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Shane Speal Recording Blog - Day 2

Shane Speal's Snake Oil Band - recording an album for C. B. Gitty Records

Day two of recording

Equinox Music and Arts, Dallastown PA

Day Two - "We're Going Live"

Pictured: Boz Bostwick's 5-string cigar box guitar. I used it on When She Gets Drunk, She Gets Horny. I have a feeling Boz would be overjoyed to hear this used on such a raunchy song!

Songs worked on:

Strung Out, Drunk and Busted
49 Years
Holler
When She Gets Drunk, She Gets Horny

Instruments used:

Shane Speal 3-string broomstick cigar box guitar (baritone) outfitted with a Flatpup
Darren Brown 3-string outfitted with a Flatpup pickup
Kurt Schoen 5 string "Turbodiddley" cigar box guitar, formerly owned by Donald "Boz" Bostwick
Shane Speal foot stomper
Musicvox MVX-15 amp

I'm home again after another crazy day in the studio. We had a guest with us today, Bill Kalina, photographer of the York Dispatch newspaper. He took a bunch of photos and video. I'll post a link to the upcoming story in a future blog.

We went back to try and fix Strung Out Drunk And Busted. Spent a good 3 hours tracking guitars, foot stomper, bass and more. In the end, we decided to scrap the whole thing! The problem was I recorded the initial parts to a "click track," a metronome that give you perfect timing. Unfortunately, my body just doesn't work to perfect timing. I'm used to playing stomper, guitar and singing all at once...to my own rhythm. This has been a costly lesson, but one that will pay off as we continue the recordings.

After the frustration of Strung Out..., I told engineer, Don Belch to just turn on the mics and let me record something new. Playing 100% live, I then busted thru 49 Years, Holler and When She Gets Drunk... in rapid succession... all in less than 3 takes. Here's a quick vid of us listening to the raw track of "Holler"

This is going to be the key of the album... record this stuff LIVE and dangerous.

My vocal chords are shredded from the singing and seasonal allergies. I still have one more day of recording and three gigs to perform this week. Ugh...

Well, until tomorrow... stay primal

Shane Speal

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Comment by Slowpaw Steve T on March 25, 2014 at 8:38am: Well you're working hard on those songs Shane! It takes me days to do one what with layers of overdubs and mind changes. Everybody has their own way of working, I' d drive your engineers mad, though I do not have the pressure of studio hire time to care about ... (-;

Comment by the anonymous pick on March 20, 2014 at 10:49am: ;-)

Comment by RTZGUITARS on March 20, 2014 at 8:28am: there are not enough songs about drunk sluts. I should of listened. Some of the best records ever where bands playing live in the studio, you just need room to separate everyone. If your not used to putting a song together piece by piece it can be a nightmare. Good Luck Guy's.

Comment by Ron "Oily" Sprague on March 19, 2014 at 7:18am: Day 3: Ben Gitty takes advance orders for 100,000 CDs of the new Shane Speal album. Capitol starts calling. Rolling Stone and NME start calling. Vince Gill starts calling. London starts calling.

Comment by Matthew Borczon on March 19, 2014 at 1:43am: Shane you are too dangerous for a click track. I discovered this about myself long ago and always sing and play together it just works better, the personal and subtle changes of timing is the magic you make as a musician. I am more certain than ever that this is going to be one hell of a record.