My name is Carl Bowlby and I am the lead singer-songwriter for a virtual band called Carl and The Outros. I started this band in November 2016 when I met recording engineer/musician/multi-instrumentalist Robby Baier of Housatonic, MA, now Lenox, MA. I was referred to Robby by my longtime collaborator Greg Steele of Derek Studios in Dalton, MA. Because Greg had gotten sick and was no longer able to run his recording studio where I have done most of my demos and recordings, he recommended Robby to me. So I called Robby and we met up for our first pre-production meeting. I told him about my idea of creating a virtual band, like the commercially successful group, Gorillaz, and he warmed up to the idea right away. Robby has his own successful career as a singer-songwriter but had taken off time from performing to concentrate on running his recording studio, SubStation Studios in Housatonic, MA, and he liked the idea of having a "fictional" band that wouldn't require touring and taking time off from family. Robby is married with one child, and I am a single father to a now 18-year-old daughter. So all of this made sense to us at our first pre-production meeting. The plan was finalized to record 10 original compositions of mine and a budget was set at 10K for the entire album, which eventually was titled, "kitchen sink dreaming" a title I borrowed from the British 1950's era "kitchen sink dramas" which were very popular at the time. So it all made sense: the virtual band creating an album about 'kitchen sink dreaming.' Little did I know at the time that in March 2020 the entire world would be on lockdown due to COVID-19 thereby making it impracticable and impossible to perform in a live capacity, so everything seemed to be working out regarding Carl and The Outros.
So recording began in November of 2016 at SubStation Studios in Housatonic, MA, intially only Robby and myself. Without listing all the minutiae of recording, basically, in an overview, we set out to record basic tracks for the album. Which in this case was me on a 6-string acoustic guitar and cutting a "guiding vocal" track set to a click track. The first song we chose to start with was "Some People (Got It All)" a song I wrote that addresses the inequity among people economically. For example the song starts off: "Some people got it all while the rest have none." The song continues in this vein culminating in the prescient line "some people do nothing but wait, some people do nothing but hate." Even then the song reflected the national attitude in their feelings regarding President Trump.
Then we began the rest of the album, creating it in much the same way as "Some People". Me on 6-string acoustic guitar and cutting a guiding vocal set to a click track. But what really makes the album shine, in my opinion, is the layering of tracks which Robby does so well, and the arrangements of the songs, some of which he added codas and little fills to, plus the instrumentation of piano (my main instrument) and synth parts and harmony vocals, which Robby also contributed to. As they say the "proof is in the pudding."
At the point in time we got to the track "Never Gone Away" I called in both Robby's and my friend, Ian Stewart, a mastering engineer and "digital artist" in his own right, to provide a flugelhorn solo to the track. I wrote out his horn part on staff paper (I am also a composer of classical music and obviously can read and write music) and Ian then laid down the track in 2 or 3 attempts. It adds a certain something to the track, almost mysterious and "airy" to a song which is about having never gone away from a relationship that has all but ended. It is a song about keeping to your principles and loyalties to people who may not reciprocate the same feelings. But this was not all Ian was going to do for the Carl and The Outros virtual band. After all the tracks had been recorded and Robby made his final mix-down, Ian stepped in once again and mastered the whole album of songs at his studio, FloTown Studios. I attended most of these sessions to provide guidance to Ian who would ask me what I wanted "up" in the mix. Basically a master engineer "sweetens" tracks and often makes them "hotter" so they will stand out on smaller speakers, such as on an iPhone or iPad. So after mastering the entire album Ian also helped the band get on all the various digital platforms that are so necessary today in getting music out to the general public. Ian hellped me get on TuneCore, which is a musician-based service for artists to stream their music on all the various platforms, like I said. Therefore, Carl and The Outros can be heard on iTunes, Apple Music and Spotify. With Ian's help being very knowlegable about the digital world Carl and The Outros can now be heard on all the various platforms I just mentioned above.
Now. Here we are at the end of 2020 and I'm applying for a grant from NEFA to continue this successful enterprise of Carl and The Outros. We want to do a follow-up effort of an additional 10 songs, but, unlike last time, if we receive a grant we are going to live-stream some of the recording sessions, and then after all is recorded, engineered, mixed and mastered, we want to have another live-stream of a traditional CD listening party. And from there, if feasible, we also would like to perform live some of the tracks from the new album, also live-streaming. We all hope to be able to do this with the assistance of a NEFA-sponsored grant.
