This week Amy and I were asked to record a project for my good friend Daniel Smith. (Daniel is a great supporter of all things Weathervane!) This week he was supposed to produce a recording at his home studio in NJ for the group, Ben and Vesper, but ended up with a scheduling conflict because his own band, Danielson, had a show in Los Angeles.

That’s where Amy and I came in. We tracked basics at Daniel’s basement on Monday and Tuesday. Ben and Vesper are a couple from New Jersey and they were backed by drummer and bass player John and Steven (also from the band Holler, Wild Rose). Sufjan Stevens, a long time friend and supporter of the band, was also there. We pulled off 12 basic tracks (drums, bass, guitar and scratch vocals) live in the first two days.

On Wednesday we moved over to Miner Street (Amy’s and my studio, and the setting for the upcoming Weathervane Project Series recordings). For the first half of the day we tracked backing vocal ideas with Ben, Vesper, Steven, John and Sufjan. Sufjan then played a few piano tracks (amazingly well, I should add) as well as a Hammond organ part, before he left in the early afternoon. Vesper took over the day with additional organ, piano, tack piano and keyboard parts. 

Thursday we threw together a quick scratch vocal session, live and on the spot, where B and V sung as a duo…. much of this is finished! No need to do more. They nailed it! We finished the day with a couple more keyboard parts, guitars and some reamping.

These are fantastic people - every single one of them! I can’t believe we pulled together such amazing performances for 12 songs in 4 days! It was great to work with Ben and Vesper, and of course thrilling to work with Sufjan, for sure.

(See Vesper’s Blog entry about the week HERE!)