On a frigid Friday evening last December, the members of
Manos De Plata packed up their equipment, carried it along a narrow gangway and
onto the afterdeck of the Sea Devil, a 140-foot long decommissioned naval
tugboat.
Greeted by Captain Chuck, our awesome host (seriously – how many tugboat-dwelling, beer-pounding physicists do you know?), he guided us below decks.
We came to make a record.
The gents in Manos De Plata had been talking for some months about making our first official recordings – complete with full live instrumentation and friends to help us out – and at some point during the summer we came to the conclusion that it would be A) more fun to make a record in a new and unusual way, and B) that it would somehow be more cost-effective to make a record underwater.
Okay, mostly “A”.
We finished loading everything in and got most of it set up in what was once the engine room on Friday. This is a large and surprisingly gorgeous-sounding space, with a floor approximately 7 feet below the waterline.
The following morning, our intrepid and talented engineer, Dean, got microphones placed throughout the room, and after a couple of tweaks (and a lot of coffee) we were up and running.
The object of the game was to record as much of each song live as possible, with all of us performing in the same room together. This is with the understanding that we like bells and whistles (sometimes literally), and that those would be happening later.
Day one was what we could only consider a great success. Going in to this none of us really knew what it would be like to carry all of our equipment over open water and try to make good sounding recordings inside a giant steel hull, but every time we turned around, things kept looking (and sounding) better.
The beer probably helped.
How did it all turn out? You’ll just have to follow along; we may even have something for you to listen to at the end, so that everyone who cares to listen knows whether recording an album in the belly of the Sea Devil is something that can be done.
Special thanks to January for all of the great pictures!