Monday, April 16, 2012

Chris Lord-Alge

Drivers,

Earlier this month I had the privilege and pleasure of attending a Q&A Session with the one and only Chris Lord-Alge. As one of the most in-demand mixers in the music industry since the 1980s, his discography is simply astonishing. Working with names ranging from James Brown to Green Day, Chris Lord-Alge is known for his extreme use of dynamic range compression. In his time working in the industry he has accumulated well over 750 credits including The Rolling Stones' "Too Much Blood", Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA", and The Smashing Pumpkins "Teargarden by Kaleidyscope" album. All in all the session was extremely informative touching on multiple aspects of Mr. Lord-Alge's career from his work at Unique Recording Studios in New York City all the way up to his position now at his studio in Miami Beach, FL.




The mixing work of Chris Lord-Alge has been so influential that in early 2010, Waves Audio released the Chris Lord-Alge Artist Signature Collection of audio plug-ins, a collection of 6 application-specific audio plug-ins for Bass, Drums, Effects, Vocals, Guitars, and Unplugged. The session was very interesting and insightful. For those of you who think you haven't heard any of Chris Lord-Alge's work, your most likely just unaware you were listening to his work or you've been living under a rock the last 35 years. It takes merely a glance at his discography to realize the amount of masterpieces Chris Lord-Alge has been a part of. It was awesome to take part in and attend the session and I strongly recommend any of you reading to take the initiative consciously check out his work.

-Marshal
 Montgomery Drive

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Crybaby


Drivers,

For this post I've decided to write about my instrumental EP "Crybaby" which was released in 2010. After spending years writing, recording, and releasing songs with both musical and lyrical content, I felt compelled to put out a release that contained completely instrumental multilayered tracks with more of an ambient and soothing feel. Initially I chose to release the "Crybaby" EP on my own. I personally undertook every aspect of the release from the art direction to the actual design and construction of the package itself. For the simple fact that this was a special and very unique release for Montgomery Drive, a key aspect in the failure/success of the release was the product management. For this reason alone, I felt it was extremely important to differentiate the packaging from my previous releases to reflect how unique "Crybaby" was in relation to my other releases. In addition to the packaging, I also chose to make the physical packages of "Crybaby" in limited quantities to allow the release to be all the more special due to its rarity. 

At that point in time the packages I had been doing myself were all CDs however with the help of BEAR Records / BEAR Distro I was able to also release limited quantities of  "Crybaby" on Cassette. In terms of the CD packaging,  I hand painted cds, individually hand numbered the packages, hand cut and printed inserts, and physically put each package together myself. As far as the management of the product, because this release was so near and dear to my heart I personally wanted to put the same love and care into the package as I had into the actually writing and recording process. The end result is something that to this day I find myself being very pleased with. From time to time I even hear from people who discovered the CD somewhere or ordered the tape through BEAR Records / BEAR Distro and it always puts an extra big smile on my face. Moreover, whenever someone refers the the CD, the fact that I personally undertook all the aspects in putting it together it is very flattering. At this time I only have a couple left in my possession (CDs and Cassettes), and I know BEAR Records / BEAR Distro has limited quantities left as well. While on tour in Japan I left a bunch copies with my friend Hiroyuki (from S-Explode) to have in stock with his distro and recently heard Rok Lok Records from Long Island, NY are now carrying a few of the cassettes. That's all for this post, feel free to stream and/or download "Crybaby" for free on my bandcamp page.


-Marshal