Bloompocket.com

Howdy kiddos. So I just wanted to officially announce that as of the weekend before this past weekend, I recorded the bass for Bloompocket track #2 in progress entitled “All Around Us.” (I like to keep things “up to the minute” for my readers).

As mentioned in my previous posts, I enlisted the bass services of one of LA’s finest, Larry Steen (And no, I’m not just saying “finest” because I’m working with him, it’s actually, like, true. I have a pretty discerning/snobby sense for musicianship and this guy really stacks up favorably compared to just about any jazz/funk/world/studio-oriented bass player I’ve heard in in this town.) I always try to get the best possible musicians I can possibly muster up for projects, even if it costs some extra money. The way I’d see it, I’d rather spend money on great musicians than great gear any day. So yeah, as you can see, at this moment in time, I’m going pretty easy in the gear department, but definitely going full-force in the top-notch personnel department. But yeah, this was a great session, as all parties involved were well-prepared. Since the sheet music was very clearly printed out (using Sibelius 5) and sent out to Larry ahead of time along with a rough mix of the track (both with and without the bass line, not that Larry needed to practice this - but he did anyway), all that there was to do was to quickly record what I had written, and from there, venture off of my little roadmap and expand into much funkier territory. Not surprisingly, Larry came up with his own version of the bass line that ended up working much better for the track- which was what I was kinda hoping for anyhow. In the end, it really wasn’t a matter of getting the bass line down as much as whittling out some stuff from the abundance of great ideas that were flowing through Larry.

The fact that I had a great engineer and studio at my disposal (Tony Shogren, who I used to on the vocal + guitar recording session for this tune) made it so that my attention was 100% on the bass line and not the pointing and clicking and knob-twiddling. My main focus here is creating great music and leaving the technician work to others more capable than myself whenever possible. Having a tracking engineer with an impeccable ear, as Tony does, really makes things even smoother.

Anyhow, so slowly by slowly, this thing is coming together. I’ve had to work some late hours and weekends with my non-music job, but that should be slowing down and hopefully I’ll be giving birth to Bloompocket production #2 very shortly.

So you’ve now been officially updated, until next time…

With Love from Marina Del Rey (”With Love from Marina Del Rey” - talk about a kick-ass title for a smooth jazz album, huh? OK, you may now begin vomitting up White Zin),

Doron