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The Making of Pollyanna Loves Cassandra
Bringing Pollyanna and Cassandra together has not been easy. As you can imagine, this is not a match made in Heaven. A year in the making, it took over 2000 hours of labor.
Limited time, limited resources, limited equipment, and unlimited naiveté kept this affair in a state of anticipation for over two years. An early aborted attempt back in the summer of Y2K, like a bad blind date, nearly squelched the spark for good. But true love is stubborn, and Pollyanna was once again courting Cassandra by July of 2001. That’s when Bryan Nelson approached John Shipe Band on-stage at Eugene’s Art in the Vineyard, and said: "You guys have a great sound! I want to record you."
It was suppose to be a mere demo. Five songs, carefully selected and designed to impress some record label executive who might sneak us onto his roster between Britney Spears and Creed. But on second thought, we had a better idea: "Let’s do seven songs and release an EP!"
Better yet: "Let’s do twelve songs and release an album!"
Our first sessions drew the raw, skeletal sketch of a live rock-and-roll band: the power trio—Dyson’s drums, Jerry Groove’s bass, and my guitar & voice. (Jessica Kennedy’s keyboard parts were still to come.) We ground out three reels’ worth of basic tracks. Then it was time to break for our September tour.
That tour would be our last. We embarked for Montana on September 11th, the day the Western World was brutally sabotaged. It no longer seemed important to be driving all over the Great Northwest with our gear packed into a Subaru Loyale wagon. After our first show in Missoula was cancelled without notification, we just wanted to come home and crawl back into bed with our warm feminine counterparts.
When we finally returned home in late September, we had a new plan: "Let’s record all 31 songs we know, release that double CD we’ve always dreamed about, and never tour again!" It was a unanimous decision.
Of course, with this new ambitious plan, we had to raise our standards, so we scrapped everything we had already recorded, and started anew. Bryan, a hitherto amateur hobbyist recording engineer, announced: "Well, Okay. If you’re gonna raise the bar, then I’m gonna raise the bar." Over the next few months, Epicenter Studios acquired several new microphones, 24 tracks of Digital Recording and Editing capability, the fastest computer in the West, and a 1950 Martin acoustic guitar.
We started delving into things we don’t know much about. Aside from the mystifying technical aspects, we were shamelessly blending up the music. 31 songs can get quite tedious if there isn’t enough variety, so we spiced up the album with a little bit of everything: rock / funk / hip-hop / trip-hop / rave / punk / industrial / gospel / Middle Eastern / blues / beat poetry / acid jazz / metal / opera / space / 80’s new wave / grunge / trance / surf / R&B / psychedelic / swing / Indian / Latin / Americana / pop / opera / film music / folk / orchestral...
We would throw in everything but the kitchen sink, country, and reggae. Our model would be The Beatles’ White Album, as we embedded all these musical elements into a series of distinctive songs, while still leaving some room for all-out experimental madness.
The helpers, like Santa’s elves, would parade through the project, creating just the right ambience. Ehren Ebbage with his guitar, vocal harmonies, and ingenious arrangement advice. Tim McGlaughlin blowing brass. Portland Diva Stephanie Schneiderman crooning the female lead on "When I Am King." Elisabeth Babcock bringing her cello back into the fold (which so many people enjoyed on our last album). What we didn’t expect was such a definitive contribution from Jessica Plotkin. (Her viola and impeccable cantor’s voice found comfy spots all over the album.)
And there are surprise snippets from distant past recording sessions. Bryan was sharpening his sense for finding just the right spot to fly something in from any recorded medium—vinyl, cassette, VHS, and his answering machine. (I might find myself owing royalties to colleagues from my good ol’ days.)
As the creative boundaries ever-expanded like the Inflating Big Bang Universe, we found ourselves making an "R-rated" album. Yes, there is some "adult content," which is probably Cassandra’s fault. We might have to put a warning label on it. However, unlike the record industry, we intend for actual adults to enjoy this stuff. We aren’t hypocritically marketing this to twelve-year-old MTV-watching children, while slapping a "Parental Advisory" label on it just to make it especially inviting. There’s a well-thought-out reason for every mature theme and every bawdy line. So, if you’re too young to drive, chances are you won’t quite construe Pollyanna Loves Cassandra in the same way it was intended. (But you’ll still love it, because it rocks!)
After the Holocaust (Disaster as Personal Metaphor Trilogy, Part II)
Innocent bystanders could not understand the basic tracking of the this
tune.
Amy: "If I were listening to this album, I would fast forward
through this song."
Bryan: "Yeah, I just can’t get into the rhythm… That repeated
‘da-ta,da-ta…"
Dyson, always proud, explains that the difficulty is in the fact that
people just haven’t heard much like this before. That leaves me wondering
if we’re actually trying to break new ground. A strange thought.
I also worry that we’re just doing something that doesn’t work very well.
I explain that the lyrics, melodies, and padding textures will help provide
context. For most of our tunes, the groove and bass line are primary.
Not here—Holocaust is meant to be an eerie, almost Gregorian sensation.
Better off Without You
A near disaster. We’ve rehearsed and played this tune at least
500 times, and we find that the Bass and Kick are a 16th beat off on the
important accents. We had no idea. This song runs on raw emotional
fuel, so we never examined the accuracy of the hits of this and that and
the other thing.
Dyson said it’s no problem. Ran the whole tune through his headphones,
and played one solid dead on take with one kick hit moved a 16th note over
in every other measure. Much tighter song—same rock emotion.
I wasn’t exactly sure how to play the guitar on this. Jerry’s very
intuitive, pushes the song forward. Are those bass notes falling
in between the 16th’s?
Crawlspace
Dyson cleaned this up spic-n-span. All of those fun crazy fancy things are gone. A mature drummer to make these decisions on his own. He kept a funky Chili Peppers syncopation throughout main vamp, but plays it thoroughly straight in the verse. He used to disagree about straight quarters on chorus, but now he seems to thrive on ‘em. The space he created in this song will be useful; we’ve got room to add anything.
Dyson Jam (Rock & Roll Is Supposed To Be Fun)
Neither brain surgery, nor rocket science. We were planning to invent the other parts later. Jerry didn’t even have a bass line. No lyrics either. Just a vague sense that the message and subtitle would be: "Rock and Roll is supposed to be fun." That’s our justification for doing such a "non-tune." (As an old Renegade Saint once said, "Every song doesn’t have to be the bible.)
Jerry-Groove states his misgivings: "It’s just four chords and a drum beat." Oh, ye of little faith. We’ll come up with something.
He worked on an overdubbed bass line, shaving off notes with every pass. Even Jerry, who likes things straight-forward and grooving, has trouble sticking with the basics. "Keeping it simple" is easier said than done. Think Ramones. This is very 80’s.
We thought he had it. Dyson shows up, unhappy with it, and says, "What’s wrong with whole notes on the down beats." He was right.
But by now, Jerry has left for New Zealand, so I have to lay the part
down. Bryan and I decide to circumvent the charade that I am a real
bass player, by making the new, dumbed-down part sound less like a Bass
Guitar—more like a nebulous undefined low tone. But, we decide to
leave Jerry’s real kick-ass-bass in on the verses.
If You Were Me
Dyson originally has some colorful tom hits thrown into the basic
hook groove. Out of context, they’re great, but with the guitar hook
in there, it creates competing accents. Thoroughly confusing the
hip action of anybody trying to dance to this tune. We left
those toms in for the intro and the break, but had to remove them to make
room for the guitar/strings.
Question: To what degree do we emphasize the latin element?
Dyson sort of invented the verse groove, which he’s very proud of—latinish
rock to go with Jerry-Groove’s slight Rasta-like bass line. (Ebbage
had a hand in creating that bass line.) We’ll keep it straight and
solid for now; and if we want latin, we’ll pour salsa all over it later.
Tempo is another big question. Laid back, it’s very sexy during
the hook and the verse. (And it leaves room for all those verbose
lyrics.) But when it gets to the chorus, it can be too slow. Like
grandiose 80’s power ballads.
Imitation Man
Good ole Texas Swing, Jerry-Groove style with the stand up acoustic
bass. There’s some question about the ghost notes on the snare.
It’s a drummer thing that goes unappreciated by guitar players and recording
engineers. Hard to record them right in the first place. Well-trained
drummers seem to do it reflexively on certain beats—especially laid back
swing beats. And a band doesn’t get around to discussing whether
it’s right or not until zero-hour in the recording studio when everybody
finally notices it.
Dyson chose to do a long subtle roll instead of a fancy fill in the second
verse. Brilliant, to the delight of all. (Jerry-Groove didn’t
originally like the idea of leaving the drums so loose in that section,
but Dyson found the thing that works.)
We have two tracks of stand up bass. They
sound exactly alike. Maybe we’ll leave both of them in there, an
idea Dyson doesn’t think much of—too muddy.
In God We Thrust
One hundred percent group improvisation, to be edited later and
embellished. Dyson explores some freeform chops. And Jerry-Groove
regresses into his early days of raw, aggressive bass violence. Over
13 minutes was laid down. I played an expendable guitar track just
for the purpose of creating atmosphere for those guys. (If you listen
closely to the quiet parts, you can hear some eerie guitar nonsense in
the background, bleeding through the drum and bass microphones.)
There’s some cool Beastie Boys/Primus stuff going on.
I went into the wave form and deleted some rhythm section noodle-meandering,
and I actually cut and pasted to a microscopic degree.. Sometimes
moving a single note, or bringing a certain fill back in half-way through
it. Brought the total time down to about 8 minutes Then we set Bryan loose
with his acid loops. His task is to sync up the tempos; there was
no click track. While this may end up sounding like the most studio
enhanced track on the album, it is actually the most organic (besides "Planet
Lydia").
Jamine
From the "first try" sessions at Supernatural Sounds Portland.
(August 2000). Ebbage programmed the drum machine and played the
real drums kit; he played that simple, slow funky beat, and nothing else.
Rooted in Jerry-Groove’s deep relentless pedal tone groove—the extra low
string is the secret. Davis liked these tracks, ‘cause they gave
him plenty of room to be a producer, adding stuff later. Listening
to the end of the song, Ebbage says, "And it comes back to that crappy
old drum machine sound!" That’s where the character is.
Junkies on Film
Former versions of this were Blues Traveler-esque. (Too many minute
syncopations.) Ebbage once suggested simplifying towards Motown-groove.
I’m not quite sure what he had in mind, but the song did evolve—snare now
on a steady 2 and 4 backbeat, suitable for the happy pop song it is.
We didn’t need many takes of this one.
Golden*#&!
Just the right tempo is crucial on this one. After laying
down what Dyson and I thought was the keeper, Jerry says, "Would
you have sex to this song? I wouldn’t have sex to this song."
So we tracked another. As bass player, he has the final say on tunes
like this one.
Justice
There was talk of this song being Black Crows-like, which is the
wrong way to go, so we had to pump in the funkiness of the first verse
groove, then exaggerate the eerieness of the tom groove in the second verse.
Jerry-Groove’s bass line has to stand out as a hook, not disappear into
an overriding classic-rock grandiosity. We’ve done this successfully,
creating several different feels without having to over-compose the progression.
Dyson is very impressionistic on those toms, leaning so far back on the
beat that we might have to make some adjustments.
This was one of those songs (like "Eden") where Dyson had to
consciously avoid keeping time with his foot on the hi-hat while
creating the groove elsewhere on his kit. Especially when we’re using
only one mic for both snare and hi-hat. (The things you don’t notice
in the live setting become glaringly apparent in the studio.)
Living in Exile & Lightning Rod
These two grooves sound pretty much alike; they’ll go on two different
discs. But "Exile" is played with a stand-up acoustic bass for a
different mood. We learned during the "first-try" sessions that we
had to take out some of Jerry’s pick-up on notes "Lightning Rod."
This helped define the groove more clearly. In both tunes, we’re
going for the deep groove, trying to avoid excitable tendencies to get
hyper. We scrubbed so much of Jerry’s bass line in "Exile," leaving
in only the barest, low-profile elements.
Vikings (Mystical Hangout)
This song was way too long, though simple in form. The frustrating
thing about slow 6/8 tunes is that they invariably end up 6 minutes long
no matter how simple and concise you make ‘em on paper. You got your
intro, your three verses with choruses, and a short instrumental interlude,
and, damn… the thing winds up like a Pink Floyd epic opus droning on and
on.
So we surgically removed the entire second half of the first
chorus. Funny thing about the slicing point, there was actually an
instant in which there is no music sounding at all, but the human ear just
glosses right over it, none the wiser. Still, just to be on the safe
side, Bryan splayed some cymbals across the empty split.
October Gold
To play this song fast enough to make it snappy, without rushing
the basic rocking riff. Low and hostile is this groove. We
had to rearrange it during recording, taking out some of the over-composed
transitions. The verses and choruses have plenty of chords; keeping
it simple everywhere else drills the mood into the listener’s skull.
Live versions of this have a raging Dyson drum extravaganza during
the outro vamp. Of course, this is forgone for the concise studio
version.
Though it rocks magnificently, it seems a
bit slow. (We may have to speed it up in post-production? Dyson
says it won’t seem as fast with all the other instruments slipped into
the nooks and crannies and pockets of these grooves.)
Road Story
Used to sound like a classic rock tune of the hideous BTO ilk.
But, even though we wanted it fast and furious, like driving through sleepless
nights under the influence of too many stimulants, we still wanted it eerie,
like Portishead meets the Police. (Don’t know how much Portishead
got in there.) One of the solutions was to have Jerry-Groove play
stand up bass.
Surfin’ Intro
They made this one up on the spot. One take. Jerry-Groove
laying it down on his low string was the right idea. I think somebody
mentioned instrumental Beastie Boys…
Still in Love with You
Just how long are we gonna leave that empty groove in the middle
of the song? As long as it takes. The restraint is excruciating.
Credit Ebbage for the sparse bass line in this tune. He said
he’d been wanting to hear a version like this since we first started playing
it. Would Thin Lizzy Phil be rolling over in his grave? Or
would he be rockin’?
Waning Moon
This misfitting song has plagued the Shipe repertoire since the
Renegade Saints days. Refusing to cooperate, but refusing to gracefully
walk away. Finally, the solution dawned on me when I saw Ember Swift’s
experimental FunkFolkPunk. No music during the choruses—just Dyson
funkiness. And no drums during the choruses.
More proof of the adage, "If you can’t do it right, do it weird."
Planet Lydia
Tempo changes in tunes are difficult in the studio, but we didn’t
have as much trouble with this as we cold have. We experimented both
with the click track and without. With the click track!? What were
we thinking. We opted for sheer rock and roll group instinct.
You can’t beat it!.
I didn’t realize how busy the bass line is.
Spontaneous Combustion
Piece of cake, simpler than it sounds, even with all the chords
and arrangement. This really is a bass players tune; the lines
have the power of a section of double basses in a fast orchestral piece.
We had resisted Dyson’s typically rockin’ reflex to play open
hi-hat, so we could let the theme’s breathe and the chords create a tense
mood. And then the crashes in the bridges and choruses release the
energy. (Like combustion, how quaint.)
Surfin’ the Shockwave
We call the opening hits the "math problem." The riff
starts on a different beat in each measure: 1-4-0-2-1-4. (Ebbage’s
idea originally, created arbitrarily, rhytmically modulating one beat in
each measure: 1-2-3 etc. Later amended to make it more musical and
carry tension into the song.)
This is a Dyson beauty. It used to CarterBeauford busy
with multiple snare hits and hi-hat noodling. Now, it is slamming.
Choice of fills are just right to capture the jublance and drama.
An unusually "fun" song for JSB.
Bryan thinks the drum fill transitioning from the intro is just
about the best thing he’s ever heard. Parts of this song make us
sound like real musicians.