Gear pics added - September 12, 2008
For you gear heads in the audience: I've uploaded photos of some of the gear and setups we've used for recording & mixing Here We Are. More to come!
Michael Kates: Blog
New Baal Shem Tones CD is shaping up - June 8, 2008
The new Baal Shem Tones CD (working title: Here We Are ) is shaping up beautifully. Two days of intense recording sessions last week with the basic band have yielded some fantastic tracks, this time with a new component: Latin percussionist Glen Caruba (Jimmy Buffet, Toby Keith and many more) contributed some amazing congas, shaker, djembe, bodhran and other hand drums with skill and taste that lifted the songs to new heights. Just incredible stuff!
We were very fortunate to also have on hand some of Nashville's finest players: Jeff King once again was on guitar, Bryan Owings on drums and Charlie Chadwick on upright and electric bass. I played piano and acoustic guitar. Now we are tracking Helene's unbelievable vocals, stacking delicious harmonies as if they were so many hot, golden pancakes dripping with genuine maple syrup and sweet butter on a Sunday morning.
I think the result will be an eclectic blend of styles, held together by the usual musical twists and turns.
I hope it will be a pleasure to put on a CD player and listen to, all the way through. Then, a week or two later, you'll feel like hearing it again. And again throughout the year, and so on. A lot of people tell us that they enjoy listening to All Our Lives that way because they don't get tired of it, which is about the coolest compliment I can think of. It's a great honor, for our songs to be part of someone's life like that.
I hope we hear more people saying that about this CD, that would knock my socks off. MANY more people, hopefully... ya know? I think I'm allowed to say that.
Expected release around September this year. July ain't happening.
We were very fortunate to also have on hand some of Nashville's finest players: Jeff King once again was on guitar, Bryan Owings on drums and Charlie Chadwick on upright and electric bass. I played piano and acoustic guitar. Now we are tracking Helene's unbelievable vocals, stacking delicious harmonies as if they were so many hot, golden pancakes dripping with genuine maple syrup and sweet butter on a Sunday morning.
I think the result will be an eclectic blend of styles, held together by the usual musical twists and turns.
I hope it will be a pleasure to put on a CD player and listen to, all the way through. Then, a week or two later, you'll feel like hearing it again. And again throughout the year, and so on. A lot of people tell us that they enjoy listening to All Our Lives that way because they don't get tired of it, which is about the coolest compliment I can think of. It's a great honor, for our songs to be part of someone's life like that.
I hope we hear more people saying that about this CD, that would knock my socks off. MANY more people, hopefully... ya know? I think I'm allowed to say that.
Expected release around September this year. July ain't happening.
Springtime in Nashville - April 30, 2008
Trees a-poppin and labels droppin'...
Well, the music industry, as it was, enjoyed a terrific century of success and excess, and what the next century brings is anyone's guess. It's an era when any musician can record him or herself for a few dollars and be heard by anyone on the planet.
Unfortunately, it's also when EVERY musician can be heard by anyone on the planet. This technology and its offspring will probably be with us forever (comet collisions, nuclear holocausts and the like notwithstanding). So what economic future is there when good music – meaning music composed and performed by talented, skilled composers and performers – becomes increasingly scarce? Will musicians once again be generally reviled, ridiculed and impoverished as the days before Edison?
Say what you will about record labels, the mafia, radio or any of the institutions that have controlled what we hear for the last hundred years. As bad is it has been, with the politics, payola, drug habits, ripoffs, greed and ugliness, at least someone was in control. Someone was listening before anything was released. It didn't start 100 years ago; before Edison, for a composer to make a living he needed a patron. Talk about competition!
What will happen...? Well, once the baby boomers die off and the river of money that had been the recording industry becomes a distant memory, the sexy image of the "pop star" will fade from our collective unconscious. The home studio fad will die out, Gibson and Fender will merge for a while before being sold to Sony, and young kids will once again dream of being firemen when they grow up. Only the most dedicated, determined and utterly driven individual will even consider making music for a living, because the obstacles will be, by all accounts, insurmountable. And oh yeah... everyone will think he's insane.
Who knows? Maybe recordings will become so irrelevant that in a few years song publishing will once again mean printed sheet music, demoed at the music counters in department stores by girls sitting at upright pianos. Or Casio keyboards, more likely. That might not be so bad!
Well, the music industry, as it was, enjoyed a terrific century of success and excess, and what the next century brings is anyone's guess. It's an era when any musician can record him or herself for a few dollars and be heard by anyone on the planet.
Unfortunately, it's also when EVERY musician can be heard by anyone on the planet. This technology and its offspring will probably be with us forever (comet collisions, nuclear holocausts and the like notwithstanding). So what economic future is there when good music – meaning music composed and performed by talented, skilled composers and performers – becomes increasingly scarce? Will musicians once again be generally reviled, ridiculed and impoverished as the days before Edison?
Say what you will about record labels, the mafia, radio or any of the institutions that have controlled what we hear for the last hundred years. As bad is it has been, with the politics, payola, drug habits, ripoffs, greed and ugliness, at least someone was in control. Someone was listening before anything was released. It didn't start 100 years ago; before Edison, for a composer to make a living he needed a patron. Talk about competition!
What will happen...? Well, once the baby boomers die off and the river of money that had been the recording industry becomes a distant memory, the sexy image of the "pop star" will fade from our collective unconscious. The home studio fad will die out, Gibson and Fender will merge for a while before being sold to Sony, and young kids will once again dream of being firemen when they grow up. Only the most dedicated, determined and utterly driven individual will even consider making music for a living, because the obstacles will be, by all accounts, insurmountable. And oh yeah... everyone will think he's insane.
Who knows? Maybe recordings will become so irrelevant that in a few years song publishing will once again mean printed sheet music, demoed at the music counters in department stores by girls sitting at upright pianos. Or Casio keyboards, more likely. That might not be so bad!
A disclaimer - April 17, 2008
It pains me to do this, but this is a matter of public record and my rep.
A new children's CD called "The Mr. Shabbos Show" is out containing four tracks that, according to the printed credits, were mixed by me at Peradam Productions in Atlanta. While it's true that I had mixed these four songs originally, none of my mixes are on the CD. Apparently all four tracks had been remixed from the multi-track sessions. There are new voice overdubs, edits and sample replacements that were not in the originals. I never heard these mixes prior to the CD release, as they were done without my knowledge, input or advice.
So if you like them, that's great... but they are not mine. I want to be absolutely clear about this: not one song on the CD was mixed by me, and the mixing credit attributed to me is 100% in error. I don't know who should have that honor; you'd have to ask the artist.
Anyway, it was a fun project and I hope it does well.
A new children's CD called "The Mr. Shabbos Show" is out containing four tracks that, according to the printed credits, were mixed by me at Peradam Productions in Atlanta. While it's true that I had mixed these four songs originally, none of my mixes are on the CD. Apparently all four tracks had been remixed from the multi-track sessions. There are new voice overdubs, edits and sample replacements that were not in the originals. I never heard these mixes prior to the CD release, as they were done without my knowledge, input or advice.
So if you like them, that's great... but they are not mine. I want to be absolutely clear about this: not one song on the CD was mixed by me, and the mixing credit attributed to me is 100% in error. I don't know who should have that honor; you'd have to ask the artist.
Anyway, it was a fun project and I hope it does well.
Bustin' my heiney... - April 15, 2008
This month Helene and I are hard at work on the upcoming Helene & Michael Kates CD, which will also be the new Baal Shem Tones CD.
So far we have about 9 songs ready to track in Nashville and are polishing up the last few.
This album will be very different from All Our Lives in some respects. It will have a lot more uptempo songs and a less layered, more beat-centered sound. But it will still have the awe-inspiring vocal arrangements and distinctive twists, turns and twiddly bits that keep a BST album interesting and pleasing to the ears from start to finish.
Expected arrival mid-July 2008
So far we have about 9 songs ready to track in Nashville and are polishing up the last few.
This album will be very different from All Our Lives in some respects. It will have a lot more uptempo songs and a less layered, more beat-centered sound. But it will still have the awe-inspiring vocal arrangements and distinctive twists, turns and twiddly bits that keep a BST album interesting and pleasing to the ears from start to finish.
Expected arrival mid-July 2008
Folk Alliance - February 26, 2008
We just got back from Folk Alliance and need to catch up on sleep... but it was great! Names to listen for:
Linda McRae
Storyhill
Kari Estrin's CD Authentic Voice Vol. 2 was disrtibuted to all attendees with two Helene & Michael songs: "Ocean Lullaby" and "Shalom Rav."
Linda McRae
Storyhill
Kari Estrin's CD Authentic Voice Vol. 2 was disrtibuted to all attendees with two Helene & Michael songs: "Ocean Lullaby" and "Shalom Rav."