In the mean time, if you want to hear some Ruby Calling right now…go to rubycalling.bandcamp.com for a quick fix.

In other news, the band is working on a cover for Christmas for our friends at The Big Show.  It is now stuck in our heads and we are contemplating busting out a video.  Stay tuned.

There was a lot of thrash about when we would record.  I had originally wanted to record in the spring but our schedules didn’t align to make that happen.  In fact, I had a bit of a crisis.  I felt like I was committed to recording but the rest of the band was not.  In fact, I felt like I needed quit the band and start a new band of people who wanted to record!  After an emotional heart to heart with my band mates, we decided to set a goal to record in the fall — together.  We spent a lot of time honing the list of songs that to record and practicing them and practicing them and practicing them.

Jean and I had done some research on recording studios in Portland.  We narrowed our list down to two which we visited.  We liked both of them but I the funky 70′s colors mixed with the high-tech vibe of Jackpot Recording Studios appealed to both of us.  There were two recording engineers at Jackpot!: Larry Crane and Kendra Lynn.  Having been a huge fan of TapeOp magazine and knowing that Larry Crane had recorded many of my favorite bands (Sleater-Kinney, The Gossip, The Decemberists), I was partial to him.  One of my band members thought it would be cool to have a woman engineer.  We decided to go with Kendra.  Kendra was super responsive and very professional.  We had not recorded in an official recording studio before and she was very patient with our questions.  Our band fumbled around a little but Kendra never missed a beat.  She got everything set up and ready to go.  She told us what to do and expect.  She guided us to record the very best takes.  She was an absolute pro with the recording software and driven to find the best sound.  She was very calm and made the entire recording session a pleasant experience.  It was awesome.

And then…she took our raw tracks and performed magic on them.  Not that we don’t really sound that good [insert winky eye here]…but she took the best of the best and wove them into something…more.  I am extremely pleased and proud of the results and happy that we went with Kendra.

I am not going to lie though…recording was kind of brutal.  Even after practicing the same thing over and over, I am not sure we were prepared to play it again and again with the added burden of being recorded.  At one point I thought my fingers were going to fall off!  (Who wrote that damn bass line..oh yeah…I did).  And recording isn’t all playing and playing and playing.  It is more playing and playing and sitting and waiting.  It is exciting.  And scary.  And totally fulfilling.  I loved it.

My friend Mike, Ruby Calling’s official cinematographer, came and shot some photos and some video.  I am curious to see what became of it…perhaps he is still working on it???  Mike???

After the recordings were agreed upon we had to get them mastered.  Since we were adding in a song that wasn’t recorded with the rest, we needed to find someone who could take two different recording sessions and make them one seamless EP.  We chose to go with Sky Onion and Gus was great to work with.  He mastered the songs such that they flowed from one to another plus he helped us determine the order.  I enjoyed working with him.

So here is the end result: http://rubycalling.bandcamp.com/.  We are a band of many, many songs.  These songs represent but a sampling of our repertoire.  I cannot wait to share the rest with you.

* A scratch vocal is a “throw away” vocal that is recorded on an early take.  It is piped into headphones and then the instruments play along with it.  It helps keep the song timing and keeps vocals from bleeding into the other instruments during recording.

Of course, if you feel the need to own it, swing by rubycalling.bandcamp.com and purchase it for only $4 (or more – you choose!).

We are excited to share our new music with you!

http://rubycalling.bandcamp.com/album/ignite

The band is also participating in the RPM Challenge during the month of February.  The challenge is to record 35 minutes or 10 songs of previously unrecorded music.  We decided to do all new stuff and picked the theme of “Great Women.”  An informal Facebook request yielded a whole bunch of possible great women.  Within the band we are picking the great women who most move us and are writing songs about them.  So far we have 5 sets of lyrics written and one song just about complete.

In addition to writing a bunch of new songs Erin is learning to record the band for the challenge.  The learning curve is steep but the reward of learning a new skills will be lasting.  Since the challenge is bounded by the month of February we aren’t necessarily expecting to end of with great recordings.  However, we are hoping to do some recording in the spring when we have more time.

Speaking of fans, our Facebook fan page has 98 fans.  Who will be number 100?

The band has been working up a new song.  We have already begun sketch out the storyboard for the video and we hope Mike Northcott will collaborate with us again!  We also invented a little dance to go with the song.  You are going to love it!

We still don’t have any shows booked right now.  After a busy summer it was nice to take a break but we are ready to get back out there and play.  Know of anywhere we should be playing?  Let us know!