The Budapest Sessions - EP Available Now, Free!

The Budapest Sessions will be released on January 10th, 2011 for “pay what you want download” at johnstatz.bandcamp.com.

In the early months of 2009, singer-songwriter John Statz embarked on his first European tour, playing shows in five European cities, including Budapest, Hungary. He was fortunate there to meet Adam Szabo, a local producer (Budabeat Studios), and during the few days in town they recorded some new songs, hoping to use them on a future album release. In November of that year, tracking started back in Wisconsin for Ghost Towns, John’s first full-band album. Though that project was already underway, another recording session was undertaken at Budabeat with Adam, from which two tracks made it on to Ghost Towns: “Julija” and “Night Train to Sarajevo”. After that album’s release, there remained six unreleased tracks from the “Budapest Sessions”, comprised of two new songs, unheard on any other recordings, and four alternate, acoustic versions of released tracks.

Though the recordings are sparse in production, a couple of them feature some local Hungarian musicians on electric guitar and percussion, and even a child’s harmonies on one tune. Budapest is an amazingly resilient and beautiful city, having been utterly destroyed in World War II, yet rebuilt, lovely on the banks of the Danube, and fascinating in its differences to most other places in Europe. Those influences were constantly internalized during the two visits, and projected outwardly during The Budapest Sessions.

Track Listing:

1.Call Me Last (new song) – 2010 session
2.Jackson Hole (Budapest version) – 2009 session
3.Our Love Was Made For Canada (Budapest version) – 2010 session
4.Dear Friend (new song) – 2009 session
5.Disclaimer (Budapest version) – 2009 session
6.Everything To Me (Budapest version) – 2009 session

*cover artwork by Heidi Keyes (www.heidikeyesart.com)

Serious Budapest

My host Adam had seen "Avatar" in Hungarian, but wanted to see it again in English, and I had never seen it, so we went to a real Budapest shopping mall and donned our 3D glasses.  The movie looked really cool, though I can't say much for the plot or the dialogue.  Too bad I couldn't keep the glasses.


My gig in Budapest: at iF Kavezo, played here last time as well.  Adam took this shot from a balcony up above.


Adam has a studio built in his basement (Budabeat Studios), and so we did some recording there for an EP that I hope to release sometime this spring.  We recorded some brand new songs, including one that I started writing in Slovenia and just finished that very morning before the session, "Julija".  Also, a Neil Young cover, "Long May You Run".


Recording vocals and guitar together.  You can already check out a demo version of the new song, "Julija" at Adam's website, Budabeat.hu, so take a listen if you wish!  The song is about a famous Slovenian muse I learned about last year when I was in Ljubljana, and the name Julija is actually pronounced like "Yoo-Lee-Ya".  And the cheesy toy keyboard solos you hear in the song were made by...


...this cheesy toy keyboard!  I thought that the sounds were pretty cool.  I don't know that we will leave them in the final version, but it was fun for the session, anyways.  Let me know what you think!

Recording Report #2: Drum Tracking

So last Monday, November 23rd, we hunkered down in an old farmhouse in Dane, Wisconsin to record all of the drums for the upcoming album, the "we" being: Jeremiah Nelson and Andy Hartman (engineers), Adam Cargin (drummer), and myself (devilishly handsome songwriter extraordinaire).  Jeremiah, Andy, and myself went out to the farmhouse the night before and set up all of the recording equipment, and then proceeded to have a campfire and drink a few beers.

We started setting up drums at around 10am on Monday, and worked until 8:30pm or so.  It was a long, but super productive day of recording, and I'm very happy to report having all of the drum parts for the entire album done.  Next up, we'll be doing the rhythm guitar parts, probably at the beginning of next week.

Here are a few pictures of the farmhouse and from the session:

 

Jeremiah and Andy setting up the night before.


The farmhouse, my dad was born in 1941 and grew up here.


The farm in the morning, shrouded in fog.


Adam setting up his drum kit.

Room mics, set up at different distances from the drums and in different rooms.

Recording Report #1: Demos

So work on the new JS album has begun.  It will be my first album with a full band on it (drums and all), and I am super excited to work on it and release some new songs.  I will try throughout the process to keep anyone who bothers reading this blog updated on the progress and perhaps provide some insight into the process.

The addition of drums on this album brings a whole new level of work to the project that I am pretty inexperienced with.  First of all, I have never really had to worry too much about the tempo and consistency of timing before, as it never had to fit into the rhythmic framework of percussion.  As long as I concentrated on doing my best to keep in time when recording the guitar, we could just add in the vocals, banjo, mandolin, etc. on top.  That is how we did it with the last studio album, Our Love Was Made For Canada. 

This time around, we have to record everything to a click, meaning that while recording the guitar and vocal parts I am listening to a metronome set to the right tempo in headphones.  Last night we went through this process at the apartment, recording demos to a click in my bedroom.  The we, being: myself, Jeremiah Nelson (who is engineering the project), and set wizard Adam Cargin (drummer for the Blueheels), who will be playing the drums on the album.  Sound engineer Andy Hartman will be joining us next week for drum tracking, and for tracking on the rest of the album as well. 

We spent 5 hours or so recording demos for all of the songs with drums (most of them), just the guitar and vocals.  You may remember from a previous post that I had mentioned already doing some demos.  At the beginning of the month I sat down with Jeremiah and recorded some basic demos, not done to a click, just to get to Adam so he had an idea for what the songs would be like.  The demos recorded last night are more utilitarian, so we have something to build on.  Next Monday when we track Adam's drums, the demo tracks will be piped through headphones while he lays down his parts.  Then, we will simply discard the demo tracks and start adding things on top of the drums.  Cool, huh?  Can't wait to start drum tracking next week, we're doing it in a 100+ year old farmhouse that my dad grew up in, just north of Madison.  Stay tuned, I'll keep ya'll posted on how we progress!

New Album - Recording Tomorrow Night in Madison

For you Madison folks/Wisconsin folks/anyone else that felt like making a road trip this Friday, the live recording, full band show that was scheduled this Friday for the Cafe Montmartre is now being held at the Brink Lounge due to the unfortunate closing of the previous venue. The show will start at 9pm, and will be recorded for the new album, "John Statz & the Cheap Shots" , which will feature almost entirely new material. The cover charge is $8, and also playing are Chicago's fantastic Cameron McGill & What Army, and my good pal Jeremiah Nelson with his band, the Shifty Switches. Hope you can make it out!

Thanks to Rich Albertoni for the great article in the July 10th, 2009 edition of the Isthmus! Here is an excerpt:

"Since returning to the Madison area in 2006, Statz has built one of the most rigorous tour schedules of any Madison musician. This year, he'll be on the road at out-of-state destinations for more than four months. Later this summer, he'll embark on a four-week tour of Canada and the northeastern United States.

A double major in music and history at UW-Oshkosh, Statz frequently uses historical themes in his songwriting. With song titles like "Best Girl of '16" and "Letters from Southeast Asia," Statz sometimes takes on the persona of a war soldier in his compositions."

Read the whole article and interview here.

Videos from Ljubljana concert

So my father found these videos on YouTube the other day when he typed my name in, they are from my February 10th show at Tovarna Rog in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The Rog is an old bike factory that has been taken over by squatters, and they have a really cool music venue set up there. The first video is of a brand new song I wrote on my way into Bosnia, its called "Night Train To Sarajevo", and I'm glad that someone captured the song. I also have a live recording of the whole concert, so I maybe I'll have to release that some day... "Live from Slovenia". Anyways, enjoy the videos!

Pt. 1: "Night Train to Sarajevo" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_-5S81d9aU&feature=related

Pt. 2: "Song and Dance Man" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrryhnL5jNY&feature=related

Budapest Pt. 3

If there is ONE thing you do when you visit Budapest, you have to visit one of the thermal baths. I'll admit, it was a bit intimidating at first to think of hurdling the language barrier involved in buying the entry ticket and swimming with a bunch of Hungarians, but once I got in it was pure relaxation. Budapest is all about the good life!

Performing at iF Kavezo. It was a really fun concert, and thanks to all of the couchsurfers that made it out!

Adam and his home recording studio. We recorded four songs one morning, and he is going to "eastern europ-ize" the tunes for me.

Laying down some vocals.

The Parliament building again, this time from across the Danube. This shot gives you a better scale of how massive this building is.