I traveled to NC last weekend, to spend a day with Jerry Kee at his Duck-Kee studio, recording vocals and drums for the upcoming Good Graces EP, “Bring on the Tambourines!” Had a wonderful time, got a great deal accomplished, and can’t wait to unveil the shinier, happier Good Graces to the world. Here are some photos of Jerry, his lovely cat Molly, and an old Superchunk tape. 

Jerry manning the boards

Molly

Superchunk tape

(a few more photos posted at Flickr)

This weekend I drove to NC to record some Good Graces tunes; I had been planning this for months was so excited about it all last week, as my day job had been giving me a fit and I was so looking forward to focusing on something else (that’s actually fun and productive!) for a couple of days.

Friday night I stayed at my parents’ house in Kings Mountain to split up the trip; got there in just enough time to eat a snack, attempt to take care of some work emergencies, then hit the sack. Managed to wake up early enough Saturday to make it to Mebane just around noon.

I had decided to split up the sessions, recording on Saturday with the esteemed Jerry Kee (who’s recorded most anybody who’s anybody in the NC indie scene… Superchunk, Kingsbury Manx, Polvo, and of course EKR’s Citified, and the list goes on and on), and then on Sunday over at Saxapahaw with my good friends Jay and Jane, from the band Velvet.

My goal for Saturday was to get three songs down, and we did just that. I started with the acoustic guitar and vocals, John showed up a couple of hours later to add his very tasty leads, then I added some percussion, hand claps and backing vocals, and we were done! I said my goodbyes to Jerry and Molly, then headed to Chapel Hill to meet Jay and Jane. It was great to see them and we walked over to Spotted Dog for some food and catching up. Ran into our old friend Bob there, which was a nice surprise too. After some really delicious vegetarian food we went over to our friend John’s house for his birthday cookout. John plays in North Elementary so we talked shop for a while, listened to music, talked about our current guilty pleasures (his is Jennifer Lopez, mine Jordin Sparks), and played with his dog Parker (who was totally awesome).

It was getting late so we headed on over to Jay and Jane’s place, which is a turn-of-the-century farmhouse in the middle of the woods! I knew as soon as I saw it that it was going to be a great weekend. I met their pets, Clara the dog and two cats Zoe and Puzzlina, and we listened to music for a bit before I crashed out on the couch.

Things got started Sunday around noon. I knew instantly this was going to be a very relaxed session; that’s what I enjoy about recording in someone’s home, it’s not stiff like some studios can be. We set up for guitar and vocals in one room, like we did at Jerry’s. I got to use Jane’s 1979 Guild acoustic for a couple of tunes which was sweet. Laying down the basic tracks happened pretty quickly, then we got to the fun stuff — drums, keyboards, odds and ends. I love adding little textures like that and find that it can really bring songs to life. And if you know me you know I’m a drummer, so I took advantage of the drumset they had for a few songs, even adding the whole set for one (I think that was the most fun I had all day!).

We played around with the tunes all day, Jay contributing some keyboard parts and Jane adding a bass line, then walked down to the lake behind their house. I was already jealous of their setup but they have a lake too??? That’s it, I’m moving in.

After we got back to the house we finished up one final keyboard part, then Jay did a rough mix for me. We ended up with four songs total, one more than I had intended. All in all it was a very productive and extremely fun weekend. All that’s left is a few tweaks, maybe some additional keyboard here and there, then final mixing! If all that goes well, I should have the finished debut Good Graces recording in about a month, yippee!!!

Last night I did something I haven’t done in several years, I drove out of town to play a show on a school night. The destination was Flicker Bar in Athens. I had never played there, and in fact it was actually my first show out of town with The Good Graces. I had contacted the venue sort of on a whim; John had suggested that I try to book a show there and at first I wondered “why would they want to book little ol’ me?” but then a month or so later I thought, why not, I’ll shoot them an email and see what happens.

Turns out they were incredibly sweet and receptive to the idea of my putting a bill together. So fast forward a month or so and I’m cursing the Atlanta traffic on 85-N and heading towards Athens with Michelle and Jenn (who were so cool to accompany me), hoping that I can make it to the gig on time.

I rolled in a little after 8 and instantly was greeted by Samuel and Matthew, aka Owlbear and Pony Bones. A pear cider and bag of popcorn later, Owlbear was playing a sweet set of quirky folk/pop that reminded me of a cross between The Mountain Goats and Neutral Milk Hotel. Michelle even went as far as to suggest that maybe he was actually Jeff Mangum (he wasn’t, but he did sound a good bit like him).

After Owlbear it was time for John and I to take the stage. Maybe it was the fact that I was playing out of town, in front of a very small crowd comprised mostly of strangers (rather than to a roomful of people I know), or maybe it was the pear cider (likely), but I was surprisingly very relaxed. I’m usually crazy nervous for the first few songs and then manage to finally calm down at the very end of my set, but I felt really comfortable from the very beginning.

Pony Bones went on after me and played a short but intense set of tunes that defy classification so I’m going to call it anti-psych-folk. He played some sort of guitar/banjo hybrid through a vox amp and it sounded really awesome.

Finally Jeremy Wheatley went on with some great mellow pop tunes a bit reminiscent of Elliott Smith with very cool drum machine programming.

After the show I met Jenn and Michelle over at the Grill for some late-night grub. Enjoyed a very tasty grilled cheese sandwich and then headed back to the ATL. I made it home around 2, to bed around 2:30. So needless to say I was ridiculously tired today, but I was able to push through because, quite frankly, I felt like a rockstar.

And when I say rockstar I don’t mean in the traditional sense. I think my feelings of rock stardom are slightly due to my trek up to Athens reminding me of the glory days when I was in a band in NC and we’d travel around whenever we had the opportunity, always looking for any new faces who appreciated indie music. Sometimes I feel a little too old to be doing that sort of thing now, but once every so often it’s pretty fun. But more than that, I’ve been thinking about my little project and just how much I’ve accomplished with it already. When I started The Good Graces I didn’t really have any plans other than to hopefully write a few pretty songs, play them on my porch in front of my dogs and maybe put them up on myspace. So everything that’s happened since then is just a bonus. When I played my first show and my friend John played right after me, and stood there on stage saying his set was to serve as his Good Graces audition, he may have been half joking. But the fact that he did agree to add his brilliance to my little songs, that’s just another bonus. Playing a couple of weeks ago in front of a group of close friends at my new favorite coffeeshop… yep, another bonus. Making plans to record with the legendary (he’ll be humble and say he’s not, but really, he is) Jerry Kee, big bonus. And finally, having the opportunity to go play in a really great little bar in a wonderful little town that’s known for having one of the music scenes ever, you got it, just another bonus. These things don’t add up to much but they’ve made me feel like a rockstar today. And that’s enough for me.