How to Say Goodbye to a Studio: Recording “When I’m Gone” — by The Looking

How do you say goodbye?

Gaze your ears upon The Looking.

Carter, the foundation of The Looking, knew he had to depart his creative home. Astraea Studios on upper Broadway, would end a long run of tracking and mixing for him and his bandmates – a beloved 3,000 sq. ft. place for big drums, his own enormous vocals, and more would meet its NYC real estate fate.

So he bid it adieu, with a love letter EP entitled Alone the other Night. A punk-bred singer with operatic ability, Carter sings of dearly departed people, places and things throughout. Take a listen to hear it first-hand on SonicScoop’s featured “Track Attack” cut, “When I’m Gone”.

How do you disembark from your sonic spaceship? Carter can explain.

Your Artist Identity  The Looking is my solo project. I have recorded three full length records and one EP under this moniker. I have been working closely with a group of musicians for the past couple of years. Bill Finizio and Adam Kromelow are two of them. They are great guys and have been very helpful with arrangement ideas. They have also played with me in most of my concerts.

Your Website: http://www.thelooking.com

The Track:  When I’m Gone

Where I’m Coming From: I have to say it’s a bit of a strange song on the lyric end. I wrote it in the subjunctive tense, imagining what might be! I wrote this on guitar and performed it live a few times before we recorded it. I think I was pissed off one day about something as I was singing and playing in the studio. I was thinking about dying.

Then it struck me, “Why not write a song about the imaginative musings of a lover who dies and wonders what his lover would think about him after he has passed over to the other side?” Specifically, whether she might think he is a jerk, burn his shit and curse the sky for his leaving. Or maybe, just maybe she won’t be able to get him out of her head “beats her pale breast, trashes her room, never rests.”

I think the frenetic energy and the craziness of the guy who has died is really shown in this song, from the opening drum part to the twisted guitar and messed up Casio keyboard. Myles did a great job bringing the intensity of the lyrics into the overall sound.

Instrument Tation:I am playing a Fender Telecaster Deluxe through a Guild Thunderbird amp.

I sang through a Horch RM2J microphone and a Chandler EMI pre-amp.

Bill Finizio is playing piano on a Yamaha U3 and a Casio SK1 through a Roland Re-201 Space Echo. We have Diego Voglino playing Gretsch drums and John Carey on a Guild Starfire bass all through API pre-amps.

Inside Astraea: Guild Starfire bass and Royer SF-24 before the drums come out.

Magic Studio: I’ve operated project studios in a few different places in New York. We cut this song at my last studio. (I’m studio-less now!) The studio was called Astraea Studios, a magical space inside of a 3000 sq. foot loft at 104th Street and Broadway. We were there for five years but the landlord pushed us out at the end of October 2014.

This song and the rest of the EP “Alone the Other Night” was the last thing I recorded there.

We had Great River, API and Chandler Pre-amps in the studio and we needed a few more, so Myles Turney of Vanity Sound brought over an API lunchbox and a few mics to get the spread that he wanted on the drums.

All I Ever Dreamed of…I loved this space and am still sad that we had to give it up. It was like a small cave that I mostly used for rehearsal, over-dubbing, vocals and mixing.

But we also had access to this great loft space right on the other side of the mix room. It was a place that was used for concerts and art openings, but I didn’t use it much for tracking.

This time we did. One of the tracks on the EP we recorded live in one take. The studio was really the opposite of a fancy studio on many levels and this suited the situation perfectly. We recorded without much rehearsal and put it together on the spot. We had to watch our feet at certain points so as not to trip and knock over mics and stands because the cords were stretched from the control room out into the loft/gallery space.

Gretsch drums make a “fantastic” sound in the gallery space of Astraea Studios.

Overall, it was an amazing recording experience. The folks involved in the process are all stellar people and musicians.

…and More: Like I said we decided to cut the drums in the big loft/gallery room. It sounded amazing in there. And with Diego Voglino hitting the skins, the results were fantastic. It was such a huge sound in the room and super punchy through all of those API mic-pres. And, of course, I couldn’t have had better players with me. John Carey played an amazing ‘67 Guild Starfire that we had in the studio.

Mix Trix: Myles Turney mixed the song. He and Joel Arnow run Vanity Sound. I have been working with Myles for the past couple of years. He did such a fantastic job with my American songbook record “Songs for a Traveler” that I went back to him to engineer and mix this song.

Myles Turney executed the mix.

Gerald Menke recommended Myles to me in 2012.  I love Myles and I love his approach at Vanity Sound. I totally trust him with the sonic end so I left it in his hands. I said two words to him: “dirty and loud”. I think he delivered a gem of a mix!

Master Jam: I have worked with many mastering engineers over the years and we went with Alex de Turk for this one. He came highly recommended by Myles. He did a fantastic job!

Attack! We are looking into publishing opportunities for this track. It’s a dark, heavy track and would be perfect for a darker TV show or film.

— Carter, The Looking

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