RECORDING THE FUTURE...

    

       I have heard it said many times that recording apps for the iPhone and iPad are not going to replace more elaborate forms of recording any time soon; that the majority of musicians, djs & self-proclaimed sound artists do little more with these apps other than create simple home demos and loops. This may be the case right now. However, I am willing to wager a lifetime of madness on the likelihood that there are plenty of clever and talented minds out there that will disprove that theory in less than a few fortnights. It's not always easy to dig through the virtually endless junkyard of barely listenable, un-promoted crap that floods the Internet. If I had a dollar for every "unknown" artist I discovered trudging through the bilious swamps of castaway sludge that actually pricked up my ears and made me pay attention, I would probably have barely enough to buy myself a proper alcoholic beverage at a reputable establishment. That being said, I know there are some incredible artists waiting to be "discovered" out there making great music with nothing more than their ipads and iphones (or Androids, etc. if you go that way).

     I entered my first studio thanks to my father back in 1978 at the ripe young age of ten. It was a 16-track analog studio that charged something like $160.00 an hour. However, you also got an experienced engineer, soundproof booths, ridiculously expensive high-end microphones and all the dream-gear you could ever hope for after spending a minimum of several thousand clams. As a ten-year-old musician looking to get in the game uncomfortably early I was blown away. After several similar experiences along with the realization that I wanted to be Brian Wilson, Brian Eno, Brian May and any other genius named Brian I could emulate, I knew I would have to become infinitely wealthy in order to afford making the masterpieces I had in mind. At that rate, which increased substantially through the 80s and 90s with the advent of more numerous tracks, higher-end equipment, and eventually, digital recording, I would have to be Jay-Z rich.

     I bought my first 4 track cassette recorder in 1987, a Tascam MT2X, along with several thousand dollars of assorted equipment to make my first album ever without the constraints of time and without "know-it-all" engineers and producers breathing down my back. I was still a teen at the time and wanted to prove myself to my peers that I could make an album that would make Prince, Bauhaus, or even the fucking Beatles proud. In March of 1988, I completed my first DOG album. This would be the prototype album against which all my future recordings would be judged upon (mostly by me). Although there were certainly some magical moments and some crazy, but useful techniques that I still use to this day, the album is largely laughable as far as sonics and recording technique go in comparison to what would have been possible in a 1988-era state-of-the-art studio. It is a charming little representation of that time in my life, however, and probably the most important recording I have ever produced in the grand scheme of things. 

     Fast forward to 1993 (no pun intended); this was the year of my first studio upgrade after finally figuring out a way to bring my show to the New York City & New Jersey club circuit. My band-mate and co-producer, Andres Karu, and I saved up all our cash from working day jobs to buy an 8-track Tascam Portastudio which promised to take cassette-based multi-tracking to a new level back in the early 90s. A shitload of other goodies became available then as well, such as more sophisticated and affordable drum machines and sampling synthesizers. We went fucking balls-out nuts and bought, borrowed, and nearly stole whatever we could to turn our Doghaus studio into the studio of any young musician's dreams. 

     During that period and prior to our first record deal (with Warner/Reprise), we recorded 5 nights a week and I would sneak down into the studio whenever possible, since it was built in the basement of my parents' house, to record my own unsavory ideas as well. By the time we signed with Reprise records in 1995, we had accumulated over 30 albums worth of DOG music, most of which I am still quite proud of to this day. Thanks to those recordings, Reprise records eventually gave us full creative control and did not hesitate to give us a shitload of money to build our own $70,000.00 dream studio in 1997. The album we recorded during that period under our new name at the time, Love in Reverse, was a sonic nightmare ride recorded on 24 tracks of Tascam DA-88 digital multi-track tapes. This was only a few years prior to the era in which it became possible to record endless tracks onto hard drive with the use of Firewire and other fledgling technologies. We literally recorded our own self-proclaimed sonic masterpiece for that era. "Words Become Worms" would be our last album with Reprise due to circumstances which I will surely cover in future posts. However, although it sold virtually nothing thanks to our shitty marketing department and incompetent management team, it was a proud moment for us as recording artists and garnered quite a few favorable reviews. Jason Corsaro, the guy we hired to mix the seemingly endless tracks of guitars, bass, drums, drum machines, samplers, synthesizers, layers of vocals and ambient tracks once told me that he thought this was the most exciting project he had ever worked on. This statement from the guy who worked on albums ranging from Soundgarden's "Superunknown" to the Rolling Stones' "Tattoo You" and Madonna's "Like a Virgin" to albums by Clutch, Robert Palmer and Duran Duran, was a pretty bold one and a proud moment for me as a recording artist. He also brought Howie Weinberg on board to master the album. Howie's discography is far too ridiculous to even begin to mention, but feel free to Google it if you're so inclined. I can't be bothered with any further name-dropping at this point.

       After that, I had the good fortune to record a few more albums in our major-label financed studio as well as the chance to record with other talented producers and engineers in various ball-dropping studios. However, at the turn of the millenium, I found myself digging up the old Tascam 8-track once again. If I learned anything from those years of expensive recordings with world-renowned producers and engineers, I learned this one thing, again from Jason Corsaro: The secret to great recordings has little to nothing to do with the equipment and the so-called expertise, but rather it is about capturing a moment of inspiration. He further flattered me by stating that his favorite recording on "Words Become Worms" was a song called "Night the Witch Came Home" which was one of 2 tracks from the album recorded on our trusted 8-track cassette recorder. I have to admit that I agree with him. It is still one of my favorite of our recordings to this day. It was one of those tracks that just came together with all of the right elements and despite being recorded on a dinky little device, sounded as big and as dynamic as anything on that record recorded with expensive digital equipment.

     Next I reinvented myself as an experimental/ambient/horror/callitwhateverthefuckyouwanttocallit recording artist and dubbed myself BEDTIME FOR ROBOTS. I recorded a shitload of BFR albums on the Tascam between 2001 and 2009, all of which are slowly being released independently and all of which explore the various twisted catacombs of my brain. The Tascam Portastudio finally dropped dead of exhaustion in the summer of 2009. I still can’t believe that machine lasted as long as it did and for as many recordings as it did without ever having to replace a single tape head or moving part. It served me well and I bow to the Japanese manufacturers for creating such a wonderful piece of invaluable equipment. RIP my friend.

     I took a three + year hiatus from recording between that summer in which my loyal analogue friend passed on into the afterlife of recording machines and the winter madness of January 2013, my 45th tumultuous year on planet Earth. During that hiatus I worked on finishing up a degree in neuroscience and began a master's program in health science, my second passion. During my rotations in various hospitals and clinics it became apparent that I was going to have to finally give in and convert to a smartphone in order to have access to medical apps that would make my life much less of a living hell and much more productive in the art of medicine. Little did I know that that very same handheld device would change my life as an artist and reignite my excitement and passion for recording since being inundated by endless hours of dissecting cadavers, analyzing journals and memorizing volumes of medical-related literature. I purchased the iPhone 4S on New Year’s Day of 2013 and since then I have recorded 5 full-length albums in between study sessions and hospital rotations. If you have the time and if you are interested, I have previous posts describing some of these recordings in great detail. "Rites," the first of these full length recordings is now available through various outlets including iTunes, Amazon.com and CD-baby. 

     Although I am quite sure now that ANYTHING is possible if you have enough hard drive, RAM and the right software and hardware, there are only so many seconds in a day, and by the time one learns to use the equipment, fifty thousand or so ideas are now out the God-damn window! App recording is a fabulous alternative for those of us who want great sound quality along with a virtually endless array of possibilities. I am going to make a list of interesting recording and performing apps for both the iPhone and iPad (which I have also recently added to my arsenal) as well as some of the hardware you will need (Android users and other freaks, I am sorry but I am not sure about the availability of these apps in your various worlds and I am far too uninspired to find out) in my next installment. Until then, I am just going to say that if you keep an open mind and if you are willing to accept the touchscreen as an entirely new instrument with endless possibilities then I guarantee you will not be disappointed. Of course, you will not have to give up performing on your instrument of choice. They have apps and hardware for that too. The best thing about recording this way is that any space you can imagine can become your studio. As long as you have your battery charged you can record your next album in the middle of the fucking woods or in a God-damn igloo if you are so inclined. I also found that the greatest way to mix an album is on the equipment you know best. In other words, the speakers that you use to listen to the majority of your favorite music should be the same speakers in which you mix your own work. You will very likely know the depth as well as the limitations of the bass and treble ranges of those speakers. I like to do an entire mix through my headphones, a relatively inexpensive pair of Sennheisers, as well as one in my car system (which is a basic Toyota Corolla pre-installed system) since I spend the majority of my music listening time there. Remember that some of the greatest recordings in existence were made long before we had access to any of the technology available today. In fact, some of the very "flaws" we try so hard to eliminate are what made those recordings special in the first place. 

Good luck creating the future…

MF

SUMMER OF SEX & VOODOO

     RITES, the latest Bedtime for Robots release which is now being widely distributed as a full length Mp3 album (however, you can also purchase the tracks separately), is a celebration of both the flesh and the spirit through the medium of digital touch-screen music technology. I spent the past several months, as winter slowly dissolved into an overcast sea of heat and humidity, sitting in the moon room of the Log Cabin each night with a bottle of Chilean Carmenere wine and my Iphone and/or newly acquired Ipad in hand, Sennheiser headphones wrapped around my shaved melon, and candles and incense burning all about the cabin. At night, when properly candle-lit, the 60 year-old cabin resembles the quintessential "cabin in the woods" depicted in various horror films and can cast some pretty ominous shadows, a perfect backdrop for a dark ambient obsessed soundscape artist.

 With my mind properly lubricated, images of writhing, praying, naked bodies, danced in my head while the rest of the cabin's inhabitants (my girl, her 5 year-old daughter, and two cats) were nestled in their snug little beds. My several years worth of piled up books on the occult, witchcraft, voodoo, and other various ancient religions laid the groundwork for the ritualistic imagery, brought to aural life by pulsating sequencers, tribal drum and bass samples, backward voices, and melodic, vintage synthesizer sounds. I wanted to create an album that would evoke dark sexual imagery as well as provide a soundtrack for night drives through desert highway rampages. I believe that RITES delivers on both accounts and I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I enjoyed creating it. The album is slated to be available through countless media outlets including Itunes, X-Box Music, Spotify, Pandora, E-Music, etc. As of today, I know it is available for under 8 bucks at Amazon.com, and even cheaper at CDbaby.com. You can also check it out, along with the vast majority of the Bedtime for Robots catalog at LastFM.

1. We Bleed for the Sake of Bleeding

2. Lucifer Slam

3. The Possession Will Be Televised

4. Sweet Lamblood

5. Loa in the Trees

6. Rites

7. World to Come

8. Walpurgis Night

all songs written, performed, recorded, mixed and mastered by Michael Ferentino copyright 2013

An Ode to the Greatest Electronic Album Ever Recorded

   

     

       By the age of ten, I had a healthy music appreciation education thanks to my extremely talented father and cousin. My dad contributed his ridiculously extensive knowledge of 50s and 60s doo-wop, Motown, R&B, rock & roll, and pop standards and often quizzed me on the artists and years of these amazing recordings. I tortured my little sister in much the same way. However, in the spirit of classical conditioning I would dole out noogies for every wrong answer she gave. Today she is quite the music aficionado thanks to her twisted older brother. My cousin, Robb, an incredible bassist and songwriter, and 6 years my senior, contributed his excessive passion for “classic” rock, which at the time was considered cutting edge music. I was the only 10-year old kid on the block who intimately KNEW the deep tracks of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Queen, the Beatles, the Stones, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, and the Clash to mention a few of the artists exposed to my fledgling brain. I spent all my allowance money from doing odd jobs around the house for my mom and dad on vinyl album after album.

                    me in the center age 12; Dad with microphone; cousin Robb far right playing bass guitar

     By the time I was in high school I had already expanded my musical horizons to include classical music, metal, new wave, Prince (a genre unto himself) and early hip hop. However, the most important musical discovery for me, a kid who grew up playing guitar and learning Yes and Van Halen songs note for note, was my discovery of electronic music. My initial introduction to the genre was thanks to one of my father’s co-workers who felt my dad needed some stress reduction. The cassette my dad passed on to me without ever having listened to it was an incredibly dreamy and hypnotizing album by French artist, Jean Michele Jarre, a 6-part electronic suite called “Oxygene.” I instantly fell in love with this music which was far removed from the majority of the structured stuff I devoured for half of my young life. Every time I played this album I escaped in my mind to desert islands, outer space, and other uncharted mental territories. However, as much as I owe mad props to “Oxygene,” the album that initially led me deep down the whirling path of music deconstruction and synthetic web-weaving, this is an ode to my next discovery of the electronic genre, an album I have listened to over 7,000 times without exaggeration; an album that quite literally changed my life and helped to mold my future as an artist.

     In 1967, a German art student named Edgar Froese formed an experimental art-rock band which he dubbed Tangerine Dream. The band, which went through a number of personnel changes over the years, released 5 albums during the period of 1967-1973, known affectionately as the Pink Years. The music, which began as an experimental amalgamation of guitars, drums, flutes, and early sound generators, slowly evolved into a more “structured” combination of traditional rock instruments largely influenced by a combination of progressive rock, jazz fusion, and musique concrete. Ultimately, it was Tangerine Dream’s next period, the Virgin years, after signing with Richard Branson’s newly created Virgin Records, which would culminate in the discovery of sound which, along with country fellowmen, Kraftwerk, eventually influenced the electronic  explorations of artists from David Bowie to Afrika Bambata, Grand Master Flash, and the entire British new wave movement in the late 70s/early 80s, the techno movement in the 1990s, and, most importantly, the darker side of ambient music. Unfortunately, they also ushered in the bland, watered-down new age music genre and eventually fell victim to the uneventful and largely boring genre themselves for the next 30 years onward. However, Froese, along with Peter Baumann and synthesizer/sequencer auteur, Chris Franke, managed to create a handful of wonderfully original and beautifully crafted electronic masterpieces before succumbing to the more marketable new age drivel period, a ceaseless period that drones on like a hive of tired, uninspired, honey-drunken bees.

     Of the aforementioned Virgin years releases, the album that stands out as the game-changer was the first of these releases, 1974s “Phaedra.” From the moment I first heard the slowly fading in of dark, deep space synthesizers and bubbling sequencer of the opening  title track, a nearly 17 minute epic that can hardly be accurately described in words, I was whisked away forever to the furthest reaches of the Universe and to the deepest depths of the ocean. According to Jim DeRogatis, author of several articles and books on experimental and psychedelic music,"The creation of the album's title track was something of an accident; the band was rehearsing in the studio with a recently acquired Moog synthesizer, and the tape happened to be rolling at the time. They kept the results and later added guitar, flute and Mellotron performances. The cantankerous Moog, like many other early synthesizers, was so sensitive to changes in temperature that its oscillators would drift badly in tuning as the equipment warmed up and this drift can be heard on the final recording." The album, despite its unconventionality and experimental nature, reached #15 on the U.K. charts back in 1974 and helped solidify the band's vast reach and international notoriety.

     After hearing the title track, which encompasses the entire first side of the cassette and vinyl versions of the album, I was completely blown away and could not wait for side 2. The opening track on the second half of the album is an aptly titled dream sequence called "Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares." It's dark, lush, and driven by the tape loop orchestrations of the unmistakable Mellotron. My entire family has been instructed, upon my death, to place a pair of headphones over my rigor mortis infused ears with this piece of music playing in eternal rotation via whatever prevailing media is available at the time of my demise. The battery, if a perpetual one has not been discovered by that time, is to be replaced regularly to ensure that my corpse receives a continuous supply of this incredible aural energy. Again, I am not going to attempt to describe the music as I am a firm believer in the Steve Martin or Frank Zappa quote (whichever source you believe): "talking about music is like dancing about architecture." I will just say that if you have ears and a brain to process the incoming sound waves then you must hear it for yourself. The next piece, "Movements of a Visionary," is exactly that: a moving, visionary piece of music driven by the sequencers which defined this era of Tangerine Dream's music. The album closes with a short, mysterious, hollow track of exquisite beauty called "Sequent C," leaving its listener in a desolate valley between enormous mountains of echoing ambience.It's the perfect close for the most important album in my life as a musician and explorer of sound. Like I said, I have listened to this album over 7,000 times. It comforts me during times of torment and uncertainty; it lulls me to sleep when i am plagued with insomnia; and it provides the backdrop for my studies in medicine. Most of all, it inspires me to continuously explore the possibilities of electronic music and to never lose sight of the fact that machines in the hands of passionate, creative individuals can be as life affirming as the beating heart of the most human of humans.

Discover Tangerine Dream's masterpiece, "Phaedra."

 

Tunnel to the Underground

     I am very happy to announce the inclusion of 3 Bedtime for Robots tracks on an epic compilation distributed by multiple labels worldwide. Tunnel to the Underground vol. 3 contains over 10 hours of free music for streaming or download. Over 70 artists have contributed music to this massive undertaking which features music culled from several underground genres including dark ambient, hardcore, avant garde, experimental, electronica, noise, punk, metal, glitch and God-knows-what else. The best thing about this comp is that the music is friggin' interesting and the recordings included are all pretty damn good. I have had my music on compilations before and often I am embarrassed by the crap among which my music gets lumped. That is certainly not the case with the Tunnel comp. Another awesome thing about this project is that it is not only free to listen, but it can be freely distributed by any label that is compelled to spread the good word of quality underground art. Click on the link and put on your headphones and be prepared to enter a world of music far removed from that of the major label shitheap that fuels the garbage on modern radio and television. Welcome to the underground...

TUNNEL TO THE UNDERGROUND VOL. 3 

3 selected poems

Another A for my collection

Another A for my collection

Arrowheads to pierce the hearts

Of academics

And assholes

An ace of spades

And an accolade

Alma mater toilet brush

Anatomy and arts

Cheap darts, arithmetic

Almost

An act of contrition

Apathetic Aggregation

Sheep in owl’s clothing

Applauding

Appalling, upstanding

Upholding Arsenic tradition

Anathema enema

Algebraic poisoning

Attaboy!

Attaboy!

Attaboy!

Applied for a Job

applied for a job

cleaning bloody utensils

animal meat and hair

“go home,” said the veterinarian

write yourself another song

maybe this one will be a hit

it wasn’t

applied for a job

cleaning peep-show booths

animal sweat and swill

“go home,” said the girl

sign yourself up for college

maybe you could be a doctor

i went

Like the Dove

I quit smoking weed

because it turned me

into a dove

I would sit and coo

all the live long day

in the safety of my cage.

I want to be a spider

or an ant

or a honeybee

striking fear

spinning webs and honeycombs

catacombs

delivering sweet nectar

and poisonous blows

inflicting pain. never caged.

Like the dove.

For now

I am the amoeba. the microbe.

a one-celled menace

a multi-celled furnace

exploding with mitochondria

lurking beneath the surface

a streptococci chain

burning from the inside

choking off

life.

Bedtime for Robots Discography 2001-2010: the analogue era

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