SESSION MAN (PART TWO)

over the years i have had plenty of time to talk with other "session men"...we have been in the trenches together...like retired boxers, our faces carry the scars of a million bloody wars fought in studios all over the world.

i love and respect my fellow session men....i have listened closely to their hopes and dreams....i've slumped over bars and drank endless glasses of vodka and wine with them while they poured out their misery after a session gone terribly wrong....and i've hugged them in jubilation as we listened to a loud playback of some rare and beautiful magic captured on tape.

true session men hold each other's hands through moments of great recording triumphs and they drag each other's lifeless bodies out the wreckage of dismal recording failures.

after all of these experiences i feel that i have discovered a few universal truths that apply to ALL session men... and for the benefit of all mankind i feel i must share a few of these observations.

for example, i've learned that session men will endure virtually any kind of abuse imaginable from a person on the other side of the glass on ONE CONDITION....that person MUST BE NICE.....

any producer who has no idea what the hell they are doing will get along just fine as long as they adhere strictly to this one very important rule.....you MUST BE NICE........

the deadly combination of a producer not knowing what the hell they are doing AND not being nice is viewed with GREAT HATRED by the session men...
the moment the session man senses that this may be happening, he will instinctively turn on that producer and make his or her life a living hell.

for that matter i have learned that there are many things a producer must NEVER do or say if they want to maintain peace with the session man:



1) Never play a hit song as a "vibe reference" to a group of session men, especially when it is a completely different tempo and feel than the song you are actually trying to record
2) Never tell the session men to "play outside the box" or "get away from that normal nashville shit you guys do"...they will most assuredly hate you.
3) Never hire a group of top level session men on a master session and then ask them to copy a Rukkus Room demo note for note....they will most assuredly hate you.
4) Never assume that a session man is not listening to the lyrics of your song just because they haven't told you how great they are.
5) Never ask a session man to put his amp in an "isolation box"
6) Never assume that just because you WROTE the particular song the session men may be currently trying to record, that you are a good enough musician to sit in and PLAY it with them on guitar or piano.....especially piano......

ok that's it for now,


i'm sure there will be a few more things i will think of....i'll post them as they come to me.

stayed tuned for future installments of "Session Man".
all past archives will be posted in the blogs above