These Streets Come Alive

The first album I worked on completely was a church music project with a longtime friend of mine Joel Khouri. We met years ago as kids and didn't like each other cause up to that point we each thought we were the only kids in the world with the name Joel. Apparently it took years to get over the shock of learning there was someone trying to steal my name but once we came to grips with it we realized we could make some good music together. Joel Khouri ended up moving to Charlotte, NC and worked on a lot of good projects and decided he needed to do one of his own music. So, he came back to his hometown and mine, Jacksonville, FL. and worked with an incredible group of musicians to record one of the best church music albums in my opinion. It was quite inspiring to work with such good friends I had always played with and we finally had a chance to make it last. Johnny Rumbach played Bass, Josh Baldwin played Drums, one of my best friends to this day Jeremiah Bowser played Keys, Kelanie Gloeckler sang Backup, Joel Khouri sang and played Acoustic Guitar and Keys, and I played Electric Guitar. Joel also had Stephen Roach come down later in the week to add Percussion. Joel and Kelanie also Co-Produced the project while I Engineered and Mixed it.

We recorded the album live one evening at New Life Christian Fellowship in Jacksonville, Florida and while I played Electric Guitar Live Jeff Alford Recorded. We rehearsed three days prior to the event and Joel met with me for an afternoon before that to discuss tones and arrangements. I used Josephine, my Transparent Red 1982 Epiphone Riviera (which I still have); Lorraine, a Cream 80’s Gibson Explorer; and Anne-Marie, a White mid 90’s US Lonestar Strat. The amp setup I used for all parts live and studio was a Fargen Mini-Plex through a Hiwatt 4x12 cab mic’d with a 421 centered on the cone and Sanken Condender off center with both positioned right against the grille.

For the entire album I wanted to keep a very “live” feeling mix, lots of energy so you can close your eyes and feel like you’re in the auditorium with us. This meant adding multiple condensers (AKG 414’s) across the stage and a few more Shotguns (AT’s) hung around the room. I ended up sliding all of these mic’s in the computer and submixing them to a stereo pair on the console so I could simply grab two faders when I wanted more or less ambience. I used verb but tried to keep it to a minimum using the crowd mic’s for space instead of processing. I prefer the natural sound of the room to processed verbs though the studio we were in has some of my favourite verbs out there. Joel brought along a crisp sounding Avalon 737 (I believe that’s the model) that I dropped in his vocal chain. I believe the signal chain was something like an Audix OM7 straight through a Presonus Digimax Pre to tape then dumped to the computer, through the Euphonix, Euphonix compressor (to catch the faster transients), Avalon pre/eq/compressor (to smooth things out and boost a lil presence in his voice) then Euphonix Eq (for slicing specific frequencies with a scapel). Joel also brought along a cute lil LA-3 I used on Johnny’s Bass to slam the hell out of it thickening up his beautiful 50th Anniversary Butterscotch P-Bass we picked up in Orlando on a gig. Johnny also used my Homebrew Electronics U.F.O. fuzz pedal for one track that needed a good amount of meat and hair in the lo-end. We recorded the initial tracks as part of a Sunday Evening service and took eight days out of the next two weeks to Edit, Overdub, Record more tracks, Mix, and Edit some more.

After the initial tracking we started right away the next morning listening through all the tracks and deciding what needed to be done with them; edits, overdubs etc. Once we edited the original tracks we had Stephen Roach add some nice Percussion textures then Johnny brought his beautiful bass back in to replace some tracks. Joel added a lot of edgy synth, a LOT of synth, then I tracked some guitar parts. At one point I was working on a lead line for a track and I remember Joel saying something about how he didn't want the line to sound like a bunch of Guitar licks and tricks but more of a flowing synth line. I responded with something witty about why didn't he just play it with a synth if he wanted it to sound like that. After a bit of going back and forth we finally settled on me playing a line that I absolutely love. It ended up sounding a bit Killers-esque, synthy flowing melody with a strong guitar edge to it. At one point while trying to get the track perfect (for some reason I couldn't get it "just right") Joel and Kelanie left the room to leave me with my own worst critic to wrestle it out. I won. I think.

There was a holiday in the middle of the sessions and we were behind schedule a bit do to a scheduling conflict on someone's part so I talked my boss into letting me come in to edit that day. The next time Joel and Kelanie came in to listen to the "edits" there were suddenly four to six Electric Guitar tracks per song which sounded massive. I have no idea how that happened ;-)

Once we arrived at the mixing stage things got a lil bit crazy. I ended up coming into the studio around eight o'clock every morning and not leaving until two the next morning then waking up and doing the same thing for three or four days in a row. Joel and Kelanie were nice enough to run out to get me lunch, dinner, and coffee but I was so narrow sighted I didn't want to leave for a second. I just wanted to put my nose to the grind and do the damn thing, which I did. On the eighth working day we drove to Wendy's at one thirty in the morning listening to the Last Draft of mixes and sat in the parking lot eating (I was lovin them fries and frosty) and making notes for our Final Revisions. After returning to the studio and making our final changes we walked out of the studio after three in the morning with an incredible album, I think.

All in all this was the most fun I’ve had doing a project and though there are things I hear and want to change I am quite satisfied with how this album turned out. Achtung Baby was made in two weeks and These Streets Come Alive was made in eight days . . .