Features
US Recording Diary: Wireheads
Contributions by Dom Trimboli
Original page credit: Mess+Noise
Adelaide ensemble Wireheads travelled to Olympia, Washington to record at Dub Narcotic Studio with Calvin Johnson (Beat Happening, K Records). They also managed to play shows in Portland, Seattle and San Francisco – and get hit by a pickup truck. Frontman DOM TRIMBOLI recounts the adventure in full.
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Sometime around the middle of August 2014, I sent Dub Narcotic Studio an email expressing Wireheads’ interest in travelling to Olympia Washington to record an album of songs with Calvin Johnson. Ten weeks later, Liam and Luke Kenny, Pat Lockwood and myself were taking turns ordering Budweisers (unfortunately for Liam and his credit card, we weren’t taking turns in paying for said Budweisers) on an LA-bound 787. This is my rough recollection.
I pointed out the Hollywood sign to the others and immediately thought of the Fang song ‘The Money Will Roll Right In’. We cruised through customs much more easily than Matt Kennedy did, ate some burgers and jumped on another plane for Seattle. I didn’t sleep a wink on the first flight, so I made the most of the spare seat next to me and caught some zeds.
Seattle greeted us with a classic (apparently) wet and rainy day. We checked in to our hostel, brushed our teeth (it had been a while) and decided to hit the streets in search of secondhand music stores. We were playing a show the next night and the only instrument we had was Pat’s Mini Brute synthesiser. After a brief visit into the first pawn shop we walked past, Liam suggested a place called Emerald City Guitars (he found it using his smart phone – he’s very good at finding things using his smart phone). The place was cool: I bought a ’60s Venson (Strat copy) for 300 bucks, it’s pretty sexy. Pat bought some pedals. Going to a store that sells musical instruments or records with Pat is literally like going to store that sells lollies, videogames, trampolines and fizzy drinks with a small child.
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We had dinner and went back to the hostel to meet up with our friend Harriet, who happened to be holidaying in the USA. I was hoping she’d be keen to join us for the recording (she’s now a fully patched Wirehead). Luke hit the hay, the rest of us hit some bars, drank several litres of beer and walked around in the rain. A long day, but a good day.
I woke up to an empty room. Everyone had gone for breakfast and to shop for more gear. Luke had bought himself a new bass guitar – a sunburst Jaguar that he would later trade in Olympia for a nicer P bass. Pat still needed to find a violin before the show, so Harriet and I caught a cab with him to yet another secondhand music store. Pat fiddled with some violins (pun intended) and Harriet played anything that was plugged in, chiefly some old synth that was probably turned up a little louder than most of the other customers in the store would have approved of. Later that night we played a show in West Seattle at a place called The Skylark; it was a great bar/venue and the people from the other bands – Detective Agency and Zebra Hunt were super nice. They let us borrow their gear and they seemed to share our enthusiasm for drinking beer. Our mate Sarah (also from Adelaide; also happened to be holidaying in the USA) arrived in Seattle and met us at The Skylark. Harriet joined the band on stage for the first time on some mic’d-up pots and pans we borrowed from the kitchen and a harmonica, dance moves galore.
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We all woke up feeling a little dehydrated. We checked out of the hostel, got a feed and walked to the bus station. OLYMPIA BOUND!!
It was an interesting string of events that welcomed us in Olympia. It was getting dark when our bus pulled into town and the driver seemed slightly concerned for us when we told her the stop where we wished to terminate our voyage. Immediately after the bus took off, we declined an offer from the driver of a car that pulled up to ask if any of us were “interested in making 200 bucks.” We then had a rather awkward dispute with the manager of the hostel where we were booked to stay for the next week, which resulted in us leaving in search of new accommodation.
We only made it a few blocks up the road when Luke was hit by a pickup truck. He was trying to cross the street at a pedestrian crossing, which was displaying a green light indicating it being safe to do so. Thankfully he wasn’t hurt. We continued walking toward a hotel that, according to Google Maps, was just around the corner. When we got there, we found that the hotel was being rebuilt after it had been partly burned down. Things were going great!! Luckily we stumbled across the Golden Gavel Motor Hotel, which became our home base for the next seven nights. We stayed in the ‘family suite’ for around 20 bucks each a night. We ate food, drank beer, walked the mean streets some more and went to bed.
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We arrived at ‘Dub’ the next morning, worse for wear (particularly myself) but on time and itching to get to work. We were always conscious of the fact that time was very much of the essence – we had six days to record and mix at least 12 songs. Sam Gray (Dub Narcotic studio manager) arrived on his bicycle a short time after. We all exchanged greetings and he let us in the studio. He told us that Calvin was running a little late but to feel free to start playing around with different amps/drums etc. It didn’t take me long to find the guitar amp that I wanted to use; it was a beat-up old Fender Vibro Champ, and Calvin told me later that day that it was the first guitar amp he had ever owned. Liam was banging all sorts of drums, Luke was quietly searching for a sexy bass tone and Pat was making some very freaky sounds with some weird old amps he had found. When Calvin arrived we all drank some tea (we drank a lot of tea that week) and got to work setting everything up. Two things that quickly became apparent about Calvin were that he has a fantastic sense of humour (he rarely laughs but he is always joking) and that he is a really hard worker. We recorded 12 beds that day.
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Most of the songs were recorded live with bass, drums, rhythm guitar and violin onto two-inch tape. Harriet played drums on the last song of the day. The next day we laid down all the vocals. The process pretty much consisted of me laying down a yell, Liam laying down a sexy drawl and Harriet laying down the pretty harmonies. There were also some ‘gang’ chorus parts, and Calvin contributed some megaphone vocals on one song.
We usually got to the studio around 10am and knocked off around 11pm. The evenings generally consisted of getting some food and beer and hanging out in our hotel room watching badass American telly, or just shooting the breeze. We laughed a lot.
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We spent our third day overdubbing extra guitars, piano, percussion, harmonica and organ/synthesiser parts. Liam played the sonic guitar, Harriet came up with some really cool 12-string parts, Pat was the chief organ/synth player and Luke delivered the goods with the piano and nylon sting guitar. I wore a lab coat and told everyone that they were beautiful; it was a classic Wireheads team effort.
Due to the spontaneous nature of the trip, Dan (Wireheads’ shred boy) and Lucy (Wireheads’ punk-rock flautist) couldn’t make it along. Thanks to the power of technology, we managed to organise a live Skype overdubbing session from Adelaide. Big ups Tom Spall. We met another guy called Liam, who worked for K/Dub. He asked us if we wanted to play a show at his house the following night. We gracefully accepted.
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We finished tracking the next afternoon and still had some hours left in the day and some tape left on the reel, so we recorded three more songs, including a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s ‘Waiting Around to Die’. We packed everything down, grabbed some beer and walked to the party where we were playing. It was a great house with a big basement. Lots of people lived there but I only remember the names of Liam and River; they were outstanding gentlemen. Sam Gray was playing bass in the first band, Lean. Luke was very impressed with them. I think the term ‘grunge as fuck’ was thrown around a bit. Sam Gray really knows his scales btw.
Our set was a lot of fun. Harriet had found another guitar to use, which enabled me to stop playing mine a couple of times and focus on my rapping. We mostly played songs we had just recorded, because everyone knew them, but we also played a few of the more slop-resistant older tunes too. Calvin told me that he thought our set was “very groovy baby.” USA Liam and River’s band Generifus played after us and were fantastic. They reminded me of Bruff Superior. We partied pretty late that night. Someone sketched a personal portrait of each Wirehead. There was a ‘map-off’. We went for a ride on the back of a pickup truck. We programmed all Australian music on River’s computer and I showed everyone ultrasound pictures of my unborn son that my wife Courtney had sent me earlier that day.
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The next two days were spent listening to Sam Gray mix 15 songs. He did a really great job – especially considering he was feeling rather unwell. It all got mixed down to quarter-inch two-track tape. There is a lot of beautiful old gear in that studio; it’s a very special place. USA Liam brought in lots of top-notch cheese, which helped our hangovers. Australian Liam danced a lot. Luke slept. Pat never took his ears off those monitors. Sarah read. Harriet took tons of photos. I wrote a Mexican punk-rock song about Olympia and Sam Gray mixed like a man possessed. We went to see K Records artist Mirah perform on the night before we left town. It was a cool gig; absolutely packed.
In the morning we picked up our hire car. It was a really swanky Dodge van. We packed up our stuff, had a big American diner breakfast and said our goodbyes. We had been in Olympia for a week but it felt like six months, and I was kinda sad to be leaving.
We listened to The Fall as we drove towards Portland. We had a show later that night at the Red and Black Café playing with Sloppy Kisses and Dark/Light. It was organised by the great champion Erika Elizabeth, who is the good taste behind the radio show Expressway to Yr Skull. We made a few Wireheads t-shirts before the show with some textas and shirts we bought from Goodwill. Sloppy Kisses played first and they had some trouble with the PA, which unfortunately left them without any vocals. We managed to fix the PA before we played, which was handy. We played another good show to a fairly rowdy crowd. I broke a couple of strings and busted my finger. Luke was solid as a rock. Pat played his violin through the world’s biggest guitar amplifier and Liam’s ability to play drums whilst intoxicated continued to improve in leaps and bounds. We even played our first ever encore on the back of some reasonably heavy demand. Dark/Light were cool. I danced a little. We spent the rest of the night going to bars and trying to spot members of Wipers.
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The following four days were amongst some of the most enjoyable of the whole trip. We had snow fights on Mount Hood, went ten-pin bowling, perused shops, had long lunches, had long dinners and knocked back a few margaritas. We took our time driving down to San Francisco, stopping in at Crater Lake for a night. We hired little log cabins and stayed up watching Seinfeld and drinking amber ales. I highly recommend to anybody who tours anywhere to take some leisure time. It’s very good for morale.
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Harriet drove the most miles out of anyone by far, which made me feel kinda bad, but she is an extremely competent and confident driver and she doesn’t drink a great deal so I guess it made sense. She also has great taste in music and whoever drives gets to choose the music right? She introduced me to Norma Tanega and Sibylle Baier, which I will be forever grateful for. Anyway, we listened to Creedence Clearwater Revival and Flipper and Scott McKenzie as we cruised into Frisco. It was warm for the first time since we were in LA. We checked into our hotel; it had a swimming pool.
We played a show that night at the Hemlock Tavern. It was our last show of the trip and it was probably the weirdest. The other bands on the bill seemed to be shooting for MTV glory or something. We pretty well cleared the room. The next two days were spent taking in the sights. Liam and I got ‘cutthroat’ clean shaves at a barber shop. Pat and I left for home a couple of days after the show; the Kenny brothers were heading south for Mexico; Sarah went to Chicago; and Harriet continued on her merry jaunt across the USA. And that was that.
I think Nathan Roche summed it up best when he said “touring is a good way to meet foreign strangers, see unique landscapes and drink to excess without feeling guilty.” I reckon rock and roll is the boss.
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