John Montagna: Blog

A rainy Thursday in NYC, perfect weather for bringing Francesca to the Party Gym.  Just spent a weekend in Florida, visiting dear friends and going to Disneyworld!  Say what you want about Disney; as a parent bringing their child to an amusement park for the day, they've got it down to a science.  Clean, efficient, perfect.  And my daughter had plenty of magical moments to brighten her sweet face: meeting Pooh & Tigger, Cinderella, and of course The Mouse Himself.  And no major meltdowns!  

It is a life that I am proud to provide for her, and easily the life that I would have wished for when I was 25.  And I'm thinking about 25 only because I've ben listening with fresh ears to "Enjoy Your Dessert," my first solo album that I recorded at that tender age back in the summer of 1997.  After avoiding that disc for many years and being hyper-critical of myself, for some reason I am now able to appreciate it for what it is: me, at 25, bringing my first batch of "good" songs to a proper studio and going hog-wild all by myself (with super-engineer Charlie Martinez and a few select guests here & there).  Any flaws that I can pick out now are only a result of my own inexperience and naivete.  (It's not easy being green.)  But I'm pleasantly surprised at how well my songwriting holds up (IMHO), and I was not shy about throwing down some fat moving basslines!  

The short backstory is that I was reacting to some of the recording sessions I'd been doing in NYC back in 97.  ProTools was just starting to take over, but the technology was still very new and most engineers didn't know how to handle it, so mots of the tracks sounded like caca-doody-poopoo: cold, metallic, harsh and artificial.  I was also tired of being told what to play, how to play, and being buried in the final mix.  I needed to blow off some steam and DO MY OWN THING. 

So "Enjoy Your Dessert" was all me, all the time, recorded on 2-inch analog 24 track tape.  All edits were done with a razor and sticky tape.  When I put the fretless thru my MXR phaser pedal, the phaser was "printed" to the track and not sent to "another track just in case."  (Just in case…what?  I've decided that I want the phaser, and I'm not changing my mind!  Time's a-wasting, let's go!)  Creative decisions were made quickly, and lived with.  And 13 years later, there are few (if any) regrets.  

If you're curious to hear what me at 25 was all about, "Enjoy Your Dessert" is still available here.  And 2013 marks the 15th anniversary of EYD, which ought to mean some kind of commemorative re-release, right?  Hmm, I still have the tape reels…

"Don't die with your music still in you."

- Wayne Dyer

Be well

JM