Prologue;
Recently I spent some time with Call Us That, a music collective and production group located in New York City, who's focus is putting singers, songs and productions together to create finished records. I was surprised and impressed by the quality and diversity of what I heard and saw, so much so that I decided to write this, and present it here.
Chattin' With That .....by Mot Reniw
"You gotta get more chairs." Pissed, Willow sits on a milk crate instead. "I'll have criss-crosses on ass. That shit can leave a scar." Rich forgives her whining because she sings great and plays guitar like a man.
"Listen to this." He plays her a mix of her last night's vocals and she gets calm.
"I spent five hours pitch-shifting you." He's joking, of course. "It sounds like a record. What do you think?" Rich Rimbaugh uses Protools like Jesus used miracles. She admits "It's tight."
The studio is messy, like a head-on collision between technology and a truck filled with candy wrappers, but the productions are spotless. As producer and engineer Rich contends that he doesn't have time to straighten up. "There's order in my chaos," he proclaims. "and I put my energy where it counts most." Bravo.
Songwriter Tom Winer lays motionless on the couch staring at the T.V. with the sound off, finishing a bag of potato chips, seemingly in a trance. He seems to create best when distracted by stupid stuff, like television, no one knows why. But great songs drop out of him like eggs. Distant, though respected, he sees the world through musical filters hot-wired to his brain. Rich calls him a savant because he plays brilliant keyboards and has an inate understanding of music with no formal training. "It's my pleasure to sav you," Tom jokes. Everyone gets it but nobody laughs, so he goes back to his trance. "Fuck 'em," he mumbles.
If Call Us That has a philosophy, it's that musically anything goes as long as it's happening musically. Any style, any genre, it's all good. A singer has a unique sound so Tom writes a song for him. Someone comes up with a new guitar idea or some other kind of part so they loop it and play it a hundred times until it gets tried or thrown out. Rich creates sounds and effects and folds them into the whole thing like he's mixing cake batter. It's like each production is a house they're building one room at a time, from the inside out. Sometimes they move in even before it's finished. Sometimes they wait until it's done. Sometimes they tear it down.
I ask "What are your musical goals?" The question seems dumb and causes squirming and a frenzy of nervous eye movement. "Success, money, fame," someone chants. " and Poonany." Willow grimaces.
"No really," I plead. " Are you pursuing record deals?"
The mood in the room drops like a rock.
"There are no more record deals!" Tom Winer is suddenly upright, sans chips and uncharactoristically animated. "Clive Davis says that if you're over 16 you can't get a record deal. That's not true. I know lots of people over 16 who can't get record deals for lots of other reasons."
He may be brilliant but,
Duh! What the hell does that mean? Somehow, though, it seems to answer the question.
"Get the door. It's Andy .He's got food." Thank God, because the whole room is starving in unison. Fortunately Andy got paid today otherwise they'd all be attacking Tom's potato chips. It's hard to tell whether these people are really broke or just faking it. When you're an artist it's always hip to be poor. Andy is a talented drummer and singer who showed up from California after severing the umbilical attached to his past as a bar band sideman. He's young but seems older because of weight gain and eyes that look like they've literally never closed. But what a voice, pretty much R&B, with a more now sound, somewhere between neo-alternative and Smokey Robinson. "I can live with that," he says, smiling, when he hears my description. "Smokeman sings his ass.Yeah!" I'm glad he's pleased.
Throughout my stay, a river of talent flows through the Call Us That pad. Musicians, singers, writers and characters of all types, some talky, some quiet, curious, opinionated, some belonging there, others not, but all welcome for whatever they can add to the total creative vibe.
"Remember," Tom says, " it's not how good you play, it's how good you sound. Have some potato chips."
"If it sounds like music, it's cool," adds Rich.
Amen, Bro's, and thanks for the chips.