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| Source: Bad Racket Recording Studio http://badracketrecording.bandcamp.com/ |
Arguably one of the most successful endeavors helping to launch the studio out of Northeast Ohio obscurity is the Live from Bad Racket video series it launched in collaboration with Ohio Authority in 2010. To commemorate the growth of the video series, Bad Racket assembled––and will release on Nov. 20––its first compilation album reflecting the sundry musicians with whom the studio worked in its infancy.
The musical corpus comprises the first dozen artists and bands to be featured in the Live from Bad Racket series from 2010 through 2011. It is a diverse audio showcase, which includes tracks by Signals Midwest, Nick Zuber, The Family Womack Band, and Thaddeus Anna Greene. [Full track listing available here.]
"I've been planning this for a long time. Basically, since we did the first video I wanted to release the audio," said Thomas Fox, Bad Racket co-owner and studio manager. "It's been two years since I first started thinking about this."
Signals Midwest was the first band to appear in a Live from Bad Racket music video. The group's guitarist and vocalist, Max Stern, recollects his early experiences with the studio.
"I was kind of the guinea pig," Stern said, attributing his Bad Racket introduction to his acquaintance with studio co-founder Adam Wagner. Stern was working at Go Media, a marketing and design agency located two floors above the studio on Lorain Avenue in Ohio City. Wagner invited him and his band to demo some tracks in the recording space, which was still bare-walled and lacking a proper audio control panel. Despite meager aesthetics in the performance chamber, Stern said the pre-session hangouts and listening parties made the difference. He scheduled Signals Midwest for a recording session in October 2010. That month, the Live from Bad Racket series was born with the recording and filming of "In Tensions."
"I didn't know Live from Bad Racket was going to become this big thing," Stern said, adding, "We must have played that song 15 to 20 times that day because the director, Aaron Freeder, only had one camera."
Stern admitted he was sick of the song by end of the day. However, the overall experience and resulting product led to an official recording session for Signals Midwest's full-length album, Latitudes and Longitudes––another first for Bad Racket. [Wagner and Stern recount the experience in this recent Bad Racket blog post and interview.]
"I feel like we got on the ground floor of something really awesome," Stern expressed.
Since then, the band has recorded several smaller projects, including a couple of split 7" records with ally bands French Exit and Shady Ave. Stern even recorded a solo acoustic project, Meridian, at the studio.
"I don't feel the need to go anywhere else," Stern said. Describing Bad Racket's recording process as "open, communicative," he explained, "I felt really taken care of as a musician, like they wanted the output to sound as good as I wanted it to."
Launch event – Part I
Signals Midwest will headline the first of four launch events to promote the Live from Bad Racket compilation album on Friday, November 16.
"Thomas has put together four really cool shows. Each kind of reflects a different genre so this is kind of the 'punk rock' show," Stern said. "I'm excited we're headlining. I feel like we've been together since the beginning. It's cool to carry it over into this."
Accompanying Signals Midwest for Friday's show are:
- Ma Jolie (Philadelphia, Pa.)
- Worship This! (Cleveland/Akron)
- En Garde (Akron/Kent)
The event will be held at Bad Racket Recording Studio, 4507 Lorain Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44102.
