{Retro}spective pt II
Getting caught up on all that life throws at you, you tend to forget how you got to where you are. A Recent interview I had this weekend for an article about the Studio made me recall some memories of my home in Milan, and my early attempts at capturing music. I was an awkward kid in High School, didn’t really date or hang out with the popular people. Thanks to my family and my friends, music was my thing… it was OUR thing.
My basement in Milan became a focal point for creativity (and the source of few tickets for violating the Village Noise ordinance). We realized that having a place to “record” and practice was only as good if we had something to perform, so… guitarist friend Steve & I flew to Florida for spring break our Junior year, did we hit the beach and Ft. Lauderdale party scene? Nope, we hung out poolside with his acoustic guitar writing songs while spring break was erupting all around us. We wrote something like a half dozen-or-so songs in between trips to a small restaurant to write lyrics.. Just before leaving Florida we stopped at a pawn shop, and found our early studio’s first mixing board. A late 1980′s 16 Channel Sound Craft that had a great hard case to carry it in. We bought it without even seeing it work (inherently dangerous notion, but we were young and risky musicians). Got this rickety board back to the basement in Milan and started to wire it all together. We built our own monitors, several speaker cabs… used a little CD/Tape player (boom box) to capture everything off the board.
Think this is nonsense? check out this Video: Before the Mohawk- Our studio in High School (I’m playing bass running the mixing board)
That was where we spent most of our time when we weren’t in school, it was DIY in the most sincere form. Not fancy.. prob very dangerous (did you know any electricians while in High School? neither did we)
actually down right dirty, damp, and cold- but, it was where I found myself making what would become an obsession.
Back to us being a band… well, we recorded a bunch of tracks, (none have survived the years to my knowledge) We rocked the High School Talent Show, leaving with 4th place- To this day we are good friends with fond memories of that basement. I’ve now a new appreciation for those days.. for they were the Spark, that got my fire going.
Carpe Noctem my friends,
Shawn
