Matthew J Barnhart

Finally, after a relatively mild start, the miserably humid Texas summer I know and love is here. I was up by 7:00 this morning (thanks to the 3 month-old pup at the left here begging for breakfast), and took an hour-long bike ride. Even at this ungodly hour, I was drenched in sweat halfway through.

Work at the studio has been steady, a nice combination of recording/mixing sessions (with Deep Snapper and Tre Orsi), mastering work (Last of the Interceptors, a solo record from Aryn Dalton, formerly of the Paper Chase), and studio upkeep and upgrades (a new rack, lots of re-arranging and fixing up of stuff). Along with all of that, I’ve been occasionally filling in at the House of Blues in Dallas. Most of the shows there aren’t exactly up my alley, but the equipment is top-notch and the crews that come through are generally easy to work with and pleasant to be around.

Upcoming sessions include more work with Shiny Around The Edges, White Drugs, The Angelus, and Les Americains, as well as (finally!) finishing up the Tre Orsi LP. After all of this studio time, I’m looking forward to hitting the road for a while this Fall.

Oh yes, about the pup: her name is Lomax. She’s a Heeler/American bulldog mix, about 15 weeks old, and of course, is the cutest thing in the world. We’re very happy to have her around. (Well, Katey and I are happy — the cat is less than thrilled. C’est la vie.)

I’ve been listening to the first Flipper album non-stop for the past week. Ted Falconi’s guitar playing is like magic wrapped in fuzz. The rhythm section is lumbering, but solid. The lyrics should be juvenile, but are actually pretty affecting. I have loved this album since I first heard it years and years ago. Anyhoo!

This month, I spent a few days in the studio with The Angelus and their producer, Josh Pearson, tracking a new LP. They’ve been kicking around for a long time (I recorded their EP back in 2003), and after a few line-up changes have finally started working on a full-length. We tracked 8 songs in 3 days, and will return later this summer for overdubs and mixing.

Next up was a session, tracking and mixing 7 songs for the great White Drugs. They too have been around a while, and put out a fantastic album in 2007 that got some glowing reviews. Their previous recordings were 4-track, beautifully blown-out and overloaded, and I think we achieved a nice balance between that sound and a fuller studio recording.

The actual recording was pretty typical (close mics on the drums and ambient mics on the floor), but we added a distorted omni mic in the middle of kit, and used a mono overhead (Coles 4038 ribbon) through a Universal Audio 1176 compressor. Jeff and Christian, the guitarists, are obsessive about their tone (between them, there were probably 15 – 20 boutique fuzz pedals). Their rigs sounded incredible from the get-go, so I mic’ed the guitars with Royer R-121’s through John Hardy preamps. It sounded absolutely ripping through the studio monitors.

I mixed the songs to an old reel of Quantegy 406 1/4″ tape, an older formulation that compresses and distorts wonderfully. We also sent the stereo mix through a pair of Distressors, adding additional grit to an already-overloaded mix. We even got done a few hours early, leaving me time to get home and play with my new puppy.

So much other stuff has happened, but this is already too long. I’m headed to Spain on Monday for a week of shows with The New Year. It also looks like I’ll also be out on the road with David Bazan later this year. But for now, I’m gonna go ride my bike before the weather gets worse.

April was a rather slow month at the studio, save for a session with Deep Snapper, whom I’ve recorded two times before. These guys always impress me with their steady work ethic and great, catchy songs. This session was extreme, even for them — we attempted to track 25 songs in 3 days, as their bass player, Pat, is shipping off for Afghanistan this summer. We ended up tracking 19 songs, and will mix them later for an LP and an EP.

I had planned on spending the rest of the month working on new Tre Orsi songs and getting to work on our garden, but as fate would have it, I was called on to mix a lot of shows all over Texas, including The Howling Hex at the Mohawk in Austin, Mogwai at Numbers in Houston, and then two shows with Josh T. Pearson (formerly of Lift to Experience), opening for My Bloody Valentine in Austin and Dallas. Josh’s backing band was Andy Young (also of Lift) and Bobby Weaver (of the Paper Chase), and despite some first-show jitters, they really slayed. The new songs are epic, even for Josh.

In the midst of this was Dallas for Tre Orsi for Good Records’ 9th birthday/Record Store Day celebration. We played early to a nice crowd of people, and avoided a lot of hassles that arrived later.

I’m really looking forward to May, which has sessions with The Angelus and White Drugs, then a week-long trip to Spain with The New Year. (Now I’m filling up with remorse for not learning Spanish, as I had promised myself I would.)

Got back to Texas Monday evening. It was odd coming home to a house without our dog, who was put to sleep while I was on tour, but it was relieving to be home nonetheless. After weeks in cold, gray climates, to see the sun, grass, and trees in bloom instantly lifted my mood.

Anyhow, this week I’ll be sorting through my record purchases from the A.C. Newman tour (including some Live Skull, Corrupted, The Nerves LP, the Death LP on Drag City, and an original, single-LP issue of The Stooges’ Metallic K.O., complete with the original iron-on transfer) and catching up on a few zillion emails.

In the studio soon with Deep Snapper and Tre Orsi, and a few others that I still need to schedule. Doing a one-off for Mogwai in Houston on Apr 19, then a week-long tour in Spain with the New Year in May. For now, though, sleep!

I’m currently home on a week-long break between legs of the AC Newman North American tours. The first, West coast, leg went exceptionally well. Everyone in the band is gracious and funny and supremely talented. I look forward to having a few less-than-9-hour drives on the East coast with them. I’m also looking forward to a devastating meal at Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal.

I had planned on recording a new Deep Snapper LP this weekend during the break, but Katey’s and my beloved dog, The Chicken, is battling late-stage lymphoma, and I decided to postpone the session in order to spend as much time with her as possible. (She’s the bundle of joy in the image next to this.) Katey has had this dog for, I dunno, 12 years, and she’s been my adopted buddy since 2003. She will be sorely missed when she finally passes on.

I just received a 9-pound box of LPs and CDs I had shipped from Aquarius Records in San Francisco that I’m going to sort through now. Some Randy Newman, Rusted Shut, Ashpool, new Lungfish side-projects, Nigerian psychedlia — I’m in for a busy night.

I’m back from vacation, well-rested and looking forward to a very busy Fall.

Vermont was gorgeous, of course. NY was fine and dandy. Montreal was all too brief of a trip. Lots of good food, good people, and almost no work. (I did sneak in a few hours here and there, advancing the upcoming tour for The New Year.)

I only did a few sessions in August: a couple of days with You and Me from Dallas, and another two days with Tre Orsi. Bubba Kadane of The New Year was co-producing again, and it was a much more productive session than our last attempt, in April. We did 5 songs, and I’ll be finishing up tracking and mixing for them next week. Most likely these will make their way onto a limited tour-only EP for our upcoming dates.

This Wednesday is my last day as an employing at the University of North Texas, where I’ve been working for four years. I’m now finally out of debt and can devote all my time to the studio and touring. To say I’m excited about this is an understatement.

This week: recording new Dallas band, Les Americains (former members of DARYL), finishing up the Naptime Shake and Tre Orsi recordings. After that, The New Year’s Western US tour starts. (I’ll be blogging about the tour here, on Twitter, and over at Food About Music.)

And I’m very much looking forward to this:

(Please forgive the nerd talk and whining about first-world problems in the post herein.)

I’ve had my 8GB iPhone since October, and I love it dearly. It’s a great phone, and with the iPhone 2.0 update and the App Store, it’s even more useful/addictive than before. With it, I can travel (even in Europe and Canada) without a laptop, for the first time in years. The only real burr in my ass has been how to pick and choose what songs are synced to it from my ~35 GB of music in my iTunes library. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday, The Marked Men played what will probably be their last show ever (or at least their last for a few years). It was a simultaneously joyous and sad occasion, as most final shows for beloved bands are, and by the end of their freight-train of a set, I was left damn-near breathless.

I really hate the list-mania so prevalent in music writing and general blogarrhea, but fuck it, I’ll fall into the trap: The Marked Men are one of the 10 best bands from the state of Texas, ever. They’re in league with the 13th Floor Elevators, ZZ Top, Bedhead, and Scratch Acid, and their 2nd album, On The Outside, is nearly perfect from start to finish. They embodied the best parts of garage/pop-punk (tunefulness, brevity) and did it with more energy and obsessive devotion to quality than almost anyone else going. All of this, combined with a reverence and true understanding of pop music created something far more special than a tossed-off “Dickies Meets Hot Snakes” comparison. They were, to me, the embodiment of a perfect band.

So yeah, I will miss this band like few others. To re-use a quote from Adam Reach in the Silkworm documentary trailer: in 20 years, if people aren’t freaking out about The Marked Men, I’m going to go on a killing spree. I’ve rarely been prouder of my town and my state than last Saturday night. Thanks for doing your thing, Marked Men.

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