Under Mics With The Oranges Band #6

When Baltimore’s Oranges Band announced that they were headed into the studio to begin work on their new record, having soldiered through personnel changes and struggles at their label, Lookout Records, it seemed like an excellent time to catch up and to allow them to speak for themselves by cataloging the happenings.  Blog entries One through Five tracked them from the very beginning of pulling the band together for the first time in the studio, to laying the album down piece to piece, to looking into just why albums can sometimes take so incredibly long to finish.  In entry six, with the album largely tracked [Editor’s Note: It sounds incredible], Oranges Band frontman Roman Kuebler takes somewhat of a break from writing about the experience of recording to providing the photos that come along with it.—Jon Langmead

THE ALL PHOTO BLOG!

This is the all photo episode.  We had a few guests in while recording this album and I remembered to snap a few pictures here and there (and Dave took a few also).  Thanks to them for their contributions! Listed below the photos are links to their respective musical outputs so visit them and tell ‘em I sent ya. (I’ll get a cut of the profit if you do!)

The tape machine. A Sony JH-24 if you are interested. Use tape y’all, it’s like someone is softly whispering your songs back in your ear as you fall asleep.

Producer/Engineer Adam Cooke through the glass.

Mandy Koch (Karmella’s Game), Shawna Potter (Avec), and kicked out the background vocals for our most wannabe dance-y, ESG, “Steam”-era Peter Gabriel track to date, “When Your Mask Is Your Revealing Feature”. 

Roman does the conducting!  (Really, I was just trying to stay out the way…)

Jim Glass (Impossible Hair) is a straight-up legend! If the Oranges Band album were a play, Jim would be playing the part of Peter Murphy from Bauhaus.

Jim Glass up close and personable. Jim also does an incredible Andy Partridge of XTC, but that would be a different play.

Pat Martin (Oranges Band bass playing dude) is the least intimidating security dude ever, according to his press release. I wish the rest of the staff at the Ottobar were Koala bears.

Pat Martin is ready to field your calls.

I was afraid that my recording blog was a little lacking in technical detail so I include, for those who care about these things, a picture of rack mounted objects with knobs and screens and needles that we probably used to make our album sound so much better.

I think what I really want to do is ONLY play tambourine in bands.  I guess I’ll need to go back in time and join the Shangri-Las… or the Feelies, they had a percussionist, right? Weirdos.

RATSIZE!  We needed gang vocals on one of our songs… so I found a gang called Ratsize. Noel Danger, Matt Gabs, Pat Martin (L-R).

Noel Danger does NOT fuck around when it comes to eating a sub.

I say, “Ok, so the part is ‘OH, YEAH’”. Ratsize says, “OH YEAH!” Easy enough…

Amplifiers for a more technically and electronically rounded experience.

This is how we mix the music in the new millennium.

Jim and Roman… corporate schills!