Hamilton Leithauser and Kevin Morby, with Jess Williams
October 15, 2021
8:00 PM
Doors Open: 7:00 PM
Doors Open: 7:00 PM
Hamilton Leithauser
Hamilton Leithauser records and produces his own music in New York City. He’s lived there for 23 years. After a couple of decades in professional recording studios, Hamilton decided to put together his own studio because he found that all of his most creative and productive moments happened when he wasn’t “on the clock”. Something about the organization and cost put too much pressure on what he thought really needs to be a free and spontaneous moment. Hamilton realized that he actually preferred the sound of his own home 8-track demos to many of the more polished tracks he’d made (not always, but often enough to wonder). So he began collecting equipment in his travels around the United States, and spent several million isolated hours learning how to use some of it. Now he thinks he’s got the hang of it. His most recent full-length record “The Loves of Your Life” was released on April 10, 2020 through Glassnote Records. It features songs about individual people he met through chance encounters (mostly in the tri-state area). Previous to that he has released “I Had a Dream that You Were Mine” with friend Rostam Batmanglij, “Dear God”, a vinyl-only record with friend Paul Maroon, “I Could Have Sworn EP”, and “Black Hours”. Before his solo career, Hamilton was the lead singer and co-songwriter for NYC band The Walkmen for 14 years. His next full-length release is expected in the 2nd half of 2021.
Kevin Morby
In the winter of 2017 I moved back to my hometown of Kansas City from Los Angeles. The move was sudden and unforeseen, just as I was tying a bow on the writing process for what would become my 2019 album, Oh My God. I bought a Four Track Tascam model 424 of an old friend to help me get to the finish line, but much to my surprise and excitement, this new piece of equipment in my all-but-bare home didn't help complete one album but rather inspire another: Sundowner. The new collection of songs came quickly and effortlessly as I did my best not to resist or refine the songs, but instead let them take shape all on their own.
As the songs kept coming I cleared out the crowded shed that was sitting dormant in my backyard and built a makeshift studio before adding drums, lead guitar and piano to complete the demos. The shed had no cooling or heating unit at the time, so perhaps it is important to note that during the writing of this album I was either wearing multiple layers of clothing, or hardly any at all, season depending. Which is to say, it is an album written during extremes and subjected to the elements. In the summer, brown recluse spiders would scatter from beneath the Tascam when I entered the studio and in the winter, long glassy icicles hung from the storm drain as if the shed was wearing jewelry. Each day I would teach myself basic recording techniques, watching the channels illuminate and pulse as if the machine were breathing, and then emerge in the evenings as the sun was getting low: - around 5:30 in the winter, when the Kansan sunsets look icy and distant, like a pink ember inside of a display case, and 9 o'clock in the summer, when the sunsets are warm and abstract.
I wrote the entire album wearing headphones, hunched over the 424, letting my voice and guitar pass through the machine, getting lost in the warmth of the tape as if another version of myself was living on the inside, singing back at me. I was mesmerized by the magic of the four track not only as a recording device, but also an instrument, and considered it my songwriting partner throughout the whole process.
Hamilton Leithauser records and produces his own music in New York City. He’s lived there for 23 years. After a couple of decades in professional recording studios, Hamilton decided to put together his own studio because he found that all of his most creative and productive moments happened when he wasn’t “on the clock”. Something about the organization and cost put too much pressure on what he thought really needs to be a free and spontaneous moment. Hamilton realized that he actually preferred the sound of his own home 8-track demos to many of the more polished tracks he’d made (not always, but often enough to wonder). So he began collecting equipment in his travels around the United States, and spent several million isolated hours learning how to use some of it. Now he thinks he’s got the hang of it. His most recent full-length record “The Loves of Your Life” was released on April 10, 2020 through Glassnote Records. It features songs about individual people he met through chance encounters (mostly in the tri-state area). Previous to that he has released “I Had a Dream that You Were Mine” with friend Rostam Batmanglij, “Dear God”, a vinyl-only record with friend Paul Maroon, “I Could Have Sworn EP”, and “Black Hours”. Before his solo career, Hamilton was the lead singer and co-songwriter for NYC band The Walkmen for 14 years. His next full-length release is expected in the 2nd half of 2021.
Kevin Morby
In the winter of 2017 I moved back to my hometown of Kansas City from Los Angeles. The move was sudden and unforeseen, just as I was tying a bow on the writing process for what would become my 2019 album, Oh My God. I bought a Four Track Tascam model 424 of an old friend to help me get to the finish line, but much to my surprise and excitement, this new piece of equipment in my all-but-bare home didn't help complete one album but rather inspire another: Sundowner. The new collection of songs came quickly and effortlessly as I did my best not to resist or refine the songs, but instead let them take shape all on their own.
As the songs kept coming I cleared out the crowded shed that was sitting dormant in my backyard and built a makeshift studio before adding drums, lead guitar and piano to complete the demos. The shed had no cooling or heating unit at the time, so perhaps it is important to note that during the writing of this album I was either wearing multiple layers of clothing, or hardly any at all, season depending. Which is to say, it is an album written during extremes and subjected to the elements. In the summer, brown recluse spiders would scatter from beneath the Tascam when I entered the studio and in the winter, long glassy icicles hung from the storm drain as if the shed was wearing jewelry. Each day I would teach myself basic recording techniques, watching the channels illuminate and pulse as if the machine were breathing, and then emerge in the evenings as the sun was getting low: - around 5:30 in the winter, when the Kansan sunsets look icy and distant, like a pink ember inside of a display case, and 9 o'clock in the summer, when the sunsets are warm and abstract.
I wrote the entire album wearing headphones, hunched over the 424, letting my voice and guitar pass through the machine, getting lost in the warmth of the tape as if another version of myself was living on the inside, singing back at me. I was mesmerized by the magic of the four track not only as a recording device, but also an instrument, and considered it my songwriting partner throughout the whole process.
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