The Week[end] in Rock: 11/12 – 11/20

Was:
Fri 11/12 gig with Hey Stranger at National Underground. The venue treated us very poorly and barely had their shit together. Super Mirage was so good! We crammed in 6 songs before they through us out. It was basically a basement show with an overpriced bar, but great people stayed to watch.
Sat 11/13 gig with The Hard Times in strong island. Suprisingly cool crowd, lots of dancing, bittersweet send off for Juan (bassist leaving for LA). Got noticed as a CTSka Alum. Accidental EP release party for “Two Bucks For Bob.” Details to come. I’m so impressed how fast The Frighteners have created a crowd and a following for themselves.
Sun 11/14 recording with Hey Stranger out in Queens. I sat in the producer chair for day 2 of horn recording. Really proud of what we got done today, lots of energy from the players today. Here’s a video I snapped on the ol’ blackberry of our horns bustin’ their asses.

Recording Update

The yet-to-be-named Hey Stranger recording is now 7 months along and more importantly about half way done. We joke about this being the band’s Chinese Democracy, but given the limitations of time, the availability of bandmates, our engineer and the studio, we’re not doing half bad. We started off in March and April with drums and bass and by summer we were recording vocals and guitars. Vocals and guitars I thought would wake the longest just given there’s more of them than anything else (lead vocals, backing vocals, clean ska guitars, distorted punk guitars, lead guitars, etc).

It’s been a really unique experience for me given that besides our loyal engineer and friend, Dave, I’ve been at more sessions than any other person. I’ve only missed one weekend of recording for a work commitment and the fact is it was probably for the better that I wasn’t there. I really enjoyed sitting in the producer seat for the times when I was there, judging takes, pushing people to play better, suggesting ideas and tackling the unexpected hiccups that come up along the way. I think from the start I wanted to be there for the whole thing and really own that producer role. However, it’s a Hey Stranger record, not a Jake record and I think not being there was good for the process. It was a heavy weekend with a lot to do and it means anything recorded that weekend was done in a different different atmosphere with a different vibe. These things matter. I will admit that it’s a little weird to have yet heard everything that was done during those sessions (I’ve gotten spoiled, our poor horn players haven’t heard much of anything yet!) so I’m somewhat nervous, but I have to trust the process and the creative minds that were present… and be prepared with a drink when I finally hear the mixes.

What’s left? A few small things have to be done on guitars and vocals but nothing that couldn’t be done in a couple hours. I actually have to go back and re-record bass. We got this far before realizing I’d screwed up playing a bars in one song. Then we just have to cram the horns into our Queens’ sweatshop. I’m very psyched though it just makes me that much more impatient to finish this record. I’m happy with the progress we’ve made and I think things sound great so far because we haven’t just rushed into completing anything.

We’ve been doing our best (we could be doing better, let’s be real) to blog and video blog about our time in the studio. We’ve got two videos so far with clips from recording, some goofy commentary and a lot of shirtless drummer.

I’m actually in the first clip, the background music is just from our demos we did back in March 2009. Download them now before we completely bury them:

I’m not in this second clip (it was recorded the weekend I wasn’t there) but it’s pretty funny and all the background music are rough mixes from the sessions:

The playlist I’ve been working to all day is about as manic as I’ve felt all day. More updates to come…

NYC Hearts JWM (And Vice Versa)

Check out this lo-fi clip of The Hard Times, me on riddim guitar, playing the rock ‘n’ roll classic “Kansas City” with Vic Ruggiero, lead singer/songwriter and keyboard player for The Slackers. He also played keys for Rancid and countless others.

Only in NYC and Brooklyn would something this crazy happen. I can’t tell you how cool of an experience this was given how many times I’ve seen him play with The Slackers (and solo for that matter) and at so many different venues. But here in NYC, these things just seem to happen to me. Ageny Jay (guitarist for The Slackers) was spinning all night which just added to it.

I’ve had the chance to play with members of The NY Ska-Jazz Ensemble, King Django, Victor Rice (playing songs like “Simmer Down” and “Drum Song”), The Scofflaws, to name a few, just because I’ve hung around late enough at the Knitting Factory. WTF?

It’s gonna take a lot to ever get me out of this town. More clips below the jump.

Duff Guide To Ska Reviews Hey Stranger

The great people over at Duff Guide To Ska had some great things to say about Hey Stranger‘s recent set at The Knitting Factory at the last Version City Party. Be sure to visit their site for a wide range of news from the ska world, not just in the NYC area.

Hey Stranger delivered a great set of their tight, high-energy ska-punk-pop tunes. Clearly, they were having a blast on stage and so was the audience, which seemed to be heavily stacked in their favor. Trombonist Ginger Hale (“heartthrob” according to their MySpace page), the most uninhibited and irrepressible member of the band, may have had the most fun of all (and his performance was strangely riveting–notice how in the videos I shot that I usually placed him in the center of the frame…).

They also snagged some great video clips!

Video Clip of The Hard Times from 2010: Reggae Odyssey

The following clip of The  Hard Times was recorded on Fri. Jan 8 at 2010: A Reggae Odyssey by Tim from The Equlibrians. This was our take on the classic “Waap You Waa” by The Upsetters

Hey Stranger “One More Time” [disco content within]

Ok so it’s more just pop/dance than disco but it’s still a damn party. Thanks to Suburban Legends, because I think they really taught us that we could get away with stuff like this.

Filmed live at Sullivan Hall on 8/19/09. There’s more here.

Deadly Dragon Sounds Reviews The Hard Times

Deadly Dragon Sounds had very nice things to say about The Hard Times. Yes, that’s me in the first pic, and yes that’s Roy Radics of Rudie Crew in the second pic and the video. The audience FREAKED when he joined us on stage for a few bars.

Next up was the band HARD TIMES.

These guys were NUTS!!! The band is totally instrumental and, at least to my untrained ears, sounded like a combination of Ska / surf guitar / early reggae with some fuzztone garage stuff mixed in!!! I don’t know what really to call it and since I don’t know the language of how to describe musicians and musicianship, let’s just say, it was super fun music played with a ton of energy and great vibe. At a certain point our man ROY RADICS of the RUDIE CREW jumped onto the stage with HARDTIMES and let loose a display of his DJ talents…flipping it inna UK / fast chat style that had me bawling for forwards!!!!

[The third picture is actually a video. Visit the original post for a video link. It's worth it.]