Tag: Andrew Zuchero

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South By Southwest was awesome this year!  March in Texas is still in my opinion the best weather in the world, and it was so nice to get to see so many friends all in one place.  Parquet Courts killed it, and Daniel Francis Doyle’s new band blew my mind… so much good stuff going on….

The Apocalypse won best in program at SXSW, following a strong showing at Sundance.  But maybe the coolest thing about this short is that while hanging in Austin, I caught up with my childhood babysitter and was telling her what I’d been up to.  When I told her the premise of The Apocalypse, her jaw dropped, and she told me that her son had come home one day and showed it to her on Youtube, and that it had sparked a long conversation about information overload in our lives…  SO COOL!!!

The Apocalypse is hitting a bunch of other festivals too, check it out:
Sundance London
Dallas International Film Festival (this weekend!)
Sarasota Film Festival (also this weekend!)
Florida Film Festival (ALSO this weekend!!)
Rincon International Film Festival
Bradfrod International Film Festival

The Fuzz Press Conference

The Fuzz debuted at SXSW, as part of the new Yahoo! Screen (along with a new show by Tenacious D).  There was a great sneak-preview event with the creators and stars (including Herbie and Rainbow) – with jellybeans!  The crowd reaction was great, and I’m really excited for everyone to get to see this.  The first episode will be premiering next month, but you can check out the trailer now.

Wind & Rain, the debut EP by Wild Leaves, is out now.  The limited-edition vinyl comes in a lovely hand-printed cover, which you can stream and purchase on their Bandcamp page.  They’ve also made a couple videos, check ’em out!

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The new Thin Hymns EP (which I mastered) is available for pre-order.  It’s called Black Water, and you can stream it and purchase a cassette copy at their Bandcamp page.

I’ve been keeping busy in the meantime – working on a master by slowcore shoegazers Vibrant Light, and doing sound design for a new Intel ad campaign.  I also started working on a new musical project with my buddy Bob Jones called Eaters… expect an EP in the next couple months!  So psyched about this…

Thanks for checking out the site – please drop me a line if you’d like to talk sound!  jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com

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coracaotexano

I’m heading down to my beloved Austin, TX this weekend for the South By Southwest film festival!  The Apocalypse, a short film by Andrew Zuchero (which I sound designed and mixed), will be showing a few times, and I’m very excited to see it on the big screen!

Another project of mine showing during the festival is the mini-series/feature The Fuzz, directed by Duncan Skiles.  I spent a big chunk of my winter months cranking away at this thing, and am so psyched to see it in action…. think the Muppets meet Goodfellas…  There’s a special screening of the first episode Monday March 11th at Brazos Hall @ 3PM, which you better believe I’ll be at!

In anticipation of all this, I’ve put together a new demo reel – CHECK IT OUT!!

Parquet Courts are playing some sick shows down there too (including the closing party with Kendrick Lamar and Black Lips?!).  They have a new single for “Borrowed Time” coming out March 18th on Rough Trade/What’s Your Rupture?, with two previously-unreleased b-sides from the Light Up Gold sessions.  One of ’em, “Smart Aleck Kid”, hit the web earlier this week:

I’ve been working on a variety of other projects since wrapping The Fuzz… I finished work restoring and remastering the Del Shannon-produced Brett Smiley tapes, and mixed a long-lost single by little-known glam-rock band Fa Bonx, both for What’s Your Rupture.  I’m mixing a couple short films when I get back, and working on a couple albums in April… very excited about spring!!

Thanks for checking this out…  and please get in touch if you wanna talk sound or hang in Austin: jonathan[dot]schenke[at]gmail[com]  Thanks again!!

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The Apocalypse is happening at South By Southwest!  After premiering at this year’s Sundance festival, the short by Andrew Zuchero (which I sound designed and mixed) will be part of the Midnight Shorts program.  I’ve never been to the film festival part of SXSW, and am really looking forward to being a part of it!  There’s another project (still under wraps) that I mixed debuting at SXSW, and I’m really excited to see 12 O’Clock Boys, which is currently doing a fundraising campaign to finish post production…. help out if you can!

I’m sticking around for the music festival to hang with my boys Parquet Courts, who are playing a buttload of shows this year.  The love for Light Up Gold keeps flowing,  with prominent voices like Rolling Stone, NPR, The Guardian, Village Voice, and Sound Opinion’s Jim DeRegotis showing their enthusiasm.  Can’t wait to do some more recording with them soon.

Wild Leaves EP Cover

Wild Leaves are releasing a 12″ EP on March 26th called Wind & Rain.  We recorded this to a Tascam 388 upstate in a quonset hut leading up to Hurricane Sandy, which was a totally fun and bizarre experience.  They’ve debuted the title track, which has already got some nice press… check out this review and interview.  The artwork is hand-drawn and assembled, and it sounds like it will be one of those lovingly-crafted packages that will be a treat to pull out and listen to.

I recently mastered an EP for Chicago buddies Thin Hymns recently called Black Water.  It’s for a cassette/download release coming out soon… really cool stuff!

Recording Forest Fire

The new Forest Fire record – tentatively titled Monorail – is currently being mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Mastering.  Listening through this album again got me soooooo so excited – I can’t wait for everyone to hear this one.  It will be released later this year on Fat Cat, and check out these photos of us recording in the meantime.

Sweet Talk Cover

The new Sweet Talk record Pickup Lines got some serious love from one of my all-time record store and Chicago homies, Permanent Records: “YES!!! REAL IN YOUR FACE ROCK N ROLL GOODNESS, we couldn’t agree more.  Fans of the Bad Sports / Mind Spiders / OBN IIIs / ViDEO tangle of Austin garage / punk bands will no doubt need to grab Sweet Talk’s Pickup Lines.  But those who, like us, have an affinity / addiction to loud catchy guitar rock along the lines of Dinosaur Jr, Redd Kross, Pavement and the Makers definitely won’t need to get sweet talked into grabbing Pickup Lines.  This is a rowdy rock n roll time just like those other great Lone Star state heroes, Moving Sidewalks, ZZ Top and 13th Floor Elevators.  So crank up the volume and get ready to have a blast.  We nabbed a stack of the super limited white vinyl version (only 100 pressed), so don’t sleep on it.  SWEETLY RECOMMENDED.”  Hell yeah!

Dumb Fun Cover

And I totally spaced on posting this earlier, but The Keepsies got a 7″ pressing of the Dumb Fun single on Chrome Waves Records and a review from Impose Magazine.  The Keepsies are Austin from Parquet Courts, Jason from Fergus & Geronimo, and Vince of His Own Bad Self… I love these songs, and there are a bunch more where they came from.  Pick up a copy of one here while you can!

I’ve got a bunch of cool stuff on the horizons, and I’ve added a bunch of links to different projects throughout this site, so please feel free to check things out.  Write me at jonathan.schenke [at] gmail.com if you’d like to chat, and THANKS FOR READING!

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parquet courts band photo

Light Up Gold has been re-issued on What’s Your Rupture (home of Royal Headache and Iceage), and Parquet Courts have officially blown the fuck up.  I couldn’t be more thrilled – not only did the record turn out better than any of us had imagined, but all four of these guys are amazing people.  The album currently has an 87% rating on Metacritic, including a 5/5 review by the Guardian, a 9/10 in NME, and a host of other glowing reviews. Pitchfork threw their muscle behind the band with a super-positive review and a Rising feature.   Light Up Gold and the first single “Borrowed Time” made their way onto a number of Pitchfork’s year-end staff lists, and eMusic voted the band #1 Band to Watch in 2013 and and the album the #15th Best Album of 2012.

Most humbling of all, the band named ME one of the best things in 2012 in Pitchfork’s year-end Guest List…. I’m blushing now as I type this….   I can’t wait to see what else is in store for these guys this year – we were already thrilled with the work we had done and looking forward to the next one, but now more so than ever.  Hold onto yr butts.

Sweet Talk‘s new album Pickup Lines is out now on Gerald Cosloy’s (of Matador Records and Homestead Records fame) label 12XU.  I was introduced to these guys through the Parquet Courts and Wiccans albums, and mixed the record this past fall.  Think “the best parts of Cheap Trick, early UK power pop and the dual guitar work of Thin Lizzy.”  There’s a video for the song “Last Dance” above, and you can stream the title track over at the label’s Soundcloud page.

I’ve been doing a lot of sound design work recently, working on a feature and a couple shorts, including The Apocalypse by Andrew Zuchero, which just debuted at Sundance Film Festival.  Sundance has shared the short (along with a handful of others) in its entirety, which you can stream above!  It’s been really fun digging into these projects, and while some of the info on the others is still hush-hush, we’re really hoping to be screening and premiering them at festivals soon… I’ll keep you posted!

One of the sound design projects I worked on last year, Reggie Watts‘ A Live in Central Park (for Comedy Central), made it onto Vulture’s Top 10 Stand-Up Specials.  It was a really fun project to work on – the director Duncan Skiles did an amazing job blending all these different elements together – and I hope more people get a chance to see it!

Field II Cover

And one of my favorite records that I worked on last year, Wiccans’ Field II, got some year-end nods as well.  It was Magnet’s #5 Punk/Hardcore Record of 2012 and A.V. Club’s #7 Loud Record of 2012, as well as making Parquet Courts’ Pitchfork Guest-List.  If you haven’t heard this bad boy yet, check it out.

2013 is already shaping up to be an amazing year!  I’ve got a number of exciting projects coming up over the next couple months, and a number of projects I did in 2012 should be coming out soon… I’m seriously excited.  If you wanna get in touch, please just write me at jonathan.schenke[at]gmail.com – thanks, as always, for reading this!

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I got some exciting news this week: The Apocalypse – a short film by Andrew Zuchero, which I sound-designed and mixed – will be premiering at Sundance in January!  It was such a fun project to work on, and I think it turned out truly great… I’m very happy about this.  “Four uninspired friends try to come up with a terrific idea for how to spend their Saturday afternoon”, starring Martin Starr from Party Down and Freaks and Geeks and Ella Rae Peck of Gossip Girl fame.

The love for Light Up Gold by Parquet Courts continues to pour in! Time Magazine just named the opener “Master of My Craft” its #5 song of the year (better than Skrillex, almost as good as Taylor Swift). Stereogum has gotten behind it too, premiering the titular track and ranking the LP as the 49th Best Album of the Year.  NICE!  What’s Your Rupture is re-releasing Light Up Gold (on CD as well) just in time for their tour this winter (check out their site for details).

Since their signing, I’ve had the opportunity to work with Kevin, the owner of WYR and all-around cool guy.  One project he brought me on board for is a restoration of a recording by Brett Smiley.  I was unfamiliar with who this was, but Kevin schooled me pretty quickly – teenage glam heart-throb who worked with Del Shannon and then Andrew Loog Oldham, recorded a LP, then had it shelved for 30 years.  The album Breathlessly Brett was finally released in 2004, but these tapes are from before then, when Brett was working with Del Shannon (of Runaway fame).  It features 5 recordings done with Shannon (3 of which are previously unreleased) and some unheard demos…. needless to say, it’s been a cool project to work on.

Another recording to recently resurface is the original Hindu Windmills by Elephant Micah.  Joe O’Connell (E.M.) and I recorded this eight(!) years ago, late at night in a performance hall on the Northwestern campus, while we were working on the Mittens on Strings album Look Up the Sky!! (another album worth revisiting).  Joe wasn’t thrilled with his performances, and as we were discussing what to do with them, a mutual friend accidentally leaked the mixes, which quickly spread across the Internet.  In response, Joe re-recorded the songs himself, which were released a couple years later on Time Lag.  As the years have passed and water has flowed under the bridges, Joe decided to put our sessions online for posterity.  I found the original mixes, did a quick remaster, and they are now available online for a donation as the Hindu Windmills: First Sessions.  I have to say that while I can hear the tiredness at times, and that I will always be disappointed that these songs leaked the way they did, I’m really pleased to have them properly out in the world now – they’re great recordings of wonderful songs.

If you’re free tonight and around the NYC area, come to Glasslands to celebrate the release of Fort Lean’s new EP Change Your Name, and see why the New York Times recently gushed: “Three or four decades ago, Fort Lean would have been a mainstream success spawning emulators. Nowadays it’s a one of one, not that anyone should bother trying to compete.”  Patrick from Chairlift (who produced the EP) will be DJing, and Ludwig Persik (who recently released an awesome self-titled EP) and Cruiser open.

Thanks so much for reading through this!  I sincerely hope you like this stuff as much as I sincerely do.  If you’d like to talk about sound or come check out Doctor Wu’s, please drop me a line: jonathan[dot]schenke[at]gmail[dot]com

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I just finished mixing the new record by Forest Fire for Fat Cat Records this weekend.  We started the initial recording two months ago in mid-September at Tree Time Studio, which was awesome.  Since then, we’ve been doing overdubs and mixing at Doctor Wu’s, with some preliminary editing and mixing at my place.  I’m really excited about this record, my first proper producer credit!  It’s a good batch of catchy songs with inventive arrangements, with some krautrock and glam flair… I really tried to channel my Inner Eno on this one.  I can’t wait for people to hear this.

A couple weeks ago, I did sound design and mixing for a short film called The Apocalypse.  It stars Martin Starr (from Party Down and Freaks and Geeks) and Ella Rae Peck (of Gossip Girl fame), and was written and directed by Andrew Zuchero.  It’s about the end of the world (duh), and was so much fun to work on.  I don’t want to spoil things, but some of the sounds I was doing Foley for were pretty unbelievable   The Apocalypse will hopefully be making the rounds on the festival circuit this spring.

I also worked with Andrew last month on a series of Intel spots, which you can view at the Intel Ultrabook site.  It’s really hard and fun to do sound design with no music!!

The new Fort Lean EP Change Your Name is out tomorrow.  I co-engineered some of the sessions (the initial drum/bass sessions and some guitar overdubs) along with Jake Aron from the band (and Doctor Wu’s).  It was produced by Patrick Wimberly from Chairlift, and mixed by Michael Brauer – pretty fucking hi-fi!  Check out a couple songs on Stereogum and MTV.

I recently had the opportunity to do another recording upstate, this time with the band Wild Leaves.  We borrowed my friend Austin’s Tascam 388 to record an EP in a quonset hut, and spent a long weekend recording and hanging out by the campfire.  It was a great camp-out style adventure, until Hurricane Sandy came and I ran back to Brooklyn!

Before that, I worked with Jeffrey Gray Somers on an EP of solo material.  We did the basic tracking at Seaside Lounge, and are wrapping up vocals and mixing at Doctor Wu’s in the next few weeks.  It was awesome to be back at Seaside Lounge (were we did Funky Was the State of Affairs), and it’ll be cool to work some Wu magic to the tracks.   You can hear some of his stuff as Jung Bulls on Last.FM

I also recently mastered the new I Ching Quartet record Birdsongs at Doctor Wu’s.  I worked on a few of their records back in Chicago, and I can say with certainty it’s their best yet.

If you haven’t heard the new Parquet Courts LP Light Up Gold yet, do it now.  We tracked it back in February on a Tascam 388 (3 days), mixed it at my place (2 days), and I mastered it after the first one got messed up (1/2 day).  I’ve been a total fan of the LP since we started working on it – it’s one of the best punk records I’ve heard in a long time – and it’s awesome to see all the attention its been getting since it came out in August.  Check out all the kind words from Pitchfork, Stereogum (it’s in their Heavy Rotation), eMusic and Aquarium Drunkard that I’ve seen recently.

Another record that’s been getting some (well-deserved) love is Field II by Wiccans.  I mixed it at Doctor Wu’s this summer, and it’s just an awesome, heavy, brainy beast of a hardcore record.  The AV Club just nominated it the second best Loud album of the month and called it “one of the most intriguing, ambitious, ass-kicking hardcore records of the year”.  They’re almost sold out of the first pressing (which will hopefully be repressed, because they’re beautiful objects), which you can buy (or download for free) here.

I’ve got lots of cool stuff on the calendar, which I’m really looking forward to.  If you ever want to check out Doctor Wu’s or just talk about sound stuff, hit me up: jonathan [dot] schenke [at] gmail [dot] com.  And thanks, as always, for taking the time to read this.