Seattle Subsonic

C-Leb n A-Bro – Broke Downtown, the story of an LP

January 13th, 2009

So I don’t know how really taboo it is for a writer to post a review on their own album, so let me throw out an immediate disclaimer that this is not for shameless self promotion. This review is to show multiple inside aspects of the painstaking joy it is to be a musician in Seattle… and:
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1. To tell the story (it’s like my therapy).
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2. I’m my own worst critic… I think?
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3.The hours and money that is spent to make just one LP DIY.
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First off I’d like to thank Kevin for letting me do this because I was supposed to have this done when we released it at Zombie Prom back on Halloween 08. And I seriously would have but the end of 08 kicked my ass literally and I kinda dropped off the face for a moment… So Kevin I’m back and thanks.
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So let me start by going back to 2002 when I was in a little unknown band called altaRego here in Seattle. We played good old rock-n-roll and a ridiculous amount of shows. And we even had a few good moments like opening up for The Fixx at the Fenix Underground, and making countless contacts and friends that carried us through the duration even still. We played together for 5 years and even lived in the same house together for 2 of it. So needless to say by the time it was said and done we had 50+ songs, a ton of fights, even more drugs and alcohol, 15 songs recorded rather badly, and owed a small indie label called Double Dos money which we could never repay. I say badly because we recorded a one thru live session at the Art Institute with the dear Joanne Castillio and then overdubbed the rest. Not a good idea if you want it done right, or quickly, but totally not her fault. We had other recording sessions but never had the money to carry it through the way it needed to be done and so the unfinished recordings remain on a hard drive untouched or mixed to this day. Regardless, girlfriends and drama superseded our ability to keep the band together and I could see it coming. The story of every band right… right.

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During all of this I had already been working with several Roland sequencers and samplers and was incorporating beats and samples into our sets, all in moderation though as I didn’t want that to become the mainstay of the show. Tension escalated in the band, gigs were drying up and rather than play a last show… we canceled it and chose not to split up, but instead take an indefinite hiatus until we either could get along as a group or get our shit together in life… which ever came first. Neither has…
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After the split I moved from the “band house” in Northgate into a couple apartments with a GF and finally out on my own and into a spot overlooking the city on Capitol Hill across the freeway from the REI. BTW for you BF’s and GF’s that have ever lived with a musician without a band its just about the most self-loathing, suffocating, fucking depressing thing you can imagine. So I knew better than to go stagnant and was keeping busy with a local group called The International Heroes and working sound at in-store performances and the Queen Anne Silver Platters.
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Almost on the day I moved into the apartment on Capitol Hill I get a call from my GF and after a dramatic premise… we find she is 3 months pregnant… So, with a baby on the way, band in demise, brain on the brink, and absolutely no fucking money at all… “Broke Downtown” begins to evolve.
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A-Bro or Abraham was the drummer in altaRego, and he and I never stopped jamming, writing material and trying to keep the dream alive throughout the duration of this. And in the meantime we had become good friends with a local promoter, and his soon to be girlfriend Lauren Barbarella took the reigns on helping us understand the power of publishing music with her agency Tall Girl Publishing. She published a few works of altaRego and other bands around the area like Missing Players and Lowenbad, and with her knowledge at my back and a few ideas of what we could do as a band. A-Bro and I set suit into creating an onstage entertainment rather than the classic musical performance. And as the dramatics in my life becoming more of a reality every day I set pen to paper over 25¢ PBR’s at the Metropolitan Cafe nighttime happy hour, and started dumping lyrics out like blood, actually I think literal blood did come out during this time. Soon after we played our first “test” gig at Bob’s Java Jive in Tacoma, it was good, but it needed more.
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With a handful of songs recorded on a home Pro Tools system (Digi 001 for you tech geeks) I was in desperate need of guitar lines which I was unable to perform myself at the time. Plus I needed a fresh set of ears so I called on an old friend Adrian Esguerra (formerly of The Glasses and Spyplane) to check out the tracks and sit in. He added a minion of notes and helped navigate the songs to a new level, and soon after we played our second gig at the Showbox Market. But this time we added dancers and visual effects to make a much larger impact and show. More gigs ensued and soon we found ourselves repeating old habits of playing shows with no product to let people take home.
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So I took the songs that were furthest along in recording, tracked Adrian’s parts and over a two week period forced myself to stay up countless hours to finish the first three song demo of the LP yet to come. Along with that came the first version of the artwork, which if you notice the picture in the background is overlooking Seattle from Melrose Ave. on Capitol Hill… that was my deck view and pretty much the only scenery I was getting those days.
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Right about then came my baby girl Lexi Paige born April 1st 2007, but not before I sampled her heartbeat during a routine ultrasound sometime about the beginning of the third tri-mester and later incorporated it into the beginning of track 5 on the LP appropriately called “Lexi Paige.” And yea I know, an April fools baby, try sending that text out NOBODY believes you.
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In lou of everything going on we took a small break, but were antsy to get back out there and soon started playing gigs again. Adrian had growing aspirations to do his own thing and break away from the trials and errors of the live shows, and ironically one of the last shows he played with us was at Neumos where we shared the stage with one of the most amazing female talents I’ve seen, Bee Simonds. Bee and I had a mutual admiration of each others work and soon became good friends.
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And at this point (I know I know get to the point) in this ridiculously long story, to which I have yet to even start critiquing my own work, I want you to understand I originally had written all of the songs with female vocals in mind… actually several of the songs I intended to only have a female voice. It was complete musical luck that Bee would grace us with her presence and agree to record her voice on the unfinished tracks. I knew I had to work fast so I called Adrian back up for one last recording session and K2 from Double Dos came back to save us by engineering the recordings for that session out of his house. Keep in mind we took probably ten takes per song and later I cut and pasted every part into place including layers and effects.
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Later we would do the same thing with Bee’s voice, and I would cut and paste her voice into the songs you hear today. ALOT OF TIME AND LISTENING went into doing this… were talking countless hours… mainly because we did it all DIY, which means you either spend the year it took to complete the LP or you pay somebody to do it and split the time in half. Either way it goes right back to the old saying… time is money. Lucky for me I had the equipment to mix it in the can (on the computer) and spent the time to do so.
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Come April 08 A-Bro and I were lucky enough to have have a great circle of friends and peers pull together to invite us to play Halloween Zombie Prom 2008 and we decided to make that our LP release date. But with the date set and booked we still didn’t have a finished product… Several of the songs still needed tracking and fills, and technically we didn’t have enough money to actually press even 1000 copies. So I literally took almost 3 full weeks off work and sat in A-bro’s house recording, mixing, tweaking, adjusting, full on overhauling until we finally had what we wanted with only two weeks till release time.
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At this point were almost totally broke, and we hate all of our songs… I mean, to actually write and record your work DIY you have listen to it SOOOOO fucking much that by the time the product is done you don’t really know whats good or bad… you just know your done with it and you have to trust your ear, and that’s what we did. Plus the drummer in Bee’s band Jeff Gall came through in a pinch with mastering plug-ins he made available to us, and we sat at his place for another 3 days trying to master out the final version… serious trial and error there. Must have burned 30 discs trying to get it to sound right in everything we put it in. FINALLY were done with no more that 1 day to spare for final deadline. Lucky for us my babies mama (Rawkin Betty) had hooked us up with Copycats Media who had just started featuring digital download cards along with CD duplication at their little company. It was an easy decision for us, the cards were 1000 for $400 with a 1 week turnaround and CD’s were 1000 for $1300 with a 3 week turnaround… no brainer.
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Halloween came… and after 7 long years, 1 kid, two bands, and all sorts of drama we released our first LP with 9 songs… and there you go, thats the story building up to my critique of this album. And I don’t really know whats good or bad about it, I just know how long it took and how much sacrifice was put into it… So here it is… “Broke Downtown.”
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Song 1: Broke Downtown
[audio:http://www.seattlesubsonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/01-broke-downtown.mp3]
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This song is not only the first track and the album title, its also the song we spent the most time on. I originally intended for it to be on the demo but when the time came it just wasn’t where it needed to be to make the cut. I actually like the song but its really long at like 6+ minutes and it went through about 20 different versions before the final one emerged. For starters Adrians guitar lines were great but very ambient and droning and I could hear a funkier guitar line throughout, so I wrote the intro guitar and spliced it into song. Also both the guitar and Bee’s vocals were in about 15 different takes, and performed different throughout the entire recording. So I dissected the parts until I found what sounded best and layered them together to get the final mix. And the final vocal line where I’m singing the “reason to live, reason to die” part was never in any of the original tracks… The last 2-3 minutes was just really dragging so I added it later to help add life back into it. The beat still drags a bit for me, in hindsight I would have broken them up and changed kits a couple times but at some point you just have to let it go. And if you’ve ever seen us live I sampled the preacher from the movie Superfly and use it to help build the drama and impact of the song… But I couldn’t get rights to use the sample so it got left out of the recording. For me the first 2 minutes and last 2 minutes are really good… I really like the way the beat drops in the beginning… its smooth and cool, like when you walk into a room full of freinds on a good night. After that I get lost a bit and it doesn’t come back for me till the end. On to the next song…
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Song 2: Whao Oh
[audio:http://www.seattlesubsonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/02-whao-oh.mp3]
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This song was actually on the demo and the only change I made to it was to add Bee’s vocals. I like the song and its fun to play, however it also immediately genre’s into the “techno” category. Which I guess is ok but thats not the only sound I was shooting for. Plus I’ve heard it like 40 million times so its old for me. Lyrically in comparison (to the other songs) I feel it is well written, I had alot of drama going on when I wrote it so the personal meaning goes back to the blood spilled at the Metro Cafe. The mix is ok as well, Adrians guitar line is epic to me, however from time to time I get this “Postal Service” feel from the intro of the song that makes me cringe… Not that I don’t like the Postal Service I was just really trying to avoid sounding like any other electronic bands that are currently out there. Also in the middle of the song you hear this breakdown of some type of distorted synth, but if you’ve never seen us live you’d never know I’m teeing off a sampler and using an infra red pitch shifter to navigate tones… so its kinda meaningless, good thing its short… NEXT!
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Song 3: Somethings Wrong
[audio:http://www.seattlesubsonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/03-somethings-wrong.mp3]
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I wish I had the original version A-bro and I came up with to show comparison. This song changed drastically from the way we were performing it live to what it eventually became recorded. I’m sure all artists struggle with this part of their songs, on stage the song rules and the energy is incredible, and the recording just can’t do it justice… this was one of those songs. The intro sample came probably three weeks before the deadline and the beats were nothing like what we originally intended. Don’t get me wrong I like how it came out, its just not the same. Even the original lyrical delivery had a harder hip hop approach, but when we recorded it sounded thin and weak… The preaching breakdown I sing was like a shot in the dark that I pulled out of my ass after watching spoken word contests on Youtube. Bee’s vocals and the harmonica were just two days recording and mixing, and her voc’s cut a bit hard on the first chorus but that’s not her fault, just bad production on my part. I should have taken more time to meld our voices together but the clock was ticking so it didnt happen. Basically we had an idea for a song and this is a distant cousin of that. The lyrics are all about a relationship I was in and even they were last minute… I really don’t know how we pulled this song off at all, and its really hard to play live. Development for this was over a year, recording was like 3 days… ya… NEXT!
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Song 4: The Skillz
[audio:http://www.seattlesubsonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/04-the-skillz.mp3]

Before I even comment on this, I think the song has fantastic potential, I just didn’t give it the time it needed to become what it could be… That in mind… I ripped off the Pet Shop Boys lyrically. Its monotone vocal style could have used better delivery. It lacks soul which I could have added but ran out of time and couldn’t do anything with. Its completely unchanged from the original demo version so I’m so over it. Theres a breakdown in the middle where I’m pitch shifting the vocals through a sampler but you’d never know it from the recording. Adrian’s guitaring is great, but I never added Bee to this song, and I’ve heard her sing it and its f’n great… so to know the potential I’m kinda pissed the song is the way it is… but oh well we were out of time when it dropped…
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Song 5: Lexi Paige

[audio:http://www.seattlesubsonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/05-lexi-paige.mp3]
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This song is crazy to me… first its named after my daughter. And the swishing sound in the beginning is a sample of her heartbeat still in the womb during an ultrasound. The guitar line is badass, and I should have added a live drum kit to the whole track but overall it turned out great. I kinda wish we would have had a few more takes for the guitar solo though. And the final EQ off the master doesn’t give the bass lines justice… The song overall is what I wanted though and with a little more time and equipment it jumps off the page as a single for sure…
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Song 6: Dozen Times

[audio:http://www.seattlesubsonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/06-dozen-times.mp3]
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So I have this crazy tendency to predict events in my life musically before they happen… and this song would be one of those moments. When I wrote it I had no idea why, and later the songs relativity came to fruition for me… Its a ballad, sang badly, sappy, a whistle solo?.. and its total singer songwriter BS but the song really has meaning for me… and even though it doesn’t have Adrian, Bee, A-Bro or electronics on it at all it breaks the up the album. I wasn’t going to include it at all but A-Bro convinced me to put it on, and I’m glad he did. And to the person to whom the song concerns they know as well as I do how true it rings…
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Song 7: Never Again
[audio:http://www.seattlesubsonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/07-never-again.mp3]
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Wow so this song has so many levels its hard to describe… For starters its the most boring song in the fuckin world to play live. But recording wise its written great. I’m probably most proud of the transformation that took place with this song. Bee’s vocals are phenomenal, and the lyrics are good too. It’s one of the few songs on the LP that has real depth and the gist was written over 25¢ PBR’s. However the “change me, face me” part came within the last two weeks of mixing and recording. And even though its a little boring and lulls in parts the overall structure is good and to the point. The original version of this song was a lot different, slower and really wordy. I’m glad this song got overhauled before we finished it and probably one of my favorites to listen to on the album, I just hate playing it live…
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Song 8: One Peice

[audio:http://www.seattlesubsonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/08-one-peace.mp3]
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Four different recording sessions finished this song, and not at the same time. This was actually the first song I recorded at all and not by myself. Michelle Vega was taking audio engineering classes at the Art Institute and needed a project. So I took my beat machine down and tracked it in one of the studio’s there. I called Adrian while I was in the session and asked him to come down and throw some guitar on it, and that’s the hook you hear on the LP. Later he wound up hating the line and tried to change it, but I went back to his original idea… it was just too good to leave out. The beat is one of A-Bro’s favorite and mine too, although it needs more EQ work to bring the song to full potential. Not bad though considering none of the parts were actually rehearsed like the finished product sounds. Actually almost none of the songs were performed or rehearsed like they sound on the LP, most were mixed and relearned later.
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Song 9: Early Summertime Blues #2

[audio:http://www.seattlesubsonic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/09-early-summertime-blues-2.mp3]
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So earlier in 2008 before we released the LP nadamucho.com and Global Seepej Records picked the first version of Early Summertime Blues to be on their “Sounds from Seattle’s Underground” compilation album along with bands like Head Like a Kite and Katherine Hepburns Voice. And the only reason we released a #2 is because somehow when the compilation came out… somebody added a #1 to the end of the title of the song… I don’t know who or how, but we had to release a #2. Which the only real difference between the two is A-Bro added live drums to the second version. Other than that this is one of my favorite songs on the LP, and the most fun to play for sure. The harmonica has always been a second instrument so this was really down home for me on so many levels. The song is a little depressing, but so is spring to summer in Seattle sometimes and that’s why I wrote it. And the choir sample in the beginning and end came from an outdoor volunteer choir I happened across one day and sampled them off my phone… In the future I plan to write more in this direction for sure.
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All in all the LP isn’t bad, especially considering it cost less than $1000 all together, but took probably over 1000 hrs to finish. All of the effects were recorded pre, which means I recorded each sound with the effect already on it instead of adding it later. I used an older version of Pro-Tools with no plug-ins to mix the whole album, and some of the recording and mastering was done on a slightly nicer system. Vocal effects were off a little Alesis mixer and a midiverb with a little reverb added. And my buddy Ben Fear loaned me the CD turntable and a Strat for the live shows and recording. We still owe our publisher $500 for t-shirts she had printed up, and we haven’t made more than $100 back from sales. But we also haven’t marketed to radio stations, magazines/papers, review websites, or labels because we ran out of money and are doing it all ourselves. Its alot of work making an album, but in the end I’m just gonna turn around and do it again this year… LOL… cuz were still fuckin broke downtown…