• Bike Thief itself is a quintet, but we utilized the talents of an additional 15 session musicians to get the sound we were after, plus however many were in the drat children's choir (didn't count 'em because it was a weird day at the studio what with a group of tiny humans running around everywhere).
  
• Speaking of the studio: we recorded at Cloud City Sound, a phenomenal place with a spiffy sci-fi vibe. It was pretty much my home away from home for the month, so I feel doubly lucky that it was such a cool, cozy place to be. A studio that fosters creative freedom/exploration, all made possible by an awesome crew of engineers, assistants and interns, is a great place to record.
  
• I can't get super-detailed about my guitar rig, because I was sort of flying by the seat of my pants, randomly grabbing pedals from Cloud City's collection. Would've liked to have kept a record of every last piece of equipment utilized but I was sorta preoccupied. Still, the basics: my guitar is a black Mexi Strat with upgraded pickups (Suhr, if I remember correctly). One track got a little of my Gibson Midtown Custom. I used my Twin Reverb, a reissue from the mid 2000s, for most of the tracking, with my Vox AC30 (also a reissue) on some of the more aggressive stuff. As for what came between the guitar and the amp, well, that's where it gets complicated. Overdrive/distortion was mainly via Tube Screamer, with a little RAT and Big Muff thrown in for good measure. There's reverb everywhere, and that was either onboard the Twin or via a Holy Grail. There was an old Space Echo at the studio, which I used as often as I was able, although I might have used my DD6 on one or two tracks for a more subtle delay effect. There was also an old Mu-Tron Phasor that got a lot of use, as well as a Stereo Polychorus and some additional Boss effects (a chorus pedal and a flange pedal, I think). I'm not fully aware of what sorts of rack processing was going on, and that's true for mixing effects as well. Next time I'm writing it all down, I swear.
  
• drat near everything I played was scripted within an inch of its life, which is fine. However, my favorite moments on the record are the ones where I got to play it a little more loose (including the entirety of the last track, which was totally improvised on my end). One concrete example: the guitar solo in "Shimmer," composed on the spot at the end of an exhausting day. That was the first song that I tracked, so it helped to set a positive vibe for the rest of my contributions.
  
• There is some really crazy percussion stuff going on all over this record. Our drummer is the poo poo; he brought in all sorts of cool instruments(tubular bells, timpani, vibraphone, suspended cymbals, udu, etc.). My favorite percussion moment was recording a link of chain falling into a ceramic dish. We put a big-rear end length of PVC pipe between the mic and the dish, then ran additional reverb backwards.
  
• How cool is that cover? Really cool, right? The original version was made using some crazy paints that go nuts under black light or something. I dunno, magic. Still, the normal image itself is a thing of beauty. Big version (REALLY BIG) available here.
  
• If you're the sort of person who is interested in comparing the old version of Bike Thief with the new version, there is one track that both the old EP and Stuck In A Dream share: "Ghosts Of Providence" ("Ghost of Providence 1" on the EP). The EP is available on Bandcamp. An interesting evolution is sketched out there, I think. And credit where credit is due: I'm using quite a few of the previous guitarist's parts. Thanks, guy. I got my own spin on most of 'em now, though.
  

MonkeyOnFire fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Aug 19, 2014

MonkeyOnFire fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Aug 19, 2014