The House Jacks in NYC- May 11, 2012
The Bitter End in New York City bills itself as “Greenwich Village’s most famous nightclub” and its owners claim it “has been the showcase for every major musical and comedic talent in the United States.” You can read more about it here and here. It is true that a lot of very influential and innovative musical and comedic talents have performed in the relatively small space, and you can feel that history when you walk through the place. The walls, the floors, the stage all emanate an intangible feeling, a sense that pioneers of rock and roll, blues, jazz, comedy, and other genres walked the same dark, cluttered room. I thought about this as I sat waiting for the House Jacks to start their set on Friday night, staring at the wall behind the right side of the bar where numerous artists’ names are handwritten in sloppy cursive. I’ve seen the House Jacks here before, along with quite a few other less memorable artists, but on this night I was thinking about music history and journeys.
I heard about the House Jacks in 1997, when I ordered their second album “Funkwich” from the Primarily A Cappella (or was it Mainely A Cappella?) catalog. When I first played the CD, it blew my mind. I was a freshman in college, and was just learning about some of the better college groups out there from the BOCA compilation and a few Beelzebubs albums I had ordered, but this was a whole new level. It was, as they identify themselves, a real vocal band. In some ways, that album changed my life: I would say that after listening to it hundreds of times in 1997-98, I knew that a cappella music was more than just a hobby for me- it was a serious passion. I saw the group perform in New York that same year, I believe at the now-defunct Bottom Line, and they did, as their first album (“Naked Noise”) suggested, “Tear Down the Walls.”
This is a long way of saying that I have been a big fan of the group for a long time, and am certainly a little biased. I have seen them 6 times in total, which featured 3 different configurations of members. This past Friday was the first time I saw them with new members Nick Girard and John Pointer, and the group seemed to have a fresh energy along with some new flexibility onstage. In their press release last November which introduced Nick and John, the group indicated that both men sing both tenor and vocal percussion. In Friday’s set, they did in fact split the VP duties and alternate on tenor and solo parts as well. (I think I also saw Nick singing bass on a tune where Troy Horne, the bass, was singing lead.)
Here’s another example of the group’s current flexibility. By the time the group had finished its first 6 songs, each of the 5 members of the group had already sung a lead. So, you have a group with not only 5 singers, but 5 soloists. Many groups announce that they are looking for precisely this when they publicize auditions, but there are few groups who succeed and actually get a legitimate front-man in each singer. With the current iteration of the House Jacks, however, any one of these guys could and would be a legitimate lead singer in a rock band or vocal band. That is flexibility and talent.
It was also surprising and exciting to note that a few of the early songs were originals that are not on any current House Jacks albums. The songs were quite good, so let’s hope they end up on a new HJ album soon.
As I mentioned, the group seemed to have a different energy onstage from the last time I saw them back in 2009 or 2010. Specifically, they seemed to be enjoying themselves more, offering more smiles to both the audience and each other than they were a few years ago. More importantly (and perhaps related to that), they sounded great. Intonation and blend were actually a lot better than the last time I saw them, and maybe even one or two times before that. If you have not seen the House Jacks, they are, for all intents and purposes, a vocal rock band. They get loud, they distort their syllables and singing to simulate instruments, most notably guitars, and it is only natural for this style combined with the adrenaline and energy to create pitch problems. It has never been particularly disturbing because they offer so much else in terms of stage presence and rhythm section groove, but it was nevertheless something which nibbled at the edges of their sound the last 2 times I saw them. Not so on Friday, however. There were very few moments where I even thought about pitch for a second. Whether this improvement was related to the new members, a different sound tech, or something else, it was notable and impressive.
The group seemed very comfortable onstage with each other, and they went off-mic quite early in the set to do a nice original which I think Troy wrote. A lot of groups wait, offering their off-mic tune much later in the set, but the group seemed eager to show off their harmonizing chops and the roots of the genre early on, which I took to be a good sign for the show ahead. Here’s them performing that same song earlier this year:
Before I go on, I also have to mention John Pointer. The man is not so much a singer as a force of nature. He has energy, charisma, a scorching rock tenor (he absolutely destroyed Led Zep’s “Kashmir,” a song from the aforementioned Funkwich album which I swore they could never pull off live and which I had never seen them do in 5 prior shows I attended). He is also a very impressive beatboxer. Here’s a recent solo he ripped off at a concert in PA:
It must seem more than a little unfair to other professional a cappella groups and vocal bands in the U.S. that the House Jacks have had such an incredible lineup of VP’s, with prior members Andrew Chaikin, Wes Carroll, and Jake Moulton. But to have a guy who has significant skills in that department and can also shred Robert Plant seems downright obnoxious.
And to be thorough, I should note that Nick did a terrific job with the challenging VP on that same song (“Kashmir”) and similarly crushed his own solo on Cee Lo’s “Crazy.”
The group offered a nice mixture of originals and covers early in the set before turning to a staple of any House Jacks performance- the segment in which they take audience requests. In and of itself, the audience request is not a particularly impressive thing for some bands to pull off. What the House Jacks do that most other groups do not, however, is invite the audience to request songs that the band has never sung before. This is not only impressive, but requires what my friend calls huevos gigantes. Let’s just say it means chutzpah. Guts?
In any event, the group will sing almost any song requested for 20 seconds to a minute so long as at least one person in the group seems to know the song. The result is often high comedy, as resulted when an audience member Friday requested “A Natural Woman,” made famous by Aretha Franklin and for those of us there Friday, now by Troy Horne. I was sitting at the bar, and the waitress who had been mostly uninterested in the set started to pay attention at this point. By the end of the audience request section she was shouting out requests, laughing, and cheering wildly after each tune. While the group as an entity is always funny during this section, it seemed clear that a good sense of humor is another trait that all of the current members share.
Later, someone requested “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” a song which the group normally refuses to perform unless the request also specifies that the song be done in a unique style. The request was for a reggae version, and the group honored their rule with Austin Willacy on lead. Other songs included “Eye of the Tiger,” “The Greatest Love of All,” “Man or Muppet” (from the recent Muppet movie, a song which they turned into some kind of rap), a few others, and then the big mashup where they took another 9 or 10 requests and squeezed them all into one (including, among others, the theme song from Mr. Rogers “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” “The Rainbow Connection,” “Thriller,” “Moon River,” “Dynamite,” “If I Had a Million Dollars” (mashed up with “Bills Bills Bills”), and “Back in Black”). As always, this part of the show was a huge success.
The only thing I wondered about the group’s stage setup, and it was probably related to the rotation of VPists, was that the VP and bass were on opposite sides of the stage. I would think, and I do have a little experience performing each (at a far inferior level), that the rhythm section might feel more locked in if they were standing together or at least near each other. This is simply my own curiosity, however, as I did not notice any deficiencies in the groove and in fact, the quality was fairly consistent (high, though stylistically different) between John and Nick. Of course Troy kept things locked down on the bassline, just as he did on Season 3 of the Sing Off with Urban Method, regardless of who was doing VP here.
As always, I was stupefied by Deke’s vocal trumpet on “Summertime,” and when I play that section of the track from their live album, I am always quick to point out to whomever will listen that it is even more impressive in person because there are clearly no tricks, no pedals, and no comprehension in the audience as to how he does that.
The Bitter End is a club which typically books 3-4 acts per night, allowing each to do an hourlong set (approximately). The House Jacks were on first, and by the time they were wrapping up their set, a bunch of people were standing by the door waiting to see the next band. I heard at least a few of those people commenting about how cool the group was, asking their name, etc. The House Jacks were clearly at the top of their game Friday night, and they likely accomplished the difficult task of impressing longtime fans (such as myself) while simultaneously drawing in brand new fans, some of whom may not know or appreciate anything about contemporary a cappella music. I heard one guy say, with obvious surprise in his voice, “These guys rock!”
And that is why the House Jacks are one of the only contemporary a cappella groups in the world that has been around for 20 years, endured 3 (or more?) lineup changes, and yet somehow keeps elevating their game to new heights.
The House Jacks may have been the first of four bands playing at The Bitter End on Friday night, and the place may have been only half full when they started their set, but there is no question in my mind that they are to contemporary a cappella music what Woody Allen and George Carlin were to comedy, what Neil Diamond, Peter, Paul and Mary, and countless others were to their respective genres- revolutionaries and leaders.
For more about the House Jacks, check out their website here.
Boston Sings (and Swings)
As I referenced in this week’s AcaVids segment and on Twitter, I was lucky enough to attend the Boston Sings (“BOSS”) festival, sponsored by CASA and Sled Dog Studios, this past weekend. I am not looking to do a critical analysis of the festival, nor am I interested in provided a detailed accounting of every workshop and event I attended. Instead, I just wanted to give you all a snapshot of what a festival like this offers, along with a few opinions dropped in for context.
This was my second CASA-sponsored a cappella festival, the first being last year’s VoCALnation in New York, New York. I enjoyed that festival, which was focused generally on the formation and sustenance of Contemporary A Cappella League (“CAL”) groups, despite the fact that I was not in such a group, because it gave me an opportunity to see a terrific arranging workshop (with Nick Girard, Tom Anderson, Clare Wheeler, Christopher Diaz, and Amanda Aldag) and an informal and interesting VP panel with Jeff Thacher (Rockapella) and Ed Chung (Duwende). And perhaps best of all, the Saturday night concert last year featured Euphonism, Duwende and the Swingle Singers, so it was one of the better a cappella concerts I’ve seen in many years.
Instead of focusing on CAL groups, BOSS had at least a nominal emphasis on engineering and sound production in a cappella music. Two of the workshops I attended were focused on one of those topics. The first, run by the guys from Plaid Productions, was called “Beyond Basic Engineering” and featured discussion on detailed techniques for using Pro Tools and Melodyne for recording and editing purposes. It was an informative and enjoyable workshop, made all the more so by the presence of producer/engineer Bill Hare, who chimed in on a few relevant topics. He was also part of the panel in a later workshop which I attended and which also featured many of the most accomplished and relevant producers and engineers in the American a cappella community (including the Alexes from Plaid Productions, Bill Hare, Dave Sperandio, James Cannon, James Gammon, Ed Boyer, Angela Ugolini…am I forgetting anyone?). This workshop (“Back That Track Up”) featured discussions on how to get the best out of a group in the studio, how to record and edit vp tracks, and quite a few other interesting topics.
At BOSS, there were 4 simultaneous workshops occurring during each time slot throughout Saturday and part of Sunday, so I was clearly unable to attend the majority of the workshops offered. There were masterclasses (including one with Cadence), panels on VP, women in a cappella, business/fundraising practices, the future of arranging/learning music, the essentials of listening, and many others which looked interesting. The broad spectrum of topics is why I previously commented that the focus of the festival was “nominally” on recording and production techniques, because really there were workshops addressing a huge array of a cappella topics.
Another feature of the festival which kept things entertaining was the presence of “Acabombs,” a practice which I believe started with last Fall’s SoJam festival. The idea was that the event organizers arranged for a cappella groups to perform during half-hour windows intentionally inserted between each period of workshops. One of these groups was a pick-up group which featured volunteer singers comprised of festival attendees. The PickUps, a group first put together at the Los Angeles A Cappella Festival, was organized by House Jacks and Overboard singer Nick Girard. Girard did a great job coordinating the materials and rehearsal, all before hopping on a plane to California to perform at The House Jacks’ 20th Anniversary Concert: meaning he did not even intend to perform with the PickUps this time! We certainly appreciated his hard work enabling The PickUps to come together and perform. I was thrilled to participate with the group, which included members of Overboard (Scott Cobban), Hookslide (Jon Pilat), The Red States (Jim Diego), Cut Off, and quite a few other college and CAL groups, as well as a number of producers/engineers, CASA-affiliated folks, and just random attendees (e.g. myself). After a rehearsal of less than two hours on Friday, we performed 5 songs on Saturday and had a great time doing so.
The Acabomb which received the most enthusiastic crowd response was a new group called Blueprint, which featured four members from Overboard (Alfredo Austin, Caleb Wheldon, Jeff Eames, and Scott Cobban (apparently filling in)) as well as Gary Gustavsen, Dustin Hyatt, and Mark Joseph. They had tight harmonies, excellent pitch, and powerful solos. The next night, they placed third at the Boston regional of the Harmony Sweepstakes competition, and Fredo won best soloist. I look forward to seeing more from them in the future.
As with all CASA-sponsored festivals, BOSS featured a scholastic competition on Friday night and then a professional showcase concert on Saturday night. The competition featured a new format, in which the best groups advanced and one group was eliminated each round. This allowed, as one organizer mentioned to me, the “better” groups to get more opportunities to show their versatility as each round had a different theme. It had been a few years since I last saw a collegiate competition (ICCA or otherwise) live, and what a difference! The final two groups, University of Chicago’s Voices in Your Head, and Northeastern University’s Nor’easters, were energetic, intense, very solid musically, and made excellent use of the entire stage. Voices in Your Head did a killer version of “Titanium,” made great use of dynamics, and did some really cool things with the microphones and with their movement generally. I actually thought the Nor’easters had better tuning and that their arrangements showed off their collective voice and withstood all the movement better, but both groups were top-notch and either group was entirely and unequivocally qualified to win.
While the judges deliberated, Ball in the House snapped off a grooving, funky mini-set of a few songs which was extended longer than expected while the winner was determined. The last time I saw them was almost ten years ago, and while two members from back then are the same (Dave and Jon), I was really impressed with two members who have not been around for quite that long: bass Ryan Chappelle and soloist/baritone Nels Urtel. Chappelle kept a very solid and consistent groove locked in with with VP Jon Ryan, and Urtel, who won last year’s CARA for Best Male Collegiate Solo on Fifth Element’s “Let’s Get it On,” offered a few scorching solos.
Saturday night’s “professional showcase” concert featured Voices in Your Head again (one of the rewards for winning the competition), Redline, Traces, and Cadence, whom I’ve always wanted to see live. Traces had the place rocking, and I felt a little nervous when Cadence took the stage, mainly because their style is not something you could categorize as “rocking” (unless you are a big fan of jazz). I was thus thrilled that they are unquestionably one of the best vocal groups I’ve ever seen live, and I think it comes down to 4 main observations: (1) their tuning is impeccable, and I do mean impeccable; (2) they are extremely polished and comfortable as entertainers, meaning their ability to work the crowd, transition, and move around, utilizing the entire room; (3) their vocal horns, as hoped, were stellar; and (4) they just sound great from top to bottom. The set wasn’t particularly long, and I would have loved a few more songs, but they certainly lived up to my high expectations. And while the crowd was generally very supportive and respectful, I’m not sure you would use the word “raucous” or “rocking” to describe the room during and after the set. That being said, I think everyone enjoyed the performance and I would recommend that any a cappella fan see them in concert if possible.
I was not feeling great for most of the weekend, so I didn’t get a chance to make it out to the afterparties both nights, which were open to performers, presenters, and attendees. From the chatter I heard Saturday and Sunday mornings, it sounds like everyone had a great time. I look forward to hitting the afterparties next year.
Sunday morning there were a few more workshops, and then a collaborative recording session which allowed many of the performers from the weekend as well as those attendees who paid for a “VIP” pass to contribute to a track which was recorded, for the most part, in a single day and which will presumably be released via CASA in a few months. The collaborative tracks recorded at last year’s SMACC and SoJam are very good, and I hope and expect this track to be no less impressive.
My only constructive criticism for the event organizers, and I’m sure this is not news to them, had to do with the logistical difficulties created by offering concerts that were not held in close proximity to the workshops. The workshops, held on MIT’s campus in Cambridge, were about 6 miles away from the Regent Theater in Arlington. By car, in traffic, this took about 30 minutes on Saturday afternoon. It also might have confused the issue for those coming from out of town about where, geographically, was the most convenient location to book a hotel room. This was not a major problem, I just think having everything in the same or adjacent facilities make the process easier and more relaxing for attendees. I would also note that having a pamphlet or a few pages with descriptions of the workshops for attendees would have made it easier to decide on the spot whether to attend workshop A, B, C, or D at a particular time. Simply having the names and presenters on the back of the ID badge was not particularly helpful towards that decision, and there were probably a few choices I would have made differently had I been able to review the workshop summaries before each panel.
I have two general thoughts to sum up my feelings about this festival, and really about these a cappella festivals in general. First, it was (and they can offer) a tremendous value. I think the cost for an all-access past here ran somewhere in the range of $60-65, and it included two highly entertaining concerts, a full day of workshops on Saturday, a half-day of workshops Sunday, a number of additional performances (the “Acabombs”), and the afterparties. Keep in mind that the ICCA finals run between $45 and $75 per ticket for one evening. It costs far more for me to go to a baseball game, to a Philharmonic or Broadway performance, or any of a number of other limited-duration, limited-experience activities than it did for me to attend this festival, which filled an entire weekend. I really appreciate the event organizers packing this much entertainment into that price point.
My second general thought is simply this: a cappella people are generally very nice and supportive, which makes attending a festival like this, even by yourself, a worthwhile venture. I had invited a few friends who were unable to attend, and my wife had to stay home with the kids, so I was flying solo for this weekend. It was a little intimidating, but I was quite pleased to find nearly everyone, from the attendees to the organizers to the performers, very accessible and sociable. So, even if you can’t get your whole group to go, or if you aren’t in a group and are just looking for a fun a cappella-saturated weekend, I recommend attending one of these festivals. I’m assuming/hoping BOSS will be around next year, but there are other festivals out there (just see my Festivals page) including a few sponsored by CASA (VoCALnation is next in July in Washington D.C. and then Acappellafest sometime this Fall in Chicago) and plenty of other localized ones (I may or may not be working towards the creation of one #supersecretlocalfestival) as well.
Thanks to CASA and the BOSS organizers for putting together a fun, informative, exhilarating weekend!
Producer’s Spotlight: Alex Green of Plaid Productions
Alex Green is one-half (or one-Alex) of the dynamic duo known as Plaid Productions. Alex was a four-year member of the renowned Amalgamates at Tufts University, including one year as Music Director, and while there he co-produced the EP “Teaser,” and the LP “Hands Off The Mannequin!” which featured the 2012 CARA-nominated Jonsí cover “Boy Lilikoi” and the 2010 CARA-nominated Foo Fighters cover “Let it Die,” a track also selected for the Voices Only and SING compilations. Since he founded the company with Alex Koutzoukis (formerly of the Tufts Beelzebubs) less than two years ago, Plaid Productions has worked with an expansive collection of collegiate and professional vocal groups, as well as a comprehensive list of fellow a cappella producers. Plaid Productions has also recorded and produced the collaborative tracks from the SMACC, SoJam, and LAAF a cappella festivals and the Alexes are Associate Producers of the upcoming BOSS [Boston Sings] festival.
Please check out the Plaid Productions website here.
Alex, thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions today. You guys are relatively new to the a cappella production scene, and I’d like to get your perspective on a few different aspects of the business, as well as your own experiences thus far.
TOPIC- Studio
According to your website, you guys started Plaid Productions a little over a year ago, yet you have worked with over 50 a cappella groups and 14 different a cappella producers. Pretty impressive for such a short while. Were you guys surprised by the scope and diversity of the clients who employed you in such a relatively short period of time?
Alex Green (AG): Surprised, sure, a little, but really more grateful than anything else. We’d both been working with people on a much smaller scale as independent engineers before we started the company together, so it’s really all because of people like Ed Boyer, James Cannon, Mike Boxer, and Dave Sperandio, who were really our first clients, that we even have a job right now. Then, of course, there are Bill Hare and John Clark, who each taught both of us either by observation or direct instruction how to do what we’re doing today.
Is a bigger percentage of your business right now tracking (recording), mixing, or mastering albums? (or other?)
AG: We started out mostly doing editing (rhythm and pitch alignment) as subcontractors for other producers, but now it’s pretty evenly spread. The month of May, for example, has us mixing three albums, editing two more, and doing tracking for two other albums, plus whatever comes our way between now and then.
It looks like the primary production experiences you guys got prior to starting Plaid Productions were the creation of your respective college groups’ albums. Did this relative lack of experience create any particular difficulties when you first started taking on clients?
AG: In this case, I wouldn’t say it was so much a lack of experience as a lack of breadth of experience. We spent about 4 or 5 years (between the two of us) working on our first albums, so while we hadn’t worked with a lot of different clients, we’d put in a ton of hours on the prior projects. I tracked about 95% of the first album I worked on, and I think I edited my first song three times before it sounded decent enough to mix, and that took about a week. That same song now would probably take either of us about three hours to do now. Meanwhile, the first album Koutz ever edited was the Bubs’ “BATTLE,” which averaged something like 60 or 80 tracks per song (your average song usually has about 20). We both got really used to working with familiar voices, but it didn’t really take all that much time to translate that experience to other groups.
Do you believe that groups can buy a Pro Tools LE box and a mic and do all of their tracking and still get out a quality product if they have professional mixing and mastering done?
AG: It all depends on the passion and attention the group puts into their album. If you do single takes of a song, don’t fix any errors, and just figure a day’s worth of tracking and a hunk of money is going to give you an award-winning track, you’d be wrong 99.9% of the time (and the other 0.1% is the Swingle Singers). Sure, we can use all the bells and whistles in our book to try to make it sound better than it actually is, but there’s a plateau to just how good an album can be if the raw material is just “ok.” But, if you take the time to really pore over your parts, spend time getting the best performances (not necessarily “best tuning” or “best rhythmic accuracy”) out of everyone in your group, and send off tracks that already sound great, all we producers have to do is highlight what’s already there.
What is one thing you would recommend all groups do or prepare for before coming in to record?
AG: There are always the givens: keep healthy beforehand, bring everything you need to be there for a couple of hours or more with you, and don’t pull an all-nighter before recording your ’70s rock tenor solo. Most importantly, though, know your music. That means a couple of things, not just “know your part.” Yes, knowing what you’re supposed to be singing is the most basic part of the process, but it’s just step one. Anyone can read notes off of a page – if you really want your album to have an impact on people, make sure you know what the song you’re singing is about, and what it means. Have a talk before the start of each recording session and have your soloists talk about what they’re singing so the rest of the group can back them up emotionally as well as sonically. A cohesive song is almost always going to be better than one that’s only “musically interesting,” no matter how well-sung either of them is.
Where do you draw the line in terms of your relationship with groups you are recording while they are in the studio? In other words, do you feel comfortable telling them that an arrangement really isn’t working or needs to be tweaked, or do you feel that would be crossing the line?
AG: We let groups know before we start recording with them what we’re going to do during the process, and that can (and almost always does) involve changing arrangements. It can be anything from changing one note in one measure to rewriting the syllables in the chorus or even teaching an entirely new bass line. When a group hires us, they’re not just asking us to come in and press buttons; they’re hiring us both for our technical knowledge and our aesthetic and musical experience and advice. It’s our job to make every group sound as good as they can, so if we think that means changing “joh joh joh” to a legato “oh” in the chorus, we’ll tell them so.
What is the one plugin (or, if you use them, piece of outboard gear) that you use the most or feel is the most indispensable to what you do?
AG: We’ve been asked this question before and honestly… it’s probably our ears. It really doesn’t matter how many guitar amps or lasers you throw at a part that isn’t sung well; if something sounds good to start with, you just don’t need to do as much to it afterwards.
Engineers are frequently learning new and different techniques for recording and mixing. Have you had any cool and unexpected tricks which might be interesting to those out there who dabble in Pro Tools or other digital recording software? [trade secrets need not be discussed]
AG: Well, you could come to “Back That Track Up” at BOSS and find out… but I guess the most interesting thing that I’ve learned recently is that a part doesn’t have to serve its original purpose – or, at least, not only its original purpose. Pads can be rhythmic, and rhythms can be pads; it all depends on how you use what’s there.
I’ll be there. What single track have you worked on in the past 6 months or year that you are particularly proud of?
AG: Probably the SoJam Collaborative Recording track, “The Bones of You.” Not only is it a song both of us have loved for a while, but it was a huge project involving tons of talented people, all of whom were amazing to work with.
What a cappella track have you heard in the past 6 months or year that you said “Wow, I wish I had a hand in that project!”?
AG: That’s actually a tougher question, and I’m not totally sure why. For the most part, I’m impressed by projects that sound totally different from what I was expecting, or just include people I’ve always wanted to work with. Basically anything the Swingle Singers or Cluster have done… that would’ve been fun.
TOPIC: CASA Collaborative Recording
I know that you guys were involved with the CASA collaborative recordings at SMACC, SoJam, and LAAF…how did you come to be involved?
AG: It’s kind of a funny story actually. About a week or so before SMACC, “All of the Lights” started gaining ground on the charts, and Koutz contacted Christopher Diaz with the idea of recreating the same “all stars of music” feel with the groups in Syracuse. So, while I spent most of Saturday editing a track to send off to North Carolina, Diaz and Koutz sat in a hotel room with a laptop and a microphone and arranged the song on the spot. We sort of blindsided all the talent along with a couple of groups at Syracuse, Mark Hines, Dave Sperandio, and the guys from Sled Dog and said “Come into this room, sit around and be quiet, and then sing when we tell you to.” We did a little more singing back at home, had some more guest stars come in after prodding them via email and… voilá!
Do you plan to be involved with every CASA festival going forward?
AG: Whenever we can, of course. VoCALnation is next, and this time we’re not sure if we’ll be able to make it down to DC, but we’re sure going to try, especially because Cluster is… well, this.
What are the biggest challenges with those collaborative recordings?
AG: Honestly, it’s always the scheduling. Between finding time to do the arrangements beforehand (they’ve always ended up happening while we were at the festival – we recorded three guide parts for “Princess of China” before arriving in LA, and that’s a record high), and then making sure we have all of the performers and VIP’s there for a long enough time before their flights leave, it’s always a little bit of a scramble. But by the time everyone starts singing and getting into the song, it seems like time slows down a little, and even when we go a bit over everyone ends up staying later than they originally planned because it tends to be kind of fun.
Do you guys do the arranging for the collaborative recording projects?
AG: Yup. We rarely if ever write anything down – usually it’s “3 part pad chorus” or “G-C-D | A-C-E | A-C-D” or some other totally non-sensical short hand that only makes sense in the moment. Some people (notably Tom Anderson) poo poo us for not writing sheet music, but usually that’s just another step between thought and recording that we don’t take. “Brain to tape” seems to work pretty well for us.
I noticed that you guys are going to be producers with BOSS [Boston Sings festival]…how did that come about?
AG: Well, the both of us had always wondered why there wasn’t an a cappella festival up here (or, why there hadn’t been since the ECS stopped happening in the early 2000′s). Then, when I moved into our house in Somerville with my girlfriend Lauren Barreiro (Musae, AcaBelles, The Vocal Company), this perfect storm of want, need, and Dio-spearheaded CASA assistance made this more of a possibility. Add into that Meg Alexander, producer of the SMACC Festival, moving to Boston, and we had a dream team heading up production of the festival.
Topic: Personal
You guys each sang with one of the more celebrated college a cappella groups in the country…are either of you singing with any CAL or other groups now?
AG: Actually, no. Frankly, we’re so busy nowadays that any more singing sounds kind of bonkers. Maybe when things settle down or we just get a better handle on a more regular schedule (not that something like that really exists in this business). Who knows!
I noticed you are a RARB reviewer. From your experiences there and in the studio, what is one of the most common mistakes you see groups make when putting together an album?
AG: That’s one heck of a loaded question. Really, it’s all the stuff I’ve already mentioned – just know what you’re singing, and sing like you mean it. The threshold for getting a “3″ (out of 5, or “average”) keeps rising as both groups and technology improve, so to rise above the masses, you need to bring something more than just singing in tune and in time.
Do you ever take a step back and think “wow, I can’t believe this is my job”?
AG: Hah! All the time! I still can’t believe someone pays us to make music. This is all just fun for us!
Alex, thank you so much for taking the time to answer a few questions. I wish you the best of luck with BOSS (which I will be attending) and with Plaid Productions.
– Once again, you can check out the website for Plaid Productions, which offers a free download of the SMACC collaboration track “All of the Lights” mentioned in the interview, here. ”The Bones of You,” recorded at the SoJam 2011 festival, is available for listening on the same website and available for free download to all CASA members. You can join CASA, which also entitles you to many other wonderful benefits, here.
Producer’s Spotlight: Dave Sperandio
*** As someone who spent some time in a recording studio, spent some time owning a small studio, and someone who is fascinated by the process of tracking, mixing, and mastering, I am often curious about the people who choose to focus their careers largely or entirely in the field of producing recorded a cappella music. So, I decided to start a series devoted to interviewing these people in an effort to learn more about what they do, how they do it, and who they are. I hope to get one of these interviews up at least once each month, though sometimes it may be more frequent and other times less so. I invite feedback as well as suggestions for future spotlight selections.
I was lucky enough to get the best possible choice for the first interview in this series, Mr. Dave Sperandio of diovoce, a full-service a cappella production company. 
Dave Sperandio is a nice guy. He is also a singer (formerly of the UNC Clef Hangers, Vocal Tonic, Almost Recess, and transit), entrepreneur, founder of diovoce, creator of the SoJam a cappella festival, creator of the “Sing” vocal compilation series, and the Director of Events for The Contemporary A Cappella Society (CASA). He’s also an accomplished and talented producer whose tracks have been nominated for and won many CARA awards, been selected for BOCA, Sing, and Voices Only compilations, and received glowing reviews on RARB (Recorded A cappella Review Board). Basically, he is an a cappella force of nature. And he was nice enough to take a few minutes to answer some questions for me. Please check out his websites, diovoce and http://www.davesperandio.com/.
—–
Dave- Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions. I’d like to ask you a little about the modern a cappella recording process and your own role and experiences as a recording, mixing, and mastering engineer, but I don’t want to step on the various workshops you teach at many of the CASA festivals, so please let me know if you feel an answer would be better or more appropriately presented at an upcoming festival.
TOPIC- Studio
Acatribe: Ten years ago, the standard process for recording a collegiate a cappella song involved entering the studio with a guide track (MIDI or otherwise) and having each section go in and sing through a song from start to finish together with each singer individually mic’d, with the section doing punch-ins or overdubs as needed. I get a sense that there is a lot more micromanaging of tracking or editing now. Is this true, and if so how does it work?
Dave Sperandio (DS): My approach during recording has always been to 1) Focus resources and B) Think about what you are singing. Focusing resources can mean many things, from recording 1-4 bars at a time (focusing mental and physical resources) to only recording certain persons on certain parts (saving time / putting the best person on the part).
Acatribe: Some people say that this falsifies the process, because a group isn’t really singing the song from start to finish, at least not as they could do live. Do you take any position on this argument?
DS: Movies are not shot in one contiguous take. Much of art is not created in one sitting.
What is the single most common mistake groups make when coming in for a recording session?
DS: Failing to take the preparation and process seriously. Getting trashed the night before. Showing up late or without their music. Not knowing their music. Being too tied to the written arrangement.
What is one thing you would recommend all groups do or prepare for before coming in to record?
DS: Be prepared. With hearts and ambitions bared, of course. Here’s a basic doc with more details.
Do you encourage groups to use a single engineer to mix their tracks/albums (yourself or someone else) or do you recommend that they search for individuals who will fit the different songs accordingly? If the latter, do you feel that hurts the overall continuity and flow of the album?
DS: I think it depends on a number of factors. I work with colleagues every day, collaborating on albums. If I have a very strong relationship with a group, or have a “vision” for how an album should be made, I may take on more of the work. But almost always there are multiple engineers involved now. If I’ve already mixed 8 versions of “Animal”, I’m not doing to do the 9th one justice. If I’ve had the soul-draining experience of editing a track, I will be pretty tapped out creatively when it comes time to mix it, and my perspective will be skewed.
What is the one plugin (or, if you use them, piece of outboard gear) that you use the most or feel is the most indispensable to what you do?
DS: My brain. The only advantage I have over anyone else is the volume of mistakes that I have made, and the perspective gained from same.
Do you believe in using different mics for different voices or different parts, or do you have one mic that you feel gets the job done for most or all parts?
DS: If you’re recording 50-190 audio tracks, you should never use the same mic for all of them. Other than that, there are no real rules – if it sounds good, it is good!
Engineers are frequently learning new and different techniques for recording and mixing. Have you had any cool and unexpected tricks which might be interesting to those out there who dabble in Pro Tools or other digital recording software? [trade secrets need not be discussed]
DS: Honestly, some of the coolest stuff I’ve ever done was as a result of a mistake made – leaving a plugin on when it “should” have been bypassed, letting a singer sing something the “wrong” way, trying non-traditional configurations of mic placement, compression, etc. Yes, this is a license to go into the studio and “screw around” – as long as you’re doing it with a purpose 
What single track have you worked on in the past 6 months or year that you are particularly proud of?
DS: For recording / mixing: probably the last two albums from Duke Out of the Blue, and the new release from UCLA Bruin Harmony. Both examples of excellent planning, vision, singing, and overall execution from start to finish. True works of “art”.
For mastering: way too many to count!
You started diovoce 12 years ago. How has the business side of it changed over that time frame?
DS: The model I created has enabled many others to shape their own vocal production companies in our image, to the benefit of the community, I believe. We have helped to accelerate the growth of contemporary vocal music by inspiring others.
Do you have any big changes or plans going forward with diovoce in the coming years?
DS: More and more of my work is transitioning into mastering and live event performance (SoJam, LAAF, BOSS, Acappellafest, VoCALnation, etc). I’m privileged to work with many of the top a cappella producers in mastering much of their work (Ed Boyer, James Cannon, James Gammon, Tat Tong, Mark Hines, Dave Longo, Danny Ozment, Nick Girard, Charlie Friday, Alfredo Austin, Tim Bongiovanni, Eric Talley, Angele Ugolini, and so many other wonderful producers).
TOPIC: SoJam
I know that you started SoJam back in 2003. What did you hope to achieve with the festival?
DS: I wanted to create synergy within the region, and to begin to cross-pollinate between college, pro, semi-pro groups. I wanted to give them a stage and an environment to become truly great.
How has the festival changed since that time, and are you satisfied with the direction it has taken?
DS: It has grown tremendously, and it has fostered and even spawned many of the brightest stars in our community. Christopher Diaz, Alli Brooks, Mark Hines, Nick Lyons, Lo Barreiro, Angela Ugolini, and many others are who they are today in no small part because of SoJam and the spark it provided to their already plentiful “tinderboxes”, if you will. It’s been quite an honor to watch them and so many others grow.
Any plans to change or expand upon a particular aspect of SoJam going forward?
DS: SoJam X is this year – stay tuned!
TOPIC- CASA
I know that you are now the Director of Events for CASA Festivals. I saw you tweet recently that there are 2 “undisclosed” CASA festivals to look forward to in the future, perhaps this year. What goals do you and CASA have in expanding the number of festivals?
DS: We are doing our best to manage our growth intelligently, and to always keep our focus on excellence and the “right” way to do things, rather than growing for growth’s sake, or for our own edification. To steal from the great Steve Jobs, the more I am involved in this community, the more I realize that motivations truly do matter. They are everything.
It seems that the festivals all follow a particular format, with the Friday night scholastic showcase and Saturday night professional showcase, as well as a number of repeat lecturers for the workshops (e.g. Tom Anderson, yourself). Have you been tempted at all to change up the format or the workshops for any future festivals?
DS: We’ve changed things up a bit here and there – LAAF 2012′s competition was open to all scholastic groups, for instance. BOSS 2012 will feature a radically different competition structure, somewhat more akin to a reality show format. One thing that is always hard to manage is the temptation to try to cram in as much as we possibly can into the events. Again, to borrow form Apple: focus is key, in my experience. This is something that I hope differentiates us from other festivals and vocal events.
Has the attendance at these festivals generally been fairly consistent, or is SoJam the top-drawing festival with varying degrees of success behind it?
DS: SoJam is the largest in terms of workshop attendees, though we have artificially limited its growth in order to maintain our standards. LAAF has the most concert attendees, because of the size of the venue. This could all change in 2012, however!
Acatribe: Dave, thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions. I really appreciate it, and I wish you the best of luck with diovoce, CASA, and all of your other projects.
— Once again, you can find out more about Dave Sperandio and diovoce by clicking here and here respectively.
Vocaldoings II
As always, there is so much going on in the a cappella world, I felt the need for another Vocaldoings post to update you all. If I have omitted anything big, please feel free to comment and if I remember, I’ll add it to the body of the post!
Live A cappella
Sing Strong, the terrific festival put together by Jonathan Minkoff, will be staged in Reston Virginia next weekend. There are a number of top-notch performers, including Pentatonix, so check out the website and see if tickets are still available. (wish I could go!)
Duwende recently completed a series of performances at the Java Jazz Festival in Jakarta, Indonesia. A few other performers you might have heard of: Bobby McFerrin, Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu, Herbie Hancock, and Pat Metheny. No big deal, right?! Congratulations to Duwende.
The House Jacks are currently on tour in the Pacific Northwest. In April, they will be heading out the east coast for a number of gigs, including one at the Bitter End in NYC (as far as I can remember, this is one place they always try to play when they are in NYC). If you have never seen them before, this is your chance- do it.
Human Nature, from Australia, are about to begin touring the U.S., and they just released their U.S. debut album, “The Motown Record.” They are also doing a contest on this tour seeking opening groups for each city. Check out the finalists here.
Get Vocal 2012- The weeklong vocal festival in Australia wraps up today. Hopefully there will be some video clips of the terrific groups from the festival, including The Idea of North, online soon.
A cappella Blog doings
Marc Silverberg, a part-time faculty member at Five Towns College in New York and alumnus of the Westminster Deaftones has started a new blog entitled “The Quest for an A cappella Major.” Some thought-provoking posts, check it out here.
Rob Dietz, over at Human Feedback, has a great new post identifying and explaining what he likes about certain a cappella tracks. Check it out here.
As always, the guys over at The A cappella Blog have a lot going on. They recently posted analysis of their ICCA competition bracket competition and offered Part II of their “Unauthorized History of the Acapocalypse,” an “episodic narrative” tracing the formation of a fictional a cappella group. Also, their Kickstarter campaign met its funding and then some. Congratulations to Mike and Mike.
Deke Sharon continued his insightful and provocative series of blog posts on CASA.org with a new post, “Commerce vs. Creativity.” Be sure to check it out here.
Albums
Euphonism, the terrific CAL group based in Washington, D.C., has released their new album, “Stuck in a Memory.” It is available on iTunes now.
As reader and fellow blogger LovedeAcapella pointed out in the comments section for the last Vocaldoings, Take 6 has a new album coming out called “One.” The album may not be entirely a cappella, but I’m sure it will be worth checking out.
Videos
Peter Hollens has a great new video up covering gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” which you can check out here.
Pentatonix did a nice live cover of Rihanna’s “You Da One” which you can check out here.
Also from the Sing Off Season 3, Urban Method offered up a video of “Me and You” performed live in Colorado, which you can see here.
It’s not brand new, but since my last Vocaldoings post, Italian aca-geniuses Cluster posted a video in which they took an…interesting…. YouTube user singing something vaguely resembling Adele and turned it into something new altogether. Check it out here.
Kickstarter
Justin Glodich, singer, songwriter, member of The Fault Line, and former Potsdam Pointercount (my college group) is also a music teacher in Eldred, NY. The high school group he directs, the Eldred Key Elements, have a project aiming to help them record their first album. Check it out and pledge here.
Harmony Sweepstakes
You can find all of the specific awards and result here, but the bulletpoints are as follows:
New York winners: Audiofeels, from Poland
Los Angeles winners: Down 4 the Count
Pacific Northwest winners: Six Appeal (featured on my AcaVids segment a few weeks ago)
San Francisco (Bay Are) winners: Sing Theory
Mid-Atlantic winners: GQ
ICCA
All of the quarterfinals have completed, and you can check out the results here.
Last night, the UGA Accidentals won their regional semifinal and will be headed to the finals in NYC. Congratulations, guys!
ICHSA
You can check out the latest results on the high school competition here.
Overdone, or Cooked to Perfection?
mmm…..steak reference….
mmm…..Simpsons digression….
Anyway, if you listen to a fair amount of a cappella (and I do), you are likely to hear certain songs over and over (and over) again. These songs tend to trail pop radio by somewhere between 2 months and 2 years, and while there is nothing wrong with cooking up a current pop hit for your group, you might want to think carefully before you do so.
First of all, if you are a college group and you plan to record an album or EP at some point, every song you select will most certainly be compared with any and all other college renditions of that song out there. Second, if it is a song that everyone in the audience has heard 5 times a day or week for months, there are 2 possibilities which are otherwise inapplicable to your songs: (1) they are sick of the song; or (2) they don’t think your version can compete with the original.
Now, I’m going to be writing a longer post about song selection in the next week or two, so I’ll save my lengthier analysis for that post. However, I was listening to a mix of tracks on my iPod this morning, and I had a few thoughts about some songs which are surely overdone in the past year or two, yet the particular renditions not only kept my attention but have me hitting repeat frequently.
The two songs I heard today are both on albums which have been nominated for 2012 CARA (Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award) Pop/Rock Album of the Year. Both albums, incidentally, feature all cover tunes, though the selections are quite different.
Redline- this Contemporary A cappella League (CAL) group from Boston released their debut album, “Inbound,” on 11/11/11, and they are (to my knowledge) the first CAL group to get a nomination for the best Pop/Rock Album CARA. Unlike MO5AIC, these guys released a full-length album which features covers ranging from the Blues Brothers to Taio Cruz to Rufus Wainwright. While I can’t say that every track is as innovative or compelling as the song I am about to discuss, the arrangements are generally very solid and the production and singing are definitely a cut above most.
The song which stands out to me is “Just the Way You Are” by Bruno Mars, a track which is currently being covered by nearly 108% of all male collegiate groups out there. Now, the original is a perfectly fine little piece of bubble-gum pop, with a rhythmic beat that starts syncopated, moves to a standard four-on-the-floor in the chorus, and then returns. I mention this because I think the drums are a prominent part of the original, giving it a driving force through the last chorus when it drops out for contrast.
There are a number of creative choices which Redline make in their interpretation of the song, but a big one is the downplay of that driving beat. In a contemporary recording, this is a bold decision, particularly from a group which is clearly capable of hitting the right groove and driving the song with it (see “Break Anotha” and “Shake It” off the same album).
But this is not really what draws me to this cover. I suspect they chose to downplay the beat in order to emphasize the clever arrangement, which incorporates “Every Breath You Take” by the Police as almost a foil for “Just the Way You Are.” Let me delve a little deeper.
While the original “Just the Way You Are” features piano arpeggios throughout the song, Redline starts their version off with a slightly different arpeggio- perhaps one of the most famous arpeggios in all of pop/rock music. If you didn’t look at the tracklist, you would very possibly be fooled into thinking they are singing “Every Breath You Take,” a song which is frequently misinterpreted– one which is not really a love song in the traditional sense, but rather an obsessive stalker’s view of love. Here, though, Redline go right into the sincere, somewhat sappy lyrics from “Just the Way You Are.”
Rather than bringing in that driving beat immediately, they let the arpeggios drive the song through the first verse and chorus. And then, right at the end of that first sweet chorus, a voice drops in “I’ll be watching you”. The second verse begins with a lighter, yet still fluid beat which picks up the momentum from the arpeggios which have now disappeared. As the song hits the second chorus, all of the backs shift to the outro refrain from “Every Breath You Take” while the solo continues with the chorus from “Just the Way You Are.” And then, at the end of the first half of that chorus, a quick chiming reference to the belltones from Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are.”
After that chorus, they reverse the roles; a (presumably different) soloist sings the solo from “Every Breath You Take” while the backs mirror the modified third chorus from “Just the Way You Are” with the high solo in the background. Then, out of nowhere, a third song enters the mix: a solid reference to Journey’s “Faithfully” mashed right in there, followed by a final refrain.
Look, this is what arranging should be: thoughtful, engaging, and also appropriate for your group. These guys aren’t a full-time group, who knows how much rehearsal time they get together, how much experience they have individually, and so on, but the real key here is: it doesn’t matter. The performance here from top to bottom is clean, pure, and sincere, as is the production.
I don’t know if the arrangement intended to add the layer of irony, satire, or anything else which I take from mixing these two songs together thematically, or if it it was taking “Every Breath You Take” at face value and simply using it as a compatible love song, but these songs work together either way in a smart arrangement like this.
I guess I should say thanks to Redline for taking a song I never wanted to hear again and giving me something I can dig into repeatedly.
(*NOTE: this song was selected for and is featured on Voices Only Forte, a compilation of non-scholastic a cappella tracks which you should buy right now, right here.)
MO5AIC- In their first recording project since former House Jacks Roopak Ahuja and Jake Moulton joined, these guys released a 5-song EP which contains 5 of the most frequently-covered tunes in the contemporary a cappella world, both from the past year (“Firework” and “Closer”) and the past 20 years (“Superstition”). I will admit- when I first saw the tracklist, I thought “Oh my goodness, 5 songs I never wanted to hear again!” Nevertheless, MO5AIC managed to make each one interesting in its own way.
The song which I enjoy most is Ne-Yo’s “Closer,” a song which I could otherwise go approximately 1,200 years without hearing again. In the past 24 months, I feel reasonably confident that more than 30 versions of this song have popped up in a cappella-land. Some were pretty good, including two different versions nominated for 2011 CARA’s (Duke Out of the Blue and Ithacappella, both good in different ways). Many others were… let’s say “less good.”
So, why does the MO5AIC version sit in a top position on my most recent a cappella playlist? A smart, hook-filled arrangement which is consistently building and shifting gears. The song starts sparse, with snaps instead of VP, and a Take 6, early-90′s R&B vibe infused with some choice colorful chords which are new to this version. After the beat drops in the first pre-chorus, the song alternates between some riffs which are truer to the original and a few hooks which diverge from it. In the second verse, things shift again, with a new textural approach to the backing parts. The bridge is executed with a strong breakdown, starting with lead and bass and building new hooks on top of it, and the chorus coming out of it involves a full-press, four-on-the-floor beat which has felt inevitable (and necessary) since the second verse.
It’s a smart arrangement which never gets static despite the incredibly-repetitive nature of the chorus. In fact, for a song which relies on such a singularly-repetitive phrase, MO5AIC find new ways every 10-15 seconds to keep you from skipping the song. This is precisely the type of thing which can not only save, but transform a song which has been overdone to the point of banishment.
So, while I never would have thought I’d be saying this, thanks MO5AIC for bringing this song back into my life.
Ok, so these were 2 examples of overdone songs converted to great effect. There are some other, less recent examples which fit a different category of a cappella: total reinvention of the original. I have talked about a few of these songs before, but the ones I love the most include the Stanford Harmonics haunting version of “The Sound of Silence,” the intense (and stalkerish) cover of “I Want You Back” by Sonos, and the jazzy, sinewy, sexy (but in a different way) version of “Toxic” offered by Overboard as part of their Free Track Tuesday series (and featured on Sing 8: Too Cubed).
What do you think? What is the best way to reinterpret a song which has been overdone to the point of exhaustion?
BY THE WAY, I am including links to these various songs for illustrative purposes, but… YOU SHOULD BUY THEM ALL ON iTUNES, AMAZON MP3, OR ANYWHERE ELSE YOU CAN PURCHASE THEM LEGALLY. NOW. GO.
A Valentine’s Vocal Love Story
It is hard to believe, but it has been 13 years since I used my a cappella group in a way which would certainly change my life forever. It occurred to me tonight that very few of our friends were with us back then, and so they likely have heard bits and pieces of the story, but not the whole thing. And while I am sure it is far from the only story involving an a cappella group serenade on Valentine’s Day, it is certainly a story worth sharing in my humble opinion.
It was February, 1999, in Potsdam, New York. I had transferred to the Crane School of Music the previous fall from NYU, and the shift in scenery from metropolitan, cosmopolitan New York City to rural, miniscule Potsdam was stark and dramatic. Instead of a college experience where students melted away into the background the second they left their “dorms” (apartment building dorms), at Potsdam there wasn’t much to do where you didn’t see everyone you knew.
The summer before I left for Potsdam, my high school girlfriend broke up with me, but we stayed friends and “friends”-in-other-ways. So, when I got to Crane, I still spent a fair amount of time on the phone or AIM (instant messaging… you know, it was an early way to chat online? No? humbug!) to Kenyon College, OH. But I met a girl in my dorm that fall, Karen, and I was smitten. I found out that she was a Music Education major, played the horn, and lived a floor above me in the dorm. She was from Long Island, like me, albeit 45 minutes east of my house.
In late October, the Pointercounts were performing at an annual swing dance, the Harvest Ball, and I saw her there that night. I told her if I didn’t see her later in the evening, I just wanted her to know that she looked beautiful that night. She was NOT my date to that event. <gulp>
I did end up seeing her later that night, at a party, and we talked and played drinking games until the wee hours of the morning, when we all trekked back to our dorm. An hour or so later, I went to the bathroom, when I saw her in the hall and said, drunkenly, “I had a dream about you” before heading back to my room.
Over the following weeks, we spent time talking, learning about each other’s lives and getting to know each other. We stayed up until 4:30 am, sitting in the 3rd-floor lounge of Knowles South, and talked for hours in a music listening room at the music library (when I missed one of only 3 rehearsals I EVER missed while being in the Pointercounts for more than 2 years). We flirted, we talked about going out, but she was convinced that I wasn’t over my ex-girlfriend, and I couldn’t totally disagree. I pined for her, and hung around her dorm room until her roommate forced me to leave numerous times during finals.
During the winter break, I did finally decide things were over with my ex, and I told Karen as much during our 8-hr drive back up to Potsdam in late January. She didn’t seem convinced or interested.
As Valentine’s Day approached, the Pointercounts began selling Valentine’s Day serenades for a measly fee. We would travel to any place on campus or off, for something like $5, and serenade the chosen target with any one or two of 4 songs. I decided to arrange a song, Earth Angel, for a baritone solo which I hoped I would sing. I don’t exactly recall the process, but I did get the solo. As Valentine’s Day approached, I found a way to add one Valentine Sing into our schedule without anyone really noticing. Don’t worry, I did pay my $5.
But then I had to make sure that she would be there, in her dorm room, at the chosen time. I told her roommate to MAKE SURE she would be there, and Valentine’s Day finally arrived. As we ran all over campus and town that day, I repeatedly asked to see the list. At least twice, I crossed off the one which said Karen- Knowles South. I felt it might be too bold a statement, too embarrassing, or simply awkward. I was also nervous because I thought another member of the group, with whom I was friends, might be interested in her as well. But each time I wrote the name back in. When we arrived, we sang the song and my voice wavered. I never felt particularly comfortable singing solos, preferring to sing bass or VP (more natural for me), but I was especially nervous this time. When we finished, she and Nicky (roommate) and Pete (Nicky’s boyfriend-now-husband) clapped, and Karen said she wanted to talk later after we finished our Valentine’s Day sings. The time we spent on the remaining serenades was both the longest and the shortest hours of my life.
That night, I got back to my dorm room and sometime later she showed up at my door. She asked if we could close the door and talk, and I said yes. I was expecting rejection, was expecting to be let down gently. Instead, I got a kiss. And then, while we kissed some more, several guys from the group came banging on my door, I am certain intending to interrupt what they suspected was happening.
We have been together ever since.
I asked her a few minutes ago, “Would you still have gone out with me if we didn’t sing to you?”
Her first answer: “NO!” Then she thought about it for a moment, and replied “Maybe. I don’t know. But if I didn’t, I would have been stupid.”
I don’t know about that, but I know arranging that song and spending that $5 was the best investment of time and money I have ever made.
PS- 5 years later, I got a few of those guys back together along with a few others and I proposed to her in a restaurant when she absolutely did not expect it singing, you guessed it, Earth Angel.
Happy Valentine’s Day, Karen, and thank you for keeping an open mind (and perhaps a blind ear).
Acapolitics- first I lived it, then I read it
Acapolitics, a term which is similar in function to “acadrama” or maybe just “college a cappella” more generally, is also now a terrific first novel by Stephen Harrison. The book, which is available for purchase from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, offers a snapshot of the routines, experiences, and relationships among and within college a cappella groups over the course of a single academic year. Told from a third-person narrative, the story primarily follows the introduction and then development of a group of freshman a cappella neophytes as they learn about, audition for, and then become immersed in the culture surrounding college a cappella groups.
I am not a literary critic, and I won’t pretend to be one in this “review.” I am more interested in telling you why you might be interested in reading this book. First and foremost, Harrison tells a timeless story- boy meets girl, girl is unavailable, boy befriends girl, etc. That this story proceeds in the context of a larger story about the politics and drama of college a cappella does not dilute its appeal, and both times I read the book I found myself rushing to read faster as the story approached the end of the first year for these young men and women to see where they would end up. But it is ultimately the larger story which is more important, and that story which may reach more readers, particularly those who have experienced college a cappella firsthand.
I sang in two different college a cappella groups at two different universities, one small (Crane School of Music at Potsdam College) and one large (New York University). And while some of the particulars which Harrison describes regarding the organization or role of a cappella at his fictional Brighton University were not true to my own experiences, many others were. At his University, for example, there is a governing a cappella organization which creates rules for “drafting” singers into the various groups– a process which I have never experienced or even heard of. But I find it entirely believable that colleges or universities which harbor 6 (like Brighton) or more groups might resort to such structure. The smaller or “micro” details which Harrison brings to his story are far more familiar to me, however, and I suspect they will be familiar to almost anyone who sang a cappella in college. Some examples were the details for how a group chooses its soloists (auditioning in front of and voting by the remaining members of the group) and how a group ends up with a ritual which might seem silly but which nonetheless becomes integral to the members of that group. I’m not sure any other rituals out there involve physical contact with dairy products backstage, but there are surely some which are even more outrageous.
From the beginning, Harrison tells a story of competition and conflict, and it is certainly true that groups which share a campus, talent pool, and funding almost always engage in such conflict. But Harrison also shares the real respect and relationships behind those conflicts, describing afterparties where members from all groups mingle, dance (and drink) together, and harmonize together as well. Another truism which Harrison explores is the diversity of those who join college a cappella groups. In his freshman class of singers, he offers a collection of backgrounds from one extreme (the “theater” type) to the other (the athlete who has never sung in public before) with the middle well-covered (perhaps the most common, the casual, guitar-playing guy or gal who just loves music). To those who have never been in a college a cappella group, this range might be surprising; but to those of us who experienced it, this was familiar and honest.
Sure, there are a few clunky stereotypes, like the all-male group which strips down, sings the same songs year after year, and focuses entirely on getting the opposite sex in bed. Sadly, these stereotypes exist because there are groups and individuals who fit them perfectly at college campuses across the country, though it is unfair to suggest that all male groups harbor the same traits. Harrison covers up for this by offering another all-male group which gets far less treatment, unflattering or otherwise.
So, what exactly has Stephen Harrison accomplished with this book, and why should you read it? First of all, this book is a love letter to college a cappella, and his nostalgia is of the recent vintage (his bio says he attended Washington University of St. Louis where he was a member of After Dark, a mixed group, and that he published the book when he was 24 years old). With that in mind, the book was written for those who have experienced these feelings, these relationships, these performances, and who treasure and value their memories at any time at any American university. By covering some moments which non-acappella people might find tedious (e.g. the first rehearsal where the music director turns off the lights and the group sings in the dark), Harrison has made a direct and I believe successful effort to re-engage those memories in the a cappella alumni readers. But in telling a larger story of young relationships, both romantic and platonic, he also creates an interesting, engaging novel about that first year of college. So, while non-acappella folk may not understand the importance of competitions (ICCA, or what he calls “WAC”) to groups, they will surely remember what it was like to be young, uncertain, and curious.
If you sang a cappella in college and you have a hankering for nostalgia, get this book. If you didn’t, and you want a fast read about young people learning the type of politics, manipulation, and decisionmaking which lie ahead in varying degrees and scales for most of us, you should probably still get this book. Either way, you’ll enjoy it.
You can find out more by going to the website, http://www.acapolitics.com/.
Vocaldoings
There is so much going on in the world, even within the a cappella world, that it is difficult at times to keep track of it all. So I figured I’d do a quick summary of some noteworthy things that are going on now or in the near future.
Live A Cappella
— Festivals
-This weekend, there are not one but TWO vocal festivals going on in New England and tickets are still available for both.
Amplify A cappella Festival, in Rhode Island- details here. (Transit and Duwende headlining)
N.E. Voices, in Massachusetts- details here. (Firedrill!, Redline, and Pitch Slapped headlining)
-Sing Strong Festival in VA in March has announced a ridiculous lineup that includes Pentatonix, Afro Blue, The Edge Effect, Blue Jupiter, MAXX Factor, and more. Get tickets here.
-VoCALnation in D.C. in July has also announced a great lineup, including Cluster and Afro Blue. Info available here.
- Get Vocal, festival in Australia, just announced its lineup, including The Idea of North. More info here.
— Currently on tour
Naturally 7- details here. They will be at B.B. King’s in NYC on Feb. 16th, and then doing a free show at Penn State on Feb. 17th before heading out on an international tour with Michael Buble.
Voces 8- details here. Not only are they in the middle of a U.S. tour across the midwest, but they are also posting videos from stops along the way which you can watch here.
Studio A Cappella
Pentatonix have released a terrific track (audio for download and video on YouTube) of “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye. More info here.
The collaborative track from SoJam, featuring members of The Boxettes, Naturally 7, Musae, the UNC-G Sapphires, and others is now available for listening here. And it’s very good (icanhazmoreElbowacappellaplease?!)
Groove for Thought, featured on Season 2 of the Sing Off, has released their new album. You can find out more info here.
Voices Only Forte, a great collection of non-collegiate a cappella tracks, is now available for purchase. More info here.
Peter Hollens has a new video and a (different) new track available for purchase on iTunes. His website is here.
An unreleased track from the Committed album, their cover of Usher’s “You Got it Bad,” is now on YouTube here.
Kickstarter Projects
Just announced today, U of Oregon’s On the Rocks have a Kickstarter project for their 6th CD and a midwest tour. Support them here.
The guys from the A Cappella Blog have a publishing project relating to their first book, “The A Cappella Book.” Check it out here.
The Green Tones, a mixed group from University of North Texas, are looking to produce their debut album. More info here.
Forte, a mixed group from Centerville High School, are looking to record an album of all original tunes. I will repeat: all original. Help fund it here.
UPDATE: “Those Guys,” from Winnipeg, are working on “That Album” on a Kickstarter clone called Rockethub. Support them here.
A cappella Blog doings
Over at Vocal Blog, Line Groth from Postyr Project has offered a glimpse into the exercises which her group uses to improve intonation and blend. Check it out right here.
With the first round of ICCA competitions nearly completed, the fellas at The A Cappella Blog have written some reviews and summaries right here. Rob Dietz also reviewed the West Coast ICCA regional on his website here.
Relatively new blogger (but longtime aca-Twitter-azzi) LovedeAcappella has a poll for the best #basslove song right here.
Miscellany
James Wallace, VP from Transit, has been working on a series of instructional videos on YouTube. The latest is up here.
Dakaboom (aka Ben McClain from Sonos and Paul Peglar formerly from Sonos) with a fun new video here. (and outtakes here).
I’ll do these updates periodically, but for now, feel free to email me anything I missed at dave@acatribe.com.
The A Cappella World is Flat
Ok, so I’ll be the first to admit I haven’t read the entire book by Thomas Friedman called “The World is Flat.” But my understanding from the selections I did read had to do with the idea that the internet and a rapidly changing globalization in business have leveled the playing field dramatically between traditional industrial nations and everyone else. As the world changes in this way, the previous geographical restrictions become less and less relevant. (Don’t hold it against me if I’m wrong- I read a few chapters a few years ago, so I don’t consider my summary to be comprehensive, ironclad, or completely accurate)
WHO CARES AND HOW DOES IT RELATE TO A CAPPELLA?
Well, this past weekend I think we saw a glimpse into the global changes infecting our “little” a cappella community. I am talking, of course, about the live internet streaming of both concerts from the Los Angeles A Cappella Festival (LAAF) and the two personalized live concerts performed by Danish quintet Postyr Project.
I have to admit, I was irrationally excited about the idea of watching 3 or all 4 of these events live; and thus a little disappointed when I missed the first LAAF concert on Friday night. Nevertheless, I tuned in Saturday night at nearly 10:30 p.m. EST to watch the professional showcase concert featuring Hookslide, Pentatonix, and Duwende.
Now, I’m not interested in reviewing the concert for a few reasons. First of all, the camera was pretty much just placed on a tripod pointed directly at the stage, and the sound seemed, at least on my computer, to be nothing more than the room sound (stereo mic’d?). In other words, there was no fancy camera work, and no house-mix or higher quality sound being pumped into the feed. Second, I do believe that a cappella is generally something which must be experienced live, in person, in order to best appreciate its potential. As I have said before, the power of a cappella music is being in the room and hearing the voices lock in harmony. Over time, recording engineers and producers have figured out ways to substitute for that aesthetic, but the live streaming of the LAAF concerts was not directed towards that goal of giving the viewer a precise and accurate simulation of being present in the auditorium those nights.
Instead, the value of CASA streaming those concerts was more about community. In the United States, these major festivals happen typically 3-5 times per year (I realize there are more smaller festivals- I compiled the list of American festivals along with the Vocal Blog‘s compilation of other worldwide festivals here- but it is really only 3-5 festivals which are massive in scope and draw the biggest headlining acts). The time and geographic distance between these festivals makes many of them practical only if you live within a 30-mile range or have lots of time and spare money to attend. But if you are on Twitter or Facebook or YouTube immediately after these festivals, you learn about all the wonderful things you missed. In fact, if you are on Twitter and following a cappella people, you are likely watching their responses to workshops and concerts in real-time (as they are happening).
So, by streaming these concerts (and also the SoJam concerts back in November), CASA is doing all it can to engage a cappella fans who cannot travel to a festival for any number of reasons, and also helping to ensure that more people try to make an effort to attend a future festival or two.
Saturday night, I was able to watch Hookslide, Pentatonix, and Duwende and share thoughts, comments, and laughs with people on Twitter who live in different time zones, engage in different professions, and have vastly different backgrounds from my own all from the comfort of my own house. Would I rather have been there watching it all happen live? No doubt about it. But this wasn’t a bad alternative.
I also think by making this stream available, again regardless of the quality, people can get a sense of a group’s live identity and maybe say “ok, the next time [group] comes to my city/town/county/state, I’m gonna invest a little money and bring a friend!” I think it answered my question about Pentatonix- can they put on a great live performance outside of the highly sanitized and rigidly controlled confines of network television (YES).
I know CASA streamed the SoJam festival back in November, and I was very excited to watch the Saturday night concert there featuring The Boxettes and Naturally 7. This weekend, I really enjoyed seeing Hookslide, Pentatonix, and Duwende. I know that it is not a substitute for being at the concert, with the live crowd energy and sound cranked up, but I think CASA is really doing a great thing by making these concerts available for free online so that people can learn about new groups or see how groups they have heard about perform.
Now, Sunday’s festivities were a little different. Postyr Project, a groundbreaking quintet from Denmark, has been pushing boundaries since they released their album in 2011– an album which features not only their vocals, but cello, drum loops and beats, and various other instruments. It is a stunning tapestry of vocals mixed with electronic and acoustic sounds, and it was not surprising to me that they would be the first vocal group (at least the first I know of) to perform not one, but two live streaming concerts solely for the benefit of web-based viewers. In other words- the “audience” was me, and anybody else watching from their own home, and the “stage” was what appeared to be an apartment or house with some very comfortable-looking chairs. The group called these “Digital House Concerts,” and this was a totally accurate description.
The website running the show, LiveMusicStage, created an interface where you can not only watch the video of the performance, but on the left-hand side you can participate in a chat box (if you login through Facebook) which allows you to interact with other viewers. You also have the option of clicking “Applaud” to see a silhouetted figure stand up and applaud, something like “Rock Out” (using the classic rock and roll “rock lock” gesture of the horns), and something which allowed your figure to wave a lighter back and forth. Interestingly, you could see a computer screen on the video behind some of the members of the band which showed the front of these faceless figures being triggered by the viewers, giving the performers a feel of an audience (though I’m sure it was a somewhat empty feeling). There was also a poll which asked how the viewer would like the group to perform the song “OMG,” offering such options as “Excited” and “Flirting.”
The production value of these concerts (yes, I watched both) was pretty high- the sound being streamed appeared to be either the primary mix or something of similar quality. The video component was also really well done, offering a more interactive feeling for the viewer, with close-ups of the singers much like the camera work that goes on a big screen at a bigger rock concert.
Again, leaving aside the quality of the performance (which was very, very high), the most valuable aspect of this was the viewer’s options for interaction with other viewers and with the band. At one point before the first show started, people started typing into the chat box “Hello from Berlin,” “Hello from Detroit,” etc. People from all over the world were coming together to watch and participate in this musical experience, and I think this experiment offered a guide for how groups can connect with the larger, global a cappella community in new and very cool ways.
The two streaming events this past weekend were different options perhaps directed towards slightly different goals, but the one way in which they were the same– the inviting, inclusive call to a cappella fans everywhere– was the most important achievement for both. I don’t know where we as a community are headed, but I know this weekend bodes well for the things to come. I hope it inspires other groups to find new and creative ways to reach out to our community as well.
So, thank you Postyr Project and thank you LA-AF/CASA for knocking down boundaries, widening the reach of good, live a cappella music, and flattening the a cappella world.
