Photograph by Whitney Curtis
If you really want to get something done, goes an adage that's older than vinyl LPs, do it yourself. Recording music is no exception. Bands are by nature ephemeral. Drummers don't stick around, and bass players can be easier to lose than a good night's sleep on the road. At the end of the day, being in a rock group—or even just a duo—is like wearing one of those two-piece horse costumes. You're codependent, you go to a lot of parties, and somebody always wants to be the front man.
But recording music on your own is a different animal. If you make music at home, you've got the vocal range all to yourself. You can be your own boss—a four-track Springsteen born to run your own studio. "I didn't have time to get musicians together," says Geoff Kessell, a local songwriter who records at home, "so I built a small studio in my parents' basement and worked nights banging out rudimentary songs on a Tascam four-track." The serendipitous art of home recording involves working not only with what you own, but also with what you find lying around. "In the late '80s and early '90s," Kessell adds, "I played in basement bands that would rehearse at my house. When band mates left their keyboards, saxophones, bass guitars, drum sets, etc., I'd work them into my songs."
Andrew John, another fixture of the local scene, escaped from the '80s group the Stranded Lads and sailed straight into solo territory. If John is still stranded, it's in the paradise of autonomy. "I play as many instruments myself as I can," he says. "I'll play the drums in my head." After that, he uses a keyboard to fake a drumbeat; then, once he has the first draft committed to tape, John brings in flesh-and-blood players to replace the tracks he initially laid down himself. There was a time when he recorded on an eight-track, but now he sings the praises of technology. In the analog days, says John, when it came to editing, "You'd have to cut the tape—literally slice it."
Any way you slice it, these artists' musical approach gives new meaning to the term "self-control." And if John and Kessell represent the old school of home-alone recording, Dottie Georges (who performs as .e) is surfing its new wave. Georges, whose influences include Mike Watt, Lou Barlow and pop perennial Brian Wilson, is a child of the computer generation. As for her process, it's easier done than said: "An audio interface transfers the audio via a FireWire port into the multitrack recording software," she explains. Still, it's not as though she crawled straight from the womb into a PC. For Georges, the computer is the oven—never the recipe. Initially the way she got her sounds down on tape was "just having boomboxes around." Now she's really cooking.
For Kessell, the bells and whistles belong in the song, not the technology. "I was far more interested in capturing sounds and styles than in technical perfection," he says. "I just wanted to get the song done. I'd write and record two or three in one night."
Joe Raglani, another home-recorder, tells the tale of the tape. "I've been doing music since I was 13," he reveals. "I borrowed a four-track tape recorder from a friend in '89 and kept it for three or four years." Raglani went on to be in bands— but, like a man underwhelmed by his last few courtships, is happy to be on his own. "I use an old Mac desktop to do audio recording," he admits. "No MIDI or much computer processing going on. I still use a cassette four-track quite a bit. I like using as many sound sources and recording techniques as I can."
Though some musicians still swear by analog, computers have revolutionized things for them in two indisputable ways. They provide an affordable and simple way to replicate the sonic playground of a recording studio. And when the music is recorded, the artist can kick into high gear and become his or her own publicist by cyber-schmoozing. This often involves setting up a page on MySpace, where Kessell, Georges and other lone arrangers can offer music samples and direct links to points of purchase. Fan bases are built by connecting the dots (in Georges' case, the Dotties) between musicians and listeners. With the click of a mouse, new cliques are created. The artists can take on their fans, one on one.
Currently, these singular musicians are at varying phases in their respective careers. For instance, the venerable Kessell just released his newest CD, Funfair for the Drowning Man, while Georges is still working on her debut. But their work has undoubtedly enriched the St. Louis music scene—one person at a time.
