Kurt Gundersen is one of those artists who really makes me love my job—he writes thoughtful cool songs and has a wide open mind for where they can go. Kurt contacted me just by chance on LinkedIn—it was mid September of 2017, and Sabine and I had just decided we were headed to Nashville, so Kurt was one of the last people I booked while still living in California.
We recorded tracks for a few songs, and then I worked on them up until the time we left. Kurt’s initial demos gave me a very acoustic, folky vibe, so that’s what I initially came back with…he liked them, but thought the might be a little too tame…then we talked about his influences more—Tom Petty, Camper Van Beethoven, etc., and I knew then I didn’t have to be conservative in terms of production. that’s when the fun really started and we both were able to really think of many more possibilities for his songs.
We got the first 2 songs done and then we continued to work after I got to Nashville, passing files back and forth via Dropbox, which is actually mostly how I work. We’d get the basics and feel of the songs dialed in, then on my bi-monthly trips back to California, we’d get into a studio and record his parts. The songs would then be completed and mixed here in my Nashville studio. The process was super fun, and I’m super proud of Kurt and his really great 1st album. I’m really proud of the very cool end product we came up with, and now it’s time for the world to enjoy his great songs!
WHAT KURT HAS TO SAY ABOUT KENNY
Kenny is so awesome to work with! He’s gentle, kind, helpful and supportive. He’s a great musician, singer, and producer and has a ton of creativity and interesting ideas. He can take general ideas I have and run with them. He gets what I mean even if I can’t clearly articulate it – we speak the same language. I think of him as my John, Paul, George, Ringo AND George Martin all rolled into one person! He’s really that talented. No seriously. I can’t say enough about how grateful I am to have found him to help me make music!
Join me at this years 39th Annual West Coast Songwriters Conference – September the 14th and 15th in San Francisco!
It’s a conference FOR singer songwriters – you’ll meet industry professionals, your songwriting peers, you’ll be inspired, enjoy panels and workshops, you can share your music, and you’ll make lots of new friends.
I’ll be doing 2 panels on Sunday – at 10am it’s PRODUCING THE BEST RECORD and at 11am it’s STUDIO PREPARATION.
If you’ve never been to one before you should definitely check it out. https://www.westcoastsongwriters.org
If you have been and you are going come say hi! I’ll be there on the friday night ‘Kick Off’ Party as well at the Hard Rock Cafe.
These are always a lot of fun, and I have a LOT of information for you if you want it!! See you there!
Yes the music is mine an instrumental called Funky February 🙂
Kentucky! This past weekend, Sabine and I were visited here in Nashville by our great friends Lori and Pete. We showed them a bit of Nashville for a day and a half, and then we went on a road trip to the Bluegrass State, Kentucky. We were seduced by it’s extreme beauty—vast fields of lush grass and rolling hills covered in broad leaf forests.
Distilleries! This was just icing on the cake, as our journey was really about bourbon and music. We toured the Four Roses Distillery, and the really historic Buffalo Trace Distillery… so much information and top notch Bourbon!
our journey was really about bourbon and music
Willie Watson!
Now Lori and Pete have become completely obsessed with songwriter/musician Willy Watson. Though I didn’t immediately recognize the name, I’ve know of him for years as it turns out. Watson was a founding member of Old Crow Medicine Show, and is also a member of Dave Rawlings Machine with Dave and Gillian Welch.
The Burl! Willie’s solo performance was wonderful, and the venue, The Burl, was an amazing old wood building sitting across from a distillery in Lexington, KY. Built in 1926 as a loading dock and hub for Texaco, it is a long room with porches flanking each side. The venue is right by the train tracks and has a ton of vibe. This performance was part of a weekend festival at The Burl called The Rail Roots Festival. We only went on the Sunday but now wish we’d gone the whole weekend!
The Rail Roots Festival – Willy Watson – Lera Lynn….
Lera Lynn! Also on the bill for this festival was one of our local Nashville favorites Lera Lynn. She plays some dark, brooding post-Americana, just like Sabine and I like. She put on a stellar set as well—her guitarist, whose name I can’t find anywhere, is a great support to her songs.
Every piece of this road trip was magical, and I’ve fallen in love with state of Kentucky. Sabine and I will visit again soon for sure! Thank you to Lori and Pete Chaplin!
I had the privilege to work on this amazing album by DB Walker and his band, a well known and loved figure in the Bay Area Blues Scene!
Photography by Kenny Schick – Kenny Schick is a Music Producer, engineer, singer songwriter & professional photographer, living in Nashville TN (from the Bay Area CA) (see more photos here)
It was some time in the early 2000’s when I met David ‘DB’ Walker. I was in the house band for a local Bay Area TV show called‘Stand Up, It’s Thursday Night’, a comedy sketch/music TV show much like Saturday Night Live. We filmed in front of a live studio audience every Thursday night, first from KRON studios in San Jose, then from UPN studios in San Francisco the following season.
Upon losing our second guitar player in a fairly short amount of time, we were feeling a bit flustered when our drummer brought along a guitarist he knew named DB Walker. We’d really liked our previous guitarist, so we were not super keen on getting going with yet another new one. DB showed up with his waist long dread locks and a big old massive pedal board…we were intrigued by this character… We started playing and knew quickly we’d finally found the perfect member to round out the band—DB was technically skilled for sure, but more importantly, he was creative and fun with a great sense of adventure musically. Our whole schtick was to take cover songs and play them in unlikely styles, and DB was perfect at helping us down our path of tune-twisting.
DB was technically skilled for sure, but more importantly, he was creative and fun with a great sense of adventure musically
DB Walker, as we came to find out, was also a known figure in the Bay Area blues scene, and I’ve been fortunate enough to be a semi-frequent guest at his shows. Consisting of covers and his really great originals, his sets not only include traditional blues styles and songs, but often float off into all sorts of adventurous directions—it is always super fun to see where he’ll go, and we can find ourselves floating between long atmospheric/psychedelic forays that can lead into a Nine Inch Nails tune, then back to road house blues and other really great blues inspired DB Walker originals.
A few years back now, DB decided it was time to release a new album, and it was to be a whole bunch of his songs—16 as it turns out. The initial idea had been to set up at his home studio, record the basic tracks for all the songs over a couple of weekends, mix the puppy, and be done quickly. It was to be both a digital and vinyl release. DB is a pretty meticulous guy, so the initial plans of moving quickly soon gave way to his perfectionist nature—lots of experimenting with cool overdubs and musical ideas ensued.
DB sent along parts to me as he completed them, and I mixed songs over the next several months. As we got close to completion, new experimental songs came along. The album covers a wide range, starting with a more traditional blues vibe, then moving to spacey psychedelic Pink Floyd-like explorations.
DB is a pretty meticulous guy, so the initial plans of moving quickly soon gave way to his perfectionist nature—lots of experimenting with cool overdubs and musical ideas ensued.
I finished the mixes and DB had to figure out a few versions of the release due to timing issues that wouldn’t allow all the songs to fit on vinyl in their full versions. This task was finally completed, and the album went off to mastering….the masters came back, but then….radio silence. During the ’silent times,’ I’d relocated from California to Nashville, and just a few months ago, I got a call from DB Walker asking if I’d master the songs—so I mastered, thrilled to hear the amazing songs again, sent the masters back to DB, and waited for instructions in regards to changes or tweaks…I didn’t hear back, and soon I saw his release notice on social media—‘no changes’ was my answer!
The album is an amazing piece of art—DB Walker’s songs are great, his playing is stellar, and the musicians he plays with are always top notch.
Here are DB’s notes for the album and personnel: “This Record Album Has No Title” Because its more like 3 records in one. It begins with some driving Blues, then edges more into Classic Rock/Blues, takes a stop in Americana then shifts into pounding Hendrix inspired psychedelia before it floats off into a Post Rock/Pink Floyd haze. How can it have a title when it has so many personalities?
Recorded at Bella Sounds in San Jose Additional tracking at Basment3Productions Studios Mixed at Basement3Productions studios All music written by The D.B. Walker Band (Walker, Falzone, Oliver, Kane) (c) 2017 A Wraparound Records Production released November 23, 2018
Though we’d talked about it a bit over the last several years, it was actually a pretty spontaneous move—a decision made just a little more than 2 months before our departure.
Photography by Kenny Schick – Kenny Schick is a Music Producer, engineer, singer songwriter & professional photographer, living in Nashville TN (from the Bay Area CA) (see more photos here)
A stressful year in California and ever rising rent costs in the Bay Area, an exodus of musicians and artists, and a desire to be around people, who like us, make their living creating music in one form or another, all pointed us out of town. Along with an accident that resulted in us replacing our old Honda Civic with 300,000 on it with a newer, bigger car that would actually make it to Tennessee, and our amazing friend Chris who let us store our stuff in an empty building at his new place, we found ourselves in a position to make a big decision to give Nashville a shot.
Since Sabine and I met online in 2006 discussing music on what is now the ghost town called MySpace, our lives have been about big decisions: from my move to Australia after 8 months of emails and phone calls resulted in us falling in love, to her move to the US in 2008 to continue our relationship, to our 2 month drive/tour across the US immediately upon her arrival (interestingly centered around a gig I got at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville), to our deciding to use my decades of experience as a musician/producer to start our own business, Basement 3 Productions. Sabine has been an essential ingredient in helping me take thoughts and ideas that might otherwise remain in my head and make them reality. As such, she made me realize that making this big move, like most big moves, was totally doable.
So on December 2nd, 2017, we packed up our car and left California, and on December 5th, we arrived at our first place in South Nashville near Berry Hill. We’d found it online, and the pictures were quite a glamorized version of what we actually moved into—LOL. We stayed there for the terms of our 6 month lease, and we enjoyed the urban meets rural neighborhood, but we made the move to the ‘hip’ part of town, East Nashville, as soon as our lease allowed, upon finding a house with a separate building for our studio.
I’m proud that we were brave enough to just go for it, especially given we are not 20 something, or 30 something…or….. well…. we did it!
Everyone asks what I think of Nashville. I have enjoyed that it is indeed music-centric. We’ve seen a ton of amazing music, eaten great food and made wonderful new friends. I am intrigued by the weather – how cold it gets in the winter, and how hot and humid it gets in the summer. I love all the summer wild life—lightning bugs, tons of butterflies and other big flying critters, and plant growth like I’ve never seen—it is literally a giant green house. I adore the summer lightning storms. Unlike California, there is no watering lawns—just fighting them back—there is visual growth within one day. Nonetheless, I still miss the even, mild temperatures of the Bay Area, of course.
I have surely had an adjustment period, all the while keeping super busy with all my fabulous California artists. I am thoroughly enjoying working and creating music in my East Nashville studio and am excited to dig deeper into the scene here. We’ve really enjoyed hosting California artists and our home/studio is always open to out-of-towners as well as locals! I am eager to keep my focus and see what this musical jewel called Nashville has to offer, and equally, what I have to offer Nashville.
We’ve met some amazing musicians here and try to incorporate as many as possible into our work. Sabine and I are immersing ourselves in the culture and the music of Nashville. We are about to release a new album as our Duo ArtemesiaBlack called Gravity – some songs inspired by our new city – and are curious to see what our second year in Music City will bring. All in all, I’m proud that we were brave enough to just go for it, especially given we are not 20 something, or 30 something…or….. well…. we did it! It’s quite an amazing adventure. We are very excited about the artists we will be working with in the coming year!
