Jonathan Vassar

“Our Heritage is Unto Us”
from the orchard series, no. 1
Jonathan Vassar and The Speckled Bird”
~est. release: January 2010~

drawing by Dan Owen

Josh Quarles has been hard at work recording and mastering a small collection of outtakes from both “The Hours and The Days” and “The Fire Next Time.” This project serves two primary purposes: 1. home recording practice–chops exercise before jumping  into the full length album: “Signs and Wonders,” 2. the preservation and presentation of songs that the band has been revisiting off-and-on for two years.

The result has been a logistic learning experience as well as a chance for Josh to flex some production muscle: layering clarinets, cellos, vibraphones and vocals to create rich and warm depths that match the pastoral, summer-saturated themes found throughout the songs’ lyrical content.

Early mix examples of the record can be found on The Richmond Scene: namely:  “Sunday Morning”  and “You and Me and Jack.”

Other songs to be included are as follows:
“The Fault Line Blues,” “The Lamb and Sparrow,” and “In the Cut” (pending).

“This collection represents a direction they could have gone with ‘The Fire Next Time,’ but chose not to. It shows the extreme side of their pastoral pop chamber folk blissful dreaminess. While most of their music is somewhat balanced between sides of darkness and light, this collection is a no holds barred, happy, sunny Speckled Bird (with maybe a couple of creepy exceptions).” – Triple Stamp Records, 11/ 2009

photo by Leslie Edwards

After some coffee, curry and roasted pumpkin seeds, we tucked our stuff into our cars and drove up the I-95 corridor to Tyler Recital Hall, NOVA, Alexandria Campus. Thankfully, the traffic was easy and the fall leaves were struttin’ their stuff (but not too showy). ‘Iron and Wine’ on the stereo.

Many thanks to Dr. Mark Whitmire who invited us to play a second time at what’s become an annual event up at NOVA– The Coffeehouse. Providing stage-time for a variety of songwriters, musicians and poets to demonstrate their craft, this college-spun series has become a nice way for us to say hello to Northern Virginia without having to play in a Starbucks or Borders (heaven forbid).

We ate and drank at Atlantis, a Greek/Italian family restaurant, before tuning up and layin it down.
Songs were sung, time spent well, and the drive home was a piece of cake.

Available for purchase via Triple Stamp Records.

Reviewed by Shannon Cleary for The Richmond Scene!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE FIRE NEXT TIME, TSR008

art by Dan Owen

1. Nearer My Father’s Wounded Side
2. Saint Josephina
3. San Jacinto
4. Match Made in Heaven
5. Hole in the Ground
6. You Do Too

Recorded by Allen Bergendahl of Viking Recording Company.
Produced by Wil Loyal.
Mastered by Carl Saff at Saff Mastering.
Printed and Pressed at Sire Press.

Thanks to Wil Loyal,  Adrienne Brown, Chris Carroll, Leslie Edwards, Peter Fisher-Duke, Susan Daughtry, Matt Lisk, Sound of Music, Darien Fisher-Duke, John Duke, Gabe Duke, Rachel Ellison, Caitlin Bergendahl, Anousheh Khalili, Christopher Payne and Andrew Cothern.

photograph by Leslie Edwards

“Jonathan Vassar is joined on this record by his live band: “The Speckled Bird.” Chris Edwards (banjo, mandolin, electric guitar), Antonia Fisher-Duke (accordion, glockenspiel) and Joshua Quarles (cello, clarinet, organ, piano) use delicate melody and vocal harmony to set the stage for an outstanding follow-up to Vassar’s first release: “The Hours and The Days.”

9/25, 9/26

Friday evening the band rolled into Harrisonburg for another show at a favorite spot: The Little Grill. Ben, Mel and Nik of Mild Winter set up the show and played a mean set after the speckled bird finished up. Nice show, nice people, nice. The only thing to even slightly sully the evening was the intense waft of pet food outside.

Josh and Jonathan met Mild Winter and friends at “Underground” at “Camelot” for some post show beers and hangtime. Initially unable at to find anyone, their first encounter with Camelot came in the form of a short drunken wanderer looking for “Pubes” who “used to live there… S’ok” he exclaimed in a drunken drawl, “he’s probably at Spagetthi Fest.” Jonathan and Josh exchanged puzzled glances and felt their tummies rumble from down in the depths.

After some pleasant conversation, libation, and laughing, Josh and Jonathan made their way to find Antonia who had spent the better part of the evening with good friends: Alexis and Willy (who also were providing lodging for the night). With the exception of getting lost a couple of times, GPS confusion, and being totally turned around at all times, Josh and Jonathan found Alexis’s house without too much trouble.

Thanks to Lisa, Jonathan, Antonia and Josh got an on-air interview on “Acoustic Cafe” at WMRA! One of the best interviewers the band has come across, a good time was had by all. The following link goes to one of a series of videos taken that afternoon by Alexis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKTkXN6KhMQ

After the radio interview, the band made its way back to Richmond for another show with Mild Winter at The Camel.

July 26th

Mixing “The Fire Next Time” took place at Sound of Music Recording Studios.
Comfortably sprawled across leopard print couches– the band, and producer Wil Loyal, threw offhand remarks and off-color jokes to Allen as he tweaked the knobs and levels of the mix. There may have been some name calling.

While Allen worked away, the rest of us made coffee, song order lists, and friends with the studio cat–a bizarro Nugget who some of us began to refer to as ‘Mugget.’

Overall we passed through mixes a few times, did some touch up tracking– including gourd-shaker percussion and extra accordion squeezing. We listened to the recording every which way…

before we decided it was time to send it off to Carl Saff of  Saff Mastering
to provide the finishing touches with the magic art that is mastering.

Many thanks to Allen for all of his hard work–with which he is still currently engaged. A man among men–true blue, Allen…true blue.

and BOOTS!!!

to all y’all.

-The Speckled Birds

photos by susan or chris.

Friday night and all day Saturday were spent finishing up the log cabin tracking for “The Fire Next Time.”

Joshua lay down some beautiful cello and clarinet, giving the songs a nice grounding and capturing the room’s shape with rich tones.  Crickets, frogs and alarm clocks made for some interested background noises.

Bowed cello: Nearer My Father’s Wounded , Saint Josephina, A Match Made In Heaven, Hole in the Ground

Plucked cello: San Jacinto, Hole in the Ground, You Do Too

Saturday afternoon, Chris, Antonia and Josh lay down their vocals. It was Allen’s idea to record these both as a group and individually–so creating a base chorus track and having individual voices to push up or down. I think this will capture the vocal sound that we’ve been aiming for.
Antonia, the star of A Match Made in Heaven (though Josh may give her a run for her money), masterfully weaved her mock-saw into the choruses–like a beautiful bird warble.

Throughout this session Wil was present offering his sage advice and eating cake. Lisk was nowhere to be seen, though it’s been rumored that his dark reign has been usurped and that he has been banished to Alaska (have a great time Matthew)

I put down some harmonica before taking off. Josh and I both played shows that evening. So we left Antonia, Chris, Allen and Wil to finish the tracking without us.

photos by susan

by CE

After a brief hiatus for Allen to enjoy a belated honeymoon trip in England, we re-occupied the cabin (thanks, Gabe) and dove back into recording earlier this week.  First order of business on Tuesday evening was to fix some guitar parts that were left a little rough around the edges after the last session a couple of weeks ago.  Specifically, the slide guitar on St. Josephina needed tweaking.  In truth, it needed re-doing.  I am the first to admit that I am not a very precise slide guitarist…which is too bad, because playing slide guitar well requires a fair amount of precision.  Allen and Jonathan set up shop, we tried a couple of takes, then took a break for a bite to eat.

Getting the slide part for St. Josephina just right took most of the remainder of the evening.  We did four takes of the song before sifting through them to mine the best take from each section, combining them into a single composite track.  This is the hard part of recording for me.  Judging the subtleties of each take to choose the best segments often requires a measure of patience and intensity of focus that I find challenging.

Next up was the intro to Nearer My Father’s Wounded Side, with Antonia’s single sustained vocal note on top of some electric guitar noodling in Cm.  Cool mic setup for this song: one close mic to pick up Antonia’s vocals and the guitar amp, one mic in the next room to pic up the distant, reverberant sound created in the cabin.  Of course, the other room mic also picked up the sound of the water pump in the frog tank as well as some sounds of “froggy love”…but that all just added to the ambiance.  So we kept it.

After several takes of holding the repeated Cm bar chord, I had to shake out my tired hand and forearm.  In a flash of brilliance that can only be achieved by an intern, Matt said, “Hey, why don’t you use a capo?  Then you wouldn’t have to play a bar chord – you could just play an Em.”  I have been playing this song for about nine months now, a fact which begs the question: why haven’t *I* thought of this before???   Good job, Matt – way to earn your keep.

Tonight, we move on to Josh’s contributions: cello, clarinet, maybe some organ?

And the Wiremen: Lynn and Paul

Antonia and I were invited to play at a private party on the 4th of July: 200 acres, homemade ice-cream, a triple grill-out, an 18th century farm house, sandy banks, torches, swimming dogs and children, a walk around a large pond full of frogs and fish. Antonia sang the National Anthem which set off a fireworks display to end all fireworks displays. And the Wiremen played a great set of mellow songs cast in blue light gels. Antonia and I closed the night’s festivities with a short set, assisted by Paul Watson on the cornet for “About a Dog.”

(photo by Gabe Duke)