Pre-Order Poison Circus
Behind this door befell the fall of my electric organ. On June 25 I lugged the 80 pound body to Studio 69, through the door and up the stairs. I plugged it in and hiss … it died—a stroke or suicide no one knows. We troubleshot the machine for an hour. I worked on it for 30 minutes, the engineer, Matt Cohen, worked on it for 30 minutes. I tested the amplifier. I tested the cables. I tested the tone levers, I tested my hearing and nothing except for a low low wheeze. I've had this electric organ for 15+ years, and before that it was on the floor at Music Go Round in Louisville, KY for only the Virgin knows how long. Day one of recording with original organist Paul Dab had begun.
Since the studio clock was ticking on the engineer and Paul we dropped the nearly dead organ and used the backup keyboard I originally brought for a piano track. Its organ samples were questionable but so is circus music. We quickly pressed on until we found we didn't have a volume pedal to realize the dynamics.
“Why didn’t you go buy one?” Coronavirus. Nothing was open.
But Paul, being skilled in the art of manipulation, figured out he could mimic a volume pedal with the sustain pedal and volume knob on top of the keyboard. I explain; each time Paul came to a crescendo at a cadence he played the chord, held down the sustain pedal with his foot and then adjusted the volume knob with a free hand. He also had to make pencil marks next to the volume knob to indicate mezzo piano, forte, pianissimo and other dynamic markings. Parts of the music were rearranged on the fly, but nothing toxic was lost. And this is how he juggled the dynamics for recording all of the circus rags without an organ or volume pedal. The art songs were a different story.
The art songs required more hand action.
Paul’s parents, why wasn’t he born with three hands?
Paul played the dynamics he could on the art songs; employing the sustain pedal plus volume knob combination, but he mostly had to abandon the dynamics for playing in time and all the right notes.
“Get the dynamics in post.” Thank you, friend.
This all lasted 15 tracks and by 3 o'clock Paul was more deflated than a tube man. The dynamic acrobatics finished him early, and he sat down next to the now dead electric organ breathing heavily through his mask. I wiped my brow and asked if he was ready for one more.
Paul, you are a work horse, magician and unmatched talent. I end this post by saying Samson Y Hiss’ POISON CIRCUS can't be stopped.
Recording continued at a socially distanced clip behind closed doors. Day 2,3 and 4 with the rest of the original cast and musicians (Nikola Printz, Alex Taite, Robert Lopez, Tiffany Bayly and Matthew Ebisuzaki) passed without event, or nothing died.
-Samson
