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tattered hat, Composed of Con and College Students, Creates a Rock Recording: "Strangling a Weasel with No Neck"
Story by Linda
Shockley
Photos by Michael
Chipman and Toshio
Mana
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Running Barefoot
Through the Clouds Fade Hold the Light |
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the Conservatory |
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Listening Room |
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What began as a New Media Collaborations class project for
senior TIMARA major Christopher Goodman and senior English
major Jonathan Hoffman, grew into the founding of a
four-person rock band at the end of Winter Term 1999, and
the recording of a CD.
The band, tattered hat, is composed of Goodman (keyboards, engineering, production), Hoffman (guitars), senior bass performance major Toshio Mana (bass, vocals) and senior art history major Charles Daum (drums). The group's first recording, entitled "Strangling A Weasel With No Neck," offers a dynamic mix of all original tunes described by Mana as "a combination of rock, grunge and ambient styles."
The recording, which band members call a work in process, offers four songs with seven interludes, including "Stolen," "Fade," "Hold the Light" and "Running Barefoot Through the Clouds."
Mana, a classical and contemporary
musician by training and a rocker by inclination, says the
recording was a strong collaborative effort that provided a
voice to all four band members. "I wrote a lot of the lyrics
and 
we
all collaborated on tunes." Goodman concurs, "I did the
mixing but we all contributed to the production decisions as
a group."
Mana, who performs with the Oberlin Orchestra and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, elaborates on the evolution of the band. "The band evolved pretty organically. I had known Chris for a couple years and he was my RC this year. I met Charles in the smoking lounge at South where we talked about music and bands. Chris suggested that we get together with Charles to make an enhanced CD of some sort. He had a project with a story with music background. I had met Jon a couple times and suggested he join us."
Goodman adds, "Jonathan and I worked on some ideas for the class with the hope of creating a full CD with a multi-media section. Our ideas changed a bit and we created a recording with liner notes that included band information, lyrics and photos."
The recording process included two
long sessions to create "Hold the Light" and "Stolen." The
first session focused on laying the instrumental tracks; the
second session focused on laying the vocals, guitar solos
and other musical extras like voice-over samples. "Running
Barefoot Through the Clouds" and "Fade" were completed in a
day's recording, with keyboards added later to "Fade." More
than 20 hours were spent in recording sessions as the songs
were recorded at least ten times. 
Goodman
spent considerable time mixing.
"On one of the interludes," explains Mana, "we used humorous outtakes from the intro and ending of the "Barefoot" recording session, adding coughing, dialogue, instrument tuning and clips from one of our jams."
Goodman says, "I think it's a very good first attempt. We want to go back, work some more and add more material. All the songs offer a different character and part of our work will be to create a more cohesive product. It's been a lot of fun and a great learning experience."
Mana hopes that the final recording will be an exciting interactive product where the audience can, by means of a navigational button, explore separate and different paths to arrive at a narrative destination.
