Cartoons Recording Notes

I started working on my new CD, “Cartoons” with Badahari dasa in 2007.

Badahari dasa is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, singer, and kirtan leader. He’s probably most well known for his kirtans. He’s big in the Ukraine.

Many people consider him a very advanced devotee of Krishna. I’m honored to say I performed on some of his recordings. When I had my big operation during my 2006 cancer era, I requested my surgeon to play Badahari’s CD on the boombox.

To give you an idea of where Badahari’s head is at, above the doorway to the control room in his recording studio, he has a framed photograph of Radharani’s feet.

Cartoons started off as a simple, acoustic-guitar-and-vocals sort of stripped-down minimalistic, folky solo album idea. I wanted to do something that would clearly be different from the first two CDs, which were both multi-instrumental, heavily orchestrated adventures in overdubbing.

My “guitar and vocal” idea soon evaporated when we realized how much pure, crazy fun it was to mess around with the unlimited loops, samples, and sonic capabilities available at Badahari’s studio. He has more virtual instruments in his studio than Germany has varieties of beer.

As our recording sessions progressed, the mad audio scientists within us became progressively madder and madder. And so did my wife when I started coming home late from the studio unable to explain in plain English why in God’s name I was spending so much time on this.

Then Badahari went out of town, and asked me if I’d be interested in housesitting. This turned into a total Sorcerer’s Apprentice gig, with me spending exceedingly unhealthy amounts of time in the control room.

Alone in the sonic laboratory late at night, listening and listening and tweaking and tweaking—as the songs began to take on lives of their own—I started to feel like John Lithgow in Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension.

A particularly dismal side effect of all that tweaking, however, was that my back became tweaked from too many hours in a chair.

I woke up one morning requiring immediate chiropractic attention. Fortunately my chiropractor corrected a host of chronic spinal ills, including a birth defect that had rendered me as pigeon-toed as Elvis Costello.

Then Badahari finally returned. As we were finishing the recording, he played for me a keyboard part he had composed for “When I Become A Child Again.” It made my hair stand on end. It was already an emotional song for me—I still can’t play it in front of my dad without choking up—but BH put it over the top. I was satisfied beyond expectations.

Epilogue:

I’m one of those “listened-to-way-too-much-music-during-my-precious-formative-years” people, so I especially appreciate it when an album has a clear beginning, middle, and end. I’m an album guy. It’s got to sound good for an hour. I believe Cartoons does.