Adventures in New Orleans Part 3 - Third Time's A Charm!

We’re back in New Orleans for round three, recording two more albums of production music for Audio Network. 🎺

In a rare miracle, we started the writing process together in the same place (instead of on different continents!), recording voice memos whilst walking Jeff’s dogs round the block!

We then head to Esplanade Studios to bring the tracks to life, we talk about how the music evolved once our incredible musicians got their hands on it, moments of doubt, moments of trust…and how a mysterious washboard hanging on the wall turned out to be the key to marketing!

#productionmusic #composer #musicindustry #composingprocess #filmmusic

Transcript

David (00:03.726)

Ready to do NOLA 3? Jeff Meegan

Jeff 

Hey! Hey! David Tobin!

David

What are you on? What was that about?

Jeff

I took a nap today, it was pretty good. Need to that before we do these things.

David

So we're going to be talking today about our third trip to Nola.

Jeff (00:27.896)

First, let me go and say that was a lovely email and you really have a gift for writing nice emails. 

David

Thank you very much.

“Hi, Jay. Long time no speak. How are you doing? I'm planning a trip to NOLA with Jeff for mid to late September to record a couple of albums. We need a contract that we can rely on. We immediately thought of you. Is it something you can help with? We're going to be doing 14 or 15 charts, split over a few days, depending on how things pan out. And there's going to be some albums of NOLA songs, some trad jazz, some slightly larger band feel, and at least one song with a more modern vibe.

Oh, and we're also doing an album of instrumentals with a sort of brass band funk vibe. Anyway, I've got demos of everything. We're looking to record in late September, depending on diaries. I've got lots more specifics, but before I can go through them all, is this something you can help with? If so, I'll need some help putting together the budget, or at least an idea of cost, and I can budget. Is there a good time we can chat? Let me know when it suits, and I'll give you a call if you're able to help. Thanks in advance!”

That was the email that I wrote to Jay Weigel. And we should explain who that is, Jeffrey.

Jeff

Jay Weigel is a friend of ours. He's a contractor. He's a composer. He's a, he’s many things and all-around great guy. And for our NOLA three, the third time we went to New Orleans to record, he was the contractor that we used. He helped us secure the musicians, get the recording space. Yeah, all that good contractor stuff. Did I miss anything?

David (02:03.342)

No, I'm just revelling in the New Yorkness of hearing all of the sirens behind me. 

Jeff

It’s a beautiful thing, enjoy it. 

David

But no, I mean, we'd worked with Jay once before we should say that. On a completely different project, we just did string recording, the back end of NOLA 2 -

Jeff

Last time we were in New Orleans.

David

and he contracted that, which was our first introduction to him. And he has a studio space at the bottom of the studio where we recorded this stuff. And that was kind of how we got going.

Jeff (02:33.196)

So what are we going to talk about? What about this NOLA 3, our third time going there? What's special about it?

David

Well, we kind of split everything into... There were two, if you will, types of music. We've got... I'm going to say brass band, but it didn't start out that way, but that's how it ended up. And we'll talk about what that brief was in a minute. And then we recorded some songs on an album that became known as Crescent City Heat, available on the streamers. Check it out!

Jeff

So we started writing a NOLA funk album akin to like The Meters. A lot of guitar-based stuff. Had horns on it. 

David

Yeah, it was called Retro Funk.

Jeff

Yeah, retro funk. I think we sent them six or seven demos.

David (03:21.888)

Yeah, this is Audio Network we're talking about, the Production Music Library. And yeah, we sent a bunch of demos and we've talked a lot about this, but sometimes I think you only know that the brief isn't quite right upon hearing. You don't know what you want, you know what you don't want. Do you know what I mean? From a publisher's perspective, you know?

Jeff

Yes, from anyone’s perspective, yeah, yeah. Sometimes you have an idea and until you see something that starts on that path, you may not realize that your idea is not actually what you want, you know?

David

Yeah. And I think also Audio Network at that time had quite a bit of other funk funk. And sothey heard the demos and said, “these are great, but –“

Jeff

“We don’t want another funk album”

David

Well, it wasn't just that. I think the specifics, if I remember rightly, were that it was, the grooves were good, but there was nothing you could hang your hat on from the brass and they wanted to get their money's worth out of the Nola-ness of, that's not a word is it?

Jeff (04:27.118)

It is now.

David

The Nola-ness of the brass and so let's turn it more into a brass band album. Which made a lot of sense actually. But then you've got this dilemma then. What do you do? So do you...

Jeff (04:41.446)

Well, first you get really pissed, that’s what you do. Sorry guys at Audio Network. But we were like “what?” Because we put all this time and energy into these demos and –

David
He did, I was fine. I just, you know, I need a job.

Jeff

I mean, generally that is true. I am a lot grumpier than David is.

David

Yeah, that is true.

Jeff

But, so yeah, once we got our feet, you know, under us again.

David (05:06.083)

I think it's important to say that no matter how grumpy anyone gets, just in all seriousness, at some stage, you got to be prepared that they're selling it.

Jeff

It's their project, they're paying for it.

David

They're paying for it. They know what they're doing and you have to be a good guy to work with. It's all very well getting pissed internally for a second or two. But you've got to be prepared to say, “okay, you know what you're doing, let's do it”. 

Jeff

Yeah absolutely.

David

So I'm just putting that out there because it's important.

Jeff

I agree. Yeah. And I would never, I wasn't pissed at them, you know, it wasn't, I never, you know, would express that or, or, you know, it was just one of those situations like, “what are you kidding?”

Yeah. But actually, I mean it worked out, it worked out really interestingly. There was talk of starting to write new things between us. And then we're like, no, we're going to take the things that we did and just beef up the horns. We're going to take things off of the guitar lines and turn them into horn lines. And we're going to, full, full, maybe what was just the sousaline became like three-part harmony on horns doing like...

David

I remember us walking your dogs round the block in Chicago, voice memo in hand, Jeffsinging... And me singing... Kind of lines and how we would do it.

You know, we're so used to collaborating remotely, we couldn't work on it together. We still had to sing separate bits into the phone.

Jeff

That's very true. We're sitting right next to each other, it’s like “Oh I better go in the other room!”

David

I think Jeff's dog Norm was slightly... “What are you doing? What the hell is going on?” But yeah, we'd got some songs and I think we had a couple of examples. We'd got tracks called Space Da Funk. 

Jeff

Yeah, do we have a track list here?

David

Yeah, well, we've got Road to Funkdom. We'd got Captain Strut. So there was a few. I don't have a full track list in front of me, but I know we certainly...

Jeff (07:12.978)

The album’s called FUNK THE GUMBO.

David (07:34.228)

I remember doing endless listening to brass band music. I know I'd done it previously, but did it again, just listening to how things were put together for brass bands, even though it's stuff I may have listened to before many times. Yeah. I haven't listened to it now.

Jeff

Well, and you know, interestingly, while we're sitting here talking about it, knowing the album, I can't think of anything that's quite like it that you would hear it and you'd go, “Oh, that's kind of like this or that's kind of like that”. I think, and maybe I'm completely wrong about that, but it feels because of the way that it came about, pretty unique, I think.

David

Yeah. Well, and you know what I found? I tell you what guided me in a direction when we were doing this. You sent me one of the songs that you were working on because we both, this was a little different. Very often Jeff will start an idea and send it my way and I'll develop it. But on this, we'd already got ideas that I'd developed. So we split them up. And I remember you sending me, can't remember which track it was, but you sent me one of them and you'd got sousaphone on the bass, and a bass.

Jeff

Right.

David (08:50.254)

And that was a thing because I thought, I don't remember hearing that. And I apologize to all of the Noleons who will be listening. It sounds like a Star Trek character, but you know what I mean. And that I'm sure is a thing, but I hadn't heard it, or at least wasn't familiar with that. It was one or the other for me. 

Jeff

Yeah, to have the Sousa AND the bass player.

David

And at that point I thought, you know what, this is a really interesting sound. We could do something that we've not done, certainly.

Jeff (09:17.016)

It’s challenging to mix. I'm sure. Yeah. And for your expertise.

David

But it they weren't necessarily following the same lines and that was actually important that this wasn't just a doubled layered sound. They were intrinsically different things doing different things, but it meant that I could go away when I was arranging, I could use the sousanot necessarily hitting the bassline, but as part of that second line-ish feel or just part of that having more freedom to play lines, right? Which was really fun and we had such a good time. We'll get to the recording, but we had such a good time.

Jeff

Yeah you know, yeah, that's a really good point. Just again, it probably came about because of the interesting way that it kind of came together, right? It wasn’t one thing. 

David

Always happens for a reason.

Jeff

We’re like, we gotta turn it into something else. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it was I'm rather proud of how it turned out. 

David (10:09.422)

Yeah, it was very cool. Let's talk about the sessions.

Jeff

Well, you want to go and talk about the songs a little bit? 

David

Yeah, let’s do that.

Jeff

The other one is Crescent City Heat, which we were pretty set on working with our friend John Papa Gros. Is that how he says it? I just call him John.

David (10:29.004)

It would be slightly weirder if you called him Papa…

Previously he came in and recorded on our second time in New Orleans and he played keys.

Jeff (10:43.662)

He played organ for us. And we got to know him and what he does and he like was very popular, had a real following, is a great songwriter, played like every week at some place in New Orleans for years, I believe. And so we're like, this guy's amazing. So we knew going in that we were going to ask him to sing if he would be open to it.

David

But I should say, I think one of the reasons why certainly you had said, this would be great with John, not that I didn't, but one of the things that appealed to you from memory was that the brief, I'm trying to think, but they'd said, they'd said Mac Rebennack, who is Dr. John, and you said, yeah, but vocally, not in terms of the songs, but vocally, I'm thinking more Randy Newman than Dr. John.

And John really has that vibe. And that was the thing about it was that Randy Newman-eshvibe.

Jeff (11:44.64)

Yeah, and he's a brilliant piano player. So yeah, so going into writing these songs, we knew we were going to have him or ask him to be involved in singing these and performing them. And he did, he agreed. He's on four of the tunes, I believe, right?

David (12:01.398)

Yeah. Do know what? At this stage, let me read something out that John said about being involved, the reason about this project. And I'm reading this out largely because I know that it's very important to John. So hey John, and I'm reading this out and I hope you don't mind because I haven't asked your permission and I've taken this directly off your Facebook page. But he wrote this, bearing in mind that this was 2023/22. So this is post Katrina, and post-Ida the second hurricane so that was that was before this as well

Jeff

They were probably hit by a bunch, but yeah, yeah.

David

Yeah, yeah. So John said, “When Hurricane Katrina blasted through Louisiana, the Gulf Coast, our levees failed, our city got flooded, it got destroyed. So many people out there were asking, why do we need to put money back into New Orleans? It's just going to flood again. Why do we even need to have New Orleans? It was at that point in my life that my life changed. I no longer was a musician trying to make a living playing New Orleans music. I became a cultural ambassador, showing why New Orleans is important to the rest of the world. And from Europe to Japan and all across the states, my mission was and is to showcase how important New Orleans is, how important our food is, how important our culture is, how important the use of our music and our food is to celebrate lives. It hasn't changed in hundreds of years. There's a good reason for that. And it's because we do it really well, and he laughs. New Orleans is the city I love and I'll always go to bat for her.”

Jeff

Mm-hmm, beautiful.

David

And I think that shows in the way that he plays and sings.

Jeff

Yeah I mean, certainly just hearing him perform, seeing him perform, you know, and then knowing those words came from him makes perfect sense because he is an excellent ambassador of the city and the music for sure.

David

So let's talk a couple of the songs. Tell me, how did you come about winning the $10 bet when I said, “I bet you $10 you can't write a song about a sandwich”. And I had to pony up.

Jeff (14:16.334)

I mean hey, don't bet against me, baby. That's all I gotta say, you know.

So this is Muffaletta Jones, and there is some debate as to how you say, I've always said Mufalata but they say Muffaletta.

Jeff (14:51.214)

But anyway, after that, I think we might've even joked when you said that to me in the call, like, hey, I got a Muffaletta Jones. You know, I'm Jones-ed for Muffaletta. And that was all. It was me off to the races. 

David

Got it, yeah. And then I had to buy the Muffaletta with the $10 that I had. It was good. So that was one of the songs, actually, I love that song.

Jeff

Yeah, I mean you can't go wrong with a song about food.

David

But we've also got Yeah, You Right.

Jeff (15:24.45)

For a lot of these songs whenever, because this is our third time going to New Orleans and writing songs in that, is it a genre or that oeuvre or you know? Songs that sound like they're from New Orleans. Yeah, they are from New Orleans! And I always kind of look at lists and websites and you know, check out words that go with Mardi Gras and you know colloquial phrases and that type of thing. And so, “yeah, you right”, it's something that's said all the time there, right?

David

Well, I was looking at John's feed the other day. He's got a thing out at the moment. I'm so sorry, John, I don't know the name of the album or the song, but I know he's got a new thing out. And the first thing on it said, a big “yeah, you right” to all the listeners. It's a thing!

Jeff

So that's how that song came about. was just a, and it's about, I mean, it's about peace and love and you know, all that kind of good stuff. And yeah, you right. 

David

That leads on to one of the other songs. Cause it's not peace and love, but music and love. Sotalk about music and - that was smooth.

Jeff (16:27.116)

What a segue, Jesus. Oh my god!

David

So let's talk about music and love.

Jeff (16:43.054)

But we went and saw Hades Town last night. David had never seen Hades Town, and just a brilliant musical. And the opening number, which I can't remember exactly what the title of the tune is called, but it starts out with this trombone. Yes, once upon a time there was a river. And so just the way that I was in love with that musical and still am when we were writing this. And so I had the idea of starting a tune with that A trombone line that's got a certain-

David

The trombone going wah wah wah, well that's our our line rather from the show but it's just a solo trombone playing with a wah and I loved that idea because it was new to me I'd not heard anything like it.

Jeff

Yeah, that show was a great inspiration. And just we worked with Sean Carey again, who's the vocalist that we used on Here Comes the Parade from our second album.

David

If you haven't seen it, check that out.

Jeff

Brilliant man, just the coolest dude and the coolest vibe when he sings and so having him sing a song about music and love and yeah.

David (17:52.45)

Well, you know what was fun for me is that just like we do often, you send stuff off to people, you never meet them and you get stuff back and you work with it. And that wasn't going to be the case on this. So actually going into a room and hearing him do it rather than –

Jeff

Because the first time he recorded those vocals for Here Comes the Parade, he did that, yeah, he did it remote.

David

So was a completely different experience. I know we'll talk about the recording, but it did feel completely different because you're not just getting something back, which is always cool, but it's a fait accompli then it's done.

Jeff

Yeah, and you get the vibe of them singing. He's a force of nature, man. He's really full of energy. So yeah, that was fantastic. I really enjoyed working with him.

David (18:38.732)

And I want to talk about another song. I want to talk about Beads and Bling.

So this was one of my funnest things because I love gospel music. Absolutely love gospel music. And we get to write effectively a gospel song. It becomes more gospel-y through it, but it's a gospel songs.

You know, the second I heard that there was an opening, I was like I'm going for it. I'm doing it. I'm doing it. So part of that, I think was listening to our great friend Vijay. 

Jeff

In Chicago, yeah. 

David

And he'd played some riffs that I'd heard him play that were quite gospel-y. And I thought, I'm going to pack that little hand movement away. And then, you know, you get to it and go, what did he do again?

Jeff (19:36.078)

Well, we should expand on that. So David was in Chicago during the writing process for this,and because we knew that this particular album was going to be a lot of piano based things and we had ideas and -

David

Yeah, and I can play but I can't play.

Jeff

Yeah you need a pianist to sit down and kind of work out how they might do it. And Vijay's got a, he's got a –

David

Oh my, skills. But he'd come up with some stuff, but separate to what he'd done on the other things, I just heard him mucking about playing some gospel stuff. And I was desperately like, what did he do? What did he do? What did he do? I'm trying to remember the stuff. So that was really when we got to Beads and Bling, I was thinking back to how he had gospel-ed.

Jeff

Yes, and now I'm thinking of it, it's Vejay.

David (20:32.288)

I'm sorry Vijay, I got your name wrong.

Jeff

Yeah, yeah, so Beads and Bling. Tell us about our singers on Beads and Bling.

David

Joylinda and Yolanda, sisters and also Forces of Nature with just the most crazy great voices. So how we came across them, I now remember it's just come to me, our drummer, Eric Bolivar, who was also the contractor if you've been keeping up with this soap opera of a... 

Jeff

There’s a test later.

David

He had sent me something or he put it on Facebook, something like that. I'd seen it through him. There was a group called the Storyville Stompers. Just the name alone, was like, I'm in, this is something I want to listen to. So this is right up my, this is- 

Jeff

You're so cutting edge. 

David

I know I am, cutting edge. Storyville, I'm like, yeah, Stompers. So I listened to it and they were singing on it and they were just fantastic. I mean, really fantastic. They're experienced studio singers, but their real forte is church singing. Their gospel singers.

Jeff (21:40.119)

Yeah, actually I want to go into that story because I have a story.

David

Do you? So tell me a story, Jeffrey.

Jeff

It's an embarrassing story. 

David

Excellent, keep going. 

Jeff

So they came in and they had worked up, they'd rehearsed the tune, they worked out what they were going to do. And it was fricking amazing, right? Because it's pretty much what the tune is when you hear it.

David (22:02.67)

And they weren't in jeans and t-shirts, they'd come in in their best

Jeff

They were going to Bible study after.

David

They were suited and booted. But you get so ingrained in the demo, right? And listening to how things were done. And so when they started singing, it was so different that I was not... It’s not that I wasn’t pleased, but it took me a while to get my head around their interpretation of this song. And so I remember they did it...And they did it a couple of times. And then I was like, yeah, I'm not. And I was trying to steer them in some direction that was totally my direction and not their direction. Eventually it was just like, I let go of it because it was silly and I felt like there was tension building. And then yes, of course, you listen to it now and you're like, what the hell were you thinking? These things came in and they had lines. They were going back and forth. They rehearsed all this stuff. I mean, it was...

David

And you know, there's a line that they sing in that that we never wrote. You know, when they were riffing towards the end of the song, and maybe we'll be able to play a little bit of this song. I have no idea which one was singing what, because their lines were intertwined. And one of them was singing and riffed on, it's a Mardi Gras Mambo. 

Jeff (23:22.24)

Mardi Gras Mambo!

David

And I thought, what a brilliant line that is. That is a great line that I would never have come up with in a million years.

Jeff (23:30.242)

Well, that's obviously a thing down there. There's an issue with the editing that took place in those improvs in the end there, which I'm very proud of, that no one will ever be able to see or know about.

David

Because there was a lot of stuff because we said could we do a bunch of that stuff and you just have to create it's part of the - I mean producing is a two-stage process in that you're producing in the room and then you produce afterwards, and that's an interesting part of the process certainly with this. We’ve missed a singer!

Jeff

Jhammarick!

David

Jhammarick Campbell. So what tune was this? This was The Ponchartrain.

Jeff (24:18.35)

There is a club called the Ponchartrain that we went to, which is a very small sort piano bar-y thing, not the one that we're talking about, the fictitious Ponchartrain club in our song. 

David

I thought it was about that Ponchartrain? 

Jeff

No, no, no, no. It's about a different Poncho Train.

David (24:33.166)

He never tells me anything! So we listened to this YouTube clip of Jhammarick Campbell singing and said, done, ding. If he wants to do it, then we're in. This is great!

Jeff

He came in, did that, and it is such a hard gig because he, you come in cold, right? You don't know anyone, you're walking into a studio with all these strange people.

David

You guys just three guys, you know, cause we were there with Ali Johnson, who travelled to New Orleans with us and Ali is the head of music for Audio Network. So they've got these guys in the studio and say, nice to meet you. Go!

Jeff

Yeah, yeah. A little chit chat and then you go in the booth and, but God, that is just a hard gig. And again, just knocked it out of the park.

David

Absolutely. But also, part of that is sending people the right stuff. You know, you send people charts, you send them demos, you talk to them, you email them so they get comfortable that you know what you're doing as well as you're comfortable that they know what they're doing. And I think there's a lot in that.

Jeff 

I agree, yeah.

David

Checking the keys are right with them in advance so you don't get there and it's not right. Sothere was a lot of backwards and forwards with all of the vocalists. In fact, interestingly, just going back to John Gros, he was quite nervous actually doing this, which I really loved that about him at the time that somebody isn't just, “yeah, I got this, what are we doing here?”Just wants to get it right. Really wants to feel it.

Jeff

Yeah, well and there's you know, there's something about recording your own project, but then when you're recording and singing on someone else's project. That's yeah, you know, there's pressure there

David

And the band, mean, we had a killer band. had, I'm going to remember some of them and forget some for sure. We'd got Eric Bolivar, Eric Bolivar on drums. We'd got, on sousa we'd got Matt Perrine, we definitely had Shane Theriot on guitar, who is absolutely sensational. We had David Torkanowski.

Jeff

On organ and whirly and piano.

David

He and John kind of flipped around. I'm never going to remember all the names of the brass. I know Steve Lands played. I know Jason Mingledorff played. Yeah, Mark Mullins, but I'm not going to remember everybody's names. Yes. 

Jeff

You’re all very important people.

David

Maybe we'll put a list up with some names. Let's do that because we'll credit everybody. Soyou will have that list up there. But it just helps so much when you hit go. I mean, you live with this stuff for a couple of years sometimes and you hit go and you think “is it gonna beokay?” And you hear four bars and think –

Jeff

“Thank God, these guys are so good.”

David

But I have to say I yet again had a bug up my ass about intros for these and we were – 

Jeff

You should go to the doctor for that.

David

Doctor, doctor, there's a bug up my ass. It's like, I don't know. 

But making sure, particularly on the songs for John, that the intros were that Randy Newman-esque three bars that tells you where you are and what you're doing.

Jeff

He's the man. He's the player and the singer. So, yeah.

David

And my, I mentioned him previously, but my 10 year old Ted, who's a, he's a piano player. Hi Ted. Was playing the intro and still does to Yeah, you right, over and over and over. I was like, is this right Ted? Does it work? He's playing it. It's like, I like that one. We tried to a couple.. And he was like, yeah, I like that one. I played him a couple. He's like, it's not right. Yeah, you right. That's not right. Yeah.

Jeff (27:48.462)

Yeah, you right. That's not right. Yeah.

So, we'll end this with a little story. So one of the nights we were out in New Orleans, we went to the Blue Nile to see Kermit Ruffins.

David

Legendary Trumpeter.

Jeff

Absolutely, play and it was a great night and we were there standing around. He was playing and we noticed that behind us on the wall, David did, He's like, “Hey, Hey, look” and points to a washboard on the wall with Chaz written across it. And at our first NOLA recording back in 2013, 2012, Chaz Leary, Washboard Chaz.

David (28:40.046)

And this was one of his washboards on the wall!

Jeff

And what did Andrew ask him?

David

So in 2013 Andrew Sunnocks was with us on the first thing and we were taking some footage to promote this and Andrew quite earnestly said to Chaz, “why does it say Chaz on your washboard?” He just said marketing.

Jeff

Boom. It's hanging on the wall. The Blue Nile.

David

And I also very quickly want to say thank you to Misha Kachkachishvili. We didn’t talk about the studios, but we were at...

Jeff (29:16.91)

Esplanade Studios again, which is always great. Misha, Wesley Fontenot, he was the engineerfor us. He's brilliant. He was on our first session at Piety Street as well.

David

Yep. We've actually, not that any of you will ever get to see or hear this, and I should have brought one today and didn't, but we cut a vinyl for ourselves. This is how proud we were of this stuff. We cut our own personal copy of a set of vinyls, New Orleans collection to cover all these. You're all named on it. Somehow I'm going to get some copies to all of you that played on this stuff. Every name of every person is listed on it.

So I'll get some copies, which is easy because we've got 250 of them and we only need two. So yeah, they're going if you want a coaster.

Jeff

All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching.

David

Oh what fun. Talk to you next time.

Jeff

Bye!

David

See you.