BS2000 recently released their new album, Simply Mortified, of lo-fi dance hits and keyboard jams. The band consists of Adam Horovitz (of the Beastie Boys) and Amery Smith and their new record was recorded in a damp basement. I caught up with them on the phone to find out how it went down. They spoketomeonthetailendofaslewof interviews, so they were a bit tapped, but provided some thought provoking and studio- learnin' conversation none-the-less.
Who's in the band?
AH: That would be me and Amery... and also the live band is me and Amery, Alfredo...
I know Fredo... the drummer.
AH: The drummah! The drummah drumm-er!
AS: [laughing] The drummah drummer...
He's a great drummer... and a funny guy too.
AS: In Japan they say he's a badass.
AH: Alfredo the badass...
So Fredo is in the band?
AH: And our friend Jazz from Minneapolis.
The four of you... and what does Jazz do live?
AH: He's a keyboard player.
And what do you two do?
AS: Play keyboard as well.
The fact you live in different cities, how do you record?
AH: It's all done on FireWire downloadable modem... I'm just kidding...
So you just record when he's there and you are here?
AS: For Simply Mortified we did all the keyboard tracks in New York.
Do you have a studio there?
AH: We HAD a room that was in a two story below basement that you could make noise in with an 8-track. So that is where we recorded...
Is that the room from one of the Beastie Boys videos?
AH: It is in the video with Mix Master Mike.
So it really is two floors down?
AH: It's fuckin' two floors down.
That's pretty good.
AS: It's damp and wet and there are little bugs running around it...
AH: We got kicked out of it... Everyone got kicked out of it.
And you said you used an 8-track down there?
AH: Yeah...
What kind?
AH: A DA-38 digital high-8 tape.
Was the first album both of you also?
AH: It was definitely both of us but neither of us were in the same room together till we sequenced it.
Was that all on an SP-1200?
AH: All of the songs I did were.
The second record is a lot more live?
AH: Yeah that's all live.
Drums even?
AH: Well, at one point they were live.
It sounds like there is a Rhythm Ace too.
AH: Yeah there is definitely some kind of Rhythm Ace thing on there.
And the keyboards... is it all Casios?
AS: There are some Casios, there's a lot of Farfisa and Yamaha too.
AH: there are plenty of Casios too.
Which Casios?
AH: MT40, Casiotone.
The Casiotone's always a nice one... Did you use the beats off the Casiotone?
AH: Well you know when you start using the Casiotone beats, you start getting the "Da da da". It's kinda like a cover song when you start doing stuff like that.
How long did it take you to record the second album?
AH: A while, two months off and on.
AS: It wasn't exactly the recording process as much as the writing of it took a while.
So when you'd go in you'd put down the beat and see where it went?
AH: Yeah, and then arrange and come up with little ideas, and Amery would come up with the bass line and we'd record him and go from there.
Did you use all the tracks or were there extras?
AH: I think there were a bunch of extras we put on a couple b-sides here and there.
Who's singing on the record?
AH: That's both of us.
How would you record the Farfisa line- in or with mics?
AH: Yeah, mostly line-in for the stuff. I mean, we don't have a huge extensive mic collection, so a lot of the vocals were done at another studio called Plantine Recording House in New York. They have a lot of good stuff.
AS: They have a really good collection of outboard analog gear and decks, but they also have state of the art digital equipment and digital and analog engineers, who are both really amazing to work with.
AH: That's true.
So when you got to the vocals you were almost done?
AH: We were doing all kinds of things with the vocals.
AS: We were running the vocals through outboxes and stomp gear. We kept running the vocals through the metal machine. We had no idea what it does but it sounds good.
AH: Sometimes the Farfisa just sounds like it is, same with the Casios. They just sound good the way they are.
AS: The Farfisa was a little flat, and it's really difficult to tune it.
So the Farfisa was just slightly out of tune.
AS: Yeah. So we were usually using instruments that we could pitch into the tune of the Farfisa.
The Farfisa was, aside from Casios, the only organ?
AS: Did we use the Panther at all?
AH: I don't know. The Panther sounded so shitty every time. We used this other organ called the Panther but we used it mostly as a stand for food and other stuff.
Putting it to good use...
AS: We also found this synth at a garage sale for 4 bucks as we were mixing the record and we brought it straight to the studio and put it on 3 or 4 songs. It sounded so good. It was a fat analog synth, I don't know how else you'd describe it.
What was the Tote-A-Tune?
AS: It's a plastic keyboard made by General Electric and only runs on batteries and we had to mic it with a condenser mic. It's literally all over the record... We had to gate the shit out of it which was a interesting process in itself cause we don't know about mics and shit.
Did you use the SP-1200 on this one?
AH: A lot of ideas for the songs we would sample a beat and play it for three minutes and come up with the keyboard parts and then drop the beat out.
And you said you used a digital 8- track... Did you like that?
AH: I loved that. That is just what we were talking about before because we actually were using a Tascam 1/4" reel-to-reel. I like the digital high-8 tape cause you don't have to fuck with it as much. It's like going to the Olive Garden.
Why's that... isn't great but doesn't suck?
AH: You know, you kind of know what you're going to get. It's like if there is a really good cook that day at the Olive Garden you know what I mean? Or if you're really hungry you go to the Olive Garden, because it works, you know what I mean?
I can kind of see it. So you ditched the 1/4" altogether?
AH: Yes, we had the new toy all along.
What sampler where you using?
AH: Just the SP-1200. We don't actually know how to use anything else. We were having problems bringing the '60s to the '80s to the y2k.
It's a tight fit.
AS: We had recorded everything on a portable Tascam, so we dumped everything to the DA-88 and ditched the thing altogether instead of cleaning the heads. We were having a horrible time sampling the old Maestro drum machines onto the SP-1200. We really wasted a lot of time trying to figure out how to do it and came up with nothing.
And you were much happier with the digital?
AH: Much happier. Who wants to align those fuckin' tape decks and all that fuckin' stuff!
Not me.
AH: Not me either.
Well it's an interesting point because as you've seen in Tape Op there are always discussions about which is better, analog or digital, etc.
AH: That's the thing, doing the interview for Tape Op — to the readers I mean, "C'MON..." That's my thing I'm saying to the readers of Tape Op, "C'MON..." You can put that in big letters too...
Is there anything after the dot dot dot?
AH: No, just, "C'MON..." I mean what's the big deal?
So what about effects? Do you run the Casios through anything? Any outboard gear?
AH: The main thing that is our secret weapon is the metal machine.
What is that?
AH: It's a rack effect that metalizes. What was that thing they had at Plantine?... That was cool... It was that crazy battleship...
AS: Oh, the old English synthesizer that had battleship peg-holes and a joystick.
AH: It's kinda like if Battleship was a video game. We used it on the first song of the new record. We have to give credit to James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy from Death From Above.
AH: What was another weird rack effect?
AS: The blue-faced MXR shit?
Like the octave below type thing?
AS: No, what it does is it grabs the sound. It has big knobs to turn.
Big knobs are always cool.
AH: Kind of like the '70s rack Kaos pad. AS: We also used a Korg Leslie simulator as an effect on the Casios.
As far as new gear... Did you use any?
AH: I have a Zoom box with a speaker built in. That's cool but it's about five years old. [laughing] I don't really follow gear. I like looking at the pictures in magazines though.
So you stick with the old?
AH: I like that we have a Casio-type sound that kind of has a Hammond sound. It doesn't actually sound like that but it kind of sounds like that... I like that.
Casios are always good.
AH: They are battery operated and that's what BS2000 likes.
So you can just take 'em to the park and go?
AH: Exactly.
Do you have any higher-end mics?
AH: I mean c'mon... What are we the Black Crowes? I mean, c'mon.
I feel the same way... unless you have really expensive mics... they all sound kind of crappy. You should just plug in and do your thing.
AH: And also, you could have all that gear and its like, if your songs suck then your songs suck. I don't care. I mean c'mon... You could have all the best equipment in the world and your records could sound sonically like some stupid Eric Clapton song from '71 or whatever, but you're not saying anything so who cares. Blow that up!
C'mon.
AH: No seriously. If you're not talking about something that's gonna mean something to someone anyways, then why not use a digital 8- track that fits in the closet. That was a big thing for us on this record. We want to talk about sexism, racism and homophobia. Who cares about the vintage synth that no one else has and it sounds so incredible.
