Too Many Guitars
This past winter, Jay Stulo and I talked about starting a band and doing some gigs together. Jay is a great blues guitarist and has toured the U.S. and Europe. I've always wanted to play in a blues band and this was my chance! We got Spencer Panosh on drums and Rod Zimmermann to play bass and guitar and resurrected one of Jay and Rod's old band names "Mudbone". We got a regular house gig Sunday nights at the Gibson Music Hall downtown Appleton. We had some great gigs, even with Sunday night football and some of the coldest Wisconsin nights I can remember, there was usually a good crowd. In January Jay and I threw around the idea of recording some songs. By February Jay had a batch of songs he wanted to record and we were ready for the studio!
My brother Greg Thiel flew up from Nashville to play drums and we had our friend Chris Hanaway on bass. We met with Marc Golde at Rock Garden Studios and 6 hours later we had basic tracks done for 11 songs!
Jay and I laid down a lot of our guitar parts at the same time. It helped to capture the live vibe we have while playing live. A lot of the process was documented on video so there was no room for mistakes! I got to witness some of the best guitar playing I've heard in a long time. Jay could do a few takes of the sme solo and each one was a keeper. It had to be hard for Marc to choose a final take. We had some great guitar tones too! Jay was using his Calder amp built by Kurt Calder and I had my trusty old Budda twinmaster. I had a bad tube during some of the basic tracking. That may explain the burning smell coming from my amp the night before... Everyone in the bar could smell it.
Over the next few weeks we added some overdubs and had Rod Zimmerman, Erin Krebs, and Doug Kroening come in to do some vocals. I was in a room with Doug, Rod, and Erin singing 4 part harmonies. Just amazing to be surrounded by these pro singers as 4 voices worked as one.
And now it's March 2019 and i have the new cd in my hand! Stulo - Thiel "Ghosts Around Here." The cd release show is Friday March 29th at Gibson Music Hall where this whole thing started. Summer gigs coming soon... -TT
