By: Jarrett
10.14.06

Well, it seems as if New York City has shifted from the sweltering heat of summer to the crisp chill of autumn overnight. I suppose that it's a rather appropriate shift -- everything in this city moves to that same Grindcore paced beat.

I think that I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. I'm Jarrett, and I'll be covering the New York City music scene from my hip little pad in Astoria, Queens. I've only actually lived here for a few months, but I have already found out that the music scene here is staggeringly different than that of my ex-home, Virginia. (how the hell did I miss getting tickets to Explosions in the Sky??)

I spent the vast majority of yesterday on site at a shoot for a Greek music video. The song was a super-catchy, radio friendly pop song by an artist I know only as Costas. I'm still singing it in my head, even though I'm not quite sure what the fuck the words actually mean. Believe it or not, the Greeks have been developing a rather successful and diverse music culture. The only catch is that the artists all seem to be perpetually locked into their cultural black hole where they can only perform and sell their music to other Greek people. I suppose on one hand this provides them a guaranteed loyal fan base, but seriously, if this guy had been singing his songs in English, he would be on the top 100 charts by now.

Mainstream.

I've recorded with a number of different bands in my time. We did the best we could, given our situations (financially and geographically.) However, nothing we could ever scrape together could compare to the Sony studio I got the luxury of scoping out last week.

We were recording in a shit studio there, a back room sort of studio, a studio that was apparently normally only used for television voice-overs. Still, there was enough equipment stashed in that room to make me blush as I walked through the door. For around $100 an hour basically anyone can record in this studio (although the schedule availability may be less than desireable...) Back in Virginia, this sort of situation just doesn't exist....and further, the real benefit of recording at the Sony studios has nothing to do with their Pro Tools setup or their sweet collection of vintage microphones, it has to do with the crowd of people that hang around this joint at all hours of the night. The night we were there Jay-Z and Cassidy were also there recording some new singles and basically just chillin' with their respective entourages. There are constantly big name artists and producers just wandering the halls to see who is laying tracks down and who might be the next big thing. Word from the inside is that many of the pop music duets you end up seeing on MTV originally start because of a chance meeting in the halls of Sony.

Damn. When I wasn't mesmorized by the blinking lights of the soundboard, all I could think about was my first trip to the "studio" at age 15 -- a PC in the back room of a trailer in Kingsport, Tennessee.

Damn

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