CLASSIC TRACKS TOM DOYLE ack in 1988, with the release of an album, The Trinity Session, B recorded almost entirely in a single day, Cowboy Junkies became arguably the first band to create the music Cowboy Junkies ‘Sweet Jane’ sub-genre which would later become known as alt-country. A slow-burning, In 1987, swimming against the tide of atmospheric take on country music, at a time when most artists were relying MIDI-powered pop records, Cowboy Junkies heavily on programmed sounds, the went into a church to record an album into Canadian four‑piece’s second long-player was all the more remarkable given that it a single microphone in a single day. was recorded live at Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity around one microphone, something of an epiphany when it came swinging,” Moore says. “The stars lined up namely a Calrec Soundfield. to the idea of developing his single mic and it just happened to be that we were Today, the producer of The Trinity technique. “I got a Billie Holiday record the innovators. The band and myself were Session, Peter J Moore remembers that for from the German masters which were kept sympatico. They wanted to get out of this him and the band, the album’s distinctively in proper climate-controlled vaults. I put MIDI and synths artificial thing.” sparse, reverberating sound was a reaction it on and I thought, ‘Oh my God, why did Then as now, Cowboy Junkies are against the MIDI-dominated musical styles we go away from that? Why aren’t we still based around a family unit — singer of the ’80s. “I was angry that music had doing this?’ That right there, that’s when Margo Timmins, guitarist Michael Timmins gotten into drum machines and MIDI,” I really got into the single mic recording.” and drummer Peter Timmins, along with he says. “No humanity, no nothing. I’m This notion dovetailed with the ethos bassist Alan Anton. The Trinity Session listening to these recordings from the that the members of Cowboy Junkies was to produce their best-known track, ’50s with two or three mics and I’m going, shared about making more naturalistic a beautifully drowsy cover of The Velvet ‘Man that’s real music.’” recordings of their alternative-edged Underground’s ‘Sweet Jane’ (based on Moore remembers experiencing country. “So I think it was the pendulum the version recorded at Dallas club End 144 October 2015 / www.soundonsound.com best-sounding place in the room and stand The musicians arranged around the single Calrec Soundfield mic. Margo Timmins was positioned there and record. But then later I would outside of the main circle, but is represented by the gaffer tape a tripod with the dummy head Klipsch Heresy monitor on the right-hand side. onto a pub table, and that way I could dive in the crowd and keep dancing.” Of Cole Avenue which appeared on 1969: Quickly, Moore’s radio show, which he The Velvet Underground Live rather than presented under the name Simon Less, the faster rendition, missing the bridge, gained a reputation for his recordings featured on 1970’s Loaded). which aurally airlifted listeners directly into Since its initial release, Cowboy Junkies’ the middle of the Canadian punk scene. ‘Sweet Jane’ has gone on to appear on “‘Cause it was binaural recording,” he says, numerous film soundtracks, including “we’d tell them, ‘Put your headphones on Natural Born Killers, The Good Girl and at home’. That was the most invigorating Flight. For his part, Peter J Moore is in no thing for them. ‘Cause you felt like you doubt as to why their version of the classic were right in the mosh pit.” Artist: Cowboy Junkies song has stood the test of time. From here, Moore began his own punk Track: ‘Sweet Jane’ “It’s Margo’s delivery,” he says. “It’s label, Silent Head, recording bands in just so haunting. It’s the lonely girl in a rehearsal space he’d set up in his house. Label: Latent Recordings Alabama on the porch on a hot night and By this point he had moved on from the Released: 1988 she’s just slowly getting the words out of Kunstkopf to a pair of Fostex ribbon mics. Producer: Peter J Moore her mouth.” “I was using them as a Blumlein pair, so that’s two figure-of-eights at 90 degrees, Microphone Experiments one over the top of each other, producing from Michael Timmins and Alan Anton of The unusual circumstances surrounding a clover-leaf pattern,” he explains. “I built Cowboy Junkies. “We were talking about the recording of The Trinity Session can my own mic preamps designed exactly for digital recording,” he recalls. “They’d just be traced back to Peter J Moore’s days as the ribbon mics. So I was using the Valley got back from England and they’d heard a DJ specialising in punk and new wave People module and Jensen transformers about someone using Sony Betamax digital on the CHRW-FM station of the University and I had all handpicked military resistors. recording. I said, ‘Well I’ve just started of Western Ontario in 1976. “Radio shows Really esoteric, crazy stuff. It sounded doing digital recording with my Blumlein had to be around 40 percent Canadian amazing. I built my own plexiglass rigging, setup.’ They were quite interested in what content,” he recalls. “It was a great idea, so it would be easily mounted and I could I was doing.” and if it hadn’t happened, we wouldn’t get the mics in close.” At this point, Moore had developed have had a Canadian music industry. There Further encouraged by the results, his Blumlein recordings to factor in was very little punk music being recorded Moore founded his company MDI musicians sitting behind the microphones, or commercially available, especially the Productions and began to record other meaning he could now include larger Canadian stuff. So as a matter of necessity, forms of music, including classical and jazz, groups of players and position them across I started recording. Not because I was before beginning to work for ADCOM the stereo spectrum. “When you have wanting to be a recording engineer so Electronics in Toronto designing studio a Blumlein setup,” he says, “in the front much as I wanted to fill my 40 percent spaces, giving him a deeper knowledge of the microphone, along the lateral line, slot so that I could then play all the of acoustics. “I realised that no matter you have our universe. Then behind the British imports.” how much money you spend on your mic, you have a parallel universe. So you At the time, Moore was at the university bloody sound system, if you’ve got can put things around the clover leaf and doing his masters degree in anthropology, a shitty-sounding room, you’re not gonna space them away from the microphone in which also involved him doing some get anywhere,” he laughs. “So I started such a way as they all appear as coming in recording. “I was doing a lot of Nagra and learning about how to make bass traps stereo in front of you. mic recordings of indigenous music,” he and how to properly contour the sound “I couldn’t put everyone on top of each says. “I was a crazy audiophile though. of a room.” other to get close to the mic. So I came up I built my own Dynaco amps when I was For the punk club recordings, due to with the idea of spacing everything in the like 12, 13 years old. I was really very much its portability, Moore had used a TEAC clover leaf properly so it could create this into electronics. I built my own speakers PC10 cassette recorder. “It was one of beautiful stereo image, but then I could when I was 14.” the very first attempts at a professional bring everything closer to the mic.” To fill his Canadian quota of punk cassette deck recorder, with balanced XLR In exploring this technique, Moore bands, Moore began going to clubs ins,” he says. “Then I had a Revox B77, was in effect live mixing the musicians, and recording live performances using later on a PR99, which I used for my more employing the same kind of floor ‘marks’ a Kunstkopf dummy head microphone. serious recordings.” that are used for actors in stage and film. “Sennheiser made one, the MKE 2002,” “So the mandolin player, that’s his verse he remembers. “It came with a mannequin The Blumlein Group position,” he says. “One foot closer is his which had defined ears, or you could take It was in 1985 at a dinner party thrown by chorus position, and another foot or 18 the mics off and wear them yourself. So Greg Keelor, guitarist/singer of Canadian inches in would be his solo position. I’ve for a lot of live shows, I would wear them country rock band Blue Rodeo, that Moore got faders on top of their heads [laughs]. myself and walk around until I found the found himself sitting across the table People said, ‘What summing amplifiers do www.soundonsound.com / October 2015 145 CLASSIC TRACKS RECORDING ‘SWEET Jane’ of America), who feared that Soundfield, I approached Calrec to Margo Timmins was positioned about 30 feet from the their domestic use would kill become a dealer for ADCOM. I couldn’t main mic singing into another Soundfield mic. This was off sales of the burgeoning afford one. It was $14,000 back then and it then fed into the Klipsch Heresy monitor placed in front of CD format.