semper hi-fi
the tension headache studio story
The notion of a creative collective to be called "tension headache" dates from a 1975 daydream that occurred, like so many others, during classroom instruction when attention might have been better focused upon the coursework at hand. At that time the idea assumed a pastoral setting with large production spaces in barns, where a closely-knit group of people who enjoyed access to sophisticated equipment, oceans of natural light and unlimited free time re-combined their various talents on the fly. If the concept seems unabashedly rooted in the "hippie ideal", rest assured –– it totally was.
Tension Headache's humble beginnings
As if to prove that daydreams are often not be worth the vapor they're printed on, the actual tension headache saw its first light of day 4 years later on the floor of a one-room flat in New York City's West Village. It is one of life's little twists that the studio has remained restricted by the confines of New York City residential real estate ever since. (On the other hand we now sprawl in a virtual 90-room mansion on the internet, so it could be said that things have worked out as imagined in some respect.)
88th St. overdubs: "We've got it in the can!" photo: Fellow Traveler
Further underscoring the deviation from original archetype, the Greenwich Village tension headache was capable of music recording only, on very crude equipment (most of which was generously provided by our host), and with hardly enough room for the three or four of us who were crammed into his place which was about the size of a deck of cards. So much for capacious rural splendor contrasted by rows of glowing VU meters: early tools likely included an Aiwa personal cassette machine fed directly from a Yamaha MM-10 mini mixer. Results of that first session are lost to history but knowing the crew involved it is likely that the outcome was very loose.
Soon, the addition of a Sony Walkman Pro meant that the Aiwa could be used to bounce stereo tracks from machine to machine and back again in order to record overdubs. Although it's a pretty unstable way to do things, this technique was to become a staple studio modus operandi for quite some time to come. The track called Robot Love (an homage to Charles Burns' graphic adventure story of the same name) is a classic example of the work of this period. A Casiotone MT-40 and SynDrum, representative of the instruments in use at the time, feature prominently on this cut.
In 1980 a move to New York's upper east side allowed tension headache to expand a bit into a tiny bedroom given partially over to the purpose (NYC apartments being what they are, the room also served as a closet). Handy access to the flat's WC afforded the studio its first, and to date only, isolation booth. One significant equipment improvement occurred during this time: cassette decks were introduced, replacing the "walkman-style" devices. The difference was largely aesthetic because the two machines remained entirely out of synch with one another, as well as operating at slightly differing speeds. Extended (which is to say, "meandering") improvisations were the stylistic norm of this period, resulting in opuses like "The Stupid, Pointless Jam".
Hell's Kitchen Headache with dual cassette decks
The mid-1980's brought another move, this time to the Hell's Kitchen district and more expansive quarters in a floor-through railroad apartment. "Give Them More Space And They Will Fill It" says the imperative; consequently more stuff got moved down the five flights of stairs at the end of that tenure than had gone up at the beginning. The slow explosion of equipment holdings during the west side period was marked by the shift from cassette to a Tascam 38 half-inch 8 track. The mini-mixer was replaced (functionally, though never emotionally) by a 1985 Studiomaster ProMix 16-8-2. Significant outboard processing improvements were made as well, among them the additions of a PCM-70, dBX 161's, and PCM-41's. It was during this phase of studio operations that the first public releases of tension headache material occurred: the bird feet feelings track entitled One Wish appeared on the Walt Records Extra Walt comp, as did bff's guest overdubs on a Magic Eye Singles Ididerod release.
tension headache at its analog pinnacle
The new millennium brought another re-location, this time to one of the city's outer boroughs, and a bit more room to fill. The switch to real multi track, multi channel operation had already sparked the desire for a functional patch bay, so a sweatshop for this project was established in the living room and the huffing of oxidized solder began immediately. Progress was expected to be slow and initially it was. But an employment interregnum enforced by the September 11 attacks presented the staff with time on its hands, and work on the bay offered occupational comfort and distraction from the depression and anxiety caused by the tragedy. The bays were soon up and running.
At around this time tension headache had its first outside client. Psych-folk trio Double Leopards engaged the services of THS to prepare their LP A Pebble In Thousands Of Unmapped Revolutions for release on Eclipse Records. As the months went by, projects such as punctuators "The White Albumen", dynaflex's "Dyn Another Day" and anti:clockwise's "Folk Test #1" were recorded as well.
However, time and circumstances were already conspiring to bring this phase of studio operations to an end. The death throes of Ampex / Quantegy signaled that tape would become outrageously expensive, if possible to find at all. Prices at our favorite Canal Street location had already jumped from about $47 a roll to nearly $75. And the recorder itself was beginning to fail –– tension headache lurched along at 6-and-a-half track capacity for nearly two years (the ½ track was one that had repro, but not record. Sadly, not every tune really needs a "backwards track".) Weighing the cost and effort of bringing the deck in for repair and the declining availability of tape against the opportunities offered by computerization, the decision was painfully made to focus resources on "going didg".
tension headache One Zero One
And so it came to pass in 2009 that an apple one day kept the doctor OK. Studio capabilities rocketed straight into the mid-1990's with new gear that felt as if a BMW had suddenly parked itself in the living room. Our earliest encounters with point-and-click recording dated back to the late-1980's in the Woodstock cabin of a friend, where eyes simultaneously widened and squinted at Mark Of The Unicorn running on her Macintosh SE/30, locked via an external SMPTE time code generator to a Teac 80-8. Sentimentalists that we are, the decision to embrace Digital Performer for our own use two decades later was made partly based upon the fact that we'd seen it way back then, and that MOTU was (like us) somehow still around. Now, modern may be modern and all that –– but we love to push a fader. The Tascam FW-1884 interface was chosen in order to maintain at least a modicum of tactile connection with our roots.
There's no question that the place has seen some changes over the years (to say nothing of its wild deviation from that first daydream). One thing has hewed to original inspiration however: the willing involvement of talented individuals. Their generosity, creativity and reckless abandon have nourished tension headache throughout its lifetime. The place just wouldn't be all that it has been, and will yet become, without them.
Every studio needs a cat, although many studios might find it debatable whether or not they need one like this particularly. But we pay the naysayers no mind –– at times we too had to turn a blind eye to his biting, slashing and utterly insane behavior.
Buster was the best cat ever, as even those from whom he drew blood would attest.
