0172 – Throttlecaster Album II

In late 2012, there was a tiny new studio that had opened-up in Abbotsford, British Columbia.  The people in-charge at the time, including yours truly, had NO idea what to expect or really any idea of what they were doing.  In an effort to introduce people to the studio, I had decided free interviews in-house would be a great draw to bring people in to see what we could do…whatever that might be.  While it would eventually lead to a couple of freelance recording projects born out of these interviews for SBS Live This Week – it quickly lost status as being any part of the focus; the show took off quickly in the local scene and I felt like the positives from that experience were best left unclouded by the pursuit of any kind of financial gain.  If people dug the studio and they wanted to come back, cool – but I truly stopped pitching the idea of coming back to record quite quickly.  The team at SBS was already down about 50% of its personnel and nearly just myself at the point the show began…to pursue the idea of recording others on such unstable ground and little skills wasn’t something I thought I could do and justify on my own…so eventually, I left it behind altogether but the beginning of the end was actually brought about by the same means I had thought to use to save it in the first place!

Anyhow…at this point, we were intensely underdeveloped and trying to figure it all out.  I had interviews coming up and confirmed for artists & bands that we’d yet to meet by this time like Laura Kelsey, A Cold City Night, This Thing and The Pit…and then I got an e-mail regarding a band called Throttlecaster that was willing to make the roughly six-eight hour trip from Kamloops B.C. to our tiny little inefficient set-up in Abbotsford.  I’ll admit…the idea at this time was insane to me – the last thing I wanted to ever do was bring someone to the garage we’d converted with the impression that we’d opened some sort of state-of-the-art studio.  While that might have been the case from the fresh attitude & perspective on the inside…it definitely hasn’t ever been the case equipment-wise.  I did my best to explain it all…but manager Katja and lead-guitarist/singer-songwriter Erko Nomm were determined to make the trip and come on down to sleepingbagstudios.

So after all that time off…that long-ass drive…after renting a BEAUTIFUL Martin guitar around $1600 to create a stunning & haunting acoustic performance…Throttlecaster DID rock the garage after all and were completely amazing guests that certainly contributed to my own wanting to do the show more and more as time would go on.  I was humbled and amazed by the determination of these two wonderful people that had essentially traveled from half the province over to spend their time with me that day…and I’ll never be able to thank them enough for it.  This year in November, the show will actually be a full five-years old…which is amazing to me because the idea of it being a show wasn’t even in my brain when I booked those first interviews.  I had the foresight of being able to have a conversation about music with anyone that wanted to have them…but beyond that, everything to come was still a mystery.  Take a look at some more shots of Throttlecaster from when SBS Live This Week was just getting off the ground for the very first time in 2012…