Jeremy Dubs’ timing was impeccable. He’d just finished recording a bunch of songs, and Pixies founder, college rock legend and now Northampton resident Charles Thompson (aka Frank Black, aka Black Francis) was just launching his own imprint and looking for albums.
A year ago this month, local rocker Dubs recorded a four-song EP of Harry Nilsson covers. He put the CDs into envelopes, adorned the packages with a few snowflakes, and mailed them out as Christmas presents to folks, including Thompson and his wife, Violet. The next day Dubs received an email from Thompson that included an offer: record eight more songs in the same vein and he would release it on his nascent label, The Bureau.
“It was challenging,” Dubs says of the project that ultimately became Speak! “But I followed my gut and tried my damnedest to stick with that feeling I was attempting to capture with the first four songs. What resulted was a wonderful trip, a way of communicating through music that I never knew I would experience.”
Dubs has become a stalwart on the Valley scene, playing with local outfits Bunnies and Rabbit Rabbit as well as Albany-based Severe Severe. Before these projects he and best friend Jack Godleski performed in The Bennies, which is when they met up with Thompson and ultimately opened shows for both The Pixies and Frank Black and the Catholics.
On the Speak! record, Dubs provides voices, keys and some guitar. Rebecca Macomber plays trumpet, and Melissa Nelson adds cello on “Perfect Day.” The live band, working under the Speak! moniker, consists of Vanessa Zaehring on vocals and cello, Robert Ives on vocals and keys, and Macomber on trumpet and guitar.
“The basic components of our sound are dreamlike ethereal analogue synths driven by harmonies and clear, poignant lyrics,” Dubs says.
According to Dubs, the initial point of inspiration for the Speak! concept was Harry Nilsson’s cover of the Randy Newman tune “I’ll Be Home.” “When I first heard that song, all I knew was that I was going to do my own version of it,” he says.
Godleski had recently lent him the Realistic Concertmate analog synthesizer that was used in Bunnies. Dubs says he always loved its sounds and versatility, and thought it a no-brainer for the recordings. He double-tracked the lead vocals and added a bevy of “crazy harmonies.” He added a second Concertmate track to create a layer of static, bleeps and bloops.
“All of a sudden, the song entered into another dimension,” Dubs recalls. “It started to sound like a broadcast from some other place. … And it seemed to really fit the lyrics of the song. I wanted to go even further, so I recorded a track of me trying to make contact, calling out, ‘Harry? Is that you, Harry?’ underneath the radio static. That’s how the first song ends, and it’s also what led to the rest of the album.
“It was intimate, clear and direct, but far away and fleeting at the same time. Like something comforting you hear on the radio, and then you lose the signal.”
Speak! celebrates its CD release at Northampton’s Feeding Tube Records on November 18th, where it will play the album in its entirety. A series of East Coast shows is lined up to promote the record and the crew is already halfway through the writing and recording of a sequel.
Dubs says Harry Nilsson will be joining him once again for this one.
