Gideon King & City Blog

City Blog is the dream project of New York guitarist, Gideon King. He has assembled some of the finest musicians in the city to create his latest record. A classy album that also isn't afraid to bare it's soul. A tale of love and loss in the big city. Included in the group’s impressive roster are vocalist Grace Weber, a mainstay of jazz-rock virtuosos, Steely Dan and bassist James Genus who’s talents can be heard with Herbie Hancock, Daft Punk and the Saturday Night Live Band. King himself is an accomplished guitarist with many fantastic solos, though as you’ll read in the interview, he is modest about his place among these titans of the session playing world.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to talk today. City Blog is an ambitious 
project and it has come together beautifully. Congratulations on the 
album.


How do you get these amazing players to come in on the album? Do you 
pick out musicians whose playing you love and seek them out or is it a 
matter of extended friendships and people you meet in the studio?

Well, I ask really nicely. Actually, that’s not it. I go and hear jazz and fusion all the time. I listen constantly. There are certain players who have this essence. They might be jazz players but there is something about their improvisation or their attack that crosses over genres. They are just musical lightning rods. I mean let me give you a real-time example. Recently I heard this keyboard player play live. It was very special. He has great and unique jazz chops. He is fascinating on a sonic basis. His whole vibe is just about sounds and harmony and an overall sonic impression. I got his email through a sax player friend of mine who has worked with him. I will send him my music and compositions. If he digs what I am doing we will get together and see if good things happen. My secret sauce is that I find people who are just better musicians than I am by a wide margin. Many of these encounters turn into extended friendships. I am starting to think you really have to like bass players and drummers as people to work with them. For some reason, it has to be personal with bass and drums.





It must be very difficult to arrange everyone's schedules. How do you go 
about accommodating that in the studio? Do you strive to record with 
everyone in the room or do you tend to record parts individually?

Yes, sometimes the logistics can be a nightmare. Getting everyone to a great studio at the same time is like being a soccer goalie and having 20 balls kicked at you at once. Somehow, though, it works out when the stars randomly align. Sometimes we record together and other times separately. I have learned through experience that it is better to have drums and bass hook up live. Truthfully, I find that vocalists need time to try on different musical attitudes on any given tune, so I like to track vocals separately. 





Are you able to arrange live shows with such a consistently busy 
ensemble?

Well, that is a challenge but not at all impossible. When I feel I can get the same exact sonic thing live that I get in the studio, then we will play live. I am doing a fair number of live gigs now with a Singer named Saul Rivers. We have been playing venues and having a great time. It is a different act than Gideon King & City Blog but lots of great music there. We play a lot of his tunes, which are great. 





New York is definitely an important character in the album. Can you get 
in to how the city inspires you and informs your playing on the album?

Well, this city is boiling over with contradiction and funny irony. People are so bold and seemingly honest and yet full of it at the same time. Pristine restaurants on dirty streets. Smart and well-educated people saying any silly thing to seem progressive and politically correct. People spending hours getting dressed just to appear chill. Deeply creative people who look like yuppies and artsy looking downtowners who don’t have a creative bone in their bodies. Poor people that will buy you dinner and rich people that won’t reach for a check. Packed streets and yet a mass epidemic of loneliness. The collision of opposites makes for a certain undeniable energy that inspires one to write music. All of these tensions lead me to write music that embodies opposites. Maybe an easy listening vibe with sharp lyrics. Maybe rock guitar tones over jazz changes. Pop music that does not conform to pop song structure norms. Anyway, none of it is too serious and there is no social commentary in my music. I am not sure why artists feel qualified to make social commentary. It’s so boring. 




What is your favourite neighbourhood or neighbourhoods and why?

Wow. Interesting question. I like the sleepy stuff. I like the quiet neighbourhoods deep on the Upper West side by Grant’s Tomb. I like some areas of Brooklyn that are just there not trying too hard to have much character. The ultra hip areas downtown get tiresome; too many people trying too hard to look bohemian or artistic or edgy. I like the Neighbourhood feel, whether in wealthy areas or a middle or lower class area. Any street with great Cuban or Dominican or Japanese food is worth hanging around until you get hungry. I don’t know, some of the village is cool too. Who knows, I like it all so long as it is not one of these areas where people put too much thought into how they dress. 





You have several different singers on the album. Do you write the 
lyrics, do they write the lyrics or is it a collaboration?

Yes, I write the lyrics and chord changes but it is up to the singers to make it their own. Great singers like Grace Weber and Elliott Skinner from Thirdstory and Marc Broussard fascinate me. They just get up there and let fly. Seems rather terrifying to me. I like to hide behind my guitar and even that is not enough sometimes.





For the gearheads out there, can you tell us a bit about your guitar 
setup? The tone is quite remarkable. The solos on 'City Blog' and 'New 
York Is' are nicely overdriven yet are still very pure.

If I tell you this I will have to kill you. Like all guitar players, I am in the eternal search for perfect tone. I actually think my tones in the next album are better, but I guess that is a matter of taste. We try everything. We try going “direct through amp modelers.” We mic up cabinets, sometimes multiple cabinets, and sometimes the guitar itself. We use room mics. For me, there is something special about using a semi-hollow body guitar for rock and fusion tones. There is a warmth underlying the distortion that brings out an authenticity and fatness to the tone. I mostly play a Buscarino semi-hollow body through certain cabinets made by Alessandro. I certainly do use a pedalboard of vintage and standard pedals. I also now use in conjunction with the pedalboard an AX8 modeler and effects processor. For acoustic tone, I use guitars made by Traphagen and Buscarino and other makers, and I try and mic them up with high-quality vintage and modern mics. The mic thing is an obsession. There is no perfect mic, but somehow the hope that a perfect mic exists causes one to buy new ones. I also use other synth products made by Roland and Boss. I guess in the end there is nothing like a great amp, cabinet, and mic bringing out the warmth of a beautifully made semi-hollow body. It’s all very frustrating. 




'Glide' has a very different vibe from the rest of the album, acoustic guitar and upright bass. What influenced your writing on that song?

Yes, Glide and What Say you are all about acoustic instruments supporting the great vocalist Grace Weber. Her voice is very pure and precise in many ways so it is cool to have an earthy acoustic vibe. In some ways, an upright bass is just the most earthy instrument that exists. It is a big rattling tree of an instrument and forms a funky bottom when played by greats like James Genus and Matt Penman. Glide has some bluegrass elements that can only be serviced by acoustic guitar and bass together with a real drum set. Sometimes great vocals are obscured by anything other than acoustic ambience. Think of Ella being joined by Joe Pass on guitar. So pure. We were going for that purity here. 





You are proud of the fact that your band is "bringing back real music 
with real chord changes, real solos, real instruments and real humans 
improvising". Can you talk about what you think that approach adds to 
the finished project and why it can't be achieved by trying to "fake 
it"?

I like some of the beat programs like Ableton that are so integral to modern music, but real instruments don’t sound as compressed as all the modern tools. They breathe. There is air between the mic and the instrument as opposed to the closed system of direct digital connections. As for solos, I just miss them in music. Thankfully jazz is all about improvisation, but pop music and rock are terribly formulaic. There are much fewer full expressions replete with solos nowadays. I miss the Eagles and Pink Floyd and Hendrix and Frampton. At least they played and improvised. Now we have these hyper digital compositions that sound excessively computerized. Getting onstage with a laptop and no musicians is just really depressing stuff. I know I sound old fashioned here but for me, it is very special to watch a soloist do their thing. I love soloing. There is nothing like it. This is why I still listen to so much jazz. The personality of an artist is most on display during a solo if you ask me. The artist must do it alone. It is not a collaboration of business people coming together to make a tune so it makes radio. That is just really sad. 





What project are you working on next? Will there be more music coming 
from the City Blog band?

Yes, we are working on our next CD, entitled Broken And Beautiful. Many of the same musicians and some new ones too. Very exciting. We continue to learn. I continue to think having great rock and soul and pop singers do their thing over jazz and fusion chord changes is very compelling. I also continue to play great venues around New York. Thanks for the questions and interest. 



Gideon King & City Blog’s self-titled album is out now.