The Helio Sequence guitar player and vocalist Brandon Summers is here today talking about his pedals, his guitar, and lactation. Helio Sequence plays tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 7th at Neumos with Tu Fawning and the Pale Pacific.

What kind of guitar do you play?
Summers: A Fender Telecaster Special with a Fender Jazzmaster neck. It’s changed over the years. The only thing on it that’s original is the body, made in Mexico. I got it from Benjamin (Weikel)’s little brother. I used to hate Telecasters, I played a Strat copy. I love the Telecaster now, I’ve done some work to the one I play.

Describe for me now that work.
Instead of a three-way selector for my pickups, I have a four-way.

A four-way?
The first selector is for a Humbucker on the neck. It's great for a traditional sound. It’s twangy, with high end, and it’s got some bite. The second one is an out of phase selector that gets a hollow, chime like, Rickenbacker sound. The third is a coil tap for the Humbucker at the neck. It’s got a little more body. The fourth one’s a really heavy, wooly sounding Humbucker. It’s dark and crunchy without so much high end. It was the only one I played for a long time, then I had it rewired.

What is your backup guitar?
It’s a Guild S-100 Polara reissue. I found out from the serial number that it’s one of eight prototypes they made. I’m scared to do anything to it.

What pedals do you use?
The most important pedal for me is a George Dennis GD130 stereo delay / reverb. They’re made in Prague, Czech Repuplic. It’s the last pedal in my chain. My wife is from Czech Republic and I got to meet George once when we were there visiting. He’s a really eccentric dude. He sat in this little room chain smoking and showed me pictures of he and all these famous people who have his pedals. Like Santana and the Zombies. Turns out I bought one of the last GD130’s. George discontinued them.

What other pedals are in your chain?
I have a Barber Limited Silver overdrive. It’s a clean boost. You get more gain and distortion out of the amp with it. I use it a bunch on the new record. I also have an Electro Harmonix Holy Grail reverb, and a Dunlop 535Q Wah.

What amp do you use?
A Fender Super Six. I borrowed Isaac Brock’s when we recorded Love and Distance and fell in love with it. It’s a gigantic six speaker version of the twin. 100 Watt. I play in stereo and the second amp I use is a Soursound custom. It’s a 50 Watt high headroom amp that’s good for the low frequencies. Brian Sours makes them here in Portland. He’s great. He also built an amp for Isaac and the guys in the Shins. We use him for all our modifications, he’s a technical master.

Any secrets to your sound?
Not really. I also play through a DigiTech Valve FX processor. I’ve used it on so many songs, I can’t get rid of it. It’s just a tone thing, a digital processor. It has sounds I can’t get anywhere else.

What type of problems do you run into with your set up?
Well, with so many pedals, I’m not getting the purest sound out of the guitar. There’s impedance issues and it messes with the tone. When recording I try to use as few pedals as possible, and only use one amp. I think it’s important to think about the tone.

You guys just played Hawaii. How was it?
It was amazing. We played a Halloween festival at place called the Loft on Honolulu. We were just going to go for three days, but decided to make it into a longer vacation. My wife and my two month old daughter got to come. We rented a car and did a bunch of hikes and had beach time.

How did your daughter do on the plane? What’s in her pedal chain?
It was her first time seeing the ocean and being on a plane. She did really well. People were coming up to us after the flight and saying how good she was. She just has breast milk in her chain. No impedance there.

Is good lactation key for good sound?
Totally. When I’m lactating, I play much better.

(photo: woxy.com)

Keith Dempster from New York’s Ground Control Studio spoke about some basics when it comes to recording drums at home:

What are the first things you do when you are getting drum sounds at home?
Keith: Hide the bong. And hide all bonglike apparati.

What’s more important, good mics, or good preamps?
Well, the most important thing in home recording your drums is the room. The room dictates the drums' sound more than anything. If you want a big drum sound, you need a pretty live room. You want lots of reflection. People may only have a small room to use, or rooms that are carpeted. But there are still things you can do to liven it up:

Get three or four 4x8 foot sheets of plywood and put them up against the walls of the room. And place one on the floor, right in front of the kick drum. This adds reflective surfaces to that room.

Also, try the garage, if you have one. Try all the biggest rooms in the place. You want reverberation. You’ll need to get long mic cords so the mics can reach your mixer.

What’s a special Keith micing trick?
It’s not that special, but after you’ve mic’d the kit, tuned the drums, and there are no phasing issues, try putting an extra mic just outside the door. It'll catch additional ambient sound. It’s nice to have that when you’re mixing. It could give your sounds character.

Talk about phasing.
When two mics are picking up the same sound, the problem of delayed sound causes phase issues. Things get worse when outputs are added together at the mixing desk. When two signals are close in frequency and level but out of time with each other, there is a phase difference. The peaks of one signal are in time with the dips of the second signal and the result is a cancellation of the signals’ energy. Your drums sound weak. Someone told me it’s like someone pushing on a door at the same time another person pulls on the same door - it doesn’t move.

To get around phasing issues in multiple mic set-ups the 3:1 Rule is used:

Two mics should be placed apart from each other at least three times their distance from the sound source. In this way, the sound waves that each mic receives are different enough to minimize phase cancellation.

DJ Mountain Purse self released his 2nd cassette called The Gazelle Will Spring and I Will Eat it Before it Hits the Ground. I don’t think he ever does shows. He recorded his cassette straight to boombox.

We spoke. Mountain Purse wore all white. He asked that I not take his picture:

Are you a gangster?
Mountain Purse: I’m whatever you want me to be. Gangster, maybe. Politco. Street guardian. I am an unheard of brand of malt liquor. I’m the drama in Dramamine. I’m Sarah Palin’s daughter’s unborn son.

Politico?
Like Pluto.

Are you high?
Yes.

You say you don’t need instruments. Could you talk about that?
They get in the way. When I rap, I see things. Yesterday I was rapping behind the glass museum about one pimp lighting another pimp’s car on fire. I saw archways. Like Roman aqueduct archways. If there had been instruments, my words and their stream of free form release would never have escaped my mouth.

But you have beats and samples on your CD, where did you get your beats? (He sampled Soundgarden’s “Jesus Christ Pose”.) If you don’t need instruments and they get in the way, why didn’t you do the cassette as a vocal only thing?
Because I can do anything I want.

Do you think Soundgarden would be pissed you are using their sample?
You’re not one of those guys are you – all lawed out? What a drag it must be to suck that bad. Besides, I don’t use samples, they use me. Samples find me.

If you had a video, would there be a Yacht in it?
That is a perplexing question. I am not opposed to Yachts and or speedboats. I realize they are metaphorical representations of excess in the hip hop world. It’s just that I can’t swim. I think I would do my video in an aviary. I’d be rapping and sitting in a birdcage with parrots all over me. You would be below, cleaning my droppings and shit off of newspaper.

Jamie spoke about making the new album:

What gear got you the most excited during the recording?
Jamie: The gear that got me the most excited was some of the crazy older gear at the studios where the album was recorded and mixed. The engineer, Mark Mercer, and I did a lot of guitar overdubs at Click and Pop in Ballard where they have an Echoplex tape delay. We got all Led Zeppelin on a few of the guitar tracks which were treated lightly with the Echoplex. We mixed at Avast! Classic, and used both of the plate reverbs they have, but the most exciting plate was the old German one that's the size of a ping-pong table.

We stuck mostly with the instruments that we play live: two guitars, bass and drums, with the exception of some synth pad tracks on a few songs and the Wurlitzer on the song "Blood." I did have fun finally utilizing the pitch shift feature on my Boss PS-5 on the song "Copernicus and Me." I usually just use that pedal octave harmonization. Also on that song, I made some string noise with a brass slide in the intro and mid-song breakdown.

H Is For Hellgate - "Copernicus and Me"

Any weirdness during the sessions? Break down some sort of weird technique or occurrence.
I did some guitar overdubs at Avast with just Mark and I late one night through an old Fender Champ that sounded sweet, but had a loose tube. So, Mark had to hit record in the control room, run out to the amp and, with his sweater sleeve over his hand, hold the tube in place while I played the overdubs. It was a little fun extra pressure to nail the lines because I didn't want him to fry his fingers off.

Mark also had a contact mic that he stuck on the back of my guitar headstock to pick up the percussive string noises. Those tracks were blended in a few times throughout the album.

What was your process?
We recorded drums, bass, and guitars live with the drums in the enormous Studio A room at Avast!. We did some guitar overdubs, vocals, and keys at Click and Pop. We mixed at Avast! Classic in Wallingford because they have a board with automation. Plus, Sleater-Kinney recorded The Hot Rock at Avast! Classic, so I was able to dork out over being in the studio where one of my favorite albums was made.

How did the sessions go? What was the biggest challenge?
It went well. None of us in the band were that experienced in a "professional" recording environment and it was awesome to show up, play, and not worry too much about having to do my own engineering. I home-recorded our first album and, of course, there's the trade off of having a ton of time to record a lot of extra tracks and spend a lot of time on production versus showing up to a studio you're paying and trying to record as much as you can in your allotted time. But the quality of gear we were able to use totally made that trade off worthwhile. The production is really straightforward, but it sounds like our band. And, there were no emotional meltdowns or fights, so hooray for us.

The biggest challenge was staying awake and focused because, at about hour ten during our recording day, we would get tired, but Mark would just be waking up and getting really into things, so we ended up pulling a few twenty to twenty-four hour recording days. Seriously.

Incomprehensibilis

A man fished, confidently, hungry to eat the catch. His baited hook dangled worm. A bass struck his line and the fisherman could immediately smell it being cooked. As soon as he started reeling the the rod to bring in the fish, the world turned upside down, dropped away into nothingness, and left him dangling on the end of his own line. The fish held up the fisherman. The fisherman plead and begged the bass not to drop him into the darkness below. He cried and screamed for help. Nothing was between his feet and forever. An endless void. The fisherman looked down and his stomach threw itself out his throat.

The bass laughed and said, "You were going to eat me, man. Why should I spare you?"

The fisherman replied, "You're a fish, I caught you. This can't be happening."

And the bass said, "Is that all you have to say?"

What is your general approach to designing sound for a room?
Berry: Assess what its purpose is: live, dance, or spoken etc, and the type of music within the category. Look at the shape and acoustic treatment needs of the space and work out a plan utilizing the information.

What are the differences between the systems at Neumos, Chop Suey, and King Cobra?
All three rooms are narrow spaces with different architectural obstacles. Chop Suey has a stage built into a fake pagoda that the sound system has to fit into where you lose three feet of ceiling height. Neumos and King Cobra both have balconies on one side of the room and the other side is flat against a wall. This creates a potential for the stereo image to sound different from side to side and needs to be designed around. Sight lines need to be taken into consideration. Budget and income also potentially play huge roles in the design process.

What was the most challenging part about designing the systems for those rooms?
Money vs. budget.

Neumos did a sound system redesign last year. Why did they redesign? And could you talk about the beautiful Funktion One / Tannoy speakers there? They are beautiful. I kiss them.
It was assessed that Neumos needed to be more touring act friendly and there was a new ownership group that had a more music centric agenda. We worked out budget and got to work. The Tannoy IQ designed by Funktion One became the right fit for the room. Tannoy is a high fidelity company based in Scotland UK that utilizes their "Dual Concentric" transducer in a high definition sound reinforcement application. Very little electronic time alignment is needed in the mid to high band because the drivers are essentially in absolute acoustic alignment. The response I have gotten is very positive.

When you find a dead spot in a room, what can you do? Are there any dead spots at those clubs?
Most dead spots occur on the leading edge of the stage because to get coverage there would mean acoustical feedback before adequate gain in the main speakers. This is not as critical in playback music environments but is a huge factor in live music. There are dead spots in parts of the balcony in both clubs with balconies.

When you tour with Mudhoney, you bring your own mics, right? What is the key to doing Mudhoney's sound?
Yeah, I bring virtually all the mics for the band, it keeps them healthy from dirty smelly venue mics and insures at least that I know the beginning of the chain is good. The guitar sound is key and fitting it in the mix is an essential puzzle piece around all the other important pieces.

Please bequeath some form of Mudhoney story.
Most Mudhoney gigs are outside of this country in much larger venues than we play locally. The challenge is always to make the speaker system and the console that you are mixing on comfortable so that the "art" of mixing can take place. This can be a challenge night after night. The so called "digital" mixing console is omnipresent in many different flavors. I take to them pretty naturally because I have a strong fundamental background.

The tragic reality of these consoles became obvious on our last local gig at a KEXP Barbeque. The generator power started getting unreliable and at first some amps turned off. Then the electricity powering the console and all the recording gear out front went down. The digital console erased itself mid gig and I had to re-write all 19 channels as the band started to play again. Not fun to write EQ, gain, compression, gating, and routing for all those channels while the client looks on. I screamed some ugly things that night, I was not happy. But now I have most of the major digital console starting points saved on USB sticks, lesson learned.

Sunday, 9/28, 3:10 AM: A lone male soul from Hoquiam jacked on mescaline grasped onto the Neumos dumpster like it was a lifeline. His name was Dragon Man and he stared at the ground as if he were peering from a shaky ledge into the depths of the Grand Canyon. He was wearing sunglasses and was crying. After making sure he didn’t need to go to the hospital, I asked if I could interview him. He said OK and the dictation began.

As has been reported, Decibel Fest brought out minds and ears to experience and experiment. Like all large concerts and festivals, there are those that over do the experimentation. Mescaline, however, is not something to be overdone. Mescaline, or 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine, is a naturally occurring psychedelic alkaloid of the phenethylamine class. It’s a different kind of natural:

What are you on?
Dragon Man: Mescaline, the gill maker.

Why gills?
Cause I’m underwater and can breathe.

Why are you crying?
I miss my dog.

Who did you see tonight?
Carl Craig.

How did it go?
The puffer fish struck. Craig fought back. The aquarium was the amphitheatre with dragons doing chariot races. The dragons had gills too. I got dispatched.

What about Craig pulls you in?
The ocean strobe fuzz of his under-wang.

Did you get dispatched to this dumpster? Is that why you’re holding onto it?
Yes. You must think you’re pretty smart, all time traveled. But I say fuck it. This is the crux, the center pit fall of the molecular world. If I let go, you die. Your gills would carve themselves with razors.

Thank you. Would you like some water?
No.

What’s your dog’s name?
Beefy.

What’s an under-wang?
Beefy has an under-study.

Thank you.

(picture: n. kaiser)

Driving North past the bus stop on Rainier Ave. under the I-90 overpass, I saw a man yawning. He was seated, waiting for the bus. It was one of those all consuming yawns. He was a hefty Asian chef with silver slicked back hair. His head was tilted back, eyes were closed, and his apron was still on.

Stevie Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen” was playing on the radio in my car. “Just like the white winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singing / Ooo baby... ooo, said ooo.”

As I drove by the bus stop, the man’s yawn coincided exactly with the end of the song’s fourth of fifth verse. Stevie sings a long “oooooaaaaaaahhh”. The timing of the yawn perfectly matched the singing and the mouth movement of the “oooooaaaaaaahhh”. The guy couldn’t have tried to match it any more perfectly.

A hemisphere of realization came over me and I knew I was alive. Too much alignment was there for the instant to have occurred by chance.

Seven that’s: That song on that radio station, during that part, driving by that well lit bus stop? That man sitting there, happening to yawn at that moment, with identical mouth movements and duration to the singing of that of the part in the song?

It may have only lasted for three seconds, but it cracked me on the head.

Sometimes the littlest things have the largest resonance.

It may have only lasted for three seconds, but for those three seconds, it spun the earth.

Yes, naked drum sounds are boring to some. Just drums? No other instruments? Why am I going to waste three minutes of my sunny Friday afternoon listening to that? Perhaps the last Friday afternoon like this for a while?

I'll tell you. What makes these drums different is that they are played by Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham. The greatest drummer of all time. That is why. The sun can wait. These drum sounds can not. Hearing this man’s clean drum sounds and strength of stroke, will in turn strengthen you, your day, and the Fall sun that is sliding down right now from the sky above. John Bonham’s naked drum sounds will cause your body to produce more white blood cells.

Thank you to U.S.E. drummer Jon E. Rock for sending these in. And thank you to Christian Cummings at MixMyMusic.net .

Mostly though, thank you to John Bonham. Sadly, John, you drank four quadruple Vodka’s and choked on your vomit in your sleep. But you left us drums sounds that uplift and produce white blood cells.

These are drum outtakes from Zeppelin’s 1978 In Through The Out Door. Recorded at Polar Recording Studios.

Earbuds: place them in now. Headphones: over the ears. White blood cells: flow freely. Play: be pressed.

Outtake 1: here

Outtake 2: here

Truck plays Saturday, 9/27 in Volunteer Park with Glitch Mob and Jacob London. Dj support from Michael Manahan, and Noisemaker.

Decibel in Volunteer Park! This Saturday / 1 PM / All Ages / Free

The Dexter Street Stompers Jug Band played a Nature Consortium work party at a West Seattle trailhead this past Saturday. It was raining. Five people were working. The band performed under a blue tent. The Goodyear Blimp was not hovering above. The workers dug, raked, clipped, and bagged to the jug band’s jangling musical bounty.

As jug bands and work parties go, these workers were absolutely frikking rocked. The dirt and wet leaves were rocked as well. Band leader Levi Fuller attempted a split and said a cuss word because his groin had not been properly stretched for a split. It was during the song “Baby Jump”. Fuller apologized, then went back into the song. One of the workers got a blister on their left hand at the base of the thumb. She said a cuss word and apologized as well.

The Dexter Street jug player and washboard player are both in a band called Beaver Deceivers that has done some things with the consortium before. Dexter Street played the Arts in Nature Festival a few weeks ago and soon after, the trailhead work party show was set up. A paying gig.

It was muddy and the band played for a full hour. One highlight was their rendition of Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love”. The band played their first two songs again at the end to pad the set.

Jaw harpist Casey Coulombe played his jaw harp through a Chinese megaphone attached to a mic stand for amplification. He lit into solos like a blowtorch artist carving up sheet metal into the face of Jimi Hendrix at his most psychedelic. Casey did not say any cuss words the entire outing.

(Pictures: Alyssa Herbert)

Person 1) Does this band suck?
Person 2) You mean the band that’s playing right now?

1) Yeah.
2) Why are you asking me? They’re right there, playing.

1) It’s too loud. I can’t hear the singer. I’ve had three Beam and Cokes. And beer.
2) You suck if you can’t come up with your own opinion.

1) I heard they’re supposed to be good. All these people said they’re great.
2) So what do you think?

1) They don’t sound like Radiohead or Blondie at all.
2) Blondie?

1) Someone told me they sound like Radiohead and Blondie. I think they sound terrible. I paid for these tickets and they sound terrible. But maybe it’s just the sound system, or they’re having an off night.
2) I don’t think they sound good either. I saw them the last time they played here, and they were terrible then too.

1) I’m still not sure.
2) Were your Beam and Cokes good?

1) Yeah.
2) So you can formulate an opinion.

1) Yeah but that’s a drink.
2) But it shows you have the power to formulate an opinion.

1) No, it shows I have the power to get intoxicated.
2) Well you’re the one who dragged me to this show. And it sucks.

1) I can formulate an opinion. Jack Johnson sucks.
2) You’re right. What does that have to do with this show?

1) Nothing. But I know sucky music.
2) Then you should know this music sucks.

Lovefoxxx came out in a shaggy silver King Dome sized parka. Her hair was up in a space tomahawk bouffant and her face was painted. She aerobically hopped, wriggled, contorted, and sang on her hands and knees to people in the front. She asked a front row muse what his favorite alcohol was. His answer was tequila. She was genuinely happy for him that his favorite alcohol was tequila. Lovefoxxx signaled for someone to bring him tequila but because the main level of the sold out Neumos was designated all ages, no tequila was brought out. Upstairs, where there was alcohol, body heat rose from the dancing packed-in horde and it felt good to sweat one last time before winter sets in.

CSS enjoy playing live. They enjoy their songs. They had fun and it emanated throughout the animated room. White helium balloons were tied everywhere on the stage and bass player Adriano Cintra had a Spongebob balloon tied on to himself. The all ages crowd leaned and screamed in unison to Lovefoxxx’s party howl. The Neumos vibe was enthusiastically soaked in soaking it in.

Lovefoxxx kept the parka on for a while. It wasn’t just a quick showpiece. She must have been absolutely sweating balls. Finally she shed it and revealed a leotard wrapped in fake flowers and vines - a onezie. The stage was spread with dual guitars, keytars, Korg, bass, and drums. Lovefoxxx brought out a cardboard cutout of Britney Spears. It was fondled and given a keytar solo. People poured water on their heads and for the encore, people frenzied and ripped at their own shirts. There was lots of eye glitter and estrogenic power. “Left Behind” was a highlight, although there really were no low points of the show. It was all delivered up and switched on. The set seemed fast.

CSS are beloved. Cansei de Ser Sexy. They belove back. They are donkey. Their performance for and interaction with the crowd imparts a true sense of party. The rock and disco sounds of this band from Sao Paulo, Brazil aptly get a crowd off.

Dan White from Seattle’s Arbor Audio is with us today talking about the Leslie speaker cabinet and the Hammond B3 organ that came into his possession (for a total of $300). Dan is skilled, schooled, razor sharp, and patient when it comes to recording and playing music. He’s also so nice it kind of makes you sick.

When I say the word gear, what comes to mind?
Dan: That’s not really a fair question. There’s a lot of gear in the world.

When I say the word Leslie 122RV speaker cabinet, what comes to mind?
Ah. That I can do. Leslies are speaker cabinets that were designed by Don Leslie in the 1940s. In contrast to the stationary speakers we all know and love, Don was trying to design a speaker that would scatter the sound throughout a room. What he created instead was a totally unique sound, and coupled with the Hammond organ, one of the most ubiquitous organ sounds in the history of recorded music. The most interesting Leslies have two "rotating" drivers; the speakers don't actually rotate, but the treble driver fires up into a rotating horn, and the bass driver fires down into a rotating baffle. Some Leslies have single-speed rotation with fast and off settings; some have two-speed rotation with fast ("tremolo") and slow ("chorale”) settings.

These things are electromechanical, and therefore are difficult to emulate. They give off this localized doppler effect with both amplitude and frequency modulation. The two rotors, having different masses, speed up and slow down at different rates. I don't think Don planned to build so much character into his speaker cabinet! The Leslie 122 is a coveted two-speed, the -RV designating the mushy spring reverb that most people disable. Leslies are like large pieces of furniture, almost the size of a refrigerator.

Where did you get the Leslie?
My wife found it at an estate sale. She drove down to South Seattle at 7 AM and beat everyone to it. She called me and said, “I'm at that estate sale. They have a Leslie 122RV. Is that a good one?" It was too early for me to comprehend. She said, “The guy says there's an organ included with it. $300 for both.” She sent me pictures from her phone.” Unmistakably, it was a Hammond B3 organ. A Hammond B3, with the Leslie for $300.

What happened when you fired it up?
When we got it home the next day, the startup motor couldn't get the tonewheels spinning. It was anticlimactic, but I still had a "free" B3 sitting in my living room. Like most of my gear, I got it for cheap but later made up for it in sweat equity. A few months ago I saw Joe Doria playing in Fremont and he had his soldering iron out fixing some drawbars before they went on stage. It reminded me of more than one gig where I was replacing pickups in my Rhodes on stage. To be a Hammond owner is to be a Hammond tech.

(pictures: Dan White)