We met up at RACES’ rehearsal space downtown (which they happen to share with Milo Greene, another of the Los Angeles oft-mentioned) on a Saturday afternoon with the somewhat ambitious idea of tracking a couple off-the-cuff versions of songs from their upcoming debut album in the limited span of a couple hours they had (and amidst a flurry of touring both prior and immediately following this day). Ambitious mainly due to the idea of hauling up a studios-worth of equipment to try and set something up, that would suitably (or at least attempt to) capture their very full sound (by way of six members including three vocals). Thankfully, everyone managed to stay in pretty good spirits despite a rocky bit of pushing my little Pro Tools rack aggravatingly beyond its capabilities. Hopefully the results at least live up a bit to the band’s capaciousness. RACES is one of those bands that you can’t help but root for (success, exposure, recognition, in whatever measure or capacity), having watched them over the last year or so, they’re one of those truly cohesive rarities; musicianship and songwriting, boisterous live performances and deft lyrical craftsmanship, and an immediate sense of maturity (even at their earliest shows in the smallest rooms in LA, you know the kind where the band has to bring their own PA). It probably also helps that their some of the nicest, easy going people ever.

http://racestheband.com/

Camera: Chris Pope & Elliot Glass
Recorded by Elliot Glass
All Rights Reserved.

PAPA’s EP/12″ A Good Woman is Hard to Find it out now.

www.papatheband.com
@papatheband
www.facebook.com/papatheband

We met up at Christian’s place in Silver Lake on a Tuesday, the same place I’d filmed WATERS a couple months back, but this time we didn’t try and all cram into the kitchen. These days, PAPA is one of those bands that you keep hearing their name popping up everywhere (at least in LA), and while sometimes that buzz can come and go without much warrant, these guys are some of the few that truly deserve it. Impeccable musicianship aside, the songwriting is the band’s real strong point, managing to balance their super-catchy melodic hooks with a timelessness that still manages to feel current. All in all, it was still a bit ambitious to try and track the full band, who’s drum-centric drive isn’t exactly suited for stripped-down acoustic sessions, but for what it is I think it turned out alright.

Camera: Elliot Glass & Dave Smallen
Sound: Elliot Glass
All Rights Reserved.

A quick one-off we recorded at Mike’s house during pre-production for Ferraby’s upcoming album, an acoustic / demo of a new song. More to come from behind the scenes in the studio… Hard to believe it’s been two years since these wonderful songs.

“Desmond” by Ferraby Lionheart. Recorded live in Los Angeles. From the not yet titled album, due out in Fall, 2012. Footage shot and edited by Elliot Glass. Sound recording by Mike Edge.

I guess that about this time every year Jack Gibson will come to town with a fresh batch of songs, a new moniker, and a lineup of recognizable local players — last year it was Disaster Speaks with Avi of Avi Buffalo, this time back as Tenlons Fort featuring brother Will Courtney (who unfortunately had to skip town right before this session) — for a feverish month of shows and appearances (I think they averaged between two and three a week), and then, just as quickly, go disappearing back to Austin, leaving most of Los Angeles none the wiser. So it was a pleasure to be able to capture just a bit of that (thanks to John, who is now making his rounds in a third band on this site, and lets not forget the amazing Sheridan Riley), even if it wasn’t under the most ideal circumstances (by default we ended up filming at an hourly rehearsal studio up on Riverside Dr. while a predictably trapped-in-their-glory-days-which-was-probably-sometime-in-the-mid-nineties-thrash-metal band soloed away at an obnoxious volume in the next room).

Camera: Dave Smallen & Elliot Glass
Sound: Elliot Glass
All songs written by Jack Gibson
performed by Tenlons Fort
All Rights Reserved.

We are excited to share a new project we’ve started that we’re calling the “Covers Club.” It began as a diversion in the studio a few months back, when we decided to take a day off from our songs, and just for kicks come in and record a cover. It was a nice change of pace to arrive in the morning and leave with a finished song that night, and I think it helped reinvigorate us to push through the final days of work on our new record. We had such a great time, in fact, that we decided we should try and meet up once an month and do the same thing.

So after these first three songs, we’ll be releasing one cover every month, all of them for free through our website. This will go on until… well, we’re not sure exactly.

http://count-fleet.com/covers-club for more.

Cheers,
Elliot & Co.

We met up in Highland Park at the Cave Country House on a Friday evening. It was actually the day before they had to move out, so almost everything was packed up except for a few stray boxes and musical instruments (I was told that normally it was a full-fledged studio, yet to be determined where its future home would be). It was actually raining that day, but thankfully there was a bit of a break to drudge in all the recording gear (all the way down a rather steep, muddy and not-so-well lit setback to a hidden gem of a back apartment, where they’d set up a rather sparse drum kit and rhodes for the rhythm section).

I was pleasantly surprised to find Leslie (of said & the Badgers and numerous vocal appearances on local favorites, which are needless to say always amazing). James and her apparently didn’t even know each other prior to that day, and had actually been introduced for this recording by James’ manager, Warren (see previous post), who thought she’d be a great pairing vocally. Well, I’d say he pretty much hit the nail on the head with that one. Two strong vocal personalities like these don’t always mesh well, but when they do it’s really something special. And it certainly doesn’t hurt when the songwriting is this strong either. James has a genuine knack for catchy, sweeping melodies and a clever lyrical deftness, and though they may tend towards the grandiose in structure, there’s always this balance of intimacy and openness to the songs.

Find more @ http://www.jamesapollo.com/

Camera & Sound by Elliot Glass.
All Rights Reserved.

We met up at a friend of theirs house out in Eagle Rock on a Thursday night, tucked in an unassuming cul de sac not far off York. It was quite charming and cozy, but of course a bit cramped with a full five piece band, instruments, amps, and two cameras. Everyone was in graciously good spirits (if you’ve ever met any of these folks, you’d know they’re just about the nicest people ever), and on top of that they’d brought this amazing spread of Salvadorian food, beer, various juices. It was kind of incredible.

Going back to finally post this session, it dawned on me how strangely significant a seemingly inconspicuous Thursday night at the Redwood Bar last year ended up being. Put together by Warren (friend of many out here in LA, now in NY), it was a bit eclectic of a bill, including my own band, recent video alums The Driftwood Singers, LA newcomers Sue Scrofa, and Salt Petal closing out the night. A bit of an incestuous relationship in a way can actually be traced back to that night with Sue Scrofa, who we’ve shared a number of bills with since, and Tom (our keyboardists’) other band, Saint Sea Hat, similarly — not to mention Alyssa has since joined our mutual friends Letting Up Despite Great Faults (of course Mike was also there / met her that “fateful” night). That’s probably a tad confusing or at least off-topic if you don’t know all aforementioned parties. But the other amazing thing to come from that night was meeting Autumn and Rodrigo of Salt Petal (who as it turns out share a history of working with the beloved Raymond Richards) and who continue to be the genuinely nicest and most enthusiastic friends.

Historical diversions aside, this session strays from the typical indie and singer-songwriter fare to bring you a bit of hard-to-resist-psychedelic-Latin-Bossanova-inspired songs that will hopefully brighten your day.

Find out more at http://www.saltpetal.com

Camera: Dave Smallen & Elliot Glass
Sound: Elliot Glass
All Rights Reserved.

It was a Monday evening in Echo Park when we met up with the ladies and gents of The Damselles & The TC4 at Dave’s house (which turns out to be another one of those what-a-pain-it-must-have-been-to-get-that-piano-up-the-number-of-narrow-stairs-on-a-hill-craftsman-houses). Once we dragged all our stuff up there, it was a pretty leisurely setup and shoot (there was pizza and beer and a pretty general lack of hurriedness), as they made their way through five tunes.

First and foremost it’s pretty apparent that these guys are having a blast doing this, and for good reason. I mean, it’s pretty hard to resist that fun-loving, infectiously catchy 60′s girl-group pop, and they do it quite well (the band is made up of some very talented familiar LA players). But they also manage to bring a touch of modern character to the songs to keep it relevant (jealous lovers going through cell phones, worry over whether or not that special someone will email you). All in all it makes for a pretty great time.

Find them at http://www.facebook.com/damselles

Camera: Dave Smallen & Elliot Glass
Sound: Elliot Glass
All Rights Reserved

I met up with Chris (and Matt, who was there for a minute and played on one song) at his place in Silver Lake (which, it turns out is Orpheo from Edward Sharpe’s house that Chris happens to rent, and therefore has a pretty amazing rehearsal / studio space in the back.. that we didn’t end up using, but thought it was worth a mention). The South Bay native East Side transplants (familiar to yours truly, in fact by chance happened to live a block from my old place), had only just moved out a little more than a month before, yet somehow their place was immaculately moved-into. Despite being in the heart of Silver Lake, the place had a distinctly West Side bungalow feel, probably mostly due to the surf boards leaned against walls and polished mid century furniture. And there was pizza and beer (they’d recently been sent home each with a case of their choosing from a gig in Colorado as payment), so that’s always a plus.

Blonde Summer had just played the day before at the Eagle Rock Music Festival, and were gearing up for a trip to New York for CMJ, thankfully we were able to finally get together and do a session (we’d been talking about it since the beginning of the summer). I was (pleasantly) surprised when I heard they were going to do something completely stripped-down and acoustic (seems like these days bands are tending more and more to want to try a full band production around the videos, which was never really the intention of these sessions). For me anyway, it’s always more interesting when, especially a well-recorded / produced act, is willing to go a bit out of their comfort zone and do these sort of bare-bone renditions that leave the songs and songwriting to speak for itself. This session kind of reminds me of when Pheonix plays completely acoustic. These are upbeat, poppy, dance-y indie songs, reminiscent of someone like the Shout Out Louds, that you normally wouldn’t imagine in that singer-songwriter acoustic realm. Yet Mr. Pope completely owns it, and the songs completely hold up. Of course, it helps if you’ve got immediately catchy melodies and pitch-perfect singing.

Chris played four songs as the sun went down (quickly). You can actually see it getting darker through each number. Then we ate pizza and hung out.

Find Blonde Summer @ http://blondesummer.com/

Camera & Sound: Elliot Glass
All Rights Reserved.

We met up with Kelli and the gang at Raymond’s house on a Saturday morning. Kelli had recently finished working on her latest album (which she did with Raymond, Franck, Jordan, and a few other fine folks over at the Rancho Park studio-extraordinaire, Red Rockets Glare). We’d been talking about doing a session for a while, but she was leaning towards doing something with a bit more of a full band in line with the recordings, so arranging schedules etc made things complicated (versus previous Miniature Soap live incarnations which would tend to be just Kelli and an ukelele or acoustic guitar). Turns out getting together was the hardest part, since once we were all in the same room they breezed right through these three songs (one was said solo acoustic). It was also made especially easy for myself, since Raymond was doing the recording / mixing.

Although musically tending more towards straightforward indie pop, there’s something a bit reminiscent of Annie Clark under Kelli’s vocal delivery and endearingly charming poetry, which at any moment may shift from sincere to sarcastic, hopeful to dark and even a bit disturbing. She’s a gifted storyteller; the words are always center stage as they deftly weave between immediately hummable and catchy refrains.

Check out Miniature Soap’s latest album (released in three miniature segments), at miniaturesoap.bandcamp.com

Camera: Dave Smallen & Elliot Glass
Recorded & Mixed by Raymond Richards.
All Rights Reserved.