Sound Experiment 3
January 5 2008
Brooklyn NY

Libations to Brooklyn

Rich McGhee rolled into Blue Star around 11 am with a few of his most travel friendly instruments. We jumped in the car and headed to the New Haven train station to pick up our fellow musician and good friend Colin Benn. Colin was coming in from Boston on his way to his studio apartment in Brooklyn. A Julliard graduate and world renown professional musician, Colin always brings an air of professionalism in a light hearted way that is a welcome focused addition to any sound experiment or music venture. If I were going into a musical battle of ethereal and eclectic proportions, I would want these men on my side. The sounds that are created when McGhee, Benn and myself are in the room are nothing short of organically fantastic and deep! I’ve played with McGhee for over two years now with The MageePa project and I’ve know and played with Colin for close to ten in a group called Waka Tangga, and I would have to say these guys are probably the top two people I love to sound explore with. They’re professional, focused and all around fun guys.

Me, McGhee and Colin had what seemed to be a short ride into New York, over several different bridges and helpfully guided by our GPS dashboard directional unit fondly named Spencer. The NYC skyline first popped into view I knew we were headed into an adventure.
I literally could feel the electric charge of so many other great current and past artists and musicians’ energy surging through my veins I thought I would catch fire! There truly is no other place like NYC on this planet. If you have an idea this is the place to bring it and plant it in the soil. If it’s going to fly it will fly from here.

Our mission had such focus and I could sense things were going to change forever! It had the feeling of being electrically charged and my eyes couldn’t open wide enough to take it all in! The skyline and collection of steel and bridge cables peppered my vision. The tall buildings and chizzled under growth of concrete and steel created a contrast on the sky line of the setting sun that rivaled any wall calendar you might see on a waiting room wall or some random Chinese restaurant. This was Rich McGhee's old stomping grounds and he was calm but I felt he was hopeful of things to come. New York city is truly an amazing place in time and history. This trip is one of several we will embark on as we scout out the territory for the up and coming video that will be shot in the spring called The Brooklyn Sessions.

Once into Brooklyn we headed straight to Colin’s to drop off some things and prepare to head over to Rough Magic studios.
Here is the site of our next recording where we will have Dan Nocerra, a good friend of ours from Middlesex College help us shoot the video The Brooklyn Blue Star Session.
This video is a continuation of a series of musical production that Dan and his wife Jeannie (Sam Dog Films) and (Blue Star Productions) have created over the past three years. So needless to say I was very excited and wide eyed to the possibilities of this extremely rich and creative canvas that Brooklyn offers.

Rough Magic studios is a small eclectically charged space on the 4th floor of an inconspicuous building in the upper section of Brooklyn. There was a group of teens in the sound room reviewing their latest track on the pro tools board. At first I thought they were in their mid to upper twenties as they all sat attentively on the floor listening to the sound engineer editing skills of their work. Then as I listened to the music I really started to appreciate how good these kids were. They had a Beatles/Oasis flair and yet a strangely unique feeling at the same time. Needless to say I was impressed with their sound and the engineers mix was superb from what I was hearing. I have worked with pro tools for the last three years and I know what good sounds like, these guys had it.

After a brief tour of the studio McGhee, Colin and I headed over to Will Swofford's studio.
Will is an old friend of mine from Madison, CT. He graduated from Wesleyan a few years ago and like a lot of Wesleyan students I assume headed to NYC to test his creative wings. A smart fellow, his music and drone sound exploration is nothing short of amazing! Will has a way of pulling the musicians and audience into a space and holding you there longer than you think is possible. Once you surrender to his drone frequencies the true door or portal seems to open. Today was no different. Fortunately I brought a small camera to capture a piece of the action and will soon have a sample clip to see. The instrumentation today was saxophone, bamboo flute, viola, didgeridoo, vocals and synthesized guitar and zither.
Thank you my good friends Colin Benn, Will Swofford and Rich McGhee.