Don’t think so but I’ll check
This album is (still) a banger
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Thought this was interesting and worth sharing somewhere (maybe more for fans and people interested in recording).
I woke today on tour to the realization that the first Ben Folds Five album was released on this day 30 years ago.
I’m currently on my bus headed to a gig in Las Vegas tonight, so I put earbuds in, and I’m doing something I don’t think I’ve done since the album was released - listening to it!
Here’s my 58-year old self take on the album we made when I was 28:
Overall, it’s good! It’s NOT the kind of record you’d hear produced these days. It’s pretty rough and tumbling, mostly in a good way. And it’s emphatically unique. It’s from an era when you could still be able to identify a band by the instrumentalists, before you’d even hear the vocalist. I don’t think that’s been a thing since computers allowed us to get things just right. Don’t get me wrong, the computer hasn’t ruined music or anything. In a way, having the tools to easily make the drums always sound in the pocket, to fit in the exact right space, and to be able to choose from a menu in bass guitar tone, might have been a good thing. Today you can make sure the vocal is in tune and right up front, without spending years trying. I’m not going to criticize any of that. The current approach to recording also allows the song to be front and center. Before the computer, music that accomplished this kind of focus and depth was either done by an all virtuoso team - like on a Frank Sinatra or a Steely Dan record - or an album that was slaved over and ruined, as it took too much time to accomplish. Our first record that I’m hearing right now would never have been made had there been access to all the tools we have at our disposal, and we were not going to be able to achieve the album size, tightness and focus without spending too much time and losing our grip. This first Ben Folds Five record doesn’t even TRY to do the things most might aspire to, with or without the technology, and that’s one of the first things I hear while listening. Many indie rockers of the 90s claimed to be raw and not care. We actually lived that, though it’s just not obvious because it’s based around piano and complex songs, which was an odd combo.
The tempos are all over the place. The singing is all over the place, even in the backgrounds. The voice is small and tucked into the music, which was a 90s thing to do. There are zero effects on anything. I don’t think there’s any reverb to be found, even for subtle depth. No room mics to create space. It’s all just THERE. One overriding technique for those who know about recording was the over the top, parallel compression, which Caleb Southern, our producer, had recently learned. It allowed for a sort of sonic violence that unlocked the band on record.
For better or worse – wow. I’m hearing a record that really just puts it out there, and I’m glad we did all of that. It also probably stunted the potential for the record in terms of commercial appeal. Who knows? But I’m all for it, at least for this first album. Sometimes I’m hearing now that the songs don’t get credit for being well written, because they’re second place to such a whoosh of energy and performance, which is what draws the ear first. Studio recordings will always be give and take, so it’s just how we did it. I approve of what I’m hearing. But damn, I sound like a chipmunk…haha.
This album was recorded in four days…three to be fair. One day of putting on a show for the label. Two days of actual tracking. One day for all the vocals. And a day to mix over one 24-hour session. The studio was a commercial space called Wave Castle. It was literally built for making commercials. It was in an office park on a small highway, and I recall Caleb, the producer, passing out in the shared hallway where I convinced an office worker not to call the police, suggesting maybe an ambulance made more sense. After a while, Caleb woke up, downed a Coke and bourbon, and kept working. He was 25, so he was fine.
The budget from Caroline Records, as I recall, was about $14k all in. We spent all of that in a proper three-week session in Philadelphia with a proper producer who had a few hits under his belt, and who gave us a great deal. This version of the album was shelved and never saw the light of day. We had taken the time we needed, and the advice of the very competent producer, but it resulted in an album that didn’t feel like us. I only recently happened to have found a cassette of this shelved album. It’s not bad, though I recall it being hideous. It’s just not crazy like the album we all know. The shelved album is restrained, in tune, and in the pocket. The songs are up front. The vocal is in tune and sits in the center, commanding the recording. But the band is generic sounding, and the singer sounds humbled. One day we’ll make sure the cassette finds its way to the Internet.
Having spent the entire $14k, and being broke musicians, that first muted version was going to have to come out, and that was that. When you spend the money, you have to release the record. Or do you? We couldn’t quite accept it, so we decided to make sure that record didn’t see the light of day, and opted instead to make the one we wanted. We didn’t want to have our first album not make a splash and find ourselves back in our day jobs.
We had been killing our live shows, and we knew the board cassettes from gigs were special in the way that our first recording was not. It killed us. There was something bursting at the seams on even the worst live recordings we had heard, and that was exhilarating. There was nothing in the first shelved recording of the first album that suggested any of that. Couldn’t we just do THAT?
With that in mind, our friend Kerry got us $3k to record a few days with Caleb so we could make the record we wanted to make. The label did NOT want us to record the whole album. Their advice was to just do a few tracks to get them right, and if we beat any of the recordings we’d made with the producer fellow, we could replace those few. They chose the songs we were to re-record. We told them what they wanted to hear, but we had no intention of only doing a few. We were going to record the whole damn thing again. The A&R rep from Caroline came down from NYC to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where we were recording, for the first day, to make sure that we were recording the songs they’d allowed, and to give us notes, and ensure we had a grown up in the room.
So the first day was a wash, pretending to do it “right,”, with overdubs and punching mistakes, for the label. So silly. But I recall we enjoyed acting like we were being super critical, and checking tempos etc. We did NOT use any of this. When he left for the airport, we got busy recording dangerously, as we intended to. All we wanted was to sound like those hissy warbly live cassettes we’d made - only without the hiss and warble. Easy enough, right?
The small studio was far too noisy to capture a live vocal, and I’m not sure that would have been best anyway. So after our couple days of pounding the absolute ■■■■ out of the 15 songs we recorded (some of the tracks, like the Emaline and Eddie Walker recordings, had to be released later since the label required a shorter record), it was vocal day. There were no punches that I recall in the band tracks. I’m not sure we could have technically pulled it off in that space, with everything bleeding into the next track. Vocal day was done over a couple of one-hour sessions for the lead vocal. Caleb fed me a musical sequence. He wouldn’t tell me which song was next, so I would just walk into the studio hand-holding a Neumann U87. I’d crouch when I needed something different. Find a corner, pace. No starting and stopping, except to change the multitrack tape. Caleb felt that each song sounded and felt different depending on sequence, and that was part of the appeal of the live cassette, so we chased that. When the set was done, Caleb re-edited the sequence by hand, with a razor, the sequence of the songs, while he made sure I was drinking, so the next take was more drunk than the one before. We did a few of these sets - there was a sober one, a more drunk one, and then a stumbling ■■■■ faced take (notably Uncle Walter haha). The band was recorded on 12 tracks. And the remaining tracks could be used for a few passes, comped to one master vocal, leaving Robert and Darren to do their background vocals, PROBABLY on a single track, but maybe they each got a mic (a few times I’m hearing a stereo spread).
Then of course, the 24-hour mix. In the midst of all this, Caleb had to fly somewhere for a family thing early, so I manned the mix of Video and Boxing. Oh! Boxing, right. That one ate up some time because I had written out a string quartet part but we couldn’t afford a string quartet, so a student came by, and we overdubbed his parts one at a time. I would have been writing strings for EVERYTHING, but the consensus was that neither we, nor I, had earned that. We needed to just play and be honest.
When the label heard the record, they knew we were right. They weren’t angry with us - total support. We put it out, and it did what we’d hoped.
A few other memories about this occur.
One is that the album came out just as there was a massive bidding war for our second album. This meant that our first official tour was marked by constant label attendance, which made things a little heavier, even if it was exciting. Most of the legendary label heads of the day came to see us in some small punk club somewhere, where we’d moved my baby grand piano ourselves onto the stage and played as loudly, as fast, and as happy as we could.
Another memory was kinda funny. The album cost $3k to record (or you can say $17k, including the album that was shelved if you wanna be completely honest), and the excitement of the album found us on all the indie magazine covers, with rave reviews and lots of college spins. So, of course the label needed videos, and we spent $200k on those! Quite a ratio of music to video cost.
Last memory to share. I have one issue with the album, and it’s not the warts and all stuff. I can deal with that. It’s some of the self-conscious affectation that I hear throughout. And I understand why, so I forgive the young fellow(s). All young music artists, or nearly all, have affectations, usually of the day. Maybe it’s vocal fry. Maybe it’s emo, or yelling old rock guy. We, or I know that I, felt oppressed by what was cool and what was not. And so, I went for it, being silly, to the point that it’s often just weird. Every song has a goofy sound, or something over the top. It was rebellious. I despised all the cool, gotta be serous, gotta be sexy stuff. And I think Robert felt that too. Darren was more neutral on it, as was Caleb, so I’d bet they cringed at the time. As I’m listening today, I cringe sometimes at some of the extra credit goofball shouts. They don’t sound like me, or how I’ve ever really been. So, they’re just not authentic, even though the idea is defensible. Don’t be like everyone else. Probably, it’s one thing that could have been curbed with an extra day or two for Caleb to convince me, I was being the kind of clown that wasn’t helping my songs. But really, it’s a small thing. The “and all” that, along with the warts, means it’s a real snapshot of a time period. That’s rare, so I give this album a thumbs up, and now I’ll go back to not listening to my own music.
Happy Birthday Robert and Darren. And thank you Caleb (RIP).
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bob marley live 1977 on nitv now . is so good. have a look out for it
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Really getting into Ren lately, this is his latest been listening to 2023’s Sick Boi and the singles Hi ren, Violet’s tale and The Tale of Jenny, has quite a large discography, should keep me busy
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looks like I will get one more in before the lock out
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Very cool read, thanks for posting it. I love how they were mature enough to turn their noses up at the $14K recording and chase what really represented them.
I thought The Bear had mellowed out its soundtrack of late, and gone for heart tugging little folky numbers to match the tone the show had been shifting toward. But I just got finished with s4e5 and the closing credits just blasted into Shellac, catching me quite off guard. So here it is:
Love it when Bob gets his angry on…
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This is a recent discovery for me.
Don’t tease me.
Man this guy in the right band…. Oh well.
Start guitar?
