Note: This blog details the creative process behind my three newest music videos with Taylor Rae, as well as our Kickstarter campaign, which ends on 10/30/20.
On October 1st, 2020, I drove up to meet Taylor Rae at her family’s cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains. We had met once before at a small get together back in the summer; even though we had a lot of mutual musical friends, our paths hadn’t crossed until then. When I arrived at the cabin the evening of October 1st, it was only our second time meeting in person, and our first time actually playing music together.
The month before, I had asked Taylor if she wanted to work on the rerecording of my song Post. She was excited to take part in the project, and told me that Post was her favorite song of mine. Although she was born and raised in Santa Cruz, Taylor now lives in Austin, Texas, so we shared recording files back and forth for the song, arranging three and four part harmonies, and working on the dynamics and feel of the track.
Taylor was back in Santa Cruz for a few weeks, so we decided to get together to play some music and go over some of the recording details for Post. Her and I are both fans of Simon & Garfunkel, although I might be a bit more fanatical. With my Los Angeles side project Funk & Wagnall: A Tribute to Simon & Garfunkel, I had over twenty five Paul Simon tunes in my repertoire. I had recommended we try singing Wednesday Morning, 3am, one of my all time favorite S&G songs. The song is one of the most beautiful tunes I’ve ever heard; the studio recording is good, but the best version is off of Live in New York, 1967. That’s where it’s at for me.
Wednesday Morning, 3am is not an easy song to harmonize. Being able to blend vocally with the natural tone and timbre of your partner’s voice is just as challenging. The harmony depends greatly on your singing style and ability, the key of the song, and how comfortable you are with your vocal counterpart. Still, I thought it would be worth a try with Taylor. We set up her phone for the video, and I hooked up my recording setup, using Taylor’s condenser microphone to capture the sound. What happened next was something that I had never experienced before.
Taylor and I started singing the song together, and we clicked immediately. I’ve never felt such an instantaneous musical compatibility. We went through the song a few times, and we nailed it, video and all. We were both shocked at how effortless it sounded. It could take weeks to get comfortable with those harmonies—and we had knocked it out our very first time singing together.
I went home later that night and mixed the track, edited the video footage, and just like that, we had our first music video. It was almost too easy. All the time I’d spent producing my music and editing my own videos had made the process smooth and quick.
After our first time singing together, I wanted to capture as much music as I could with Taylor while she was in town, so we set up another recording session at the cabin a few days later. This time I chose the folk song Roving Gambler, figuring that it would be an easy song to harmonize to. The song is two chords, not technically advanced by any means, but it’s got a beautiful melodious quality to it, and I had a feeling that it would sound good with our voices. The Everly Brothers do a beautiful version on their album Songs Our Daddy Taught Us; Simon & Garfunkel do a demo version of the song on Sounds of Silence deluxe edition, and Billy Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones have a duet version on their collaboration album Foreverly.
Again, Taylor and I nailed down the recording without even trying. It just felt so comfortable singing with her. I mixed the song and edited the video the next day. Now we had two brand new music videos that looked and sounded great.
Together, we decided that we would try to crowdfund the recording of Post via Kickstarter. I went to work setting up the crowdfunding campaign, choosing a time frame, goal amount, rewards, and producing a video talking about the project. We had taken a lot of photos around the cabin, including the shot that would be the face of the Kickstarter. This one:
The next week, before Taylor returned to Austin, she came over to my house in Silicon Valley to record some more. I had suggested that we try Blues Run the Game, another tune that I had learned through my time with Funk & Wagnall. A song by Jackson C. Frank, Simon & Garfunkel have a rendition of the tune; Nick Drake also does a cover. I hadn’t played the song in quite some time, so I updated the guitar arrangement and found a higher key that would work well with Taylor’s vocal range. Again, the recording process was intuitive and effortless, and the end result was far beyond my expectations. I fell in love with the new version of the song, as if having heard it for the first time. All three songs that I had chosen for us had been so easy to get down; there was a kind of natural musical flow that Taylor and I generated from each other. Aesthetically and musically, Blues Run the Game is my favorite video of ours.
Within ten days, Taylor and I had recorded three tracks, made three music videos, took a ton of promotional footage and pictures, and we had set up the Kickstarter campaign. I was blown away by what we had accomplished after playing music together for just a week and a half (!!!). Our level of productivity in such a short time frame was insane.
Taylor’s back in Austin now. Our music video of Wednesday Morning, 3am has finally been released. It’s the last of our three music videos to be shared, though it was the first one we ever made together. In many ways, it was the song that kicked off this whole musical journey. As we round the final few days of our Kickstarter campaign, Taylor and I, with the help of so many friends and fans, have raised 145% of our funding goal. We are so humbled, honored, and grateful for the outpour of support that we continue to receive.
Check out the videos. When you hear the harmonies and blend of our voices, imagine capturing that sound and putting it into my song Post; imagine how it will sound being recorded in a professional studio, with professional mixing and top notch production on the track. That’s what the Kickstarter is all about. I am so stoked to be able to recreate Post as it was always meant to be heard. My intuition in asking Taylor to be a part of Post was right on the money—our harmonies together, and the surge of creativity that followed, cemented what I knew all along: Taylor was the perfect voice for the project.
Our Kickstarter still has three days left! If you haven’t pitched in, there’s still time. One of the many rewards for contributing is a collection of the songs that Taylor and I recorded this month: Blues Run the Game, Roving Gambler, and yes, Wednesday Morning 3am.
Thanks so much for reading.