THE FIRST SESSION IN LA
Hey everyone -
So if you read my previous blog, I told the story of how the idea for “The Musical” project came to be, and then we left off going into the first studio session with Javan here in LA on March 3, 2022
That session is documented in the first episode of The Making Of “The Musical”
For this blog, I want to give some extra commentary on what is happening during the actual episode
We will start with the first song you see Javan and I recording, “Worried Wind” at 00:58
“Worried Wind”
Above is my painting “The Worried Wind” that this song is based on
So a few weeks before this session, in February 2022, Javan came over my apartment to go over everything for the album. I played him the beats I had that I thought he would sound good on, and explained the song concepts
Most of the beats I played him were from a producer named Jefe, who is the producer of the 3rd song you hear Javan recording in this episode “Billion Dollar $DOGE”
Jefe is a producer that Javan has worked with a ton in the past, which is where I know Jefe from
He has a “hyperpop” sound that Javan sounds super cool on with his voice. Here are a few of their songs together that I love:
So most of the beats I had for Javan were from Jefe
But when I played him the beat that you hear for “Worried Wind”, which was produced by Big Jerm, Javan said he needed to rap on it
Big Jerm is a legendary producer from Pittsburgh who produced and engineered a ton of music for Mac Miller and Wiz Khalifa (long live Mac). Jerm has a super authentic hip hop sound, incredible drums, and an insane collection of vinyl records that he samples from. And for several years probably 90% of the music I listened to was either produced or recorded by Big Jerm
Below is a photo of Big Jerm that I took the day I met him in 2011 (outside of the original Timebomb Shop in Pittsburgh), while filming B.White’s “Premo Freestyle” music video. Also underneath it I included a few classic songs that Big Jerm produced. Starting of course with BIG JERM BANGER (long live Mayo)
Do some Googling and you will see the crazy amount of songs Big Jerm is connected to
Like Mac Miller once said on Kool Aid & Frozen Pizza
“If you didn’t know, well I’m from the Burgh…. everything I drop recorded by Big Jerm”
Also if you watch the music video for Kool Aid & Frozen Pizza, that is Jerm skating there wearing the white tank top
And since Javan doesn’t typically rap on “hip hop” beats, I was surprised when he was so eager to record on this Big Jerm one
I’m not sure I have ever heard anyone who sounds like Javan rap on a Big Jerm beat before, or even use auto-tune on one
So hearing Javan rap over it for the first time was a super cool experience for me
And this is truly a historic song
It is the first song we recorded during the first session
As I mentioned in the previous blog, there were a few pieces of the album that got recorded and sent to me in other locations before this session with Javan
But this session was the first one I actually booked and got to attend here in LA and film for, making it a HUGE moment
That will make more sense later on, once you see how many actual sessions have taken place for this project
Back to the actual recording of the song though…
“Worried Wind"“ took us about 30-40 minutes to record
Javan already had the song written when we got to the studio
Once Berler (the engineer) set everything up, Javan recorded a full take through of his lead vocal
He then listened to it a couple times, recorded another take, and then pieced together the parts he liked best from each
Then he recorded his ad-libs, and the song was complete
Javan works SUPER FAST in the studio
Also I forgot to mention earlier: Berler is an engineer from Miami who was living in LA at the time. He is a friend of Javan’s, and Javan recommended him when we were booking this first session
Berler moved back to Miami eventually during the recording process of this album, but he was a huge help during these early sessions, and also went on to recommend me someone who became a HUGE part of this project that you will learn about later…
Back to “Worried Wind” one last time though…
“Worried Wind” didn’t end up making it onto the final album
Both Javan and I love the song, but just in terms of the story and sequencing of the album, it did not fit
I am thinking about releasing it as a Bonus Track though. Maybe even sooner than you might expect…
Ok now onto the next song…
“Snakes In The Grass”
So at 05:08 in the episode, there is a quick clip of Javan recording the next song “Snakes In The Grass”. This song is for my painting above “Buddha & The Snakes In The Grass”
Originally, i wanted Javan to record “Snakes In The Grass” on the beat that you hear for the 4th song later in the episode “Zahmbie”. But when I pulled up the beat, he said the “Snakes In The Grass” concept doesn’t work for it
Then he told me that he has a beat that could work, and he pulled up the beat that you hear in the clip
The beat is produced by Synthetic, a producer Javan has worked with in the past, and who also works with a bunch of huge name artists
The beat is dope, but it doesn’t really fit the style that I have for my project. Also I don’t personally know Synthetic or have any ownership of the beat, so i am not going to be using it
We have actually gone on to create a new beat (a couple beats over the years) underneath Javan’s vocals for this song, and it is another one that I am considering releasing as a Bonus Track single
“Billion Dollar $DOGE”
The next song we start recording at 05:51 in the episode is “Billion Dollar $DOGE”, based off my painting “Buddha & The Billion Dollar $DOGE”
For the record: this is a painting + song that were both created when “DOGE” was only just a meme and a crypto-currency, long before it had anything to do with politics. Buddha’s Buds does not affiliate itself with any politics
That being said, this song freakin rules
The beat is produced by Jefe, the “hyperpop” style producer who I mentioned earlier, that Javan has worked with a ton in the past
When I was going through all the beats Jefe sent me, I marked this one right away and labeled it “Billion Dollar $DOGE”, knowing that I wanted Billion Dollar $DOGE to be an upbeat fun song about a “fantasy world” where the price of $DOGE went up to a billion dollars
I told the idea to Javan when he came over that day to listen to beats, and then emailed him the beat to write to
But when I picked Javan up for the session, I asked him if he had a chance to write “Billion Dollar $DOGE”, and he said “I don’t want to do that song anymore”
I asked him why, thinking it would be because he thought the idea was cheesy or something
But his response was “because I don’t have any $DOGE coin, I don’t want to pump it up” (which I still find to be a hilarious response)
Also, this was back during the era when all the “alt-coins” or “s***-coins” were super hot in crypto, and Javan and I would regularly go back and forth about which coins we were buying. So this response about not wanting to “pump” up $DOGE was a very genuine answer from him
But, he told me he had a few ideas, and agreed to freestyle one take of it at the studio
I had heard Javan freestyle plenty of times before this, so I knew it would be good, but I played the beat there in the car and asked him to show me what he was thinking
As soon as he said “big cap big cap like Doug Dimmadome” I shut the beat off and told him to save it for the studio, I knew it was going to be incredible
And just as he promised, he went into the booth and freestyled the entire song in one take.
It was absolutely historic
You can even hear me say “historic” at the beginning of the take (incredible foresight on my behalf, just saying)
When he finishes recording, you can hear how excited I am
I had just witnessed him record an entire song in one take, while coming up with it off the top of his head
And the song is absolutely fire
Javan though, had still not come around to the idea of it, even after finishing the take
But once we started listening to it back, he quickly had a change of heart…
He even called the song a “case-study” and told me I need to show it to Dave Portnoy so that we can start a Barstool Records label !!!
A historical moment inside of a historical moment
After listening to the song a couple times, he went back into the booth and recorded his entire ad-lib track in one take too
The whole recording process for this song took about 12 minutes total
Unbelievable
“Zahmbie”
After we finished recording “Billion Dollar $DOGE”, we still had more time booked at the studio, so I told Javan I think we should record on the beat that I originally had for “Snakes In The Grass”
The beat is produced by Big Jerm, but it does not sound like a typical Jerm beat. This sounded more like the melodic trap style beats that Javan usually raps on, so I thought he would sound great on it
Javan told me he had something pre-written that could, then he said “do you have any paintings of a zombie?” and sang the phrase “the za za turns me into a zombie”
I said “no but I have a friend name Zah and I can make a painting for it”
Zah was my co-worker at Barstool Sports, and is an absolutely incredible one-of-a-kind dude
Also, he is from Zimbabwe…
And rare fact:
He was in Kindergarten on the playground at the “Ariel School” when the UFO Incident happened in 1994 (one of the most researched UFO sightings in history)
So the “Zahmbie” painting above was painted in the following days after this studio session, while listening to these four songs we recorded on repeat lol
Shoutout my brother Zah too, who absolutely GEEKED OUT when he heard the song and saw the painting for the first time
Ok, so that covers all four songs you see us recording during that session
Before I wrap up this blog though, I want to give some more details on the next part you see in the episode
“Long Road Ahead”
At 12:47 in the episode, you see two of my texts with Luke-O, an artist from Republic, PA (an area about an hour outside of Pittsburgh)
I’ve known Luke-O for about 15 years now (10 years at the time of those texts)
We met the first year I moved to Pittsburgh
He is part of the Moola Gang group, with fellow recording artist Pyrex Pre$$ and producer Kilz
I have filmed a bunch of videos for them in the past, and they are good friends of the group The 58’s, who I also worked closely with
The video below “Street Runners” is the first music video I filmed for them, and the day we met
In the image below:
That is Pyrex Pre$$ in the front center wearing yellow
Kilz in the back left wearing the green
And Luke-O on the back right wearing the grey
It’s crazy how I met all three of them together at the same time in 2012, and all three of them would go on to work on this project over a decade later
What a world
Also I am a huge fan of their music, so I had very particular style songs I wanted to get from them, using their existing songs as references
Below are three of my favorite Luke-O songs
All three have such crazy beats too
I told Luke-O I wanted him to make two songs for this project: one song with Pyrex Pre$$ on a beat similar to “$till The Man”, and a solo song on a beat like “Sometimes” or the first half of “$outhwe$t”
I didn’t have the beats though, I wanted Luke-O to either find ones that he had, or create new ones for it
Luke-O produces a lot of his own beats, or he finds samples and has Kilz produce them, so I wasn’t going to be able to recreate their particular sound by using another producer
I sent him the paintings/concepts, and then we started going back and forth trying to figure out samples that could match them
Eventually, Luke-O sent me a song called “One Day” by Cleo Sol, which I loved. I told him let’s definitely use this for “Big New World” (the song eventually switched to a different painting “Long Road Ahead”)
But funny story:
The song “One Day” by Cleo Sol is an 8 minute song with an instrumental-change in the middle
And when Luke-O sent it to me, I thought he was talking about sampling the first half, but he actually meant the second half
So originally Kilz made a whole beat that sampled the second half of this song, and I didn’t realize the mix-up until I heard it
Then we went over the parts of the song I had in mind, and he said he’ll try it again
Cut to the night this video was taken…
March 2nd, 2022: the night before the session with Javan
I was in the chair at the dentist, MID-CLEANING, when Luke-O Facetimed me with Kilz
They were working on the beat, and I LIT UP the second I heard it
I told the dentist to SKIP THE X-RAYS, I need to get home ASAP
They sent me that video snippet above, and I was watching it all night until I finally got the full beat the next day
You can see in my text with Luke-O at 4:33 AM my time (7:33 AM his time) that I was still awake watching the video, even though I had my first session with Javan later that night
Luckily my session with Javan didn’t start until like 8 or 10 pm, so I still had plenty of time to sleep
And if you watch all the way until the end of the episode, you might just see a sneak-peak of what “Long Road Ahead” has evolved into over the years…….
But that about wraps it up !!!
Those were a historic 48 hours: hearing the “Long Road Ahead"“ beat for the first time and receiving it, and then having the first studio session with Javan
Thank you SO MUCH to everyone I mentioned in this blog: Javan, Berler, Big Jerm, Jefe, Luke-O, Kilz, and Pyrex Pre$$….. as well as EVERYONE who has helped out on this project
FULL CREDITS for Episode 1 are listed at the end of the episode and in the Youtube description
Also thank YOU for being here. Your support makes all this possible and I am extremely grateful
*** Lastly, now that you have learned all about Episode 1, I am VERY EXCITED to announce that Episode 2 has just dropped. This is a PIVOTAL EPISODE, where the root of a few VERY IMPORTANT songs begin to take form, and the first big CONFLICT begins to arise !!!! Please watch when you get a chance, this is one of my favorite episodes !!!!
I…. once read…. that the Universe started…. and the asteroids collided……
And I…. thought then…. if I could get really high… like a balloon in the sky……
I’d float AWAYYYYYYY tonighhhhhttttttt
Thank you again and love you all !!!!
Sincerely, Ben