The Ardent Sessions Podcast | The Ardent Music Blog

The Ardent Sessions with The Black Hollies

04/12/2011 By

Like a child left alone inside of an eggshell colored room, armed with only an assortment of poster paints, my journey to Ardent Studios begins with the echoes of yesterday decorating the walls of my mind. Collectively, we can all agree that it was one great big buffet table, with every visible inch of the surface area filled with sterno fueled aluminum trays. When the trays were opened, The Black Hollies were quite more than pleased to see the contents inside contained genuine enthusiasm and most importantly, sincerity and LOVE.

Ever since that first visit back in the Summer of 2008, Memphis, TN has solidified its status as being the band’s second home. When you’re traveling the way our tiny little band does, time passes by rather quickly and memories are sewn into one’s heart, but on those rare occasions, magical moments carve out their place within you and bury themselves deeply inside your soul. A dear close personal friend of mine, Eric Christ, always spoke to me in high school about the Box Tops and Big Star. Little did I know that one day I would find myself positioned inside the embryo. I speak on behalf of the four of us when I say how grateful we are for the staff making our time at Ardent a hospitable and enjoyable one.

The Ardent Sessions with Rainy Day Manual

03/09/2011 By

For years it was just the building across from the little shop with the great gyros.

It’s funny how perspective can drastically change even though our surroundings don’t change much at all. As my musical talents and tastes grew so grew the way I looked at the brick building that housed Ardent Studios. I spent a long time looking in from the outside as a musician in Memphis, but as our band grew and as our sound melded I found myself bumping into Ardent a little more each year. I remember seeing Jason Gillespie at one of our shows in November of 2006. I could tell there was something about that guy but it was until a full two years later that the seed was germinated. I suppose things that are meant to be will stick around one another without always understanding why.

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Filed Under: The Ardent Sessions Podcast Tagged With: Ardent, Ardent Studios, Arts, Jason Gillespie, Memphis, Memphis Tennessee, Music

The Ardent Sessions with Oh No Oh My and Royal Bangs

03/03/2011 By

There really is something about Memphis and Ardent Studios. Driving east on Madison from downtown, the same street Ardent Studios is located on, I pass some of my favorite places in the world: The P and H Café, Murphy’s, the old Antenna, Minglewood Hall, the BBQ Shop, Pho Hoa Bin, Zinny’s, The Lamplighter, Fino’s, Boscos (mmmmmm stock Ale…..), The Blue Monkey, and Kwik Check. I have been lucky enough, many times in fact, to enjoy my “Turk that was Greek” sandwich at Kwik Check, then walk across the street to the world famous Ardent Studios.

I have had the pleasure to work in Studios A, B and C with many different bands and with many amazing producers and engineers. Back in 2001, my band Snowglobe mastered our first full length record with Larry and Kevin Nix. Over the years I have recorded piano, guitar, vocals, and crazy noises both on my own and other folk’s records at Ardent. Back in 2007, Ardent started doing something known as the Ardent Sessions. My bands Oh No Oh My and Antenna Shoes have both been invited to record episodes.

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Filed Under: The Ardent Sessions Podcast Tagged With: Ardent Studios, Blue Monkey, Lamplighter

The Ardent Sessions with Canasta

02/15/2011 By

How can you walk around the streets of Memphis and not write a soul song? It’s almost as if the oxygen there has been permanently bonded to sharp horn stabs floating in the air. As Canasta made our way down I-40 and crossed the Arkansas-Tennessee border, it was as if the ghosts of soul past and present jumped in the car and started humming in our ears.

Our good friend Rachel Hurley (aka Rachelandthecity) had set up an in-studio performance/webcast at Ardent Studios, as well as a show at the Hi-Tone for the evening. We hadn’t played Memphis before, and weren’t sure exactly what to expect. The strong musical history of Memphis was definitely well known by the band, so we were excited to see famous landmarks. But it didn’t truly speak to us till we walked through the hallways of Ardent Studios. Hanging on the walls were gold records by the like of Al Green, Sam and Dave, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. and the MGs , and The Bar-Kays.

The Ardent Sessions with Colour Revolt

02/01/2011 By

Thinking back on recording our Ardent Session with the Colour Revolt, it really sunk in to me how incredible it is that there is a place as successful and still happening as Ardent that is willing to do something as modern as the Ardent Sessions. I have had the pleasure of playing three Ardent Sessions, first with Antenna Shoes then later with Jeffrey James and the Haul, both Memphis based bands, and most recently with the Colour Revolt, whose members are scattered across the mid south.

When I heard that the Colour Revolt were going to be able to do an Ardent Session, I started gushing to all the guys in the band about how incredible a studio Ardent is and how much fun it is getting to walk around and just look at all the incredible recording gear not to mention albums and artists that have all come through those halls doing exactly what we’ve come there to do. It might have been that we had been on the road for nearly three months, but I definitely felt proud to be able to share the experience with some musicians I respect and that I know also appreciate what Ardent has to offer.

The Ardent Sessions with John Paul Keith andthe One Four Fives

01/18/2011 By

I have been lucky enough to get to work in Ardent Studios on a couple of occasions, and I can attest that it is a very special place. They just don’t make ‘em like Ardent anymore.

Usually, a studio falls under one of two categories: A.) funky and cool but a little less than state-of-the-art, or B.) top notch technologically, but sterile, with no atmosphere. Ardent Studios is the only one I’ve ever worked in which is both first-class sonicallyand incredibly cool, vibe-wise. You feel like you can get as artistic and esoteric as you want, without compromising any sound quality. That’s a very rare combination.

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Filed Under: The Ardent Sessions Podcast

The Ardent Sessions with Le Switch

11/05/2010 By

Our Memphis trip will definitely go down as one of the best experiences we’ve ever had. We arrived in Memphis at 6am on a red-eye flight from L.A. We were dead tired. I think we were all a little drunk from the night before too. That aside, we were stoked to be in Memphis. The history, food etc… Memphis is a great town.

Ardent had set everything up for us (Gig, Housing, Museum and Studio tours, etc.). Red carpet treatment. We arrived at our hotel (Hunt Phelan) which is definitely the nicest hotel we have ever stayed in as a band.

It was crazy. We walked in, took the tour of the premises. We were staying in the classic suite (two bedrooms, living room, Temperpedic mattresses, room service etc.). I was totally waiting to get punk’d. Have some dude roll out and say “JUST KIDDING, you’re sleeping on my couch tonight”. But it didn’t happen! Apparently the Rolling Stones had stayed in this room. True or not, it was nice to hear.

The Ardent Sessions with Jamie Randolph and the Darkhorse

10/15/2010 By

Ardent Studios is a time capsule thousands of miles below the earth’s surface…or at least that’s the way it feels every time I have the privilege of walking through the door. I love everything about it. The smell (which they should bottle and sell in both spray and rear view mirror hanging formats) the random echoing conversations you catch the beginning, middle, or end of that make you stop walking and pause for brief reflection on what was just said, the ridiculousness that is the way that on any given day some super famous person is just roaming the halls.

And that’s all before you start setting up your gear because you’ve gotten the magical phone call from Rachel Hurley that you are scheduled to play The Ardent Sessions!

We setup in studio C, which is my personal favorite of the 3 studios at Ardent. It’s the furthest away from the “hubbub.” For being a decade Memphis music person with mixed reviews, to be able to be on sacred ground with the ghosts of greatness all in the name of rock ‘n’ roll, is pretty f@#$*&% cool. We had a wonderful turnout of close friends, family, and fans that thought they were at a different band’s session…ha.

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Filed Under: The Ardent Sessions Podcast Tagged With: Ardent, Ardent Studios, Goonies, Hobby Lobby, Hollywood, Memphis, Oreo

The Ardent Sessions with Jump Back Jake

09/17/2010 By

Several of my friends have pointed out that my more recent and more personal material like “Call Me Your Man” or “Tara” sounds much less like a character than the songs that make up our first record Brooklyn Hustle/Memphis Muscle. Re-watching the videos of Jump Back Jake on the Ardent sessions I can see so clearly who this character was.

Though only a couple of years ago, I looked and sounded so different than I do today. If I was playing a character, it wasn’t simply a mask I wore for performances or recording, but a person I inhabited. I think I was trying to become a Memphian—perhaps an impossible task for a New York City born yankee like myself, but I did try.

The Ardent Sessions with Big Smith

07/09/2010 By

Last year my band Big Smith had the amazing experience of meeting John Fry, Rachel Hurley, and the gang at Ardent Studios. We loved seeing our buddy Pete Mathews nestled in his array of monitors and consoles, learning about the amazing success of the Soulsville Charter School , and being moved and inspired by our tour of the Stax museum, as well as the work and legacy of Ardent. I’ve written about this once in a lifetime experience at Ardent elsewhere in more depth.

Of the old Boston Garden, it was often said that when opposing teams played there, they not only played the Boston teams; they also had to play “the ghosts” living in the rafters: the specter of past Boston teams: their legend and their victories. At Ardent, it might be said that when you play there, you not only get to play with your band, you get to play with the ghosts. The legacy of great music is everywhere apparent at Ardent, from the gold and platinum records hanging on the walls, to the album covers and photographs, to the equipment. Holy mackerel, the equipment! A 2-inch tape machine is a great, lovely beastie under any circumstance, but when it has played a role in producing legendary music…well, these things ought to be preserved as monuments—preferably working monuments on which my bandmates and I get to record.

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Filed Under: The Ardent Sessions Podcast Tagged With: Ardent, ArdentStudios, Boston Garden, Ghost, John Fry, Stax, Stax Museum

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