Almost all the songs on this site were recorded live in the basement studio at Bad Name Records. The performance ethic and aesthetics are traditional to the roots era.

The electric guitars are all straight into Fender amplifiers, mostly old Deluxe models, and no effects chain. Most frequently the bass is through a Fender Bassman. The drums are Ludwig Club Dates (as seen on the cover of ‘The Best of The Sir Douglas Quintet’ if you look closely). Acoustic guitars are recorded by microphones. It’s easy and cheap but, most importantly, is fair representation of the inputs for many great sounding recordings from when I was growing up.

The actual recording regime is a different matter altogether and reflects the relentless march of technology that lowers barriers and makes sophisticated tools, way more than we know how to use, available to such as us here at Bad Name Records.

That said there is very little signal processing and, with the exception of the Mill Ends tracks, very little overdubbing. All instruments are recorded discreetly with pretty decent microphones through a firewire interface to a laptop DAW.

Other than some EQ not always artfully applied and a bit of volume adjustment the recordings as presented here pretty much represent what happened in the room at that moment. As such there are numerous slips and wing dipping from time to time but also, from time to time, the sublime as lightning is caught in a bottle.