The Big Ragoo | Session Blog
In 1996, The Big Ragoo was formed as a side project for three members of the Atlanta post-punk band Monkey Boy. Jimmy Ether, Ken Whitener and Shawn Christopher -- all prolific songwriters -- would rotate instruments with the principal songwriter playing guitar.
The band broke up shortly after recording their debut Wreck Of The Big Ragoo, but now have reformed 14 years later to release new material. This blog will track that progress.
posted by Jimmy Ether
This past weekend, The Big Ragoo physically reunited at my studio — the first time together in the same room in over 14 years. We are all very different people now… far more mellowed, weathered and wise (comparatively speaking, at least). And yet, it was just like we’d only been apart for a few weeks. The goal was to get together to write and record for three full days, but with no heavy expectations of a lot coming out of it. Just playing music and being creative seemed worthwhile. Instead, we came up with 500 minutes of music… about 14 “themes” altogether. Written, recorded and videotaped all in 72 hours or so. That will all get culled down to the most cherry 37 minutes for arranging and overdubbing.
It was one of the more exhausting things I’ve ever done. I came out of it with every muscle in my body sore, several nasty bruises I can’t remember getting and in a completely depleted mental state. Tuesday, I slept nearly all day. It’s clearly evident that I’m approaching 40 now. Despite all that, it was a pretty magical weekend.
We’ve been working on our “comeback” album, tentatively titled Raising of the Wreck, since about October. It’s all recorded remotely between my studio and Ken’s basement. Very weird for us playing to guide tracks and such, but it sounds great. We have nine songs for that which we need to finish up vocals and a few overdubs on. Then, this stuff we recorded live last weekend will be the follow-up to that, tentatively titled Occupational Hazards. What’s crazy is… in three days we’ve gotten to nearly the same point we are with the Raising record. It’s such a different animal. Very noisy, angular and heavy with giant drum sounds. Where the previous is much more constructed, quirky pop… this is a throw-down.
And that’s what we hope to do year-to-year from now on… release one very slow developing, remotely recorded record of layered tracks followed by a more-or-less live in the studio throw down.
I have a ton of video footage to get edited and posted, both for Raising and Hazards, which I’ll be getting up over the summer and posting here. Then we’re hoping for an early fall release for Raising of the Wreck and maybe late winter for Occupational Hazards. In the meantime, above are some photos from this past weekends session.
In 1996, The Big Ragoo was formed as a side project of three members of Atlanta post-punk band Monkey Boy. Jimmy Ether (hey, that’s me!), Ken Whitener and Shawn Christopher — all prolific songwriters — would rotate instruments with the principal songwriter playing guitar. Lyrics were written communally based on what each member thought the others were singing, resulting in both interesting motifs and complete absurdity. Musically, the trio pulled heavily from the influence of Trumans Water, fIREHOSE, Soul-Junk, Sebadoh and Archers of Loaf.
This set of 13 songs was recorded one weekend in August of 1996. The music was tracked live to two-track in a wonderfully large room reminiscent of The Pixies Surfa Rosa recordings. The music was then dubbed to 4-track cassette and vocals were overdubbed as a group live to the remaining two tracks.
The Big Ragoo disbanded shortly after the making of this album. In 2010, Jimmy Ether synced the overdubbed vocals to the original two-track master, remixed, remastered and reissued the release on the Headphone Treats imprint. The Big Ragoo have plans to reform… more than 14 years later.
In fact… your purchase of this record (just $5 for 13 songs!) goes directly toward a plane ticket to fly Ken down from New York to make said “new record”. We appreciate the purchase!
If you are interested in this release for blog review or airplay, give me a shout.
