Air/No Air...

Thinking about a comment one of the recording engineers we are working with on new mixes of new songs made during our last session a couple days ago. We were working on a song that is on full-blast for the duration of the song, a little over 5 minutes of maximum r&r. 8 musicians just blazing away. It's one of our most exhilarating numbers. When we play it live the audience always really, really gets into it. We actually can get folks to "dance in the aisles," which frankly, when it first happened, totally surprised us. Anyway, it's a good song, fun to play, and even has cowbell on it. It's a story song about being in the wrong place at the wrong time with dire consequences. Funny, even our most "enjoyable" songs, are saying something, we don't have any throwaway moments. That is kind of our thing. So anyway back to the engineer's comment: "There's not a lot of air on this one." So true. The songs blasts out, sucking the air from the room and it never falters or hesitates. But that is a feature, not a bug. There are other songs on our projected new record that do have plenty of air, and head-space, but this one, is a bit of an outlier. We listened to it in the studio on high-priced, premium studio monitors, and then, the engineer flicked a switch and it was suddenly playing thru a classic old boombox sitting on a shelf. Oh man, did it sound epically cool. Sometimes you want air, and sometimes not. Both ways can be a kick. Air/No Air… yes, indeed, there is a dichotomy there. And sometimes it can be exquisite. We definitely got the vibe of making a well-conceived piece of music, even if it sort of happened kind of accidentally.