RM64 Artists Record

Hey Internets

It’s hard to be in the music buisness.  No one has your back when you are down, no one wants to help you unless you are making them money.  Sometimes you wonder why you did’nt stay in school and get a real degree and fucking make some godanm money yourself for once.  You find yourslef wrestling with these and other questions and its about enough to make you go crazy sometimes. 

But, I have a theroy that if you actually ever do become successfull then you won’t do anything worth a shit anyways.  So I raise my glass to the struggle and hope to be able to pay my rent from month to month.   

Then sometimes out of the blue something to make it all worthwhile comes along and then everything is cool again.  You start to believe in yourself and believe that you have’nt wasted your life pissing away your time on selfish pursits. 

One of the things I do with my time other than play the shit holes of america, (music venues), is produce records.  I’ve done a few now that are actualy pretty good.  I’ve produced shit by people that went on to do bigger and better things, and while they are totally gratefull for all of the work you did for next to no money at the time, they rarely remember you down the line.  I have a very good story to tell about this,…more to come as details unfold.

The one that I’m working on at the moment is with a girl named Sasha Collette.  This is probably going to be one of the best records I’ve ever been involved with.  This is one of those things that makes you believe that you are actually doing something worthwhile. 

As you can see she’s a great singer and a gifted song writer.  We tracked the record all live with her band the Magnolias, Andrew Gilliam and Jose Oreta providing the rythm section tracks.  We recorded all of the instruments in the same room with minimal overdubs added by me,…hammond organ, pedal steel, strings ect. I’m proud to say this record has no click, and no bullshit, just live vocals, drums, acoustic and bass, minimal mics and minimal overdubs.  No auto tune, no snapping to grids and no faking it.

In other news the southern souls and myself  just took a trip down south and played nashville in the midst of the worst flooding in like 100 years.  The shows went great and you can’t keep a good town down.  Godspeed and swift recovery to good people of Nashville.  Heres me at the Mercy Lounge.

doing what I do best,....not quitting

Keep it real,

Bud

Hey Internet,

Where the hell have I been?  What have I been doing?  Sometimes you wake up and you’re like, “what the fuck just happened?”  While the rest of the unsuccessfull bands in america were in Austin, trying to scam free red stripes and levis, I was hard at work rocking in the eastern part America.  

The first nationally released record that I’ve ever recieved a production credit on came out!  
Jeff ellis’ the forgetting place came out on the new song label out of NYC.  Jeff is currently serving his second tour of duty in the Middle East.  It was a pretty amazing experience becuase when we finished this record he immediately got call back into active duty.  So we had this record in the can and a label to put it out but the main dude was out of commission.  So on Jeff’s 2 week r and r leave from Iraq we did a tour!  Needless to say it was a ball, we split the bill every night with my band the Southern Souls backing Jeff and then closing out the nights. 

So for about the last 2 weeks we’ve been all over the east coast, and boy did it feel good.  I used to tour the us pretty extensively and had forgotten what it meant too me.  Got to see some old frineds and dust off some of a inabitions I had about touring.  Boy I tell you there is almost nothing like the thrill of the open road, good tunes on the stereo, knowing that you are headed to do another show.  Nothing on earth like that shit man, nothing.

So I leave you with a twilight vision of our touring vessel.  Hope to make it too your town soon. 

Hello Internets,

I’m sorry I took the money,…I’m NOT sorry I took the money. Nothing much new, just working on new music all the time. I’m really sick right now, and have no patients for explanations.

Enjoy how to make a record # 7, or don’t.

Peace.
Bud

Well folks,

It’s been a minute, but I’ve been a busy man.  The Southern Souls and I just played NPR’s internationally syndicated radio show, Mountain Stage.  If you have heard public radio anywhere you will hear this show, it’s on somehting like 90 some stations across the us, I think it plays on Sunday night almost everywhere.  Our show is slated to air in April.

There’s little hallmarks in your life that sort of act like high water marks insofar as accomplishments go, and for me and the Southern Souls, this was definitely one of em.  I tell you what man.  I first went to Mountain stage probably back in like 90 or 91, and saw that band, The Proclaimers, you know, “and I would walk 500 miles. 

The next time I saw this show it was maybe 95 or so and had already been playing for a few years, It was at this show that I got to meet Slide guitar legend Sonny Landreth and I’ll be danmed if the dude did’nt sit right down with me and show me how he did some of the things that he did.  One of the most original slide player of the last 30 years just fucking sat and showed me his tricks right there. 

So to be able to be on this show as a guest artist meant the world too me. 

If you have’nt gathered, It’s no less than a huge fucking honor to play this thing.  So here’s the recap, we played right after THE BOTTLE ROCKETS!,….Right Before SAM BUSH, yes THE Sam Bush, one of the greatest living Mandolin players, one of the guys who pretty much started Nu grass.  Then as if that was’nt enough the mighty Lucero headlined.

But, for the finale all of the guests came out and did Ronnie Dale Hawkins’ Susie Q.  As a grizzled veteran of the applichian pub circuit, you’d think that my ass would have had more than enough of this one, but not when your jamming it out in between Sam Bush on the Mando, and Scot Vestal on the Banjo.  Definietely a night to remember. 

Here’s a shot of me Jamming with Sam Bush during the Finale.

And here’s some video footage that appeared on youtube today of our first song. “I’m No Stranger”

My friend Adam got the whole thing on video so hopefully I can get some of that posted in the next How To Make a Record,…out this week!

Take care
Bud

Hello Blog

You were probably asking your self by this point.  Is this Bud Carroll, guy such an asshole that he records all of the parts to every song himself.  Who does he think he is, and why does’nt he put up some flyers at the local music store and try to get a band togehter.  Or, has he ostricized all of the members of the local music community in his area?  The answers to all of these questions and more in this weeks How To Make a Record!

Stay tuned for a new video mini series in the upcoming weeks, MIX BATTLE.  Sort of a cross between American Gladiators, Cops and Tape Op Magazine.

Yea Man!

Bud

Hello Internet

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for this indiependant rocker.  Lost of recording, lots of shedding, band practice and not much showering or shaving as will be evident by watching this weeks episode of how to make a record.  We, my new, “POWER TRIO”, aptly enough titled The Bud Carroll Band, cause we could’nt think of anything better, are in the process of putting the finishing touches on an EP. 

I’m really excited about this, becuase It gave me a really good oportunity to try out some of the ways that I used to record music before being influenced in a not totally positive way by an industry full of click junkie grid nazis. 

We cut the whole session mostly live with minimal overdubs straight to Record.  And with the exception of a few punchins to fix flubs here or there, a FEW keyboard overdubs, and the retracking of a solo or two, we did the most live thing that I’ve been involved in since the first time Bud Carroll and the Eastwood Band entered the studio when I was 13.  It felt good, you can bob your head too it, and it grooves way harder than any other recording I’ve ever made. 

I have to say the mixes came together way better than most anything else I’ve done in a while as a result of the bleed between instruments, and if I would have had one more pretty decent pre we could have kept most of the scratch vocals. 

As a result of the piecemeal nature of a lot of the recording projects I do, I can’t all together abandon the click, but my eyes have definitely been opened up to a whole bunch of a more musical posibilites that I had kind of lost sight of. 

Most of the time when I’m tracking Yogi just goes to sleep and waits for me too get done so we can play the game where he bites  at my arm, and I yell, “c’mon motherfucker! Is that all you got!”   It really freaks people out, I love it so much.  But, sometimes when the click is blasting away when I’m tracking something over and over again, it scares yogi and he can’t sleep through the monotanous clicking.  For a wolf dog the death march of the click is almost unbearable!  Slowly eating away at his patience, making it imposible to keep his gentle, majectic wolf cander intact.  From this point on I’m going to try and keep his exposure to a minimum!  

My best friend

Just remember kids,

Click Kills,…..The Groove

Bud

Hello Citizens

It’s a great day when you have’nt been able to get on the internet for like 2 weeks and on your first day back in cyberspace you find this waiting for you on your facebook wall. 

zepplin vs pterodactyls

Ok before you get too excited, this is a fake movie poster that my cousin Dave made.  I was totally honored that he felt that I was capable of producing a soundtrack capable of accompanying a film of such epic magnatude.  Score!

So whats been going on with me? 

The Bud Carroll band has started recording an ep, we cut all the basics live for 4 songs on saturday and are finishing up the overdubs this week.  We recorded it at Trackside with my good friend Ryan Weaver producing and engineering.  It was a ton of fun and is shaping up too be one of the best things I’ve ever been a part of in the studio!  I’ll be posting some footage in the upcoming how to make a record video this week.

Keep it real out there, and remember, “fuck the click”

Bud

My sweet ass office

Hello Internets
I’m currently at my job teaching, “shred guitar”, nursing a 3 beer/no sleep hangover. I should have just gone to bed, but it’s so cold, and since the holidays are over my girlfriend of 5 years, Mandi, is back 10 hours away from me in Charleston SC starting back too school. So going to sleep alone in a cold bed did’nt seem like as much fun as staying up all night playing guitar and writing songs. One kind of shitty day and no songs later I probably should have just gone to bed.

This is what my job looks like, a small room filled with antiquated recording/computer equipment and cool guitars. The purple on is a Danelectro that my boss loaned me to put on this track I’m currently working on. I’ve been totally obsessed with Tom Petty recently, especially the wildflowers stuff.

I feel like I’m 11 playing along to my dad’s stereo again learning all the bone simple chord progressions. Talk about knowing how to make records, there’s a wealth of knowledge in his discography, with very very few missteps anywhere along the way.
I could’nt help but kind of laugh at myself over everyone’s top 10 this and that lists of bands that I’ve never heard of. I’m so out of touch will all but some of the more famous ones. I guess I went through it somewhat of a phase where I was scouring the cracks for every little indy band in every sub-genera when I was a teenager. Then there was my obsession with late 70s power pop that continues to inform almost everything I do to this day. Then there was my prog rock phase and then the time I spent glued to Goldmine magazine trying to find out about every phych band that ever released an obscure single. But through it all there is a parthenon that I always find myslef coming back to and worshiping at the alter of, I wish I would force myself to stay more current.

There is so much good shit out there happening now a days that its scary, the question is will it get the oportunity to stand the test of time?

My top 10 bands of all time for 2010, in no particular order. Most unoriginal list of all time!
1. Beatles
2. Rolling Stones
3. Big Star
4. Superdrag
5. The Police
6. Little Feat
7. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
8. ELO
9. Derek and The Dominoes
10. The Replacements

Yea man!
Bud

Hello Internet,

In this week’s how to make a record I come full circle on, “Mistaken Identity Crisis”, by laying down my finest drum performance to date, of all time.  I was so stoked about it, I put like 30 seconds of it at the top of the video.

There is also quite a bit of good footage of my wolf licking his balls. 

Hope you enjoy.

Bud

Hello Internets

Hope everyone had a good holidays and all of that shit.  I decided this year to take some time off, not from making music, but from working.  I decided several years ago that I was never going to fucking get a real job regardless of how shitty my life turned out becuase of it.  Nearly a decade later and I remain fully committed to this decision.  The only thing I do on a regular basis that resembles a real job is teaching the guitar.  I should say, “teaching shred guitar”, becuase thats the only thing that kids today even give a shit about.  If a kid can play they want to shred.  I guess to a certain extent I went through it as well, at one point I could play most of Van Halen I to a pretty proficient degree,.  So I can relate, but really it’s still tough to deal with.  So I’m taking some time off to work on songs for the never ending album.

When I was 24 I started, “making an album”, I have not stopped since.  I’ve had an ep and a full length come out.  By ”come out”, I mean several hundred copies were printed up and sold or given to family members for christmas or birthdays.  I’d be a dream come true to see some of them actually released by a label, but I’m not holding my breath.  Most of the people I’ve patterned myslef after are complete comercial faliures, so why would my emulation of then result in some sort of diffrent outcome.  Sometimes I go fucking nuts and wonder if there is a better way.   Truth is, I’m biologically compelled to take the hardest path avaliable.  My dad calls it working against myslef.

If I think I can make a good track I’ll quit at nothing to achieve that end.  Often times a track will take me a month to put together, sometimes a few days.  Sometimes I’ll go through several revisions of an song just to ditch it all together.  I’ve spent countless hours of my life and seen myslef age considerably as a result of my obsessive compulsion to make the perfect track.

The light at the end of the tunnel is that I’m getting better at it.  This is the curse and the blessing of the never ending album quest.

On the last day of 8th grade, (see picture below, especially the tape copy of Led Zepplin I!), I would have never dreamed that I’d even write a song, let alone make albums!

Take care,..and have a happy new year.

Bud Carroll