By Jason Songe

For all you Pixies, Frank Black, and Breeders fans out there, here’s a portion of the interview that focused exclusively on those bands and Mumphrey’s work with them

BM: You’d asked me about “Fields of Marigold.” It’s not one of my favorite songs on my end, though I like the song a lot. That whole record was done in a rehearsal hall that sounded like garbage, so it was a constant fight to get the distant sound of the drums out of every other microphone. We had been doing the Black Letter Days stuff in a loft in Little Tokyo in downtown L.A., and it was really comfortable, like a real nice apartment, and we were able to get fairly decent sounds. We basically got kicked out. They didn’t realize, I guess, that we were recording actual records in there. The landlord comes by and says, “You can’t have these drums anymore.” Charles is like, “Ok, we’ll be out in six hours.” He calls me up and he’s like, “We’re moving out. I have an idea. See if you can make it work.” The idea was that the band (The Catholics) set up and record in 3rd Encore’s showcasing room (seen in Pixies film loudQUIETloud). Charles’ attitude was, “Fuck the landlord and loft, we’ll be set up and recording somewhere else tomorrow.” And we were. It just happened to be somewhere sortof sucky. It was this huge, square, awful-sounding room with a really high drop ceiling, like a warehouse. If you listen, you can hear how cavernous it is on Devil’s Workshop. “Out of State” is probably the best-sounding one on it. If you’re a fan, and you don’t give a shit about the ultimate mix, then yeah, “Fields of Marigold” is a rockin’ tune. But, it’s my job to try and deliver some fat shit. I like Sabbath records, crankin’ Sabbath. (more…)

By Jason Songe

Photos by Eric Martinez and Dan Fox

Traveling down LA 21 towards Bogalusa, I stopped into a convenience store to get a six-pack for Ben Mumphrey as a thank-you for the time he was giving up for our interview about Studio in the Country and his sound engineering work there. The early twenty-something clerk with a mangy beard was buried in his beverage orders, and when he looked up and spoke his country accent soothed me. It was a sure sign I’d crossed the line into a simpler, slower dimension, and probably because I spent many vacations as a child on a Mississippi farm it felt like cold water on my head after a long run. It makes sense, then, that as I got closer to the studio and further into the country, my heartbeat slowed.

I saw the two huge cedar pylons marking a driveway entrance and I turned between them onto the gravel road that led down to a geometrically edgy structure that looked like a student of Frank Lloyd Wright designed it in the ‘70s. “This has to be the place,” I said. I stepped out the car, took in the pine trees, ponds and open land that went on for acres. The feeling of calm reminded me of a retreat I took in Convent, Louisiana, which has got to be one of the most beautiful places you’ll find mid-state.

Studio in the Country took six years to design and was finished in 1973. According to an old studio brochure, a country location was chosen to minimize earth vibrations. It has been used by Stevie Wonder, Willie Nelson, Professor Longhair, The Neville Brothers, The Gutter Twins, Kansas (“Carry On Wayward Son”), Marilyn Manson, etc.

“It was built by A-grade sound architects with a soft ceiling,” Mumphrey said as he took me on a tour of the studio. Mumphrey was telling the truth because I heard my ears ringing in the large recording room. The only time I can normally hear my ears ringing is when I’m going to sleep.

Next Mumphrey walked me outside and down to the studio’s cabin-sized echo chamber, which is used to naturally capture reverb. Two lines come from the control room and plug into two mics for a vocal sound that’s “richer and creamier than computer reverb.”

Mumphrey started engineering music in ‘97, and since then has engineered, mixed, or produced records for The Pixies, Frank Black and The Catholics, The Breeders, The Gutter Twins, Fu Manchu, Mark Langean, Auf der Maur, Anders Osborne, etc., and he was the monitor engineer for The Pixies on all of their reunion tours.

Mumphrey and I ended the tour back in the main building, inside the control room. There, ANTIGRAVITY asked him questions about the studio, his work and the bands he’s recorded. This interview starts with an answer, as Mumphrey discusses the differences in studio taste over the decades and how that ultimately affected The Pixies. (more…)

Interview By Jason Songe

Photo by Zack Smith

I’m intrigued by the Bad Off because they seem like an anachronism, especially in New Orleans: a hard rock band of sex, glitter and sleek clothes who feature a lead singer that could’ve been the speed freak love child of Mick Jagger and Steven Tyler, plus a guitarist who not only knows every Jimmy Page riff but also writes solos like him. Of course, there’s more to them than that, or else I wouldn’t be writing this. Singer and leader Erik Corriveaux has the best and most expressive rock voice this side of James Hall, and the songs are head-bangingly catchy, hooky but also sensual, mystical, and full of wonder. The band’s an efficient live machine, a sculpture of razor sharp bends and breaks.

That’s also a good way to describe Lady Day, their first full-length record, which blasts into overdrive with opener “Bombdrop” and doesn’t let up through the next lean string of eight songs. Three or four years ago, the Bad Off was known more for their Led Zeppelin tribute than their originals, but with Lady Day they arrive with a soulful, stunning, and filler-less debut that energizes thanks to the positive lyrics (imagine a motivated hunter of experience).

Corriveaux started tracking Jody Smith’s drums at his Gentilly home the week before August 29, 2005 and didn’t pick up the record again until April of 2006, at which point Smith was gone permanently to New York City (and since replaced by former Rock City Morgue drummer Keith Hajjar). Bassist Dan Lauricella tracked his parts at Piety Sreet Studio with engineer Wesley Fontenot and was, as Corriveaux put it during our interview, “up Jody’s ass” with his playing, which sounded better then than it does written out. If you listen close to the bass guitar, you’ll notice Lauricella is right on top of Jody’s kick drum, which creates an awesome airtight power throughout the album. Next up was the rhythm and lead guitar of Brian Berthiaume, which, along with the vocals, was recorded at Misha Kachkachishvili’s Axis Studios in Metairie.

Corriveaux was more than gracious through the interview process. First, I broke my recorder at Pravda, so we went to his house and recorded the interview on ProTools. He gave me a CD, which didn’t work, so he gave me his iPod with the interview on it. After I frantically called him, believing I’d broken his iPod, he said, “Did you push the button hard enough?” Sure enough, I hadn’t.

ANTIGRAVITY: Talk about the difficulty of singing lyrics that come from a place you’re no longer at.

Erik Corriveaux: First, I can say that I don’t have much difficulty with that. Although a new set of emotions might be correlated to the topic of a song, at that point, as a songwriter and a performer, you have to take on the role of telling a story.

AG: Take on that character even though that character is in the past?

EC: Yeah. Just because one is not in love anymore doesn’t mean that they can’t sing about love. I am one who gives a lot to the song because it came from a place (of feeling). It’s the songwriter’s responsibility to express that character. There are certain songs that definitely have different emphasis on them. (more…)

When I saw David Lynch’s Lost Highway for the first time, I drove myself nuts trying to understand the film’s every twist and turn. I instead should’ve sat back and absorbed the experience, waiting till later to ask the whys and the whos and the “why did that house just implode?”

It’s best to use the same approach for local rock group Good Guys and their new first full length, The Social Engagement. Like Lynch, they specialize in dark, strange, abstract and schizophrenic works of art that don’t ask the consumer to entirely understand their madness. One second its doo-wop, the next Tropicália, the next Mike Patton-inspired avant-metal, and the next a lullaby. Fans of film scores and classical music, Good Guys thankfully always come back to a recognizable common ground in their songs, similar to how Tool has approached their last two albums.

Formed in 2004, Good Guys are led by vocalist, melodica and theremin player Jeremy Johnson and vocalist, guitarist and pianist Tom McLaughlin and rounded out by synthesizer player and trumpeter Greg Beaman, drummer Kyle Sharimataro and bassist Greg Smith.

The Social Engagement is more mature and thought-out than the band’s previous two EPs. Simply, it sounds like they killed themselves working out the absolute best arrangements. Produced by Mike Napolitano and augmented by Mike Dillon and Skerik, the album becomes better the more you listen to it. It’s a hard-worked triumph, to be sure. ANTIGRAVITY sat down with Johnson and McLaughlin at Mojo Coffehouse, just as a cop was about to mow over a pedestrian at Race and Magazine, to talk about Ennio Morricone, Kathleen Turner and, of course, their music. (more…)

After a year and a few months at it, nine-piece local band Antenna Inn’s sleek, smart and superbly constructed suites of jazzy prog rock are starting to draw a large crowd. They’ve been headlining shows more frequently and are about to release their solid new album, Do/Work, with a party at Tipitina’s. Their’s is the sound of a band working through ideas together for the first time, as they realize their talent and range. As good as Do/Work is, you get the feeling that their next album is going be the one—it’s going to be crazy. For now, though, Do/Work and its highlights: the angelic and Beach Boys-ish back-up vocals and the jazz dirge breakdown at the end of “Ernest Borgnine,” the high frequency bass and bright keyboard on “Ink,” the disorienting horns on “Stockholm Syndrome,” and the swingin’ verses in “Nobody Expects The Spanish Inquisition.” Though the choruses are pretty catchy, there’s something sublime about each song’s instrumental stretches. The lyrics are dark, anxious, and purging, sometimes malevolent and sometimes self-help-like: “If you’re looking for love, stop, because you will never be happy, even when you are. You will always be lonely…c’mon, people, fall back out of love. Call your mother. Mothers, call your sons.” There’s also a rolling confidence throughout the band—one that could easily be perceived as arrogant, except that confidence is tempered with a clear love of not only New Orleans and its rock scene but the city’s traditional music, as well as a want, almost a need, to create a unifying force that makes it all more successful.

ANTIGRAVITY recently sat down with drummer Eric Rogers and talked about Do/Work, the band’s fan base, and his good, old-fashioned sibling interaction with brother Ryan. (more…)