Ancient aliens carving into the primordial surface of the earth, showing us how to center our future 45 RPM’s? Or our clever graphic artist Sergio demonstrating his Photoshop skills? You be the judge.
But don’t be too hasty in your judgment. Stranger things have happened. Why, just the other day, my cat scurried across the piano keys and played what sounded to my ears like the beginning of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s First Symphony.
Pop Circles indeed! For those of you who are superstitious, this album is number 13, so I completely understand if you want to stay clear of the whole affair. But for the rest of us not ruled by such things, I welcome your listenership. Speaking of cats and superstition, I’ve had more black cats cross my path than, well, the person who had the second most black-cat-crossings. Thirty-eight years of animal rescue and four beautiful black cats of our own – how could they not saunter in front of me? And I’m still here to tell the tale (no pun intended). OK, I won’t walk under a ladder but that’s because, with my luck, the damn thing might fall on my head.
This album is the latest batch of melodies, chord progressions, drum beats and words that somehow fell together and were recorded for posterity by my lovely engineer and wife Nancy. We started at East Side Sound on the Lower East Side, where I bashed and crashed on their vintage four-piece Rogers kit. After ten hours of that cacophony, we took those drum performances home to our bedroom studio and began trying to make sense out of it all. The result is the disc that accompanies these notes.
Our neighbor Julia Kent is a world class cellist. She wheeled over her big fiddle and played on some of these songs. Also contributing viola on this album is one Chris Jenkins who is Associate Dean for Academic Support at Oberlin College, Nancy’s alma mater. All the strings you hear were played by Julia and Chris. I know because the cats and I watched and listened in amazement as Nancy recorded them. The cats in particular were very excited when the viola hit the real high notes. And there were some serious squirrel-tails when the cello growled out the low notes.
In the past I usually played all the instruments on my albums but I’ve come to the realization that Nancy is just plain better than I am on bass, and so with her Hofner Empress, she handled the deep and inventive low end on most of the tracks. There is plenty of Rickenbacker 360 12-string throughout, along with my PRS Starla, Fender Telecaster and Stratocaster, and Dan Electro baritone guitar, as well as my Martin Shenandoah acoustic and a D-28 (thanks Andy), and my Yamaha acoustic 12-string.
The last link in the creative process was ably performed by Tony Lewis, mixing engineer extraordinaire. He took all these disparate tracks and, with a bit of alchemy and a lot of talent, glued and shaped them into a cohesive mélange.
Finally, Pop Circles has come full circle. (Hope you agree!) Look forward to meeting you there.
RXH
NYC, May 2019
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