Wake Up The Dream - Secret Agent 23 Skidoo
Kids music? I mean yea, on the surface but I’d say perhaps one of the most creative “family music” albums out there. It’s Hip Hop if you aren’t familiar with Secret Agent 23 Skidoo and his catalog, but it’s so much more. While all of his records have themes this is a concept album that like a good Pixar movie has messages for both the child and the parent. Basically it is an exploration of dreams. The dreams we have at night, the dreams we have during the day, the dreams we have about changing the past and the dreams we have about shaping our future. This journey is guided by your dream radio DJ’s Sub C and Uncle Unc (your subconscious and your unconscious respectively.) Every couple songs the DJs jump in to tell you about what you have heard, what you are about to hear and exchange some punny banter. Here is how we made it.
Most of it was recorded in one 12 hour day in the API Studio at Echo Mountain Recording which in itself it a feat of recording. The backing tracks are a super group of a live band from asheville. We did all the vocals later and the DJ interludes and radio jingles and other incidentals but the meat of it was a single day. The band though… You can’t do something like this without an amazing band. It required not only musicianship but flexibility, creativity and stamina. They had all of this. We went track by track first dialing in a sonic vibe specific to the track(everything from Amy Winehouse aesthetic to Stranger Things), then working out the arrangement, and finally doing a few takes to get the keeper. We are talking like 45 minutes a track. It was Drums, Bass, Guitar, Keys, and a 4 piece horn section. That is a tremendous amount of coordination and the band killed it. They worked out tones and change parts on the fly and then nailed the song in a couple or three takes.
Obviously this session was moving very fast, in the process and being so focused on getting the songs done, Cactus(23 Skidoo) and I temporarily forgot that there were several song transitions that joined two songs together that hadn’t been composed yet. We remembered as we were finishing the last song and clapping backs with just under an hour left of the session. So on the spot, with something like 45 minutes of studio time left and the energy level of the musicians flagging, Cactus quickly explained the transition in his that was in his head and the musicians huddled together and compared each set of the songs’ tempo and key to try to find a way to connect them. The result was something that certainly did not sound as if it had been composed in 5 or 10 minutes. You’ll have to listen to know what I mean, but what they did was make one song change into another in the weird way that dreams move from one to another in a way that seems chaotic but is in fact deeply ordered. Perhaps the time constraints were important to keep it from being overworked as they sometimes are, but it definitely worked. Each song is unique, fun and creative and if you haven’t experienced the genius of family music by 23 skidoo rendered by some of the absolute best musicians Asheville has to offer, well it’s time to wake up to this dream. I just had my second child 20 years after my first. My son had court side seats for the creation of the entire catalog of 23 skidoo magic and he now can word for word almost every lyric on every record. I can’t wait to walk my daughter through this musical adventure.
So join us, if you dare, on a journey to center of your mind…. And bring yo kids!
