Vivian...

Post date: Mar 04, 2013 2:4:9 AM

One of the bands that we saw at the Newport Folk Festival in 2011 was Delta Spirit.  This, in fact, completes the trifecta as I've now recorded songs from all three bands that make up Middle Brother.  It took a while to find a suitable song as they are all incredibly difficult to sing given his vocal style.  I'm not completely happy with the vocals, particularly in the first verse and I never really planned to add so many instruments (it originally was just a demo).  This made recording it hard as I didn't record it to a click track (metronome).  This makes it hard to layer instruments on top as there is no point of reference.  One of things that makes it sound more natural, however, is the fact that the drums are not looped which gives it a nice loose feel.

I've always wondered what this song is about.  It turns out that it was written by Matt Vasquez (the lead singer of the group) as a tribute to his dying grandmother:

"My mother had moved back and was living at the house, taking care of my grandmother, and the song happened one day when I was in the back yard and overheard this conversation happening between the two of them over a baby monitor. I won’t ever talk about exactly what was said, but I had a guitar with me and (the song) just pretty much came out of me right there all at once. It’s from my grandfather’s perspective after he’s gone."

Production notes: This was the first time that I recorded with a real bass (Fender Precision).  Organ sounds come from KONTAKT, drum samples are from BFD played manually.  Acoustic guitar and vocals were tracked first in multiple takes using a SDC (MXL993) for guitar and LDC (AT4040) for vocals.  Extensive compression was applied to smooth out the vocals and Harmonica.

Vivian (MP3)