Talking Dog

 Hey y'all Packmembers,

I wanted to share some of our great experiences at Cloud City Studios this fall.

We recorded basic tracks, did overdubs, mixed and mastered the entire 9-song lp in the month of October. the final art is taking a bit longer, but I'll be spending some quality time with photoshop this week!

The console at Cloud City is a Triton TSM, the same board used by Pink Floyd, David Bowie, and The Police.

Our engineer was Justin Phelps, who was a great guy, great engineer, and a great producer who knew the value of capturing without screwing around diddling with mics and knobs.

We were well prepared going into the studio, having really fine-tuned the 9 songs in a batch of intensive rehearsals. that paid off, as we caught just about every song on the first or second track.

Kevin's amp was in the Piano tracking room, just behind him.

Here is the tracking room. there was redwood paneling and floating floors to minimize bleed.

KB and Jim had drums and percussion in the room.

Ben's bass amp was set up in the Space Lounge room, but he was playing in the same room with the boys.

I was set up in a vocal tracking booth in sight of everybody to give cues.

Here's me hollering!!!

The Space Lounge room had cool SF movie prints.

After a day of guitar overdubs from the Professor, I went in for a day of Accordion overdubs, and a day of vocal overdubs. We ended up ditching the electronic accordion in favor of my acoustic Green Beauty.

It came out GREAT!!! I'm really proud of how the little Sophia Mara squeezebox sounded at the end of the day. We did keep about 16 bars of the electronic accordion for the organ in Set It Loose, which made a nice counterpart to the accordion.

We knocked out 9 final vocal tracks in about 6 hours (and 3 shots of Tequila from Slabtown around the corner).

We mixed in a couple marathon sessions, but since we basically played live, there was time to tweak things and add some flava. One example is on Ecosystem - you can hear some cool dub echo and reverbs. We also took out the bass on beat one of each measure in the verse, which opened up the track and let it breathe... great idea Ben.

Finally, we mastered in the mastering studio at Super Digital... Justin again at the helm. We have nothing but positive things to say about the whole process, and have been talking them up and recommending them to any and all. The attached storefront seems to have great gear, and offered to let us try out an AKG vocal mic we were admiring on stage at a gig to see if we like it. Pretty cool.

Well, I should get back to Photoshopping and album artwork, but we'll keep you up to date on what is going on. We are reving up the booking machine and have some cool things in the works that we can't wait to share.

Peace, love, and howls!

Papa

Papa Coyote - Origins

Papa Coyote began forming in 2008 when recent NY transplant Evan Stuckless answered recent New Orleans transplant Ben Rougeo's cragslist ad for an accordionist who could do a set of Zydeco and Second-line hits for a crawdad festival on Mt. Hood.

3 years later Papa Coyote has played all over Oregon and has released two CDs. 

For a more tongue-in-cheek perspective, here is a republished interview from Rob Cullivan of the Portland Tribune:

What is the origin of the name Papa Coyote?

PAPA: Right before moving to Portland, I was homesteading on 36 acres in upstate New York that we named the Coyote Hill Family Farm. My extended family had a band called the Coyote Family Band, so it’s only natural that my stage moniker be Papa Coyote.

East County’s coyote population has reportedly increased in recent years. Any connection between your band and this phenomenon?

PAPA: Back east, I would sing with the coyotes on a regular basis, climbing up on the roof with my accordion and howl. My brothers of the fur are following my song and must have gotten sidetracked in East County.

You’ve chosen to be photographed publicly with an accordion. Has this led to any hate crimes being committed against you?

PAPA: The positive squeezebox-vibrations transform any non-accordion player’s envy into the compulsion to dance uncontrollably.

Who are your major musical influences?

PAPA: Classic rock, Afro-pop, Zydeco, bluegrass and tango. Bob Marley, Buckwheat Zydeco, James Brown and Tito Puente. (…)

What was the most exciting moment for you on stage with a famous band?

PAPA: Playing with Little Feat was huge for me, since they were my heroes in my teenage years. I especially remember talking for an hour with the slide guitarist Fred Tackett about his session work with Tom Waits. Recently, I had a fantastic experience sitting in with the Asylum Street Spankers. I got to play an epic Balkan hoedown with them at the Aladdin Theater.

What advice do you have for aspiring accordion players?
PAPA: When I first learned to play accordion, I rubber-banded the fingers of my left hand together to train them to be able to reach the tiny little buttons. It seemed to work.

Have you ever been haunted by the ghost of Lawrence Welk, one of history’s most famous accordion-players?

PAPA: No ghosts, however, I once picked up a signed, first-edition copy of his autobiography. I got it as a joke, but it ended up being the most inspiring musical book I ever read. He talked about loving the music you play and getting ahead by being really nice.

You’ve been photographed standing like a colossus on top of Mount Hood. Wasn’t that a bit dangerous?

PAPA: I have to be careful about which notes I play on the mountain. A double-stopped bellows shake can cause avalanche events.

Do you think you appeal more to alcoholic middle age divorcees, hip hoppers with their pants hangin’ low or super sensitive fans of indie shoegazer rock bands?

PAPA: Actually, people have told me that they love the extreme variety of styles they will hear in a given show. You can see anyone from grandmothers to goths out there dancing.

The original article can be found here.