Kingtone

In the spring of 1997, I played electric guitar on The Power of a Hat, a fabulous record by Gunnar Madsen (The Bobs). I got the gig through my friend Tobias Hawkins, singer and drummer extraordinaire (Girlfriend Experience, Laundry, Counting Crows, Ramona the Pest, etc). Gunnar, whom I’d never met, sent me a CD of piano and voice demos and said he was looking for a “Marc Ribot/Elvis Costello” sort of vibe on the ‘lectric guitar. I liked what I heard and really wanted the gig, so I did something a bit audacious…I dumped a few of Gunnar’s demos onto my reel to reel 8-track, added some Tom Waits’ Raindogs influenced guitar and mailed a cd back to him…I guess it worked.

The sessions took place in a top of-the-line private recording studio called Sage Arts situated in the basement of a spectacular mansion an hour north of Seattle, WA and were produced by Kent Sparling - a veteran of George Lucas’ studio.

I must admit, I had some apprehension about the session going in. We had only rehearsed a few times - without a bass player and with Toby using only a djembe. He had not possessed or been behind a full kit in years, though his capabilities were the stuff of local Berkeley, CA legend. Other than Toby, everyone was pretty much a stranger. There was a heavyweight Seattle based jazz bass player named Chuck Deardorf on the gig and Gunnar is a monster on the piano, so it dawned on me that this situation could really be transcendental or a nightmare. It all hinged on Toby.

Let me tell ya, what followed was one of the most amazing performances I’ve been a part of in a studio. Toby set up a rented standard Yamaha studio kit - twisted it all around and attached all sorts of crazy percussion items - cracked jokes the whole time and then proceeded to nail the 1st track so hard that all doubts were removed. We tracked the basics live and then added a few tasty overdubs.

Do check the record out, the songs are really eclectic and Gunnar was especially great. My faves are ‘Dirty’, ‘Lullubelle’, ‘Naked in the Garden’ and ‘Gentle is the Lamb.’