The Lousy Bums -
One of the first local punk bands i got into was the
Lizards. Fast, stupid, blurry, drunken, toys-r-us core. Everything from Sesame Street to the Ramones, and all in between. Now Dave Downey has a new band called the Lousy Bums. Not only is there a Lizard in this band, but there is also Ed, from Los Huevos. (and you could tell, he still uses his same amp.) But wait, Jaz from the Helper Monkeys plays drums for this band as well! all star lineup. Ed's lady, Kim, plays some mean bass for this band too. the makings of a fun band to follow.
I got the chance to record them in the "house of the monkey". this is the same place that the Helper Monkeys practice at, so i knew the room already and what to expect.
First was the snare drum. before it sounded like a flat box. there wasnt much tone to it and definatly no pop. just a thud. so i fliped it over adn tightened the bottom side lugs and then the top ones. the top ones were actualy as tight as i could get em. we put a ring on it and man it soudned sooo much better. there was nice attack and a pop and still had some depth to it. rad. so we got the snare going and moved onto the kick drum.
i didnt have any problems getting a good sound, i started by removing the front head so i could get right in there, got close. a little to clicky and not enough whomph. so we pulled it back about halfway in and there it was.
the toms sounded fine. i used my current settup (kick, d112, snare, sm57, mk219's on the toms) again. this time i realy paid attention to what the tom/overhead mics were getting. i close mic'd the toms, but since they are condenser mics i used them to get some cymbals too. works pretty good. all this run through some light compression, jsut enough. and we were all set for guitars.
Daves guitar amp was out in the hall, while the bass guitar cab was in the drum room. we pointed it to the corner and mic'd it up. the guitar cab i turned way up, but i set the mid's to 10 and brought up the lows/highs up a little.
so after getting the basic tracks done, we moved on to Eds guitar takes. I used a 57 up close and a mk219 about 3-4 feet back. ran them to two tracks for that cool stereo sound that i did with the helper monkeys. cool.
after that solos and vocals went fine with no problems. On "cute and easy", a song Ed sings, i got him to double the vocal part up. i just asked him "do it again!" and i ran it to a spare track. came out nice that way. i think a lot of musicians, especialy those who dont geek out like me about recording, love little tricks like that. makes em think i know what im doing, which, maybe i do? not sure yet.
