Above: The cassette only release of Blue Margins. We had a CD made to send to WYEP. It cost $30 to burn a CD in 1995.
One of my friends from the graduate school program I was in at Carnegie Mellon brought her friend, Ray Chick, to one of our gigs. Chick taught a recording class at Carnegie Mellon over the summer for high school kids and said he was always looking for bands that were willing to help out. I offered our services on the spot, took his phone number, and called him every week to remind him and ask when he was having the class. He didn’t return many of my calls, and I got pretty anxious that this was going to fall through.
Chick was clear that he thought we would be able to record at least one song. He was planning to teach the class how to record multi-track, but I was hell-bent on recording six songs – enough to release an EP and try to get some attention for our band.
When Chick finally called me to set up the recording session, I was a little surprised. Could this really be happening?
In July, we had two nights in the studio, which was actually a classroom in the fine arts building at Carnegie Mellon, starting at 6:00 p.m. We had one night to lay down tracks and another night to mix. For me at the time, laying down the basic tracks for six songs in one night seemed possible. Durty Nelly had done something similar a few years before. At that point, we had only been playing out for five months. So we practiced our best six songs and had them ready to cut in one take.
At that time, I also did something else for the first time. I called mom my and asked to borrow some money to buy a new guitar. It was a decent amount of money. She agreed, and I went to Pittsburgh Guitars and bought a Rickenbacker 12-string, just like Roger McGuinn. I don't remember thinking about it or doing research or asking anyone's opinion. I just needed that guitar in the studio. I play it on "Belfast," "Back on the Flat," and "Grounded." I tried to play it just like my Strat, and it sounds like I'm struggling at times, but it also gave us a distinctive sound.
Anyway, the most we played any song was three times. Several were first takes. It was high stress. We had to load in, set up, sound check, and play each song perfectly. I don’t think I could do it now. We didn’t get out of there until after midnight.
I remember Marc overdubbed a few vocals, and the harmonica on “Back on the Flat.” I don’t recall overdubbing a single guitar note. What I thought was youthful humility and artistic purity, I didn’t believer in overdubs, effects, or guitar pedals, was actually arrogance and laziness. For a long time when I listened to Blue Margins I thought I sounded like an amateur. My tone was thin, and it was obvious that I was winging it on the solos.
Now when I think back on recording Blue Margins I think of how gracious Ray Chick was to allow us to plow through those songs, even though it probably made it not as much of a learning experience for his students. It was a selfish move on my part.
But like the lyrics to "Belfast," “I don’t worry that much who’s living on the other side of the wall.” When I listen to Blue Margins now, I’m really impressed. It doesn’t sound dated at all. The Blackwells had a jazzy feel that I never recognized when we were playing together. There is a lot of interaction between the four of us. I don’t hear what my parts lack. I just hear it as part of the whole that it is. That is the sound of The Blackwells – Marc Nelson, Andrew Plonsky, Steve Everett, and me playing together. Like a finger prints, no two bands are the same.
And it got played on the radio!
Of course my opinion is subjective, and highly biased. I was in the band.