Recording the First clap Single

recording the first clap single was a big learning experience. We never really recorded ourselves before with any good equipment, and I really didn't know what my voice sounded like. When we showed up at the studio we knew we are ready to play our songs, but we weren't quite sure about the process.The recording studio we chose was Helfrich recording laboratories on E. Texas Rd. in West Allentown. Pete Helfrich was an eccentric older man in his 50s who had a lot of weird ways about him. When he walked into the studio, there was a huge fan that was in the ceiling it would turn on and you would feel like you were in a vacuum. Every time someone went out to smoke a cigarette or join, or just run out to the car. You would have to stand in the foyer and wait until Pete turned on the fan and sucked all the bad things off of you. You could say he was a germ a phobic . It didn't really make much sense because the  recording studio was a cluttered mess. There were so many instruments laying around , chords, boxes, stacks of tape ,records, headphones, there was so much stuff there was only an aisle to walk through to get to the control room of the studio. I think it took about an hour for Pete to move things around so that we could have a place to set up our equipment and stand to play our songs. I mean  it really looked like a cluster bomb went off in the place. Aside from that Pete really knew his shit, he was highly skilled at recording, he worked  up in New York in the theaters, recording symphonies and many other things that he told us, I can't remember every thing he told us he also liked to talk a lot.. He told us to bring in an album of the band that we liked and that we wanted our recording to sound like.naturally we chose the Ramones and the sex pistols. I guess Pete needed to know a little bit about punk rock it was the first time he ever recorded a punk rock band. After we got set up and were at the point where we were starting to play our instruments, that's when you start the meter and you pay by the hour. First you have to tune the drums and set the microphones up on the drums that took an hour and half. Then setting up Mike's guitar microphones took a little time because he would run off of five channels, setting up five microphones down the hallway, this gave your much fuller sound. The bass was one channel and it was direct right into the mixing board.we ran through our songs a couple times to warm up and to get used to everything. Then we lay down the tracks, we all had headphones on and were in different rooms. I forgot to say it was a drum booth and Pete cleaned it out, it had clear plexiglass on the front so we could see Robbie and he could see us. The only way you heard any of the music was through the headphones Mike was all the way down the hall you couldn't see him at all, so all that practice playing in separate rooms paid off. I think we did don't say no in four or five takes and we nailed killed by kindness in one or two. When you are recording for the first time you kind of are scared and nervous you have all this energy and angst, we listened to the songs and we said we like them but Pete said leave our equipment exactly the way it is, and wait until the dust settles. He wanted us to come back the next day , he made a tape of the songs so we could listen to them. Pete had a motto he always said speak now or forever hold your peace, which meant once the songs are down and recorded you can't change them you have to do them over.so it was wise to leave your equipment set up, and the mixer board set up the way you left it, so if there was something you didn't like about the song, you could come back and do the song over and you wouldn't have to spend all that money setting up the equipment and the microphones again.Pete Helfrich was a really cool guy God rest his soul he passed away a few years ago, but he was always good with the money he never charged you more than the time he worked on your song, he was a great guy. He also did the mixing for( get the hell out) the CD by Frank FOE, a compilation of Lehigh Valley artists. Well that's the recording part of the single out return with another post on the mixing which is a whole mother story and a mind blowing event what else things always work that way with the clap!!!

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Back To the Lighthouse or I Mean the French Connection

 Shows at the lighthouse became an every other week thing. We would open up for other bands brought in by clap unlimited productions, and a few other local acts. There was a limited number of venues to play in the Lehigh Valley. Especially for a punk band and one of the only punk bands in the Lehigh Valley.also the all age   West catty playground and  firehall shows were a few years away .the lighthouse shows were more routine them fun until one day it changed hands. A guy named Jason took over running the place. He was a short chubby guy who look like Brian Johnson of AC/DC. He started a whole new thing changing the name of the lighthouse to the French connection. He brought in dancers, mud wrestling and half naked girls rolling around in Jell-O and pudding.this put a whole new twist and playing a show and brought in the different crowd. It was fun playing while all those girls were rolling around in the mud and Jell-O. We started playing shows that the French connection on a regular basis. But like all other venues it became more like a job and it lost it's flare and wasn't fun ant more. Also we found that we were wearing ourselves out playing too many shows in the Lehigh Valley. People didn't want to come out every other week to see you and we weren't playing enough new material to keep it fresh. So we decided it was time to take off from playing and record our first single.*

We looked around for recording studio and decided on Helfrich recording laboratories on E. Texas Rd. in Allentown. Pete Helfrich the engineer was an older man who seemed more in tune to record Opera and classical music, but he turned out to be really cool and knew what he was doing. We chose 2 songs to record don't say no and killed by kindness. We got busy in our practice space going over the songs again and again till they were perfect. We even divided ourselves into separate rooms as if we were recording so we didn't depend on eye contact, we knew the songs inside and out every note.I guess all that preparation worked out to because all the songs were done in under five takes, which saved us lots of money. The only part of recording that took a couple takes was the vocals.they are done separately, I was a little picky about those and when you finally get to hear yourself sing some adjustments needed to be made. Start

When we got to the recording studio we were shocked at first. The outside of the building was a rundown old church I think, with a few buildings added on to it and the carport at a garage. The inside didn't look much better there was instruments all over the place things stacked on top of one another. there were piano's a harpsichord and a cluster fuck of recording equipment. The only area that was cleaned out was the drum booth for Robbie's drums. A small area had to be cleaned out for Mike and myself. The recording process was a very interesting and we learned a lot from it. We also read up on several techniques used by other artists we like. Like East Bay Ray of the dead Kennedys he always used five mics all spaced down a hallway.also we used a double track for the vocals which was used by artists like the Beatles, kiss, Nirvana and a host of other musicians. Recording was only the first process of making the 45, which I will get into deeper in the next post so stay tuned.!

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