Hey Friends-

I am writing today with great joy. Yes I am smiling.  It could be that my office has never been this clean (thank you Derek) or that my experiments in binaural recording have been succeeding (a post topic in the very near future to be sure), but its not.  Its even better… I have NEW music to share!!!

This Thursday Night June 3rd @ Red Eye’d Fly in Austin, TX, local artist Greg Vendetti will release “NINETEEN” his new single that was Produced by Dr Rock and myself right here at Same Sky. Everyone who attends the release party receives a FREE CD of this new single and more, that’s just the kind of guy Greg is… we highly recommend his music ; )  Below you can hear the single NOW!!!  Check it out and as always please put on some headphones.  This blog is not meant to be listened to on laptop speakers… TY

OK so how did this all come about…

It was Robert Brown who first turned me on to Greg’s music.  At the time Robert was a director at The Long Center For The Performing Arts and he thought Greg and I should meet.  I checked out Greg’s music and fell in love with his voice immediately.  So much power.  Greg and I met and we started talking about working together.  As I recall, we were both committed to doing a project together, I to his talent and he to working with me in the Producer capacity, but it took us some time to find the right song.  After a few meetings I remember asking Greg to just stop by my office and bring everything he’s ever written and we’ll pick one already… HA  I’ll never forget that visit.

Andre and I were hanging in the control room when Greg arrived in a very serious stride, guitar in hand and an excited energy about him.  He said something like, “I’ve got it.  I’ve got the song.  I just wrote it.”  Now, I don’t like to think of myself as a pessimist, but no sooner did the words leave his mouth when I thought, “Oh no… how am I going to tell him this ISN’T the song!”  I mean it was such a bold move; charge right into my office and declare victory.   Greg took out the guitar, sitting in the control room with Dre and I, and I was terrified.  If the song hadn’t been declared THE song, I suppose I could have just listened and then said “Eh”.  As it turns out all of my worry was for not.

Greg performed “Nineteen” right there in the control room and I’ll never forget that moment.  It was the best song I had heard from him.  Powerful, concise, thought provoking, memorable – I had the chills… and Greg was right.  It was THE song for us to do together.  I remember the immediate rush of ideas.  Hearing as he performed, the idiosyncratic drum structure and these large background vocals… my mind was reeling and I wanted to get to work.

The song was tracked in a kind of interesting way as we broke the drums down into 2 separate performances.  In order to achieve the sound I wanted on the verses I felt I couldn’t use a traditional rock kit, however the choruses could never live without.  So we started by tracking just kick and snare.  2 snares to be precise.  We mic’d up a huge old Slingerland kick drum, de-tuned it like crazy and then placed a piccolo snare with a very thick head, also de-tuned, and a large, brighter maple snare so that they could be struck simultaneously and we went for a room sound of all of that.  Afterwards, we overdubbed a full kit for the choruses.  The effect really adds alot of movement to the track and allowed us avoid the need for any sampling in the basic rhythms.  Once pieced together we had this really charged up foundation that allowed us to go for some real big sounds and performances from the guitars, keys and vox.  I love this track.

Greg is a tremendous artist with a bright future and I am thrilled to share this music with you.  I will be there this Thurs (June 3rd) at Red Eye’d Fly for this track’s official release and I hope you will be as well.

There is so much going on at Same Sky right now so please check back here often.  Thank you all for visiting and I look forward to speaking with you next week.

Same Sky,

DS

Austin, TX 6/1/10

Hey Friends,

Its very difficult to correspond regularly with one who is not a woman. This, in case you care, explains why my blogging has been so infrequent. Well, more specifically my recent obsession with correspondence in general has held me back.   If, for example, one is corresponding with an attractive female – preferably not too old- there’s always the likelihood that, at some future date you might be able to get closer to her.  Corresponding with a man soon reduces itself to a mutual cataloguing of drinks, lies, and the constant trials they are both being subjected to by the tax department. Corresponding via blog has simply been rattling my brain.  How do you get close and how do you know when you are?  Great questions to ask in the studio… So its time to jump back in and Get Uncomfortable.

I don’t know the demographic of my readership and please don’t assume from this observation that our correspondence is not worth its time. Over the last month I have received many kind emails asking where I have gone, am I alright, and when will I post.  Thank you for writing me… I cherish each email as though it were “a gem of the purest ray serene.”  This, in case you care, is lifted from Thomas Gray and can be found on page 262 of Bartlett’s Quotations. ; )

So… I have been producing a number of projects, all wonderful and all currently cannot be shared as the material is “unreleased”.  However I look forward to soon sharing the music and some notes on its creation.  I can however discuss the inspiration and motivation I have recently discovered outside of the studio, doing things I am less comfortable with.

Not being in the studio is hard.  My studio is let up just to my liking, I can do what I want when I want.. I’m like a kid who lives in an arcade and has a platinum power-card.  Outside these walls may as well be outer-space (cite Uncle Traveling Matt).  In fact, I have to sometimes remind myself that those who reside outside the studio or not enemies.  Ok, I am being a bit dramatic, but I know a lot of you reading this feel the same way about your studio or passion and my work as a music producer has grown recently by getting uncomfortable and literally getting outside of the box.

It started for me with photography.  I did my researched and bought a camera as most of my life and my work has been lost to human memory.  I wanted to get out of the studio at least one day a week and photography was a way to do that.  There was a problem though.  I would take a picture of something and then look at it and feel very underwhelmed.  There it was; what I was just looking at “woo hoo”.  I started messing with the camera to try and create a different image.  What I got was overexposed, washy representations of what I was envisioning.  Like this:

Wow that’s bad… but it lead me somewhere.  I showed this to a photographer friend who suggested I look into infrared photography. I did.  Infrared film is no longer available and SLR’s are designed in such a way that in order for them to shoot infrared they essentially have to be broken.  Once converted they will shoot only infrared.  But this was interesting…So  I got another camera and had it modified.  The process is really quite interesting as now shooting heat more than light, temperature and humidity will effect how the digital camera shoots.  Now I never saw myself as a  visual guy let alone a potential visual artist, but this new camera fascinated me.  I started spending this time outside the studio, taking infrared pics and making notes on all the variables and conditions in the camera, the weather, position of the sun, etc etc.

This process was amazing.  I have never put so much work into something that one couldn’t eventually hear (but that is coming soon). I started to discover myself as visual and it happened by being uncomfortable.  I am no expert yet but I want to share some of my progress….

This is Austin,TX  4/3/2010

This is 3 hikers in Austin’s Greenbelt

There are more pics here :  My Life As A Photographer.

So why is a record producer talking about photography….  because this experience of being uncomfortable… with the camera; how do you hold it?, what the F*KC does this button do? of being outside in a field and out of your element, this experience is one we need to be willing to experience  in the studio if we are to stay open.  Whatever the end result, making great music is not about being comfortable.   It’s about exploration.

So, whatever it is you are currently producing ( and of course this does not relate only to music), whatever it is that has your brain’s attention, get uncomfortable…rather give yourself permission to be uncomfortable.  Try and not let any belief or method obstruct all the possibilities of flowing.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments, and I’d love to hear your suggestions as to how to keep producing music that is fresh and heart opening.  More to come…soon.  Until then my best to you and The Duchess.

Same Sky,

David Starbuckle

Austin TX, 4/19/10

Hey Friends-

1st, sorry so long between posts.  I’d like to promise it won’t happen again, but things have been very busy here at Same Sky – which is a good thing.

I am writing today about something that I have been working on that is of great importance to me.  For the last month I have been involved in putting together a fundraiser for “The Make Wish Foundation” and “The Long Center for the Performing arts.”  I am pleased to share with you that this friday night March 5th, the event will be taking place!!!

First things first… here’s some important info about the party  NIGHT OF WISHES so get your TIX NOW.

Our goal with this event is to sponsor the wish of a young girl here in Austin named Morgan.  Morgan’s wish is to visit NYC and experience all of the ART.  We want to make this wish come true!!!  I was fortunate enough to be able to team up with Stefan Whitwell of Tierra Capital, Fred Meyers of Austin City Living and Austin.com and Paul Chokota of Paul Chokota Events and as a result we are not only going to raise the $5,000 we need to sponsor Morgan, but we are going to show everyone an amazing time while we do it.

This event is very important to me.  After one year here in Austin, this city has welcomed me, my company and our style of work and production with open arms.  I am overjoyed to have the chance to give something back and would love your help in doing just that.  For a donation of $20 you can come and experience this amazing event.  We are converting the entire historic 804 Congress Hogg Building (home of Same Sky and the best view of Downtown Austin) into the city’s most outrageous night club.

The first floor will feature Gregg Williams in trio and complimentary drinks and hors d’ourves from Austin’s finest restaurants…  Yes kids that means OPEN BAR.  The 2nd floor is a wide open 12,000 sq ft dancehall and will feature open bars, DJ’s, shadow dancers and the kind of no-holds-barred spirit we like to drum up here at Same Sky.  This will be the jam of the year and all for a great cause.  Help us give back and have a great time doing it!!!

Thank you all as always for reading, and I hope to see you this Friday night!!!!

Same Sky,

DS

Austin TX March 2, 2010

Greetings friends,

As a producer, my job is often to simply move the creative process along.  Ask questions, throw out ideas (even if I know its a bad one), anything to keep the creative environment alive; to keep the collective wheels spinning; and keep from being stuck.

Stuck: the worse thing I can think of.

So, I am an agitator.  I mean that in a nice way…a good producer has to be willing to poke things with a stick, so to speak, and my greatest thrills in the studio have come from working with a band and seeing the creative process unfold.  Creating an enviroment where anything is possible, to me, is more rewarding than any feats of engineering or marvelous sonic coincidence.

Late in 2008 I produced an album for the Boston band This Blue Heaven.  The time we spent in the studio and in pre-production was time that was always becoming; always the turning of new ideas and melodies.  There was quickly a certain simpatico between my method and where the band was in their process and  things just seemed to click.  I recently revisited that album and enjoyed re-listening so much I thought this week I would share some of it’s production to show my work as a producer and how a song comes together.

As a Producer, many times I’m shooting from the hip.  Pushing myself and everyone else along, in search of the next.  Often it just feels like magic when things are really working, but when you look back on it after some time it’s easier to see how everything came together.  For instance, one of the tracks on This Blue Heaven’s album is called “When it feels”. It is a rock ballad with a very powerful melody (notice how I avoided saying power-ballad).  I remember loving the melody the first time I heard it and I really wanted to help the band create a musical backdrop full of lush counter-melody to really showcase this great chorus they had.  It made me think of one of my favorite albums; “Transformer” by Lou Reed.  Released in 1972 and produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, the album is full of amazingly lush string and guitar arrangements.  Tracks like “Perfect Day” and “Satellite of Love” are perfect examples of the kind of production I needed for “When it Feels”.  Lets listen to  how we were able to acheive the lush and dreamy landscape that we needed to really make the track work.

In order to really show you how the track was layered we’ll be listening without the lead vox.  Below is an instrumental sample from “When It Feels” by This Blue Heaven.   This clip starts at the chorus before the bridge so you can hear the difference we’ve added for the final chorus. Get some headphones out if you are not hooked up to external speakers!! Do Not Listen To Anything In This Blog With LapTop Speakers!     I just want you to hear the bass : )    here’s the clip…

OK, so lets break it down a bit.

The bridge has many melodies working together and I’d like to showcase a few of the pieces that really make it work.  Below is the bridge with the acoustic, the bass, the bells, the glock, and the vibrato electric guitar solo’d. Check out how the bass and vibrato guitar hang out…

On the chorus we started with counter melodies from the electric guitar, a steady chime from the acoustics and backing vox as pads and imitating bells. Below you’ll hear these solo’d

Now below you have the same chorus with the bass, Fender Rhodes, that electric guitar melody and the beautiful string arrangement solo’d.

OK -Now scroll back up and listen to that first version again to see how all the parts play together.

Now, here’s some of my inspiration and influence.  I say “my” because I have no idea if “This Blue Heaven” even likes Lou Reed, but that’s how collaboration works.  Lots of ideas and influences all stirred together.  Below is a clip from Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love”.

Most of the lushness here comes from Bowie’s amazing background vocals and the counter melodies from the horns and piano.

So, I guess the point here is sometimes a song just needs a big ass ending.  Wait what was the point… oh yes Production and its inspiration.  The track from This Blue Heaven is an example where  everyone was working together chasing melody after melody.  I love when production is that circular and rewarding.  Well, I hope you enjoyed the listening.  Please check out “This Blue Heaven” to hear the officially released version of “When It Feels” and if you are reading this in the Boston area they are performing this Sat Night Jan 9th at The Middle East in Cambridge, Ma.

Thank You all for being here and a special Thanks to This Blue Heaven

See you next week.

Same Sky,

DS

Austin,TX  1/8/2010

Hello friends-

Alright, now I do not want to get too heady on you but I have been doing a great deal of thinking lately about the science of music.  My thinking often (OK always) takes the quick leap to obsession.

Music is an experience of mind and body.  It effects us in every way.  Music is the only thing that uses both the left and right brain simultaneously and can do everything from make us move, cry, throw Frisbees, drive too fast, drink to much, make poor decisions and helps us when we fall in and out of love.  But why does it sound the way it does?

In 1925 we developed standard tuning…or should I say we decided on it, and by we I mean the music industry.  An agreed upon standard tuning was necessary to have everyone who plays music in tune with one another, but the decision itself was arbitrary.  We tune to 440 because we have been told to since 1925.  Alan Howarth and Wes Bateman have done some very impressive work using mathematics to re-discover, if you will, what they call RA music.  Rather then continuing to use our “man-made” standard of music, they decided to prove that Mother Nature has a different “standard frequency”.

FROM THEIR WEBSITE

["Prior to the music industry standardizing music to the current "Man Made" frequency, music was actually written and produced in the "Nature Standard". Throughout the Renaissance Period music composers such as Sabastian Bach, Mozart, and Handle composed their music in the "Nature Standard".

We found that all of nature is in tune with itself. The living world, separate from what humans have chosen as music, is all in harmony with nature already. The "A" note in RA music has a frequency centered on "A"=424 cycles per second, this turns out to be correct all over the world.

The reason that we want to have music made to the "Natural Standard" is because we are also part of mother nature, and when we make music this way, we hear the Ra converted music as part of the "great living orchestra" of mother nature.

Most music is made with frequencies that are not sympathetic, or harmoniously compatible with the human brain centers that naturally generate brain wave frequencies that are related to emotional feelings and thought. RAmusic was designed to resonate with the listener's brain wave generating centers in a sympatheic manner thus, giving them a natural stimulation and a unprecedented spiritual and mental awakening. In RA Math, what is known as Fibonacci numbers, ratios and logarithmic spiral are found in the shape of plants, animals and humans. This number, 1.618 or RA 1.62 is found throughout nature and is also known as phi.

The most divine number in existence is known as Pi or 3.14 which is linked to higher levels of human perception. Wes Bateman and Alan Howarth incorporated these elements in the making of RAmusic. By creating a keyboard that coincides with these special mathematic and spiritual codes, they were able to make music that harmonizes with these elements. It is a music created entirely in tune with RA mathematics, ELF waves and frequencies that correspond to higher levels of perception. RA music literally resonates with your body using frequencies that occur in nature.]

OK… so lets test it out.  I recently produced and recorded an album for a young artist named Brendan Kelley. Below you will see 2 versions of a song we wrote together called “Side by Side”.  The first version is my original recording.  The later is the same song converted as “RA Music”…check this out…

So… a second year medical student could tell me they SOUND different, but I want to know do they FEEL any different.  As we continue our conversation here in this blog, I ask that you post some feedback. What do you think of this?  Should I drop everything and only make “RA recordings”?  LOL  But really… react to this!!  And  if it  interests you at all there is more info at the website RAMUSIC.COM

Thank you as always for being here.  I look forward to speaking with you again next week.

Same Sky,

David Messier

Austin, TX 12/18/09

Greetings Friends,

I would like to share with you the most important improvement in my life and my musicing in this last year.

About nine months ago I was introduced to yoga by my good friend Stefan, who admits after asking me to join him for a class he never imagined I would accept.  A music producer on a yoga mat at 9 am? Well, I went and nothing has been the same since.  Really; nothing. Stefan brought me to a place here in Austin called Love Yoga and at LOVE a whole new world was opened up to me.  It has helped to change me physically, spiritually and musically.

The initial challenges of yoga for me were legion.  First, I was very concerned I would become extremely enlightened and levitate into a ceiling fan. It didn’t happen.  The next concern became body awareness as apparently I had none. When first instructed to do things such as “reach my sit-bones to the sky”, or  ”tuck my tail-bone and reach upward with my inner-groins” I was faced with the reality that I have no idea where those things are. Luckily I was under the most gentle guidance of Lauran Janes. If anyone reading this is considering the practice of yoga, The Love Yoga Co-op has a welcoming, calming, and nurturing vibe perfect for any artist, even temperamental ones like yours truly.

The next challenge for me was the music, but I would like to deal with that after saying a bit more about the practice and its meaning to me as an artist much of what I am about to say is paraphrasing of and from the extraordinary guidance I receive each week at my practice with Lauran.  Ok, so why is yoga so meaningful for an artist?  In my experience yoga has been the practice of meeting resistance with softness instead of more resistance.  To do this one must be open.  Open to self realization; open to awareness; open to kindness; open in the mind, heart and body.  And most importantly for me, open to the emotions these efforts expose and meeting those emotions with the same kind softness that allows the body to enter these new parlor trick positions. Does that hit you as hard as it hits me?  Holy shit!  That is my work as a producer.  That is the work of an artist.  The work of being open.  Meeting emotional resistance and using it to create something out of nothing.  Openness to the muse of our true self’s expression through the beautiful invisible mystery of music.  As I continue my struggle both on the mat and in taking the practice off the mat; each step, each stretch of the body and clearing of the mind continues to increase my understanding and awareness of my art or creativity and has lead me to the most amazing realization.  That creativity can come from the heart and not the mind.  These lessons have thrilled me.

I mentioned music as a challenge in yoga because all the music I found to accompany practice was not helpful to me.  I found so much of it to be too new-agey and the melodies would distract my mind rather then help center it.  I began playing with ambient guitar feedback recordings to work as a drone for my practice.  Around this time I met Sumukhi another teacher at The Love Co-Op and a tremendously talented singer who chants Sanskrit mantras accompanying on harmonium.  I soon recorded her here at Same Sky and even joined her for Kirtan accompanying on Djembe.  The recording we made here was cut live in one take as Sumukhi played the harmonium and chanted.  We mic’d the room and made a recording of a few traditional mantras.  I then took that recording and incorporated my experiments in ambient guitar.  I played along to the original chant using my guitar’s position to create sweeping drones of feedback focusing musically in the steady state while also allowing the overtone profile to experience moments of relative instability.  The combination of the two turned out to be very interesting and something I intend to continue to explore but I wanted to share with you our first collaboration. I titled it “Open Your Heart”

In this recording Sumukhi chants:  Shri Guru Charanam – I take refuge in Guru.

Guru in Sanskrit is “Gu” – heaviness and “Ru” – remover of heaviness

Guru also means “heaviness” – or pulling you deeper and deeper inside

Her voice is wonderful and I love the small creeks of the harmonium, how real everything sounds against the flood of guitar noise. Thank you Sumukhi for experimenting with me and teaching me so much about chant and the deeper meaning and experiences yoga has to offer.

If you are a practitioner of yoga or meditation, please try and practice with this music and give me some feedback.  I am in the early stages of practicing with this music as well and would love to hear about your experiences with it.

Thank you for being here, it is nice to have you.  I will try and post here every Friday, so please come back and feel free to comment and share your thoughts.

Same Sky,

David Messier

12/11/09

Austin TX

Greetings people of Earth,

The last days of the newspapers seem to be rushing toward us with frightening speed.  That coupled with no offers from any print publications for me to share my thoughts brings us here; to my official blog. Here I will share with you my experiences as a record producer, writer, pleasure junkie, yoga practitioner and student of life.  At the moment I cannot give you a precise schedule for this blog’s content.  I am presently running a production company, managing a fantastic young artist, exploring photography and making more serious my practice of yoga, but somehow I’ll post here often- no matter what it does to my reputation as a semi-illiterate.

If you don’t know “David Starbuckle” is me : David Messier, or a version there of.  Owner of Same Sky Productions, songwriter, former performer, humor enthusiast and striving free spirit. This persona was born as I always figured I would keep performing and retire to Vegas, in my age, as a bad lounge act called “David Starbuckle and the Astero-Traveling Pleasure Junkies” – the band would dress all sci-fi, funny noses and what not, solidifying the space theme and drawing in the Trekkies who some day will be wealthy.  That’s just how I pictured myself getting old…I found the name funny and it stuck.  Plus now I can say things here That Messier couldn’t.  You know, the grass is always greener where you don’t happen to be the neighbor.

So thank you for visiting, please comment so this can be a conversation, but please keep your comments to my content and not my spelling.  See you soon.

Same Sky,

DS

12/4/09 Austin TX