After country music duo The Wiggins had a small radio hit with a song Jon Vezner and I wrote called "Has Anybody Seen Amy",
I invested my royalties in two Tascam DA 88's, a Mackie 24 channel board, a TL Audio preamp, an Aphex compressor limiter,
a Roland drum machine…etc. and set out to make the album which would be Flowers & Rockets. By the time I set everything up it was all outdated! Ah, technology!

Luckily I grew up around this stuff, my dad being a musician and all, so I knew (or thought I knew) what I was getting into. I had an old pair of Fostex monitors from my last home studio go 'round as well as Yamaha SPX 90 for effects and Yamaha amp.
I test drove at least a dozen mics but they all sounded harsh to me. Of course it wasn't the mics at all. It was the digital domain that was freakin' me out! *

In the end I used an old Neumann U87 that my dad had given me and borrowed my friend Ray Kennedy's CAD microphones when I needed more than one at a time. They held their own pretty well with the U87.

Then I proceeded to borrow stuff left and right!
Jeff Crossan's Martin D28.
Vince Melamed's piano.
Ray Kennedy's CAD mics and his "Jerry Jones" electric sitar.
Bill Lloyd's Audio Technica 4050 micorphone.
Ed Rode's Ovation 12 string.
Pete Fey's Guild 12 string and six string as well as his little Casio keyboard.
(another "Thank You" again to all of the above)

I recorded "Love Makes You Reckless" and "Trailer Song" with Jeff's D28. Then, one happy day, I came across a new Guild DC50 cutaway with a Fishman Blender pick-up and preamp that could double as my live guitar. It was love at first pluck and we've been inseparable ever since. I used the Guild from there on out.
I high-strung my beautiful old Yamaha NG500 that I bought for 50 bucks at the Morgan Hill flea market when I was around 16 years old. I used the '51 Fender Telecaster and Fender Precision bass my Daddy had given me. I also used an old Dobro that Nashville studio wizard, Jerry Shook gave me many years ago.

I started from the ground up. I built everything around drum machine loops and guitar/vocals. The real drums were nearly the last thing to be recorded! I did that at my friend Dave Goodwin's home studio with Fenner Castner rockin' through seven songs in a couple hours while I engineered. I recorded Mickey Grimm's drums on "Stone In My Shoe" and "If I Was Your Man" at my old friend's Fett and Nancy Moran's basement.
Fett engineered… what a relief! Thank you again Fett.

Many of my dearest and brilliantly talented friends dropped by between recording sessions or gigs or whatever to do me the favor of playing on my monsterpiece. I snuck to the attic or basement (we moved three times during the recording of this album) to record whenever I could break away from touring or writing.

I was sidetracked by a lot of other work during the making of "Flowers and Rockets". One of the most pleasurable sidetracks was producing an album on my friend Kenya Walker. She bought me a third Tascam DA38 during the process. Now I had 24 TRACKS! (Thanks again Kenya!) Now I could put the kitchen sink on my album! So I did!

But alas, I was unable to handle the beast I had created. Enter Ray Kennedy and his wonderful world of tubes and tape!
Besides actually performing a few overdubs, he fixed phasing and recording miscues I had made along the way and mixed the whole thing through his CAD board and miscellaneous vintage tube gear and onto Ampex half inch tape.
We mixed "Back On The Farm" first and he said
"Now listen to this" and played back the analog tape.
WOW!!! The bottom was fat and round and the digital harshness had turned into crystal-like highs.
I was blown away! I'd highly recommend analog linked somewhere in your recording process if you can do it.
It really pays off. At the very least, try to use some warm tube preamps going to tape (disc or hardrive or whatever!) * *
The TL Audio preamp worked great for that. The Aphex compressor was subtle when it had to be and over the top when I needed the acoustic guitars to rock. Not bad for a non-tubular and inexpensive item. With four in's and out's, it's a very efficient home studio tool.

I didn't buy the meter bridge for my Mackie board, and without it in the way I could access the little "patchbay" easier. "Easier" is the key word here. I approached everything that way. I wanted to get what was in my head onto tape as quick and as easy as possible. In the end it was a very homemade album but what you hear is exactly what I heard in my mind.

Every time I sit down at the board it's a learning experience. The best piece of advice I could pass on is…don't skimp on the microphones. That's the whole thing. For most of us one mic is a big investment. If so, try to find something that to your ears, can cover the bases from vocals to instruments.

Now, don't wait around for some fat record label executive to start charging video shoot luncheons with dancing girl shmooze-a-thons while they grease the palm of some radio convention weasels all against your account! F**k that. Get some gear, have some fun, and go be an artist. Good Luck!!!!

*vast improvements have been made in digital since I wrote and recorded this!
**vast improvements have been made in digital since I wrote and recorded this!

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