Alliance

Alliance Radio Promo Demo

Back in about 2006 or 2007, a neighbor of mine who (at the time) worked for the Pender County Sheriff's Dept. here in NC dropped by the house and said that he was talking to my sister who told him I was doing recording. He wanted to know how much I would charge to record a 5 song demo at about 30-45 seconds per song. They had gotten their first gig and the club needed a demo to be played in the background of a radio advertisement for their "Grand Opening" event in a few weeks. I told him that would be no problem. We settled on a price and he took a CD of some stuff I had recorded of my son's band, "Dead Man's Hand", for his bandmates to listen and decide if they wanted me to record them. He came back the next day and said the band had agreed to the price.

Little did he know, that was my first "paying" recording job. I had been running sound for several years after my hands suffered from Carpel Tunnel and caused me to quit playing in bands, which I had done since my teens. I had been recently recording my son's band, and everyone who got copies of the CD had commented on how good they sounded.

I started the recording with Alliance in Rob's (my neighbor) living room where they were rehearsing. Rob had already chosen which segments of they songs they wanted to record and they had been rehearsing them. That night, we recorded the bass guitar and drums (live) to 8 tracks digitally to my computer through a Carvin CM-1604 mixer into an M-Audio Delta 10/10 digital interface.

I took those tracks home and started getting them ready and within the next week, Rob & I had recorded most of the guitars at my small home studio. He would drop by in the afternoon after work, in uniform, in the squad car, and record for a couple of hours. We had all the neighbors wondering what I was getting arrested for. I had the keyboardist come over on a weeknight to do all his overdubs. We finally got one Saturday in which we got everyone over (most lived about 2 hours away) to record the lead guitars, backing, and lead vocals. After about 12 hours of recording, 4 or 5 Domino's pizzas, and a couple or three cases of Corona, we got the remaining tracks recorded.

I spent the next week mixing the tracks and putting the demo together with one final mastering pass over the whole demo. I liked what I heard, but was scared they wouldn't be satisfied. They all came out the following weekend to hear the results. After I played the demo for them, Dan (the lead guitarist and band leader), looked at everyone, smiled then reached in his back pocket and handed me an envelope. As he then reached for his wallet, he told me "I've been playing in bands for 30 years and they all had demos made and many of them in big professional studios and never had I heard one of those demos sound this good". He then reached in his wallet and handed me $200 extra and told me "I dub you "The Guru"". 

Here is that recording:

Alliance Radio Promo Demo 

Bare Bonez

My Time Is Running Thin

This recording was born in a text message. Around 2012 or so, I got a text message from my neighbor Rob. He wanted me to record a demo of his new acoustic duo, "Bare Bonez". I texted him back and asked what kind of song was it and he told me to hang on a minute. He recorded the song on his acoustic guitar on his phone and sent me a copy. When he sent the song, he explained that he wanted me to program a drum and bass sequence to go with the song and what he wanted to do with each part. I told him to come over one day during the week, bring his singer, and we'd work on it. By this time, I had greatly expanded my skills in recording as well as my gear.

In the meantime, I transferred the song from my phone into my computer. I then loaded the song into my DAW and MIDI mapped the song. I proceeded to add what I thought would be a good bass line and a kick ass drum track. By the time Rob and his singer, Mike, showed up later that week, I had finished sequencing the bass and drums for them to work with. Rob commented he had never had anyone create a whole song from an acoustic guitar recorded on a phone. We proceeded to overdub electric guitars, a couple of acoustics and the lead vocal. When I mixed the song, I even left in the original acoustic guitar recorded on the phone.

Somewhere during the recording process, Rob had mentioned how cool it would be to have the intro of the song to come in like it was being played on an old record player, you know, one of those cheap ones teenage girls had in the 60s
Challenge accepted!!

P.S. Remember... the drums and bass guitar are sequenced!!

Here is that song

My Time Is Runnin' Thin 

Dead Man's Hand

Dead Man's hand formed from my son's previous band, "Dilated Trio", when the original singer/guitarist left the band. My son, Ian (bassist), stepped up as singer and my god-nephew Alex stepped in on guitar, and changing the name to "Dead Man's Hand". They immediately started writing their own music as well as putting many cover songs under their belt. By the end of their run, they could perform a whole show of all originals or rock the whole night on cover songs. I provided and ran their PA system from about 2007 until about 2015 as well as providing them practice space in my studio. This provided me with the unique opportunity to hone my recoding skills both in the studio and on the road.

Through those years I worked on many projects, but I always had a Dead Man's Hand project waiting, if not 3 or 4. I will present several Dead Man's Hand songs here, though the original multitracks have long disappeared, the few remaining masters will be "remastered" and put to video for these demos.

Where Did The Sun Go?

"Where Did The Sun Go? (feat. Dane Britt) was born on a rainy day when my son Ian (bass vocals), and his cousin Tim (drummer/vocalist) were both out of work for the day because of rain. They had gathered in Ian's bedroom to jam and in a moment of inspiration came up with the main riff and and structure of this song. In a matter of minutes, they had 75% of the song completed. That night at band rehearsal, guitarist Alex added the remaining elements and "Where Did The Sun Go?" began it's journey to become one of their live staples. Tim kept insisting we get their friend and local DJ/drummer/rapper/motorcycle stunt rider, Dane Britt, to perform on the song. We even had a 2nd version of the song set aside with and extra instrumental track just for Dane's verse. Eventually, Tim informed me he had spoken with Dane and had confirmed he would do a verse for us. Dane contacted me and I sent him a copy of the song so he could work on his part. About a week later, he called and said he wanted to come over to record his verse, which he did, and the final version of "Were Did The Sun Go? (feat. Dane Britt)" was finalized.

I dedicate this song to those who lost their homes and livelihood (myself and the members of Dead Man's Hand included) due to the flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd (1999) and Hurricane Florence (2018). Things will never be the same again.

Here's the results of those sessions:

Where Did The Sun Go? (feat. Dane Britt)