Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Frodus - Flexi 7"








Label: Tooth & Nail

1997

A promotional flexi 7" that came with the Muddle fanzine. This was recorded by Jonathan Kreinik in Nathan's parents garage. He sums it up in his recording diary entry here:
So we join Frodus once again, the late summer of 1997, with new bassist and old friend Nathan Burke on the team, ready to record some demos for their upcoming full length on Tooth and Nail, which will eventually yield two songs for a flexi-disc in Muddle Fanzine. Nate's parents have a nice detached garage at their house in McLean, VA and, happily, neighbors who seem to have lived around Nate's music career for some time. He has neighborhood fans.
I brought the Boombox out to the garage. Music like the Juniper record but much more refined at this point. So it looked like this: the Otari MX-5050, the Tannoy PBM6.5s, the Behringer Composer Compressor, the Crown Amp, maybe the Effectron and Midiverb2, but I somehow doubt that, and of course the Mackie 1604VLZ. Mic selection was the basic set: the 57, the 58, the 58 copy, Crown PZMs, the Audio Technica Lecturn mic, and probably some borrowed things like more 57s and 58s. We did everything, unbaffled in that garage. Sound was totally flying all over the place. Big wash. Bass in the corner, Marshall in another corner, drums on the other side of the room. I think the PZMs were on the floor in front of the drums and I probably close mic'd the kick and snare and stuck the lecturn mic above Jason's head. Maybe. The sound was an untamed beast.
Everything was straightforward. The only problem was the monitoring, which obviously had to be done on headphones. Even with nearfields, the room was so reflective that playback was totally reverbed out. Should've set up outside but I liked being in there and I don't think I had long enough cables anyway. Once it got dark we put the V4 and 4x12 cabinet, covered in the Frodus [van] covered with a blanket as well for isolation, since it was after 10pm. The V4 totally overheated in there, I think, but it worked. Vocals were also done in there. I think we mixed in the garage, but may have had to mix it elsewhere due to the aforementioned garage reverb problem.
The songs that appear on this flexi are the Misaligned Men of Flomaton (spelled Flomation on the flexi) and Invisible Time Lines. Some aspects of both turned out better on the flexi than on Conglomerate International LP. There's something about these recordings, partly because I recorded them rather than Bruce, but also all the factors that went into it: the garage, the van, the summer weather, being practically outside, and just being stoked to be doing it. Nate hated the bass sound, but I kinda hated his bass sound and really didn't know what to do with it. Knowing how little we had to work with in that space, I really like this. Enough already.
(Jonathan Kreinik, 1997)