Smooth Brain studio 3 session

Smooth Brain are a new band from Cleveland with a more garage influence to their sound. The band has just released their second ep called “One of Them” so much of that was recorded in this session, but it was a year ago in August when their first ep came out which was called “Fleas”. Both eps can be downloaded from the band’s bandcamp (smoothbrain.bandcamp.com/‎) page.

This was the first out of town band to play in studio 3 since we have moved into the Tower Road studio and that has more to do with the limitations on the use of the studio. The old St. George house gave us the flexibility of 24 hour access. And this band warned me ahead of time that they were going to be running late which had me nervous the whole time. And with the construction going on Tower Road I paced back and forth trying to find the band for an hour. But finally they pulled in on Hoskins, I spotted the Ohio licence plate and knocked on the window to introduce myself. I hurried them along as we were already behind the gun on time. Fortunately, Jon Hawkes had set up mics and the space so we were ready to go.

The band knocked out a set of material which involved the following list of songs:

1. One of Them
2. Dum
3. The Freezer
4. Mean Chimp
5. Living Room Cop
6. When I’m With You
7. Pointing At Me / Freaker Party
8. Bone 2 Pick
9. Ramones cover
10. EXD ID
11. CIUT ID

During the set I noticed that the band reminded me a lot of the Vapids. Then I realized that they shared a bass player lead singer format, but this is more coincidental. Nathan is also the band’s principle artist, and by that I mean, he draws a lot of the band’s artwork. He has a Robert Crumb influenced style and is responsible for both ep covers. But you can check out his artwork at http://www.nwardcomics.com/. Nathan’s brother, Jim plays guitar with their friend Mike. And the drummer is Kev who informed me that he used to play guitar in 9 Shocks Terror. That floored me. 9 Shocks is a band I love. The fact that he is playing a different instrument in this band is equally puzzling.

This session was videotaped by Aldo from Punks and Rockers. Below is an edit of some of the songs mentioned above.

We spoke about the band afterwards in an interview.