Daron's Guitar Chronicles: Vol 4

296 POP MUZIK

POP MUZIK

The bus dropped us off at the hotel around eight in the morning. None of us are at our best at that time of day, as you can imagine, but everything had been planned like a military operation, down to the slightest detail. Bunches of our equipment had been packed in the bus instead of the truck the night before, and now we swapped it all into a smaller van. Marty was off until tomorrow night, and he gave us a little wave as he took the bus off to wherever one parked that sort of thing. Probably at the venue, but I didn't know. It wasn't my job to know all the details. Carynne told the driver where to take us and then she supervised everything at the hotel.

The smaller van took the four of us first to a place to grab breakfast, which we did as quickly as possible, and then to the recording studio, which was outside the French Quarter but still didn't seem very far. The driver warned us not to leave anything on the curb for more than four seconds. I assured him I was from New York City and neither guitar case was leaving my hands until I was inside. We managed to get everything inside without mishap. What we brought was mainly instruments, but no drums: we were renting those.

Inside, there were three men I didn't know. So I took it upon myself to walk up to them and shake hands and introduce myself.

One of them was Jouett Hansen, the producer who had been hired for the occasion. One of them was Van Robards, the manager of the studio. And the third guy was our new drum tech, Fred Trachtenberg, known to everyone as Trackie. I was sleep deprived enough that for the first few minutes I couldn't have told you which one was which after the introductions, though. It became clear enough. The short guy with the receding hairline talking to Chris was Trackie, the guy having a smoke outside was Van, and the guy beckoning me over to the control board was Jouett.

"What kind of a name is Jouett?" I asked him as he sat down in one of the rolling chairs.

"The kind my mother liked," he said with an easy smile and a soft drawl. He looked mid-twenties, in a plain black T-shirt and cargo pants. Unpretentious, I thought. "Have you been here before?"

"New Orleans?"

"No, here." He patted the sound board. It was a Neve, kind of like the one at Remo's, but bigger.

"No, first time."

"Well, I'm planning on tracking you with this puppy here," he said, running his hands along the edge of the Neve, "and then do the mixdown on the SSL in the other room."

"Whatever floats your boat," I told him. "I used to work in a studio, but I won't get in the way unless you want me to."

"Cool. So tell me what you guys are thinking."

"We've worked on this one song a little. That guy over there," I pointed through the glass into the large studio room that Bart and Ziggy were wandering around, my finger tracking on Zig. "He's the star of the movie the song's for."

"He's the singer?"

"Yeah."

"That makes it easy. Look, why don't you guys set up how you want for a run through or whatever."

"Yeah, we haven't actually played it yet. He and I have worked on it in the back of the bus, but we haven't done it as a four piece."

"Take your time. They've paid me for the whole day regardless." He put his feet up. "If I look asleep, I probably am. But wake me up if you need me."

"Okay." I went through the door into the live room. It had a thirty foot ceiling, was big enough to put a small orchestra in. The floor was strewn with "Persian" rugs and a drum kit was already on a riser. That was interesting, since a lot of the time in studio the kit sat on the floor with everyone else. Then I saw a bunch of the mic setup and figured they had a rationale for setting it like that.