I’d like to take a moment to introduce members of What’s Best to Gregory Page. Gregory is a San Diego recording artist, who I met in the early 2000’s, when I used to live in San Diego and who did the filming with me for The Orphanage Project last September. At the time I was looking for places around town to catch worthwhile live music performances and eventually gravitated to Java Joe’s, the San Diego coffee shop where Jewel played regularly before a hit song led to her widespread exposure. Jason Mraz was now the featured act at Joe’s and Gregory was frequently his opening act.
I saw Jason play about a dozen times at Joe’s, but this lasted less than 6 months before word started to get out to the record labels about his once-in-a-generation talent (which they succeeded in substantially dulling for the masses with their studio magic). Before signing with a major label Jason was selling CDs during his shows at Joe’s. Three of the albums were live recordings of his performance at the venue and one more was a studio album called “The E Minor EP: On Love in Sadness”…by studio album I mean Gregory recorded this album in the bedroom of his apartment. Gregory was a serious mentor to Jason during this period and had done several bedroom recordings for his own albums; I’d defy even a professional to guess these recordings were not done in a recording studio or pick them out from songs that were. Today this album is still one of the most impressively recorded and produced albums I’ve heard, from a bedroom or a studio. Unfortunately, it was never released by the record company, so you won’t find the album unless you’re one of the few thousand people who bought a copy at Java Joe’s or you download a copy at Pirate Bay. Interestingly, Gregory’s bedroom closet was full of VCR tapes of his albums, which were mastered to VCR tape; I presume this medium must have been a budget-friendly way to store the music on high quality tape.
Back when I was attending these shows I was also organizing periodic groups of local business contacts, for fun little day trips across the border to Door of Faith Orphanage. After a show I happened to invite Gregory and his friend Tom Brosseau (another local artist) to come on a trip and play some music for the kids. Gregory had a Sony Handycam with him and he created the video below (I planned our project this year as kind of a more-ambitious follow up). You can see Gregory's DOF film from this year in the thread from this forum called "The Orphanage Project" and my film will be posted in about 4 months.
[video=vimeo;42851823]https://vimeo.com/42851823[/video]
The musical styles on Gregory’s approximately two dozen records span just about every genre imaginable, but he favors 19th century songwriter/crooners like Hoagy Carmichael and Al Bolea. His records were all produced on CD, but his 2014 release “Shine, Shine, Shine” (a big-band album) was also produced on vinyl and pressed by Rainbow Records, in Hollywood. Gregory’s newest album, “Let’s Fall in Love Again” was recorded by Jason Mraz, at his home studio in Malibu. He describes the album as reminiscent of Chet Baker recordings, simple and not having much layering or elaborate production. Vinyl for this album is being pressed by a company in the Netherlands and based on my experience with the quality of Dutch recordings, it could be pretty good.
Here is one of Gregory’s most recent music videos. Bear in mind, this isn’t the kind of video where the record company tells you what time their video production crew will be ready for you to show up…it’s more like renting some space at the local community center and call your friends around town to ask them if they’ll help you make your video, for free. Under those conditions it’s quite impressive.
[video=vimeo;140137496]https://vimeo.com/140137496[/video]
Tom Brosseau, who you’ll see briefly in the orphanage video above has since gone on to do a lot of great and interesting things. He’s known for his high, falsetto voice and his devotion to his North Dakota roots. He’s experimented on some albums, but generally his style consists of acoustic guitar, vocals and excellent songwriting, in the traditional folk genre. I describe Tom’s music as a perfect reflection of where he comes from; it’s simple, pure and unvarnished, with a total lack of pretense that harkens back to a long time ago, but also with his own unique and current approach. One of my favorite recent works by Tom is his 2014 album Grass Punks. The album was recorded and produced by Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek, who also plays mandolin and 2nd guitar on many of the songs. My copy of this album is on white marble vinyl and happens to be one of the most beautiful looking albums I own. Here’s a video Tom made this year in LA.
[video=vimeo;119396549]https://vimeo.com/119396549[/video]
I saw Jason play about a dozen times at Joe’s, but this lasted less than 6 months before word started to get out to the record labels about his once-in-a-generation talent (which they succeeded in substantially dulling for the masses with their studio magic). Before signing with a major label Jason was selling CDs during his shows at Joe’s. Three of the albums were live recordings of his performance at the venue and one more was a studio album called “The E Minor EP: On Love in Sadness”…by studio album I mean Gregory recorded this album in the bedroom of his apartment. Gregory was a serious mentor to Jason during this period and had done several bedroom recordings for his own albums; I’d defy even a professional to guess these recordings were not done in a recording studio or pick them out from songs that were. Today this album is still one of the most impressively recorded and produced albums I’ve heard, from a bedroom or a studio. Unfortunately, it was never released by the record company, so you won’t find the album unless you’re one of the few thousand people who bought a copy at Java Joe’s or you download a copy at Pirate Bay. Interestingly, Gregory’s bedroom closet was full of VCR tapes of his albums, which were mastered to VCR tape; I presume this medium must have been a budget-friendly way to store the music on high quality tape.
Back when I was attending these shows I was also organizing periodic groups of local business contacts, for fun little day trips across the border to Door of Faith Orphanage. After a show I happened to invite Gregory and his friend Tom Brosseau (another local artist) to come on a trip and play some music for the kids. Gregory had a Sony Handycam with him and he created the video below (I planned our project this year as kind of a more-ambitious follow up). You can see Gregory's DOF film from this year in the thread from this forum called "The Orphanage Project" and my film will be posted in about 4 months.
[video=vimeo;42851823]https://vimeo.com/42851823[/video]
The musical styles on Gregory’s approximately two dozen records span just about every genre imaginable, but he favors 19th century songwriter/crooners like Hoagy Carmichael and Al Bolea. His records were all produced on CD, but his 2014 release “Shine, Shine, Shine” (a big-band album) was also produced on vinyl and pressed by Rainbow Records, in Hollywood. Gregory’s newest album, “Let’s Fall in Love Again” was recorded by Jason Mraz, at his home studio in Malibu. He describes the album as reminiscent of Chet Baker recordings, simple and not having much layering or elaborate production. Vinyl for this album is being pressed by a company in the Netherlands and based on my experience with the quality of Dutch recordings, it could be pretty good.
Here is one of Gregory’s most recent music videos. Bear in mind, this isn’t the kind of video where the record company tells you what time their video production crew will be ready for you to show up…it’s more like renting some space at the local community center and call your friends around town to ask them if they’ll help you make your video, for free. Under those conditions it’s quite impressive.
[video=vimeo;140137496]https://vimeo.com/140137496[/video]
Tom Brosseau, who you’ll see briefly in the orphanage video above has since gone on to do a lot of great and interesting things. He’s known for his high, falsetto voice and his devotion to his North Dakota roots. He’s experimented on some albums, but generally his style consists of acoustic guitar, vocals and excellent songwriting, in the traditional folk genre. I describe Tom’s music as a perfect reflection of where he comes from; it’s simple, pure and unvarnished, with a total lack of pretense that harkens back to a long time ago, but also with his own unique and current approach. One of my favorite recent works by Tom is his 2014 album Grass Punks. The album was recorded and produced by Sean Watkins of Nickel Creek, who also plays mandolin and 2nd guitar on many of the songs. My copy of this album is on white marble vinyl and happens to be one of the most beautiful looking albums I own. Here’s a video Tom made this year in LA.
[video=vimeo;119396549]https://vimeo.com/119396549[/video]