Studio Grace: The Making of a Record

by Eric Siblin

Overview

With a dozen original songs percolating in his head, bestselling author Eric Siblin had two chance encounters in the same month: one with a real estate agent named Jo, a talented singer with pop star dreams; and the other with a college acquaintance named Morey, a fiery guitarist, record exec turned digital music producer, and manager of his teenage daughter’s burgeoning singing career. These two serendipitous events mark the start of a musical odyssey.

In Studio Grace, Eric Siblin chronicles the twelve-month realization of a long-held dream: recording an album of original material. To get there he plunges into the joyful and painful heart of songcraft, grappling with elusive verses and choruses until they are ready for recording. Siblin’s songs are captured in three very different studios reflecting the evolution of sound recording: a tiny basement studio run by a wedding band drummer; the famed Hotel2Tango analogue studio, where a former producer of Arcade Fire connects Siblin with hipster musicians; and the mansion attic where his new friend Morey creates songs on a laptop using the latest in digital technology and the global distribution network that is YouTube.

Published to coincide with the release of the album of the same name, Studio Grace is an entertaining and demystifying behind-the-scenes look at the making of a record filled with songs about love gained and love lost, about modern identity theft and ancient battlegrounds, about life and death, fleshed out by a host of eclectic characters, from ambitious young singers to veteran session musicians and unknown engineers to high-profile producers — all of whom are pursuing the multi-layered dream of a four-minute pop song.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770899346
Publisher:	House of Anansi Press
Publication date:	02/07/2017
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Eric Siblin is an award-winning journalist, filmmaker and author. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Visit Eric Siblin's website:
http://ericsiblin.com

Table of Contents

About the music ix

Chorus interruptus 1

How long have you been gone? 3

Cloudburst 6

Mansion on the hill 11

Song castles in the sand 22

Basement session No. 1 29

Basement session No. 2 36

Interlude: Take me home 41

Basement session No. 3 46

From the sky 57

Unstoppable 64

Who is Howard Bilerman? 67

Basement session No. 4 75

Hooks 81

Basement bass 'n' drums 87

The girl from the NextDoor Pub 95

Write your own No. 1 hit! 102

Take one with Shaharah 105

Perfect shell 114

Labyrinth of voices 119

This is what you should be doing 125

Zoom 130

Building a bigger better greater chorus 137

Are we in Funkytown yet? 143

How "Unstoppable" became "Inflammable" 148

Prelude2Hotel2Tango 153

H2T. Session No. 1 157

H2T: Session No. 2 164

H2T: Session No. 3 168

Capturing reality 176

Battlefield mind 184

Underbelly 194

Back to the basement 199

An oceanic feeling-tone 207

Honey from the attic 211

Dionysian brass parade 216

Zeros and ones with a human face 221

Cherry-picking at the hotel 232

Major handcuffs 237

Pomegranate seeds 241

A tuneful sigh 247

Chorus maximus 252

The sound in my head 263

Lyrics and liner notes 269

Links to dramatis personae 291

Acknowledgements 293

About the author 297

Editorial Reviews

11/28/2016
Siblin, a journalist and author (The Cello Suites), takes readers with him on an entertaining journey to fulfill his lifelong dream of recording an album of his original songs and music. Even though he had been playing guitar since he was 11, wrote his first song at 13, and decades later finally felt that he had a dozen songs fully composed, the album still doesn’t come easily, and Siblin recruits help from many quarters. Readers get to know Jo Simonetti, a talented singer, and Morey Richman, a digital music producer, who both play key roles. During his 12-month endeavor, Siblin explores all facets of the work: choosing right instruments, changing verses, finding perfect vocals, collaborating with other musicians and professionals, and recording in three very different places: a basement and garage, an analog studio, and an attic studio where Richman uses digital technology and distributes recordings via YouTube. This vivid account of Siblin’s adventure in an era when “nobody buys records” will appeal to readers who love pop music, and especially to musicians and songwriters who harbor their own recording dreams. Readers can listen to and download the rich fruits of Siblin’s labor of love on his website. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Studio Grace's short chapters keep the story moving along as ideas and songs are emailed back and forth, and advice from all quarters swirls around the songwriter's quest for a finished piece of creativity.

Winnipeg Free Press

Studio Grace is an intimate, at times exhaustive account of Siblin’s journey in writing and recording an album.

Montreal Review of Books - Malcom Fraser

Seeing this world through Siblin’s fresh eyes, the reader gains a whole new respect for the prosaic elements of music-making . . .

Montreal Gazette

How he engaged with the musicians and recording engineers to achieve his dream make for another great read.

The Senior Times - Irwin Block

[a] musical odyssey . . .

National Post - Brad Wheeler

Praise for Studio Grace

"Studio Grace is an intimate, at times exhaustive account of Siblin’s journey in writing and recording an album." — Montreal Review of Books

"[a] musical odyssey . . ." —National Post

"Siblin has given us a book that really did need to be written." —The Globe and Mail

"Seeing this world through Siblin’s fresh eyes, the reader gains a whole new respect for the prosaic elements of music-making . . ." — Montreal Gazette

"How he engaged with the musicians and recording engineers to achieve his dream make for another great read." — The Senior Times

Praise for The Cello Suites

"To vivify music in words is not easy. But Mr. Siblin…rises to the task…Read The Cello Suites—preferably with their melodious hum in the background—and you will never look at a cello in quite the same way again.” —The Economist

“This is one of the most extraordinary, clever, beautiful, and impeccably researched books I have read in years. A fascinating story deftly told—and, for me at least, ideally read with Bach’s thirty-six movements playing softly in the background; a recipe for literary rapture.” —Simon Winchester, author of The New York Times Best Seller The Professor and the Madman

“A work of ever-percolating interest. Mr. Siblin winds up mixing high and low musical forms, art and political histories, Bach’s and Casals’s individual stories and matters of arcane musicology into a single inquisitive volume.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“This is rich terrain, and Siblin’s book is an engrossing combination of musical and political history spiced with generally vivid descriptions of the cello suites themselves . . . Best of all, The Cello Suites makes us want to pop in a CD and really listen to those cello suites. Awesome.” —Wynne Delacoma, Chicago Sun-Times

“The ironies of artistic genius and public taste are subtly explored in this winding, entertaining tale of a musical masterpiece…Siblin is an insightful writer with an ability to convey the sound and emotional impact of music in words.” —Publishers Weekly

“Included in his thorough research are interviews with cellist such as Mischa Maisky and Anner Bylsma…In Siblin’s history of the composer, Bach is far from the stuffy image often applied to classic music; he appears restless, brash, and proud…Siblin’s writing is most inspired when describing the life of Casals, showing a genuine affection for the cellist.”
—Elliot Mandel, Booklist (starred review)

“Engaging and imaginative…a charming narrative.” —The Seattle Times

“ [Siblin]… can charmingly and empathetically convey the sweet sounds of a live performance through the medium of black marks on a white page—which, ironically, is exactly how Bach's music was first conceived... But such lyrical interpretations of the wonder of Bach's music are not even Siblin's main thrust. He braids his own experiences with the musical voyages of Bach and Casals into a portrait of the wild confluence of creativity, politics, ambition, and fate that mark the astonishing life of the six Cello Suites.” —Paul Di Filippo, The Speculator, a column in the Barnes & Noble Review

“A winning combination of music history, biography, and whimsy.” —Library Journal

“The author has done a wealth of research in pursuit of his new passion, and he writes engagingly…this intrepid writer has worked hard to interest readers in his musical obsession, and there is a great deal to chew on here.” —Priscilla S. Taylor, The Washington Times

“Siblin firmly believes ‘Bach is what you make of him’—and his book represents just that…No matter what the great composer means to readers, they will surely enjoy Siblin’s fun, fast-paced journey from pop-music scribbler to Bach aficionado.” —Christian Science Monitor

Engaging look at the seductions of late-in-life creativity and a cleareyed account of the strange state of today's music industry.

Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2016-12-25
Affectionate memoir of a second-career songwriter finally making a record, alongside a cast of music-scene lifers.Siblin (The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpiece, 2011), former pop-music critic for the Montreal Gazette and recipient of the QWF Mavis Gallant Nonfiction Prize, loved playing in garage bands until "university and then journalism took over my life, while songwriting remained a hobby." More recently, he wanted to complete these long-gestating musical projects. "For a long time songs had been percolating in me," he writes. "But a new urgency had recently been brought to the equation." This determination stemmed from chance encounters with musicians from his past and newly beguiling chanteuses from the blues and club circuits. The gradual development of these friendships is a thread throughout the narrative, as these new and old acquaintances update Siblin on industry upheavals and new recording technologies. Considering his options, the author writes, "a few decades into the songwriting process, I felt ready to make a truly professional recording." His determination to capture ideal takes of a dozen songs fuels a meandering but detailed production narrative. He began at a friend's attic studio and then graduated to the elaborate setup of a producer associated with the Arcade Fire, who warned him, "people often come in here thinking that I have some gold dust that I can sprinkle on them…but your record is going to be a reflection of you and your songs." The producer brought a variety of professional players, who exposed the wistful Siblin to the grit and glamour of the working musician's life. Throughout the journey, the author remained equally fascinated by the technological transformations of pop music and the emotional undercurrents of collaboration. Only occasionally does the observational prose become solipsistic. Engaging look at the seductions of late-in-life creativity and a cleareyed account of the strange state of today's music industry.

Kirkus Reviews