Three Music Thingz with Dialup Ghost
Ooo baby, it's another rendition of Three Music Thingz, the blogseries where I ask musicians for three thingz that are essential to their music-making.
Today we have Dialup Ghost! The Nashville rock band (Russ Finn, Jade McPeak, Jordan Smith, and Jack Holway) put out their fifth LP, Donkey Howdy on 3/13; everything on it was recorded over the course of one three day weekend, with "no later sessions to fix any mistakes or do additional overdubs." This is the kind of production I can get behind. I love a tasteful edit but I'm also a First Idea, Best Idea person. And I love parameters. LOVE a parameter.
Dialup Ghost
These particular parameters really worked for Dialup Ghost—over the course of eleven tracks, the band combines sophisticated songwriting with homespun charm. Imagine an entire Faulkner novel, stitched real small on one of those needlepoint circle thingies. Is "rustic polish" a concept? It is now.
Unafraid to steer way, way clear of alt-country clichés, they dabble in unique instrumentation: slippery synths smeared over the tragic three-part tale of "Shallow Ends"; mellow trumpet adorning the tree-themed "The Giving And Taking of Shade." The lyrics tackle the big themes—Life, Work, Sex, Death—but sneaks them into engaging narratives and recognizable references, from Miyazaki's Soot Sprites, to egg prices at Kroger and Wal-Mart, to the act of canvassing for Bernie Sanders 2020 (ahhh). Russ Finn's vocals ground everything with appealing, straightforward twang.
Russ kindly shared Dialup Ghost's Three Music Thingz...behold...
The Songwriter's Handbook by Tom T. Hall
My wife got me Tom T. Hall's Songwriter's Handbook as a Valentine's gift months before we recorded our new album. I think Tom T. Hall is a severely overlooked songwriting talent, and it was really nice to get a glimpse inside his head. The handbook was first published in the 1970s, so it's dated to say the least. Hall offers a lot of advice on how to succeed in Nashville that isn't particularly relevant today. With the standards and guidelines he sets in his book, I think he would also say most of my music couldn't be successful—and he'd be right!
Nevertheless, The Songwriter's Handbook influenced the songs I wrote leading up to our Donkey Howdy recording session. Tom T. Hall can be quite the funny songwriter (listen to “Sneaky Snake”), and I aspired to be funny on my new songs. The handbook has a chapter I was eager to read called "Writing Funny Songs," which, hilariously, was just a page that effectively said "Writing Funny Songs—you should do that." Hall gets referenced in our song "Music City Mockingbird" and his lessons were directly responsible for "You're The Only One On My Mind" and "Bigger Household."
The Moog Grandmother
We first used the Moog Grandmother synthesizer on “Shovel Song” from our last album May You Live Forever in Cowboy Heaven. When we returned to the studio to record Donkey Howdy, there was an intentional effort to use “The Grandma” as much as possible. The Grandma can be heard on a good chunk of our new album, and it sounds sick as hell. I am not a gear guy, so I can't go on and on about the bells and whistles of a synthesizer, but if you listen to Donkey Howdy and think you hear a really cool synthesizer, it's probably The Grandma.
Berger Cookies
Berger Cookies are really soft sugar cookies slathered in a thick layer of fudge. They originated in Baltimore, and they are delicious. My wife has a recipe for them and makes them expertly. She made three or four dozen of these cookies for our three-day Donkey Howdy recording session at Bunker Noise in Nashville. They are, without a doubt, the greatest cookie I've ever had in my life. I probably ate six a day at least.
Thank you Dialup Ghost! Listen to Donkey Howdy out now and visit their website.
And thanks for reading I Enjoy Music! If you like it, tell a friend.
