Because I don’t have enough to do, I joined a band this past winter. I played the violin for about a million (alright, more like 15) years, and did all kinds of projects in high school and college from opera pit orchestras to Carnegie Hall. By the time I was 22 and finished college with a music minor, I was fairly sick of classical music and wanted to do something (anything) else with the violin, but didn’t get around to it until about 6 months ago (and only 12 years later!!).
Our band, The Contra Banditos just sat down to record the first part of our CD this past Friday night and all day Saturday. Many, many thanks to Chris McDermott for producing this for us and spending so much of his valuable time on our project. We got 5 tracks recorded over a period of about 11 & 1/2 hours. I believe (last I heard, anyway) that the hope is to have the CD finished by this winter but it’s damn hard finding a recording time that works for 14 different people.
We recorded in a band member’s barn, which has great sound (and happens to be on a beautiful family farm). During the process there were either birds or crickets singing away outside, some of which made it onto the recording. We recorded 4 traditional fiddle tunes, and one original piece by a fellow band member (who was not at the recording session). It’s been a long weekend, and I’ll try to post some further thoughts on the recording process when I’m not quite so exhausted. (Note: that’s me in the middle with my hair hiding my face; and no, I don’t know why the top of my head is black…)
