The Budos Band
The Budos Band, NYC's own, rocks Baby's All Right in Brooklyn for the celebration of their seventh album release. Also, a look at guitarist Thomas Brenneck's solid rhythm guitar playing.
Hi everyone! I wanted to take a moment to say thanks to everyone who supports this newsletter. It has been a while since my last post. Some of you may know that this past year was my first year as a music teacher in a NYC public elementary school (more on that in a future post). I had been busy developing a curriculum, lesson plans, organizing performances, getting funding for instruments, etc. There were many challenges but overall it was a wonderful year.
So I put a pause on the newsletter for some time to fully concentrate on my students. Now that school is out for the summer, I’m developing a new process that will enable me to continue with my monthly posts this summer and into the next school year. So thank you to those of you who stuck around and are still reading!
The Budos Band. A tidal wave of sound that will rattle your core and captivate your soul. The horn section’s bombastic and creative melodies, the rhythm section’s heavy groove; their light and funky influence mixed with the darkness of Black Sabbath. Their sound is unique and easily identifiable. The Budos Band has everything your ears crave.
On Friday, May 30, they released their new album VII and celebrated its release at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn. They played two nights, and fortunately I was present for the first night. It was a special home town album release show filled with lots of energy, dynamics, grooviness, booze, sweating, and swearing, as usual with Budos.
I found the guitarist Thomas Brenneck’s ability to connect deeply with the drums (Brian Profilio) and bass (Daniel Foder) on those heavy, funky grooves mind-blowing. That rhythm section is super solid. Any musician knows the hard part about playing in a band isn’t always the super fast screeching leads and jaw dropping sound effects. Those are fun at the right moment and they have their own difficulties, but to mesh so well together that the band functions as one entity is a real challenge. This requires a lot of time, practice, and performance as a band. Luckily, Budos has been around since 2004.
In many cases, the rhythm guitarist’s job in the band is to play the same riff or chord progression over and over throughout the entire song and not miss a beat, to keep the groove, and to provide a solid foundation for the main melodies.
After seeing Thomas and The Budos Band live, I realized, I don’t really practice this type of playing much. So I downloaded some of their tunes, learned the guitar parts by ear, took out the original guitar track with Moises, and inserted my own guitar.
Below is my attempt at “Chicago Falcon” from their 2007 album The Budos Band II. The main riff for “Chicago Falcon” has a lot of syncopation. It isn’t easy to play it over and over again and be consistent with time and feel. Below the video is a detailed process that I followed for practicing this song and what I would recommend for anyone who wants to work on this style of playing. Enjoy the sounds of The Budos Band!
How I Practiced this Song Prior to Recording
I learned the guitar part by ear. I took my time to ensure I was playing the correct notes, exactly as they are played. This is the first time I used the Moises app for this, which makes learning by ear so much easier. In this app, the guitar track can be isolated and heard on its own.
The individual tracks of “Chicago Falcon” inside the Moises app. On the left, tracks can be muted or played solo by selecting “M” or “S”. I learned the changes from section to section by playing with the track over and over. In “Chicago Falcon”, the guitar part is either playing the main riff or not playing at all, so that makes it a bit easier to know what to play and when. I noticed musical cues from the keys and bass that gave me a heads up of when to stop. The drum fills told me when to start playing again.
I set my metronome to 100 BPM to practice the parts by myself. This helped me realize if and where I would naturally speed up or slow down. I noticed that this tends to happen for me during section changes or during stops and starts. It also helps me realize if I am playing the parts totally clean or not. It’s easy to sound good when The Budos Band is backing you up!
I played along with Thomas’ guitar included to double check that I was playing all of the notes correctly. At this stage I noticed that Thomas let certain notes ring out more than others while I was previously playing all notes staccato. So I adjusted.
I muted the guitar track and played along to concentrate on how my guitar fit with the rest of the band. At this stage, I’m asking myself, am I in time? Am I meshing well with the drums and the bass? Do I have a good tone? Does my style of playing and sound fit with this band?
During this step I tweaked my guitar sound, trying to get closer to Thomas’ sound. I used my Epiphone Casino, a little overdrive on my Ibanez TS808, and ran this sound through Ableton, using Guitar Rig to emulate a clean amp sound with a bit of reverb.
A view of my Guitar Rig settings. It’s easy to get carried away with effects, but probably the most important element to the sound in this guitar part is the placement of the pick. Thomas picks super close to the bridge to get that funky, twangy sound.
After practicing step five many times and adjusting accordingly, I tried to let go, have fun and record the video.
I had a lot of fun with this tune! It is so important to take a step back and practice patiently to get it right. My main concern with this song was to get the groove and feel correct. If it feels good, I guess I did a decent job. Let me know in the comments below how it sounds to you! Hopefully the recommendations above can help with your own playing.
What I’m Listening To This Week
American Idiot & Dookie - Green Day
Simple Pleasures - Bobby McFerrin
The Universe Smiles Upon You - Khruangbin
Back to Oakland - Tower of Power
Budos Band is the best! Nice job on the funky cover. 🤘