Mischievous Smile

A CPR Trio original.

This recording was several months in the making. I wrote the song back in September of 2021, and while the lyrics and chord progressions didn’t change much over these many weeks, what you hear is quite different from its original concept, thanks to a ridiculously gratifying collaboration.

I first played this for Chris and Peter while we were still recording “Treat Her Like a Lady“, and at that time my vision for it was more or less as I had written it: An acoustic number, kind of “folksy”, with minimal instrumentation. I was prepared to record this as a solo project, and I was, quite frankly, a bit surprised (yet extremely thrilled) to find that Chris and Peter agreed that this tune should be our next project, the first CPR Trio original recording.

As we workshopped the song, it became apparent that the folksy acoustic vibe wasn’t going to cut it. A few things were immediately apparent. First, given the song’s chord changes, over-emphasizing an acoustic guitar would have given this song a flamenco flavor, which clearly was not what we were aiming for. Second, due to the song’s 3/4 time signature (the first song I’ve ever written in 3/4, by the way), we could easily descend into what Peter referred to as “bad Bavarian beer hall” and its OOM-pah-pah cadence (no disrespect to my dear longtime friend and Munich resident, Betsy).

One day I strapped on my Gretsch, plugged into my Vox, played around a bit with the reverb and tremolo settings, and landed on what I felt was a Chris Isaak vibe that I thought worked pretty well for this song. I shared this concept with my bandmates, and we all agreed it was the way to go. More workshopping followed where we incorporated several of Peter’s inspired suggestions, and after a few more iterations, we eventually locked into what you hear.

On this recording we have Chris playing his Sonor drum kit with Evans heads and Zildjian cymbals, Peter playing lead guitar on his newly-acquired Godin 5th Avenue (outfitted with P90 pickups) through his Fender Vibro Champ II, his brilliant arrangement slightly channeling Kenny Vaughan, and me playing my Squier Classic Vibe ’60s Jazz bass, Gretsch 2420T 6-string, and Roland RD-88, all fed direct into Garage Band. I sing lead, Chris sings the spot-on backup on the choruses and bridge, and all three of us contribute to the 3-part harmonies that pop up here and there. “Harmony Night at Studio 15” is always a blast, and we managed to nail them all in one session.

The recording challenges were nothing new. That “ideal” drum sound is going to remain elusive until I upgrade my equipment, but I’m not unhappy with how the drums sound here. The kick, in particular, really cuts through the mix, I think, and Chris’s playing is great.

This is the first project where I used a microphone on a real guitar amp. Previously all guitar tracks were recorded “direct in”, that is, the guitar plugged directly into an audio interface, which itself is connected to the iPad. The signal is then run through one of GarageBand’s many amp emulators, never actually traveling through the air. Using a mic on an amp introduced some additional noise into the mix, but we all liked the sound Peter had dialed into with his rig, and trying to reproduce that exactly in GarageBand would have been counterproductive.

Once we were happy with all the tracks, I started the mixing and mastering process. Standard practice is to do this through studio monitors, not headphones, and that’s how I’ve done this for all previous projects. This time, finding myself a little bored (and in a middle seat, ugh) on a return flight from Tucson after having taken a much-needed vacay to visit my buddy Glenn, I opened up GarageBand on my iPad, slipped on my Bose noise-cancelling headphones, and went to work. Little did I know the older gentleman sitting in the aisle seat was a musician in an acoustic trio from Israel traveling with his two bandmates and touring the US. I ended up giving him a very short GarageBand demo which amazed him. In broken English, he repeatedly asked me where I “put the microphone”, and it took me a few seconds to realize he wasn’t asking me about the physical location — my first answer, which I attribute to jet lag, was “in my studio” — but rather how one connects a microphone to the iPad. After I explained the electronics involved, he mostly left me alone to work on the mix, but he watched everything I did and eventually summoned one of his mates from a few rows up to come see what I was doing.

I ended up getting a decent first-draft mix on that flight, then in the days following my return, I finished up the process using my studio monitors. Thanks again, as always, to Brian for providing his much-appreciated feedback on the mix.

We all contributed equally to the end product. It was a real pleasure hearing this all come together; a quite satisfying journey.

PS This cartoon from Frank Cotham was published in the New Yorker while we were working on this song. Crazy.