About Recording and Production
Like most things I've done creatively, I started recording other people's music because I thought I could help out a friend and give him a better demo than the one he had already hired someone to record. One of those songs wound up being Doghouse, a Papamuse song that was played on WICB for years.
I learned a lot from Matt Saccuccimorano as I watched him record and produce my CD back in 2004 and I also spend countless hours researching recording and mixing techniques on forums like tape-op and gearslutz. As I became more interested in the art of recording I wound up interning at REP Studio and did some subbing as an engineer from time to time once I learned the ropes a bit.
It was during that time that I recorded Beggars Pocketbook. I had met the singer Josh on a transcontinental train ride and I thought I'd take a stab at recording a few songs for his band. Shortly after that I was introduced to Yacouba Diarra by Nate Richardson from REP and what was supposed to be a mix job turned into recording a new CD from scratch. Yacouba is from the griot tradition in his native country of Burkino Faso and plays the Ngoni, similar to a Kora but with fewer strings and a lower tonality. It was a fun challenge to produce such organic music and to bring in some very talented guests such as Mark Weinand from Thousands of One.
Speaking of Thousands of One. Another artist you can hear on the Portfolio, Ezekiel, was a family friend who had been working with Thousands drummer Joel Blizzard on some hip hop tracks. His stuff is a confluence of hip hop, reggae and judaism similar to Matisyahu but imo better. We took Joel's instrumental tracks and beefed some things up, tracked vocals and guitars and came out with some very cool tunes.
Check out the Portfolio if you want to hear some of the work I've done and feel free to give me a shout of you need some assistance creating music.