Extremity Retained: Notes from the Death Metal Underground by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2021-09-14T11:47:51+00:00

Matt Harvey (Exhumed)

HOUSE OF FAITH, PALO ALTO

The Plutocracy guys turned us on to a studio in Palo Alto called House of Faith, which was operated by an engineer named Bart Thurber. Bart was the only guy in the Bay Area really tackling any of the local death metal bands. He recorded us, Plutocracy, Enucleation, Burial, Bonesaw, Abhorrence, and just about every punk band in the West Bay. I remember his claim to fame was that he had recorded the Neurosis demo that got them signed to Alternative Tentacles. He also was in the band Whipping Boy that was on the Not So Quiet on the Western Front compilation back in the early ’80 s. He was incredibly patient and accommodating and tolerant of our naivete. He recorded virtually all of our material from ’92 –’95, starting in January of ’92 with our first demo Dissecting the Caseated Omentum.

As far as we were concerned, House of Faith was the only place to record. It was the only studio in the Bay Area that would put up with extreme music, and basically was game to try whatever you were up for. Thirteen songs recorded and mixed in two days? No problem. He was also the cheapest studio available, at $75/day, plus an apple and a can of soup for lunch. He had a couple of very specific rules when at the studio: When he entered the live room, you were not to play at all—“When Bart’s around, keep it down” was the mantra; the other was that you could use the phone at the studio, but if you called your girlfriend or mother, or really any woman—even if you had only been on one date with someone, or just had endured a lot of awkward high school sexual tension around someone—you had to end the conversation with “I love you.”

House of Faith was a great place for a young band to learn about recording. Everything was totally analog, recorded onto 2" tape which Bart would splice by hand—“cut with confidence” was another mantra of his—and he had a great sense of how much he could reasonably ask for in terms of performance. He was very laid back, but he’d surprise you every once in a while with a, “that was good; now do it again.” He introduced me to the idea of overdubbing guitar harmonies and layering leads that opened up a lot of doors in my playing.

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