Melodrome's new album is a jolt to the system
Published in Berkshire Eagle, 1/28/10
McConnell, Baier, Stahl (Photo by Will Schillinger)
By Jeremy D. Goodwin
PITTSFIELD—There's something to be said for turning up the amps and just rocking.
Housatonic-based band Melodrome already had three albums of well-received, richly textured pop-rock under its belt when founding members Robby Baier (guitarist, lead vocals, lyricist) and Jesko Stahl (bassist) decided to strip away some layers.
"We just wanted to go into the practice room, turn up the amps, maybe have a margarita or two, and have fun," Baier recalls in a telephone interview, after a rehearsal session at his Substation Studio in the old Housatonic railroad station.
The result is Flood, a straight-ahead rock record chock full of bombastic riffs and big beats. Set for release in March, it's sure to be a jolt to the systems of listeners accustomed to the band's more moody, nuanced work. Fans can likely expect an unofficial live debut of much of the new record when Melodrome (complete with drummer Kali Baba McConnell) plays a co-bill with Tony Lee Thomas on Saturday night at Flavours on North Street.
"Where you're trying to work out a detailed pop arrangement, it's different than when you're in a room and you're rocking a riff. There's nothing to argue about when you're just rocking a riff," Baier explains.
"When you do the pop arrangements you stop, you think, you stop, you try this, you record, you bring it back to the band. There's much more room for...people to feel their ideas aren't being heard, and arguments and band meetings," he continues. "We were both really not interested in that process anymore."
"Flood" is a grab-bag of classic rock-sounding riffs and lyrical paeans to savoring life and just generally having fun. Yet, with references to global warming and the false promise of big record deals, it’s informed by a subtle but underlying road-weariness, one that makes it clear this perspective is a hard-won choice, not an all-smiles easy answer. The opening track declares: “I want to be who I am, not what I’ve become…I want to feel life is good, not like it’s almost done.”
At times recalling bands from the Kinks to the Rolling Stones to The Specials, the record is almost punkish in its energy (though necessarily not in its tempos) and unassuming in its intentions.
PITTSFIELD—There's something to be said for turning up the amps and just rocking.
Housatonic-based band Melodrome already had three albums of well-received, richly textured pop-rock under its belt when founding members Robby Baier (guitarist, lead vocals, lyricist) and Jesko Stahl (bassist) decided to strip away some layers.
"We just wanted to go into the practice room, turn up the amps, maybe have a margarita or two, and have fun," Baier recalls in a telephone interview, after a rehearsal session at his Substation Studio in the old Housatonic railroad station.
The result is Flood, a straight-ahead rock record chock full of bombastic riffs and big beats. Set for release in March, it's sure to be a jolt to the systems of listeners accustomed to the band's more moody, nuanced work. Fans can likely expect an unofficial live debut of much of the new record when Melodrome (complete with drummer Kali Baba McConnell) plays a co-bill with Tony Lee Thomas on Saturday night at Flavours on North Street.
"Where you're trying to work out a detailed pop arrangement, it's different than when you're in a room and you're rocking a riff. There's nothing to argue about when you're just rocking a riff," Baier explains.
"When you do the pop arrangements you stop, you think, you stop, you try this, you record, you bring it back to the band. There's much more room for...people to feel their ideas aren't being heard, and arguments and band meetings," he continues. "We were both really not interested in that process anymore."
"Flood" is a grab-bag of classic rock-sounding riffs and lyrical paeans to savoring life and just generally having fun. Yet, with references to global warming and the false promise of big record deals, it’s informed by a subtle but underlying road-weariness, one that makes it clear this perspective is a hard-won choice, not an all-smiles easy answer. The opening track declares: “I want to be who I am, not what I’ve become…I want to feel life is good, not like it’s almost done.”
At times recalling bands from the Kinks to the Rolling Stones to The Specials, the record is almost punkish in its energy (though necessarily not in its tempos) and unassuming in its intentions.
"Complacent," from Melodrome's Flood
Photo by Winifred Chane
Though Flood turns the tough trick of making something really good sound easy, the record in fact suffered a hard birth. With new studio drummer and collaborator Justin Guid on board, the band recorded some tracks in Levon Helm’s studio near Woodstock, but ironically the well-appointed barn studio seemed the wrong vibe for the raw rock of the record.
Seeking the proper mood, Melodrome started again in more of a garage setting, and were happy with the results—but lost all the recorded work when both the main hard drive and its backup fell off a table. Next, they recorded a demo for the nascent Los Angeles-based record label of the late LeRoi Moore, Dave Mathews Band saxophonist. The label gave them some funding to record the basic tracks (again), and though it folded with the death of Moore in 2008, the band kept the tracks and geared up to release the record independently, on Baier’s Substation Records.
The independent route is a natural fit for this band. Baier, whose family moved from Stuttgart to the Berkshires when he was 15, has been playing musical instruments since age six (first instrument: ukulele) and has been working as a professional musician for about 20 years. He created Substation Studio, where he records and produces other musicians’ projects as well as his own.
The producer hat fits nicely on Baier, who says his experience with music has always been linked with the experience of recording it.
“I had a tape recorder from day one,” he explains. “The fun thing for me, the whole impetus, was turning on the tape recorder and coming up with stuff and capturing it and then listening back to it. It was about inventing something and then having it saved on the tape recorder.”
He is a self-taught musician, having decided after exactly one music lesson (at about age nine or ten) that formal instruction was not for him.
“They tried to teach me ‘When The Saints Go Marching In,’ and I hated it,” he says with a laugh. “That's not what music is for me. Music for me was always about inventing.”
Seeking the proper mood, Melodrome started again in more of a garage setting, and were happy with the results—but lost all the recorded work when both the main hard drive and its backup fell off a table. Next, they recorded a demo for the nascent Los Angeles-based record label of the late LeRoi Moore, Dave Mathews Band saxophonist. The label gave them some funding to record the basic tracks (again), and though it folded with the death of Moore in 2008, the band kept the tracks and geared up to release the record independently, on Baier’s Substation Records.
The independent route is a natural fit for this band. Baier, whose family moved from Stuttgart to the Berkshires when he was 15, has been playing musical instruments since age six (first instrument: ukulele) and has been working as a professional musician for about 20 years. He created Substation Studio, where he records and produces other musicians’ projects as well as his own.
The producer hat fits nicely on Baier, who says his experience with music has always been linked with the experience of recording it.
“I had a tape recorder from day one,” he explains. “The fun thing for me, the whole impetus, was turning on the tape recorder and coming up with stuff and capturing it and then listening back to it. It was about inventing something and then having it saved on the tape recorder.”
He is a self-taught musician, having decided after exactly one music lesson (at about age nine or ten) that formal instruction was not for him.
“They tried to teach me ‘When The Saints Go Marching In,’ and I hated it,” he says with a laugh. “That's not what music is for me. Music for me was always about inventing.”
Photo of Baier by Michael Flower
His professional time is split between studio work and writing and recording music for films and television programs. His work has been heard on Walker: Texas Ranger, The Young and the Restless, JAG, and films including Drowning Mona, The Brutal Truth, and Academy Award-nominated short Ferry Tales. He’s also provided music for a sultry Chanel ad, and he successfully placed one of Melodrome’s harder rocking songs on a national Miller commercial.
“I really feel outside of that culture, I don't really take part in it,” he says of the television world. “So if they want one of my songs, I don't even know what they do with it anyways—go ahead!”
One track from “Flood” (“With My Friends”) has already been licensed to appear in a film—during a college party scene, appropriately enough.
With the knowledge that one can have a successful career writing and performing music without being a rock star, part of Melodrome’s new ethos is to focus more on the joy of the experience and less on the stresses and pressures of trying to turn the band into a full-time occupation.
Baier and Stahl have already been down the major label route—their former band, Pearls at Swine, was signed to BMG’s European wing when Baier was splitting his time for a spell between the Berkshires and Berlin—and they are committed to staying independent, unless they find a quality indie label “where you walk into the office and you know the five dudes running the label,” as Baier puts it.
The Flavours gig will be followed by a smattering of local gigs: Saturday night, plus February 20 at the Brick House Pub in Housatonic, and the official record release party at the Dream Away Lodge in Becket on Saturday, March 13. Baier is also playing a solo show at Sheffield’s Dewey Hall on March 6.
“Let's have fun and put out this record, and make money by licensing it to film and television,” he says of his current motivations, “and let's play local gigs that are really fun and close and our friends can hang out and we can play rock and roll.”
“I really feel outside of that culture, I don't really take part in it,” he says of the television world. “So if they want one of my songs, I don't even know what they do with it anyways—go ahead!”
One track from “Flood” (“With My Friends”) has already been licensed to appear in a film—during a college party scene, appropriately enough.
With the knowledge that one can have a successful career writing and performing music without being a rock star, part of Melodrome’s new ethos is to focus more on the joy of the experience and less on the stresses and pressures of trying to turn the band into a full-time occupation.
Baier and Stahl have already been down the major label route—their former band, Pearls at Swine, was signed to BMG’s European wing when Baier was splitting his time for a spell between the Berkshires and Berlin—and they are committed to staying independent, unless they find a quality indie label “where you walk into the office and you know the five dudes running the label,” as Baier puts it.
The Flavours gig will be followed by a smattering of local gigs: Saturday night, plus February 20 at the Brick House Pub in Housatonic, and the official record release party at the Dream Away Lodge in Becket on Saturday, March 13. Baier is also playing a solo show at Sheffield’s Dewey Hall on March 6.
“Let's have fun and put out this record, and make money by licensing it to film and television,” he says of his current motivations, “and let's play local gigs that are really fun and close and our friends can hang out and we can play rock and roll.”
