Ghostfaces & Fishscales

The new Ghostface Killa album titled "Fishscale" came out today and my name is all over it. I wrote, produced and performed on 4 cuts, and on another song Pete Rock produced, I played all the instruments. I think it has a chance at debuting #1 on the R&B/Hip Hop albums charts, but I'm betting that TI's new album will hold Ghostface at bay. We'll know in a week i suppose.

Anyway, I had alot of fun working on that album. the stuff i did for the album is not your typical. I did all these skits that sound like old 1950's TV suspense music, but it's original music. It was really fun. Here's a little clip...

Ghostface - Ms.SweetwaterSkit.mp3

Enjoy
-Ken

Birds

4:30am. Must be getting to real Spring weather, I hear birds outside just starting to wake up. I need to get out of this studio and sleep.
I just finished the final mix on a song i'm producing for Australian rockers XTortYa. Super duper hot hot hot stuff. I hope they like the final version. I just sent them the mix. fingers crossed. They are on my friends list on my MySpace page if ya'll wanna check em out. Dont know when the new song will be posted though. my MySpace page is www.myspace.com/protoolsmixing

Couple days ago i finished my second mix for Japanese label Avex new pop artist Masaya Wada. He's got some really great material, i think his album is going to be big over in Japan. That would be great! One of these days I'll find a client who wants to fly me to Japan to mix a record. I'll be there in a heartbeat.
I'm supposed to start mixing a bunch of new songs this week for an artist named Sullee on Atlantic umbrella label Old South End. His first single (which i mixed), is starting to build nicely at radio. I think his album will be really good, cant wait to get the next song in my hands.
I got a sample recreation in to do today. A REALLY difficult old Motown sample. I'm gonna be sweatin bullets on this one, but i guess if it was easy, they'd call someone else. I'll be evoking the spirit of Barry Gordy this week for sure. Barry, if your listening out there, send me your good vibes.
And as is a perpetual thing here, I'm doing some really nice studio upgrades last week and this week. As long as the work is coming in, I'll always be investing some of that income back into my studio and my career. OK, gotta get outta here and try to get some sleep before these birds keep me awake the rest of the night.
-Ken Lewis

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Cleansing

writing can be good for the soul. I wrote alot tonight. not music. just words. not lyrics, just thoughts, memories, letting old things go, thinking about new things to come, reflecting on the path that has brought me to this place. This place in my career, in my life, on the globe.

I sometimes ponder the turns life can take. I try not to dwell on it, or over-analyze it, but sometimes you just gotta wonder "what if i would have taken that job", "what if i didnt land that internship in Boston that literally laid the groundwork for a big chunk of my career". "What if i hadnt been fired from that engineering job in Dayton, Ohio".

Yep, i was an intern at a few places. I did all the shit work, and i tried to never complain and to do my crappy job well. I was thrilled to be in a professional studio environement doing anything at all!!!

Yep, i was once a staff engineer at Refraze Studios in Dayton, Ohio, and I got "let go", because they wanted to bring in someone "better" than me to open a new room. First, i wonder if the guy that fired me still thinks the other guy was a better choice than me, and second, i've gotta thank the guy that fired me for doing me a tremendously huge favor and helping me more quickly and definitively make up my mind to get my ass to New York City and make a name for myself.

I wonder if Soundtrack Studios in New York would have hired me if Dante Gioia hadnt walked right by me in the lobby when i was waiting to interview. Long story, too long to tell tonight.

I wonder where i'd be now if in 1995 i hadn't decided to go freelance, even though at the time i had no clients, and was working on an outside project that was paying me very little. Best decision i ever made. I believed in myself, I believed it was the right thing to do, and i believed i would find a way to be successful. It worked out ok.

Its crazy thinking of the series of people and events who, tied together, have taken me thru the series of twists and turns that landed me here. I'll start at 8 years old, and hit some of the most important ones. None of you will care about any of this, but its fun for me to think about.

My Mom and Dad - Bruce Hutton - Jeff Martin - Coach Cummins - Berklee - Steve Wheeler - Dante Gioia - Carl Beatty - Soundtrack Studios Boston - Refraze Studios - Soundtrack New York - Troy Hightower - Tony Maserati - Lesley Kirby - Sherry Johnson - David Crafa - Malik Pandleton - Mike Mangini - Just Blaze - Joe Hedges - Troy Brown - Kanye West - Dylan Wissing - David Ashby - Brent Kolatalo - Ric Aliberte.

I'm certainly leaving out a TON of people who truly matter to my career, and this isnt an exact straight timeline, but i can honestly say, though some of these people are good, and some bad (like my former manager who was arrested for fraud, ugh), each of these people and places made me take a turn in the road. I could have gone one way, i went another. and here i am. Maybe i'm in the best place i could be, maybe i could be much further if only, or maybe i'd be selling shoes without that one link in the chain.

The things that have always remained a constant, the glue thats held the chain together, maybe pulled the chain together, the compass thats guided my decisions and my path, are my work ethic, sense of business ethics, a sense that big rewards will only come from big risks and so will big failures, the ability to learn and grow from both my successes and my failures, and maybe a little talent sprinkled in.

This post has been very cleansing, and I'm finally tired enough to sleep. Tomorrow will be a great day, I feel it.

-Ken Lewis

Defining Moments

There have been many moments in my career when i knew i was working on something very special. Tonight is one of those nights. I'm mixing an E-Dro song tonight that he wrote about Hurricane Katrina. As i was deeply affected by what i saw happen to New Orleans and its people, E-dro was equally moved by what transpired especially during the first week after Katrina. About 3 weeks after it hit, E-dro and I were in London working on new material. I had a beat that he wanted to write to, a really dramatic piece of music, really intricate string arrangement, driving drum pattern. E-dro knew he wanted to write an important story to the beat. Originally he was going to rhyme about Freedom Fighters, and he had been researching and learning as much as he could about them, then Katrina hit and everything changed.

E-dro was a bit mad at the lack of real news coverage, but of course most unbelievable was the complete lack of government response. So, one evening in London, I found a copy of an Oprah broadcast online, when she went down to New Orleans very shortly after they got all those people out of the Superdome. I was struck by how much i learned about what had really happened just from her broadcast. I mean, here is someone who isnt even a newscaster (though she used to be), and she captured the real story of New Orleans and the devastation of its city and people, the mind boggling lack of government aid, and the real human tragedy. she captured a story nobody else had come close to telling. The next morning i took a one day vacation to Rome, and left my laptop with E-dro, with the Oprah broadcast on it for him to watch, and some other info bookmarked, and left him alone to write for a day. When i came back, he had written "Katrina". At some point after the album is released, I'll post it on my site. Its going to be the B-side of the first single, so once its released, I'll ask the record label if they mind if i post it.

So, this song isnt a single, and there's been enough time passed since Katrina that its not a timely news story, but i still know i'm working on something very special because even though by now I've heard this song 500 times, it still does to me now, what it did the first time i heard it. I am nearly paralyzed listening to this song sometimes, and every time i sit and really listen to it, I can visualize those images E-dro paints of New Orleans like it happened yesterday. Anyway, like i said, there have been many defining moments in my career, this song on a very personal level is one of them. This song, I'll look back on when i'm 70 years old and be exceptionally proud of. I hope the rest of you get to hear it very soon. Now i'd better go finish the mix of it.
-Ken Lewis

MySpace / My Work / My Speakers

Several quick things to cover.......

first off, don't foget i finally took the plunge and joined Myspace. So if your on there, drop me a hello, www.MySpace.com/protoolsmixing

or well, you can always drop me a line at this site, thats what people usually do.

Also, i was getting alot of studio questions, tech questions, etc.... for a while here. I'm always up for trying to answer these types of questions on my Blog when i get a chance, so if there's something you wanna ask, or something you think would be a good topic to Blog about, hit me up. Also, i did a really good Q&A with a website called Bandzoogle.com. its definitely worth reading and I have it linked on the blog post titled "Q and A" from a few weeks ago. check it out.

I am currently doing, about to do, or have very recently done mixes and/or production with artists from San Francisco, Texas, Toronto, Vancouver, Japan (Tokyo i think), Argentina, UK, Washington DC, Germany, Cayman Islands, New York, Boston, Cincinnati, LA, Australia, Thailand, and i dont even know where Ced is from. Ced, where are you from? Well, your beats certainly sound worldwide.

I am in one of those creative spurts where every time i walk away from the studio, i want to go straight back. Its the kind of thing that keeps me up til 5am and 6am wrapping up mixes, writing a blog post, and coming back to the studio at noon to do it all again the next day for an insane amount of hours that always seem to go very quickly. Its a wonderful feeling right now, because sometimes i dread making records. I still do it during those times, because lets face it, how many people can say they EVER love their job let alone that they love it about 90% of the time. I'd say i love my job 90% of the time, and I'm grounded enough to stay focused the other 10%. OK, i do lapse sometimes, but i do realize that everyone who hires me expects 100%, and every time thats what i try to give.

In other news, Event is sending me some new speakers to check out. Cant wait to get my hands on them. I endorse Event. Not because they give me free shit, cause i bought and used Events for YEARS before they endorsed me. I endorse them because i cant count how many times artists and producers have sat down in front of my speakers to hear a mix and said "I love your speakers, the mix sounds amazing". In fact, it happened again tonight with a producer on an indie label rock project.
-Ken Lewis


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