Home Grown Issue 50

FEATURE always done band things or other people’s records. I definitely wanted a strong rhythm element, which is why I teamed up with drummer/percussionist Felix Bloxsom, who also co-produced my album. Felix and I went for a couple of definite sounds – Ringo’s Abbey Road tea-towels-on- the-kit sound, and the Curtis Mayfield & The Imperials’ big, open early ’60s bandstand kind of sound, too. We did a bunch of guides with click tracks in ProTools and lugged four drum kits up the stairs to Big Jesus Burger studios in Surry Hills to do three days of drums. Chris Townend tracked all the drums on his Ampex two-inch machine. We love Chris, he pulls ‘his’ drum sound, which involves nice toys like Reslo ribbon mics and his mad ’50s Rola mono tube tape preamp – and he’s laidback and fun. I value ‘fun’ over ‘difficult’ every time. If you’re a genius but a pain in the arse, go tell it to your mama, I’m not interested. Chris, like Felix and my friend Stu Hunter (who did all the string and horn arrangements for this album), are fun and gifted – and dress well, too! I pretty much sat on the couch up the back of HOME GROWN the studio and watched Chris and Felix do their thing. I was nursing a torn Achilles tendon so Singer/songwriters are a bit fashionable right now. Wanna I didn’t have much choice (a touch footy match know how to make a classic ‘song-based’ album? Let’s ask at a wedding if you must know). Occasionally, I would wave my crutches around if there was producer/guitarist/artiste and general all-round legend, something I didn’t like or I had an idea… or Brendan Gallagher. He’s just made a good ‘un. was hungry! I’m generally not dictatorial with production, Text: Gavin Hammond i.e., I don’t insist that someone plays something I hate music PR people. They’re a bit like just so; instead I choose a player who I think wasps in summer: useless but unavoidable. But will suit a particular piece and let them interpret today, I like them. I needed an intro for this it, with a little guidance – a symbiosis if you column, and blow me down if a PR email pitch will. That way the player puts their strengths didn’t have it all. and personality into a track, they enjoy it more ’cause they feel confident about what they’re This is what it said: “Brendan Gallagher is doing and I get something new and fresh. And one of Australia’s most respected musicians on the off chance that I don’t like it, I dump and producers. He’s won two ARIAs, for it and try again later with somebody else, but Karma County’s Into the Land of Promise that’s pretty rare. (2000) and Jimmy Little’s Australian classic Messenger (1999). His guitar skills have also GH: Tell us about your home studio… been showcased on recordings for David Bowie, BG: I built a studio with my buddy Gareth Kylie Minogue, David McCormack, Paul Mac ‘Gigpiglet’ Stuckey in his Redfern basement. and more. His compositions also include many I worked in a spare room of my flat in Bondi soundtracks and documentaries for ABC, for 10 years, but I used up all the magic in SBS and short films. He’s a published author that room and it was time to have a definite with The Open Tuning Chord Book for Guitar workspace outside of home. I met Gareth on a currently in its second edition. He has just Tascam Internet forum in 2000 when we were launched his first solo album On Eve St and will the only two people in Australia who owned a be touring nationally. Please consider and let Tascam MX2424 digital recorder. me know if you think it will be relevant to your next edition.” My studio is basically three rooms all tied together: I have a room with my stuff in it, So what more can I say? Except this guy doesn’t he has one with his, and there’s a live room. need hype – his music and reputation speak for Between us we’ve got some stuff; I have more themselves… He’s a true artist; and he has a instruments, he has more mics and outboard. great beard to prove it. Here’s how he crafts his songs. Gear-wise I have an iMac G5 running ProTools 7.1 with Tool Kit, Logic 7 and a Digi 002. I got GH: Brendan, how did the solo album come Logic because that’s what Felix liked working about, and what were you trying to do? with, but mainly I work in ’Tools. Outboard- BG: I’ve been meaning to do a solo album wise I have a pair of Quad Eight preamps (the for a long time but never got around to it. I’ve red ones) mod’ed by Joe Malone in Brisbane, AT 108 a pair of Universal Audio 6176s, a two-channel Tex Perkins calls them) almost head onto the TLA tube mic preamp compressor, and a sound hole; Dobros and arch tops generally Focusrite 8 analogue/8 ADAT in/out interface. behind and out from the bridge. Mic-wise I’ve got an AKG C3000, AKG C12 (on Basically, I look for the voice of the guitar and extended loan from a friend), Sennheiser 421s, follow it. Depending on where the guitar lives 441MD, a pair of Oktava 012 pencil mics, some in the song (is it the primary motivator, picked, EVs, Shure 58s, and Felix’s AKG D12 (better strummed, one guitar or three?). come and get it mate). Gareth has a range of Say, with my Gilet Everly Bros acoustic, I Oktava mics, and in particular a ribbon that I often use some other mics (in combo with the use all the time, and 57s, Beta 57s & 58s and lots principal condenser, which is usually an Oktava of other bibs and bobs. O12, or, if I’m playing away from home, a U87 One thing I use all the time is a Sony micro or similar): a D12 or a 421 60cm or so out and cassette dictaphone. I remember reading about a back from the bridge; or a ribbon pointed at the Los Lobos recording done at Ry Cooder’s home back of the guitar body; or all three. studio in LA where they used a ghetto blaster Depending on the guitar I generally roll off as an overhead pair for the drum kit. Cheap, some bottom-end – especially if it’s a big-bodied nasty, ultra-hard knee compression – the little guitar – otherwise it blows out any compression dictaphone, or ‘Mr Slurpy’ as I like to call him, is I’m using. I usually apply compression of around even uglier! I use it all the time on drum sessions 3 to 5dB at about 4:1 ratio unless I’m going for – it doesn’t matter where you put it; I generally a really slamming aesthetic, which is rare. I just hit record and throw it on the floor near generally favour mic position over EQ – I’m old the front of the kit. It does wonderful things to school. I don’t go in too close; I like a lot of air cymbals, and has quite a rhythmic effect because around the guitar. I might just use the condenser the compression is so hard and the release so slow in a mix but at least I have some choices… better that it feeds back on itself – it’s very musical and to be lookin’ at ’em than lookin’ for ’em. adds a nice crust to things. I’ve used it on vocals and guitars as well. The intro to my song Tidy GH: Can you talk us through a track on the Town is recorded on Mr Slurpy. album, step by step, to give us an idea of how you work? GH: How do you go about getting inspiration for a track with so many options? BG: There’s a track on my album called Black Swan Song that moves through some changes. It BG: I am inspired by people like Nick Lowe starts with a strummed nun’s guitar put down who have a 360-degree view of music creation first (top to tail, two mics as described), then a and production – likewise, I have an idea while guide vocal (everybody plays better when they I’m writing a song of how I think it should hear a vocal). sound when I put it down. I don’t really write songs, I write excuses to put words and music Next, a double bass part recorded with a and noises together! condenser near the bridge over the F-hole and a ribbon mic at shoulder height of the player GH: Can we speak more specifically about how looking down at the body of the bass (played you record guitars, for example? masterfully by Dave Symes). BG: I’ve spent a lot of time recording I’ve been doing some production workshops at acoustic guitars and I don’t stray too far from the Australian Institute of Music in Q Studios engineering orthodoxy – a good condenser mic (formerly Rhino) and so I had the chance to positioned about 30cm from where the neck record a piano part there on their Yamaha meets the body of the guitar and angled towards baby grand and also a string section.

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