Wicked Good Scene

Album Review: The Thickness – Karaoke Headliner

with Gio

The Thickness aren’t from Cali? Based in a city on the opposite corner of the country from their heroes, The Thickness bring a sunnier sound to Boston’s cold, dingy soul. Their new EP Karaoke Headliner boasts influence from bands like NOFX, Face to Face, Strung Out, and Rise Against with an overall tone that certainly lives up to their name. Karaoke Headliner has an even “thicker” sound than their previous releases. Lightning fast strums, punk drums and bleeding gums make this an exciting release for Boston’s ever-growing, ever-diversifying music scene.

This five-song EP offers two really good punk anthems that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Fat Wreck Chords compilation, the first being the opening track, “Proclamation.” The chorus on this one is undoubtedly catchy with creative use of gang vocals behind frontman, Tiny. His is a name which, in this case, is used in the same way as Curly from The Three Stooges or Frank Beard from ZZ Top (the only guy without a huge beard). Some may be turned off by Tiny’s voice, but in my opinion he expertly uses a classic skate-punk timbre in a way that is very much his own. The song also showcases the band’s ability to evoke movement; I can visualize plenty of punkers bouncing around to this tune, and undoubtedly challenging deed.

Another highlight is the song “Leave Narcissism to the Experts,” which cites the futility of Facebook, a very punk rock move. Here, the “experts” may as well represent “the Man.” The song, in turn, acts as a reminder for us to hold onto integrity. Just my guess. Since questioning authority and steering away from the norm is definitively punk, I do question why they refer to themselves on their MySpace as a comedy band; satire and sarcasm is funny and all, but it can also be pretty badass (case in point: Kurt Vonnegut).

The rest of the album is not bad at all, but doesn’t quite compete with “Proclamation” and “Narcissism.”  “Loaded Gun” can become repetitive and “Lose My Head” is a little vanilla despite superb musicianship; drummer SIDEchief Ben’s fills took me by surprise and I can hear the Berklee influence in the guitar-work of Mo’licious and Rev. Tremendous. I do like “Planter” though, which is pretty metal at times with its palm-muting and strategically placed pinch harmonics. I may be biased though, as metal was a huge part of my early high school years.

Karaoke Headliner is a very strong effort from these guys, keeping their place as one of the hottest acts to see in Boston. And I do recommend seeing The Thickness live; I got the chance to see them in a basement in Allston, and despite the acoustics, the band was massively entertaining and needless to say, blew me away.  Come out and support them at their CD release show where they officially drop this EP on March 5 at All Asia in Cambridge, MA.

Gio Coviello | (Y)OURscene Boston

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Listen to “Leave Narcissism to the Experts”  HERE

What a year it has been… Not only was 2009 one of our busiest years in business, it laid the foundation for what looks to be a monumental year for us. I’ll try to wrap up all that happened as quickly as possible to leave you revved up for the announcements we have slated for 2010.

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Industry inSIDEr – When Sidehatch Entertainment first contacted me about doing the Piebald Farewell Tour field audio recording I didn’t really think much of it. It was just another gig, and I wasn’t very familiar with Piebald. I knew it would be a DVD and CD release of their last shows, and I’d record the audio and prep it for release. As it turns out, it was one of the most intense and awesome gigs I’ve ever done, and though it has taken some time to finish, I feel it will be one of my best projects yet.

We captured the last two nights of their tour at the Middle East Downstairs, and both nights were sold out. The production crew brought 6 cameras, and I grabbed 24 inputs from the stage, passively multing the mics from the stage box into a Allen + Heath GL2200 console. From there, I summed the 24 channels into 18 inputs of a Pro Tools rig with 16 channels of ADAT backup. For extra redundancy, I took a stereo mix off the Middle East’s Soundcraft FOH console. I had three audience mics taped in the ceiling, which got royally abused throughout the night; the Middle East has very low ceilings, and the mics all took healthy kicks from crowd surfers. Luckily, I used 14-ply gaffers tape, otherwise, those mics would have been long gone! One cheap, Chinese condenser even got drenched in champagne, however, I truly feel that it improved the quality of the mic (which are known for a brittle sound).

Recently, I started throwing the mix together. The room mics were all summed into a stereo pair, and offer a really cool ambience to the sound of the mix. The crowd sings along to almost every word of every song, and having those room mics up in the mix helps paint the intensity of the show. The low ceilings of the stage made it especially hard to capture a great drum sound, so I am using a great plugin called Drumagog to accentuate the kick and snare. The samples I’m using are ones that I’ve made myself, with varying degrees of room tone mixed in. (I’ll explain my sample techniques in a follow up article).

I’m mixing the record like the live show was mixed: deep kick drum with a good amount of high end, a really snappy snare drum with a decent amount of ambiance, and lots of crowd noise! The samples help me get control over those two crucial drum elements, as the low end bleed from the bass and the high end bleed from the guitars and crowd make it tough to isolate those instruments without muddying up the mix.

Since the mics were placed by the live crew, they were positioned for re-enforcement, and not for recording. While most of the time it doesn’t matter, every now and then a sacrifice gets made for which I need to account. Specifically, one of the guitars just doesn’t have the definition that I need for the mix, so I am mixing in an amp simulator to the signal, almost as if we’d recorded the guitar direct. It doesn’t completely change the tone, however, it allows me to get a little more control over the sound so that I can define it in the mix. Same goes for bass. I’m using a typical Sans-Amp setting on the direct signal to give it the growl that people heard in the show.

Other than an intermittent DI box from the piano (due to a healthy dosage of beer), the show got tracked glitch free. I’m mixing it as we speak for a February 2010 deadline, so keep your ears peeled for the release! Oh, and we might also be doing a 5.1 surround mix if the producers ask for it, so that could be especially cool.