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Friday, May 17, 2002

By Ed Masley, Post-Gazette Pop Music Critic

In the opening verse of "Used," Brad Yoder sings of a life held together by duct tape, one in which he tries to "make it count."

	Brad Yoder WITH: Heather Kropf. WHERE: Rex Theater, South Side. WHEN: Tonight at 8. TICKETS: $8; free treats. ARTIST'S SITE: www.bradyoder.com

And by the time the strings and horns ring in the chorus of the bruised but hopeful title cut that opens Yoder's latest effort, it's clear that he's trying especially hard to make it count on this one, from the sound of the production to the major-label packaging he paid to wrap around it.

As the local coffeehouse performer who admits to averaging a crowd of 5 to 20 reports with a laugh, "It cost too much and took too long, although it did cost less than it could have and some of those costs involved purchasing some stuff for a little home studio I have now -- a couple ADATs and a little board."

The basic tracks were recorded at Mr. Small's Funhouse with producer Peter Beckerman. The overdubs were done at Yoder's house in Point Breeze with Beckerman's assistance.

"Certainly, if I had spent those hours in a studio," he says, "it would have been a really pricey disc."

But even after cutting corners by recording in his home, after two days of mixing, two mastering jobs (he didn't like the first one), a graphic designer for the cover and the pressing of 2,000 discs, the total cost, he says, is "pretty nuts on the size of my economy," although he's quick to add that "at the same time, people spend a lot more on things that don't necessarily sound as good."

It does sound good.

	Music clips Explore the new Brad Yoder CD release, "Used," with these mp3 clips, plus the complete track of "1 Hit Wonder": In the title cut on "Used," Yoder adds orchestration to his usual solo acoustic guitar as he sings about why he hangs onto his old car (File size: 352K) Yoder returns to his solo acoustic sound for effect in the devastating story of a black man being beaten by police in "Land of the Free" (File size: 338K) PG Pop Music Critic Ed Masley says he likes the infectious quality of "1 Hit Wonder" (File size: 342K) With Yoder's special permission, here's an mp3 of the entire song "1 Hit Wonder" (File size: 2.9 MB) Visit the following sites to download players for Windows or Mac machines to listen to the file: Real Player Microsoft Windows Media Player WinAMP

But it's the writing here that really grabs you, from the orchestrated title track to a solo acoustic performance of "Land of the Free," a devastating story of a black man being beaten by the cops.

He could have done the whole recording the way he did "Land of the Free," the way he's always done in music in the coffee shops. But he was after something different with this record. And he's philosophical about the cost.

"In hindsight, knowing what I know now," Yoder says, "I could have made the same record and spent two-thirds of what I spent. But it's a little like higher education. There's a lot of learning that happens that isn't necessarily cheap. I mean, I've got some debt associated with this, a pretty significant amount, actually, but none of it's at 18 percent or anything."

After three years of working on "Used," he's anxious to record again.

"I'm looking forward to making another record that's really different, a little more banged out, a little more raw. But it was really fun to do one where I took the extra time and kind of fleshed things out more. It's a little more dense, a little less about trying to reproduce the sound of a specific live band and more about trying to make a specific song really interesting."

For "Stranger Selling Roses," he brought in guitarist Mike Gaydos and singer John Schisler of the local rock group New Invisible Joy.

He got the sound he wanted, but it cost him.

"Gaydos put down all that atmospheric guitar stuff in an afternoon," he says, "but Peter spent a lot of time taking some of those pieces and moving them around and using them a couple times in the song, which is really cool, but the hours fly by when you start playing around with that kind of stuff."

He also called in Jim DiSpirito, formerly of Rusted Root, to add percussion.

As Yoder recalls with a laugh, "In the process of him tracking it and sending it back to us, it got out of sync with everything but we couldn't tell. So for a while we were just thinking Jim's a great player but I don't know what happened here. And we finally figured out that he had played perfectly in time. So then we spent a whole bunch of time moving it back and when we finally got it lined up again, we had tracked so much other stuff in the interim that a lot of the stuff he had tracked, there wasn't really room for anymore."

Again, he got the sound he wanted at a cost.

"In terms of making money, that won't happen until I would order more discs," he says. "But the primary reason I made this record the way I made it is I wanted to. And nobody else was going to, so now it's done, which is great. The biggest chunk of satisfaction is just getting to that place where I can see it and sell it and have people enjoy it and look forward to hopefully making something else."

Until he does make something else, he'll be promoting "Used," beginning tonight with a full-band blowout at the Rex Theater.

"I'm playing with some guys right now that I'm hoping I'll be able to continue to do some band shows with," he says. "I really want to be able to do a couple of those a month anyway, 'cause it's exciting and it's good for me. There's something a little bit masturbatory about playing solo all the time. It's always good for you."

He laughs, then adds, "But I really enjoy doing the band thing. And material-wise, I feel like I'm writing more and more things that really benefit from that. I'm writing less sort of folky material."

And sometimes when he's playing solo, Yoder says he misses little touches other people added in the studio -- like the turntable scratching on "1 Hit Wonder," a song just infectious enough to be his one hit. Like "Rockin' the Suburbs," Ben Folds' latest hit, the song is tongue-in-cheek, from the opening verse, "I wanna be a one-hit wonder/ Plaster your radio for half a summer/ I'll barely kiss the big time, then I'll disappear/ That's all you'll hear of me for years and years and years ..."

He brought in DJ Supa C, he says, to underscore the humor of the lyrics.

"It's such the cliche thing to do to make something sound hip," he says. "So yes, it is the ironic use of turntables and fortunately it's the ironic use of good turntables, so it sounds good."

While he may be laughing on the songs, the singer will admit, "I have a secret fantasy. I think it would be cool to have one really good song that, by some fluke, people knew about. Maybe if you're in that situation, it's a curse and you really wish you were Tom Petty instead of, you know, the Verve Pipe. But I think that would be cool. I still have aspirations of wouldn't it be great to open for artist X or wouldn't it be great to get a song in a movie, but it's also great just to do what I do and be able to keep recording and playing and writing stuff and have people actually care about that at some level."