The Compiled Stories Of Media Jeweler About Their Experiences In Omaha
By Keith Walsh
There are epic tales in rock lore about the experiences bands recording albums. But they often are only part of oral history or found in self-serving autobiographies. I have documented the experiences of Media Jeweler, as they recorded their album The Sublime Sculpture Of Being, in 2019, at the Enamel Studio in Omaha, Nebraska.
The Sublime Sculpture Of Being features electric performances and captures lighting in a bottle of this talented art rock, post-punk band at work.
First, we turn to vocalist/guitarist Sam Farzin.
Sam Farzin: “Yeah. I think it’s kind of a fun album story. Oftentimes, in band bios, there will be like this like extended story about how the album was recorded. I usually think those are not very interesting stories and, not because I think like I’m better than them or anything… I think the origin stories of the record cycles can often be like overwrought and I think ours is even over a little bit overall. I think the story is somewhat interesting because Graham plays in the band of The Faint…So he joined the band when their original keyboard player left like five or six years ago and … they had a studio in Omaha called Enamel and then over the last five years, they’ve all like, slowly moved away from Omaha. I think only one of the guys still in there, and so, I think in 2018, 2019, or maybe even, 2018, he sold, the studio to this other guy looking for local, Omaha guy that maybe like owned a bar and maybe some other property and the guy I think, thought he was really kind of turned into, like a really hot studio in town, and it was like a nice too. But instead he just like kind of abandoned it for a year or two and he didn’t really touch it so other than like, kind of stripping some of the nicer gear and selling it, I think.”
Sleeping At Enamel
“Yeah, so when we, when we were going to record this album Graham was living in Omaha, and Graham’s going to record it. He’s going to produce it. And so we and as ‘why don’t we just going you guys come to Omaha and we recorded at Enamel’ and then that became like, wait, ‘can we just sleep at Enamel?’ Yeah, we ended up camping out inside of it, as soon as we got there. It was very clear that like, no one had been there in a long time….Yeah. it was super musty. There was sawdust and drywall dust everywhere. There were like a bunch of leaks like every day, there was a new leak in a different room. The power was really dirty and lights will flash when they’re turned on. The recording board didn’t work because of water damage. So we’re living there and practicing every day and then recording. …We didn’t actually start recording until the last three days. We were there because Graham was on tour with The Faint and we actually picked him up from the airport and drove into the studio and he started recording. He’s starting recording setup like right then, and then we ran through everything really fast in three days.”
Punkrockbeat: Was this one of those experiences where having limits inspired creativity?
Sam Farzin: “I mean, I think so. I think all of our other two records were recorded in fully recorded and mixed completely in three days. So we always had these like really intense time crunches for recording and I think you know, it produces like a thing with sounds like it’s under high pressure.”
Next I talked to bassist Thom Lucero about his experience at Enamel in Omaha.
Thom Lucero: “Well, I don’t know, I guess just like it was it was wild and how sort of it was just kind of a crazy move to do. We were all kind of living different places at the time. Our guitarist. James was living in Omaha. So we kind of all went there. And. Yeah. It was The Faint studio. And, but it had been kind of like forgotten. It seems like, like, all the stuff is just kind of sitting there. Like it hadn’t been…like, the roofs are leaking. There are these weird noises that were picked up by the, by the mics, you know…. paranormal. The place didn’t really have any windows, you know, and we just kind of like settled in there with like 20-something demos and just like played for like five or six hours a day, every day.”
“And yeah, and since Sam and I were working like remotely for the company. (Farzin and Lucero work remotely for a pharmecutical company specializing in birth control). We were kind of going in the same coffee shop every morning. They definitely got to know us do. It was just kind of like a funny like, relocating of our lives, you know.”
Punkrockbeat: Was there beer involved?
Thom Lucero: “There was a lot of beer, we actually counted. And I think Sam actually probably remembers that number. I don’t remember how much it was.”
Guitarist James Aranda gave his detailed views of the recording of The Sublime Sculpture Of Being as well as providing the photos for this article.
James Aranda: “The first time I visited Enamel was for practice with Graham’s band, Thick Paint. I was subbing for Sarah while she was on tour with David Nance in Europe. At that time, the ceilings weren’t leaking, and I was really excited about the potential of the space. Graham had told me about The Faint selling the space, and said he’d contacted the buyer about becoming an in-house engineer, and said I could probably do the same. He wasn’t sure what was going to be done with the building, though.”
“When we landed on recording somewhere in Omaha, I talked to Graham about it and he threw out a couple options, one of them being Enamel. Graham contacted the new owner about it again, to see if we could potentially rent out the space. He agreed, and Graham and I went to check out the studio before he left to tour with The Faint. We weren’t sure what gear we would have access to, since they were moving out and taking a lot of the gear with them. But really, the only thing we needed was a space to be able to practice and write the album. Graham assured us that, even if the gear at the studio didn’t work, he could record us by bringing his home recording setup to the studio.”
“Graham went off on that tour, and Sam, Thom, and Bryson arrived shortly after. I hadn’t seen them in half a year and we were about to embark on this record writing process, and none of us knew exactly what that would entail. It was exciting.”
‘A Comical Thing‘
“I think the ceiling started leaking at some point after we moved in. We set out some buckets. The only concerning leak was the one in the control room, but it was far away enough from anything electrical where it was more just a comical thing we would point out every once in a while. We only had a couple weeks to write and rehearse, so we were mostly focused on that. It was an intensive process. Sam, Thom and I were all working during the day (Sam and Thom did remote customer service and I was doing security at one of Omaha’s art museums), and we’d come back to the studio afterwards and work on the record, go to sleep, and did that for two weeks. It was rough, but I think Bryson might have had it rougher, because he was just waiting around all day for us.”
“Graham got home from The Faint tour and we picked him up from Omaha’s airport, and took him straight to the studio to set up. We started recording the next day. We just had four days to track, because we wanted to use one day to practice for our tour. We tracked the core of the songs live (guitars, bass and drums) over the first couple of days. Then we had a day for Megan and some guitar overdubs, and a day for vocals. We had to record with the lights off, because otherwise there was an overwhelming amount of buzz. So that’s why it sounds so dark. Graham hadn’t been with us during the recording process, so there was no synth, which is kind of hard to imagine, listening to the record, it’s such an integral element. Graham fine tuned his parts on the tour and dubbed them once we got back. We ended up re-recording Sam’s vocals at our previous drummer Colin’s studio in Anaheim, Paradise, months later. I’d moved back at that point and I recorded some more harmonies.”
“The condition of the studio contributed to the sound of the record. I don’t want to characterize the space as dilapidated, it surely had its issues, but for $800 we were given access to this studio for a month, and didn’t have to worry about anyone else needing to use the space while we were there, which was so crucial for our circumstance. The privacy we had is absolutely invaluable, I’m so grateful we had this rare opportunity, and I don’t know how else we could have accomplished what we did, if not for this space.”
Media Jeweler .com
Media Jeweler At Bandcamp
The Faint At Bandcamp
Thick Paint At Bandcamp
Enamel Studio On Facebook
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