johnvelghe.com

Obligatory Recording Progress Update

johnv — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:45:03 +0000

When it’s good, the recording process is one of experimentation, thought, trial-and-error, and work. All these things combine to make recording a creative endeavor, different from going in and playing songs like you did in rehearsal. Working on this record mostly alone has the “benefit” of never having performed these songs in rehearsal. So, I get to try new instrumentations, new melodies, and different tones overall.

Most of the songs on this record were written in the studio. Some a while ago, only seeing the light of an audience in a very stripped down, acoustic performance. Of the rest some are several years old, getting a chance to be re-worked through the benefit of time, better ability, and new instrumentation. One is a cover and a couple were in the Mendoza Lie repertoire for a few months.

So, in the past few weeks, with the help of some great folks, a majority of the tracking is done. Ms. Abigail Henderson of the amazing band Tiny Horse came in and lent her voice to a couple songs, including a super secret cover tune. There are a few more parts to iron out, re-cut, and honestly, thanks to a new song yesterday, there are lyrics still to be written. Some songs that were favorites a few months ago have been trashed. Replaced with new ones that came up during the recording process.

I’m hoping to start mixing in a couple weeks. Then mastering, then maybe pressing or Drop Carding or whatever comes in the year 2010 after that point in the process when you are genuinely sick of the record and just want it out of your life.

All this means is that, hopefully, amid all the guitars, pianos, drums, accordions, tambourines, and Rhodeses – some risks have been taken. Not the kinds of life-and-limb risks people take every day, but the kinds of risks that will make people either love or hate your work.

All this to say it’s pretty much your standard recording project. It has a beginning, a middle and an end and this one is somewhere in there.

Metallurgy Trumps Torque – Every Time

johnv — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:26:45 +0000

When working on my motorbike I have this guiding maxim: metallurgy trumps torque – every time. This means that when you have two parts that you’re having a hard time fitting together, the laws of physics and thermodynamics say that rather than pounding, compressing, and calling them “motherf*cker” the best thing to do is heat one, or cool another and the two parts will slide together as gracefully as a heron landing on a lake.

Working on this recording this weekend I was reminded of a guiding maxim for recording drums: feel trumps tone – every time. This is sort of the opposite of physics or thermo dynamics. It basically says that when you are trying to marry two or more instruments together in a song, you should always choose the instruments with the best feel; even if that means sacrificing the version with the best aural recording quality.

I won’t bore you with the particulars because it gets into all kinds of boring, mic technique engineering garbage that doesn’t really matter. I think the overall lesson is the important thing.

When we listen back to some of the greatest recorded works ever – Robert Johnson, John Bonham, Frank Sinatra – it’s seldom those with the best sonic fidelity that send us over the edge with delight. In fact, some of my recording engineer pals would say that these performances sound lousy. Yeah, friends, but they feel great.

People don’t feel sonic fidelity, engineers do. People feel performance, they feel passion; people feel feel.

Go with the best feel.

hold on

johnv — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:59:21 +0000

There isn’t a lot I can say about Alex Chilton that hasn’t been said already. Chilton, influenced me more than John Lennon, more than Paul Westerberg, more than most. He accomplished the very things I have always hoped to accomplish; to sit in a room with three or four other people write songs intended to do nothing more than make people fall in love – over and over – with the world around them and those who live in that world with them.

As a friend pointed out (and I’m paraphrasing here) there is nothing tragic about Chilton’s death. That it’s really amazing that Chilton had a wonderful life and inspired so many people. And that his work spoke to and for so many of us.

When I think back on my relationship with Alex Chilton’s work, a couple of things stand out.

Jim and Matt

Almost 20 years ago today I walked into a little music store in Mission Kansas called Midwestern Music Company. I was (did I just say “was?”) a typical, horrible guitar player, looking for a distortion pedal to make me sound better. So I was naturally intimidated and scared shitless by this whole process and the guys in there. While the tall, long-haired dude brought me a yellow Boss distortion pedal to try, the shorter blonde guy with thick glasses just watched me. When I shit my way through some chords he sort of laughed and walked back into the back room. I can’t remember if I ever bought the yellow pedal (I don’t think I ever actually bought anything there) but I do know the whole experience ruined me from going back in there for a good six months. In those six months I managed to get a copy of Big Star’s #1 Record. I listened to it, gushed openly over every note, and learned to play every riff I could. So when I went back in to that little music store the first thing I did was play (badly) the opening riff to “Feel.”

The blonde guy with the thick glasses leaned inside the doorway to the back room looking at my hands, took a slow drag of his cigarette, and, breathing in, said “Big Star. Cool.” – no laughing, this was deadly serious. That is how I met and came to be friends with Jim Strahm and Matt Kesler. Over the next several years we talked Chilton, Westerberg, Clem Burk, The Beat, and all these great pop musicians. My relationship with Jim and Matt and Midwestern Music kept me playing music and writing songs to this day. Always at the foundation of our musical relationship was Alex Chilton. It’s safe to say if I hadn’t heard Chilton and Big Star I might never have met some of the most important people in my life. He embodies that one thing music does for so many of us; it is a thing through which we form long-lasting relationships; through which we fall in love with the people in our world over and over again.

Jody Stephens

Several years ago, again almost to this day, Juj and I took a trip to Memphis Tennessee. It was right around my birthday and we took the dogs. I was dead set on visiting Ardent Studios. So, one afternoon we went. I walked in and told them woman, “yeah, um, I was hoping to have a look around. I’d like to record here.” She smiled at us a smile that said “we get this all the time,” and picked up the phone; “Hey. There’s a gentleman here who would like to look around? Okay.”

She hung up, “Joe will be right up and he’ll show you around.” And in walked this tall guy who looked so familiar. He said “hey, I’m Joe. Wanna look around?” I said sure, awestruck to be in Ardent Studios. He said he had a few minutes before an important appointment and he could show me the place. First we saw the “A” control room and said “yeah, this is where REM recorded Green and the Replacements mixed whatever that album was in here.” Next he showed me the “B” room “now in here is where Westerberg puked on the ceiling.” and he pointed to the top of a 20-foot wall “RIGHT over there. You can see it.” We both stood there in silence staring at the stains on the ceiling. Me: “How in the hell….?” Joe: “Yeah. I . . . I have no idea.”

We walked around a little more and talked about Studers and consols, kitchens and Jim Dickinson. And he apologized for having the cut the tour short but he had a commitment. When we walked out to the lobby it was empty so Joe grabbed a folder with the Ardent Logo on the front and a business card and handed them to me. We walked outside and he looked at a woman standing in the parking lot and said “There you are.” Juj was playing in the parking lot with two huge Collies who immediately turned and ran up to Joe. Turns out the woman was Joe’s wife. The two had a date to take the dogs to the park and they both apologized again for having to “be so short.”

We chatted a few more minutes about things to do in Memphis. I told him I was a huge Big Star fan and he said “oh, if you’re in to those guys there’s a place called Shangri-la records over here that has a bunch of posters and records and stuff.” He was gracious, asked me to call him if I ever needed anything or was coming back in town and the two of them told us a few other things to do in Memphis.

Juj and I got back in the car and I looked in the folder. The business card read “Jody Stephens – Studio Manager.” I was stunned. ”THAT WAS FUCKING JODY FUCKING STEPHENS!” Jody Stephens had just given me a guided tour of Ardent Studios, and I was so star-struck by the place that I didn’t even recognize the man (I’d only seen pictures of him from almost 30 years prior). He never once said anything about himself, Big Star or anything. He never expected that I should recognize him even as I gushed over his band that changed my life. This was Jody Stephens — his big important appointment was with his wife and dogs. The kindest, most unassuming musician I’ve ever met. The fact that he and Alex Chilton stayed friends throughout their life — when musicians with far lesser reasons for egotism and anger can’t even stand to be in a city together — says all you need to know about Chilton and Stephens as people.

I owe a lot of my life to the people I’ve met through music — I’m no different than anyone else in this regard. I’m just really fortunate that I’ve been able to fall in love over and over again with the world and the people in it and that Alex Chilton’s music helped me hold on to that world, and those people.

Thanks, Alex, for all of them.

Years ago, my heart was set to live, oh
And I’ve been trying hard against unbelievable odds
It gets so hard in times like now to hold on
But guns they wait to be stuck by, at my side is God

And there ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

There’s people around who tell you that they know
And places where they send you and it’s easy to go
They’ll zip you up and dress you down and stand you in a row
But you know you don’t have to, you can just say, “No”

There ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

I’ve been built up and trusted, broke down and busted
But they’ll get theirs and we will get ours if you can

Just to hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on

Years ago, my heart was set to live, oh
And I’ve been trying hard against strong odds
It gets so hard at times like now to hold on
Well, I’ll fall if I don’t fight, and at my side is God

And there ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round
Ain’t no one goin’ to turn me ’round

Hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on

Reverb Nation Profile

johnv — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:33:21 +0000

I set up a profile at Reverb Nation. You can (hopefully) check it out here:

Clyfford Still

johnv — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:54:26 +0000

This instrumental composition, Clyfford Still, was used in the documentary film “The Next American Dream” and a few other places. I started writing this song on my birthday. It was built around the piano line that sort of mimicked the sound of my dog, walking across the wooden floor above my head. He was 14 years old at the time. I lost him not too long after this track was done, so it stands as not only a memory of him, but a work of some emotional importance for me.

John Velghe - Clyfford Still

Please enjoy it. Please don’t steal it.

Tenzing Short

johnv — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:46:17 +0000

I completed the music for the (very) short film, Tenzing, and finally have a link to it here:

The Feelies — Only Life “$8.00 VG”

johnv — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:02:13 +0000

Many years ago I walked in to Recycled Sounds (my friends and I still called it “Dirt Cheap.”) I bought a record, something like Chronic Town, the lady behind the counter, a really sweet woman, saw the REM and said, “Hey you might be in to this.” She walked down a row of records (which at the time was bigger than the row of used CDs) and picked up The Feelies “Only Life.”

A so began a 20-year musical mentorship of myself by Anne Winter. Over those years I bought stacks and stacks of vinyl from Anne. Every time I bought one record, she recommended one I’d probably like.

Today I learned that Anne passed, unexpectedly. There’s not much I can say about what Anne did for me that the many others whose lives she touched don’t already know.

People turn to music to make sense out of life and death. And for some of us, that meant turning to Anne. So right now this all seems a little, well, confusing. I can’t offer any kind of clarity.

This morning, when I learned about her death, my first instinct was to play records. I walked over to my record player, untouched for months, and what record was on there?

The Feelies — Only Life with the tag still on the clear sleeve “$8.00 VG”

What does it mean?
What can you do about it?
What can you say?
You don’t even know about it
Nobody talks
Nobody listens
Well look around
Yeah look out your window
They’re having a ball
Having a party
Well come inside
You can do what you like
Well it’s a nightmare
It’s all negative
Nothing matters
And what if it did?
You could lock your doors
Close all your windows and
Hide away …

It’s only life …

Don’t Stop the Song

johnv — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:06:18 +0000

Songs are society’s mirror. Throughout our history, songs have reflected the tones, the attitudes, and the events of every decade. They have prepared us for war, and marched us through it; saluted our heroes and ridiculed our fools and villains; marked every kind of national and personal disaster; noted every trend and passing fad; and expressed the feelings of rage and resentment that we, as a worried world, repress.

Songwriters don’t make history; they sing it. And if the song isn’t pretty — if it’s too loud, its message is mixed, its tempo is feverish, and its tone is threatening and ominous — look at the life around you. History is singing. Don’t try to stop the song. Right or wrong, the song is inevitable. It’s a photograph. And all of us are posing for it.

Arthur Hamilton

Let’s do some living, after we die.

johnv — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:47:02 +0000

I might never have written a note were it not for the bands Jim Dickinson worked with – Big Star, The Replacements, The Stones. I know I never would have learned to record myself if it weren’t for him.

I never had a nice couch, but I’ve spent hundreds of hours listening back in the control room, head back, exhausted, wondering, listening, hoping. Jim Dickinson’s ideas, arrangements, and outright theft of so many great records probably inspired me more than Michael Jackson or Les Paul combined. RIP Jim. You’ll be missed.

Of Michael Jackson

johnv — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:00:45 +0000

Someone actually asked me my reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. I don’t know why I’m even taking this on, but hey, I’m a musician, I never learned the fine art of avoiding lost causes. (I named one of my rock bands “Saint Jude” for chrissake).

Thriller

I’ve read a lot about Michael Jackson lately. It seems to me people can’t help but fall into one of two camps, the camp that looks at Michael Jackson in terms of his art, and the camp that looks at Michael Jackson the man. It seems that how deeply they are entrenched in their camp determines the degree to which a person can overlook the opposite facet of the man’s existence. If you’re dug into Michael Jackson the Man, it becomes very hard to see Michael Jackson the Artist. If you’re dug deeply into Michael Jackson the Artist, it can be hard to see the man.

And in that way, Michael Jackson really must be the King of Pop.

I’ve always had this deep and abiding ambivalence towards musical artists. (Maybe that’s because I aspire to be a musical artist and I have a deep and abiding ambivalence towards myself?) People tell me Paul Westerberg is a dick (he did fire Bob Stinson for being a drunk and doing too many drugs). Right now I’m listening to Oasis, tell me it’s not hard to see those guys strictly through the prism of their art.

It really is the essence of popular music that its creators are human, they exist and in fact subsist on frailties. If they’re doing their job well, those frailties and that humanity not only fuels their work, but it infuses it. The indians say that when you hunt and kill a deer you eat the tip of the deer’s heart so that his strength is passed on to you. Well, for an artist, frailty and weakness are your strength, they’re your heart; and goddamned if true, aspiring artists don’t spend every waking moment trying to create a work that the world can eat the heart out of.

And as consumers of this art, we do it willingly.

In the case of Michael Jackson, more people ate the heart out of his work than any other artists in history (No, I DO NOT count the fucking travesty known as The Eagles Greatest Hits, bleck!).

So, is it any wonder that there’s so much ambivalence about Michael Jackson? Millions of people consumed his frailties, weaknesses, and humanity. Now, many of these same people are adults and they refuse to see him as anything other than a pedophile. I wonder about this inability to separate artist from man, to see that one’s consumption and worship and fandom becomes part of the essence of the man we deride today.

None of this serves as an attempt to deny the wrongs of the man. Some people see only the man, some only the artist. Whichever camp your trench is in is your gig and I don’t begrudge you that. I don’t blame anyone for keeping their head down. When we’re talking about these kinds of things – art and molestation – it’s not easy to stick your head up.

So, back to the question at hand: my reaction to the death of Michael Jackson. Very well, my reaction to the death of Michael Jackson is as follows:

May each of us create a body of work capable of overshadowing all the times we’ve been a punchline.