Listening In: My Studio Visit with Jesse Malin
To thank the fans who contributed to his Pledgemusic campaign and who have been faithfully awaiting his next album, Jesse Malin held a contest . First prize: a studio visit. I entered the contest, and, to my amazement, I won . If you've read any of my other posts about Jesse , you might have noticed that I'm kind of a major fan. So this was a huge deal. Wednesday morning--very early so there was no chance I'd get stuck in traffic and miss my visit-- I made my way to the Lower East Side, and, much later, all aflutter, rang the doorbell of Flux Studios. Jesse greeted me and gave me a quick tour of the studio. Then we sat down in the mixing room with multi-talented musician Derek Cruz and engineer Brian Thorn. The three of them were fine-tuning a song called "Stay Clean," listening to several different versions, trying to settle on a favorite. Did it sound better with the background vocals punched up? Shou...