In an effort to broaden and diversify my repertoire, I’ve been looking for projects and artists in LA that might be fun to work with. Recently, I met a man at a dinner party who informed me about an open mic night in Hollywood at The North End (formerly Parlour Room) called Writers Room Wednesdays. That following Wednesday, I decided to check it out.

The format for the evening (they referred to it as Nashville style) was to have three musicians set up and each play an original song one at a time. The first set of this particular evening featured three women who all played their songs, one after the other. When it came time for the third person to play, Cassie Gaffney, with her hat pulled down over her face, played her electric guitar and delivered a strong performance of a very well crafted song she wrote. My lady and I both looked at each other and knew there was something there. After we left that evening, we decided we needed to reach out.

Cassie was really friendly and explained that she had several projects she was working on. One of them was an alternative group which she invited us to come see at Little Joy. We watched the set and ended up catching up with Cassie at a food truck out front. She told us about another project with writing partner Benjamin Knapp called QweenM8. I had asked to hear some of their work and listened to a few previously recorded and mixed tracks and knew right away this was something I wanted to work on. The sound was heavily inspired by The Ravonettes and NIИ - a favorite we shared.

Around the time the stay at home orders started, she introduced me over email to her partner Benjamin, and soon after they sent over a track to work on called NYC. It was already a great song, well written and produced. My goal was simply to balance and polish the mix. So I started working on it and was very pleased by the textures and layers they had recorded in all areas of the song. Well placed drum parts and beats. Rich and textured guitar parts and synths that really blended well with the guitar parts. The vocals were big and full. Lots of harmonies to work with. There was a lot of range to make sound wide, full and round. I was pleased that they were diligent about their edits so I was able to get right to shaping the sound and getting the balance.

Cassie and Ben were very open to letting me play around with the mix so I sent them an initial edit for them to review hoping that I was taking it in the right direction. They expressed that they were pleased with what I sent and had a few stylistic edits to make to which I gladly obliged. I sent it back and they sent it off to mastering right away, which was very pleasing. After they got back the mastered version, I was very excited to hear how polished and finished it sounded. A release date was set which was exciting for all of us. It’s now out on several formats, and you can read a review on Earmilk here.

Listen here:
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