re playing a late night gig with Railroad Earth that will stretch out into the wee hours. Man, I wish I could see that. Here’s their set, done in the same format as Railroad Earth. 3 songs, then the 4th is the complete set with interviews. http://archive.org/details/GreenskyBluegrass-liveFromOldSettlersFest2012

 

Country Willie:

Country Willie is a perennial favorite, and a legend around these parts. This is the set he did for us at our little campsite studio. We’ll be posting another (yet-to-be-edited, as of this posting) set that he did Thursday night on the Goodtimes stage with a full backing band. For this set, however, it’s just Willie on guitar, vocals and harmonica backed by his friend Thomas Oliver on drums. Enjoy! http://archive.org/details/CountryWillie-liveAtOldSettlersFest2012

 

Sam Baker, Carrie Elkin, Raina Rose & Andrew Pressman:

We did a quick in-the-round recording of Sam Baker, Carrie Elkin and Raina Rose with Drew Pressman playing standup bass. We first met Sam when Jim White brought him along to a session he recorded with us for the South By Southwest music festival. Drew and Raina’s new son Emmett was just hanging out with his mama while they played for us. Did I mention that this is a family-friendly festival? My wife and I brought our 4-month-old son with us and I think he had just as much fun as we did. Here’s the quick set we got from these four great musicians: http://archive.org/details/SamBakerWRainaRoseCarrieElkin-liveFromOldSettlersFest2012

 

The Blue Hit:

The Blue Hit finally played the main stage of the festival this year, but we recorded them out in the campground. They took the stage around 1:30am and played to a packed house. Everyone was super quiet, just sucking up all they could get out of this band. You can even hear the crowd do a meow-along, which is something I’ve never heard outside of a Blue Hit show. They are a great band and have just released two new records. Check ’em out! http://archive.org/details/TheBlueHit-liveFromCampGoodtimes2012

 

Hendrikz McLeod:

Hendrikz McLeod did one of the very few electric sets in the campground this year. They are a very unique band from San Marcos, Texas. Their guitar player, Mike McLeod, is currently working with Ryan McGillicuddy on Ryan’s long-awaited album, due out later this summer. We’ll have a couple McGillicuddy sets coming soon, so stay tuned for that. Until then though, here is Hendrikz McLeod to get your booty shakin’: http://archive.org/details/HendrikzMcleod-liveFromCampGoodtimes2012

Field Recording and Nic Walker

Whether he knows it or not, Nic Walker and his music have inspired me in several ways. One of the things I’m glad he inspired me to do is field recording. I heard his music for the first time through my friend Dan, who is also my co-host for Annie Street Radio. When I heard Nic’s music I was immediately drawn to it. Once I met him and talked to him he explained that he records all of his own stuff in closets, bathrooms, old cars, etc…

Until this point I had no idea that with modern technology being what it is you can buy a relatively inexpensive portable device and record whatever, whenever. Nic told me he uses a Zoom H2 to do all of his recording. I’ve always been a fan of lo-fi stuff but his recordings really sounded great. So I looked into it.

I’ve done radio for awhile but that’s really simple stuff- you don’t have to know much about doing sound or anything too technical.  I looked into all of the available options for a portable digital audio recorder and eventually settled on an Edirol R-09HR. It didn’t take much trial and error to get really good recordings out of the thing. I think the little bastard is magical. It doesn’t look like much but it gives you BEAUTIFUL sound. The software that came with it (Cakewalk) was too much for me- I have zero experience with any of that stuff. Luckily my friend Sanford turned me on to an easy-to-use program for doing some editing called CoolEdit Pro. When I record, it is one long track from the first song to the last. I then use CoolEdit to cut it up into songs.

By poking around on the software I hope to someday learn how to actually mix and master things to make them sound even better, instead of just cutting them into songs. Without doing the extra mixing though, the recordings sound really good. Again, the little Edirol is basically a magic box that some crazy wizard created to make excellent-sounding recordings even if you know nothing about music production. It’s probably the greatest thing I’ve ever purchased.

Through some friends I found out that there’s another person in town (Robert Steel, who you can read a little about in the Some Say Leland post.) who does field recordings. He’s been doing it longer and has far more than I do. I plan to contact him about featuring some of his recordings on this blog. He uses the Zoom H2, same thing Nic Walker uses.

….Ah, I’d mentioned that Nic Walker started me on this whole recording business. He’s also the one who inspired me to create Annie Street Radio. When I heard his music and talked to him I learned that he doesn’t (or didn’t, back then) play very many shows and not very many people know about his music. Terrible. People NEED to know about his music. So Annie Street Radio came to mind as a way to feature his music and music from other really wonderful musicians who aren’t well known in the grand scheme of things.

The first live set we recorded for Annie Street Radio was Nic Walker. It sounded nice, but we’ve since done many more live sets and they sound fantastic now. So we’re having him back on December 11th from 7-9pm.

Nic now has a full band. When I heard he had a full band I likened it to when Bob Dylan went electric. Like many people, I generally prefer Dylan’s earlier folky acoustic stuff to his later electrified stuff. I envisioned Nic’s band being a full rock-n-roll band and losing a lot of the lo-fi songwriting genius I know as Nic Walker. I was scared, and I was wrong.

Yesterday I listened to a lot of Nic’s music. One of my very favorite songs of his is ‘3000 Miles.’ I was listening to that song yesterday and just had to book him for the radio show again. I went to his Myspace profile to hear what the new sound is like, and it’s great! Check out his song Sweet Wine at http://www.myspace.com/lalaquarry

Luckily I was able to reach him and we confirmed that he’ll do a live recording on December 11th for Annie Street Radio. You can tune in from 7-9pm Central at http://www.kaosradioaustin.org or download the show from the archives starting at 9pm, as soon as the show’s over. The archive will be hosted for about 2 months before being removed, so get it while you can.

So, Nic, thank you for the inspiration. Field recording is something I love to do and this is the guy who got me into it. I’m really looking forward to getting him back on the show.

—–Music—–

Listening to Nic’s music always makes me marvel at the stories he tells. Meeting him, you’d think he was born about half a century too late. He’s every bit the rambling hobo song craftsman you’d hope for, and his songs contain raw, beautiful and sometimes painful tales of people who may or not be figments of his imagination.

I swiped the following song from Nic’s Myspace page a while back so it’s Myspace quality, which means low bitrate. Doesn’t matter. The songwriting and delivery are still all there. You can hear Nic sing his song “3,000 Miles” here: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/22737

Another song of his I’m very fond of is “Dog Town County Fair”. You can listen here: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/22739

And last, Jenny’s Jelly Shoes can be found here: http://www.kaosradioaustin.org/node/22740

Here’s a video of Nic being minimally backed up by his band LaLaQuarry.