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More about The OaKs' song "Masood":
It was early December, 2004. 26-year-old Ryan Costello had just moved into a new house on the west side of Kabul with a South African family, having lived there only one month. With only a scant knowledge of the local language, Farsi, Costello began walking the streets near his house during the day determined to make friends in the neighborhood. After several days of hanging out with and taking photographs of the local school age children, he was invited by a middle aged man into his mud-walled shop and offered tea. Not knowing the local custom of declining invitations at least three times, Costello said "yes", which surprised the man who frantically looked around, realizing he had no tea to serve. At that moment another, younger man with a beard and leather jacket who had been standing in the corner of the shop spoke up, "You must come to my house and have tea with us."
Just a few hundred feet away Costello approached an old rusty gate racked with bullet holes and walked into a courtyard where the shell of a blown-out building stood. Up the winding stairs and into a carpeted living room, with thin cellophane over the gaping hole blown in the wall, Costello sat and waited. After a few minutes, in walked a young boy, around sixteen-years-old, with clear eyes and a wide smile. "Hello – welcome. My name is Masood."
Thus began a close friendship between Costello and Masood. Taking him deep into the heart of the city's swarming bazaars, Masood helped Costello buy a Chinese bicycle for 20 American dollars. Masood and his brothers took Costello all over the ancient city, from the mined mountains on the outskirts of the city where the faithful gather holy water from a sacred spring to the bird bazaar where birds from all over Asia are traded and sold. Their unlikely friendship grew deeper, as did Masood's English and Costello's Farsi. Masood shared his life story, how his father had been a renowned judge before the war and how they lived in a large house, which they now huddled in the remains of.
One sub-freezing night in the middle of winter, Masood showed up on Costello's doorstep with red, worried eyes. "Can I use your phone to call my brothers out on the west side of the country?" After some prompting, Masood shared with Costello that his father was near death with an undiagnosed illness. Masood took Costello in the cold night to his house, up the stairs and into a small back bedroom, where Costello saw Masood's mother, brothers, and sister huddled around his father who lay on a cot on the floor, a loud rattle in his chest. Masood invited Costello to come and sit with him next to his father, and they sat together for some time. Masood asked if Costello would pray over his father, and, raising his hands in the Afghan custom, he did. That night, Masood's father passed away.
The next day began 40 days of mourning. Masood came over to get Costello one early morning soon after, and Costello walked into their courtyard to find relatives from all over Afghanistan had come to pay their respects for Masood's father. Many of them walked up to Costello and thanked him in broken English for coming to spend time with him in his last hours, and for praying for him.
Costello and Masood continued their close relationship for two more years after this, until Costello left for America. Masood changed after his father died, becoming more sober and pensive. He shared with Costello the weight he felt on his shoulders to rise up and provide for his family and to take on their name.
Three years later, as Costello sat around in his living room in Florida one summer strumming on his classical guitar, he began working on a song that would weave in the story of Masood with another Masood who was killed in late 2001, Ahmad Shaw Masood. An Afghan mythic hero who rose up mighty armies to fight first the Russians and then later the Taliban, Masood from an early age carried himself as a warrior and a walking message to his people never to let themselves be ruled from without. Called "The Lion of Panshir", Masood gave hope to his people in a hopeless time. As a composite of one personal friendship and one mythic story, Masood came to be one of the centerpieces of The OaKs' new album Songs For Waiting. | | 2008-01-08 05:51:53 | | | New album! ( and the OaKs begin to emerge from exile...) |
It seems like July 23rd was years ago, the day that we began this long journey, holing up in my 1950's wood-floored house with instruments piled up around our heads, but on November 20th we finally finished our new album! We've called it Songs For Waiting.
And what a journey it's been...for myself, I've learned a lot. This is the first record that we did from start to finish ourselves, including the mixing (the first record Martin Feveyear out in Seattle mixed for us while we looked over his shoulder). With this album we wanted to mold each part of the process in our own hands...which was scary in some ways! The inspiration for the sound of this album really came from my living room, a house we rent in the old section of town (Winter Park) where we wrote and crafted most of these songs. The deep resonance of this room just creates a feeling, a real atmosphere, and our whole goal was to play into the room and just capture that feeling. From the very beginning, our vision was to use as few modern recording techniques as possible - just to set up room microphones and play our instruments, mic'ing them in the way we wanted them to sound on the recording.
Most music is recorded to capture the best possible "tone" of the instrument, usually mic'd at a very close distance, and then artificial reverb is used to try to make each instrument blend together. What we did from the very beginning is tried to picture where each instrument would be placed in the stereo field and then mic'd that instrument with that end in mind. So when we recorded background vocals, and we wanted them to sound like they came from behind the main voices, we stood 10 feet back from the microphone. In some ways this was kind of a crazy way to make an album, very old school, but once we got into it it felt really liberating and we found ourselves getting really creative with the space in the room and all the places we could put the microphones for different feels and sounds. We even recorded our 1980's synthesizers by playing them out into the room.
One of the best things for me was the way we have really pulled together as a band through making this album. This is our first album as a full band, 6 members, when the first one was just Matt and I. A lot of times in concert or loud rehearsals I can't hear the intricate parts that each member is working out, but as the main audio engineer I got to spend hours and hours with each person in my living room helping to record their parts into my laptop and I got to witness what a range of amazing talents each person brings to this band. I feel crazy blessed to be a part of this! I love the way each person brought the right touch of minimalism to their parts, willing to drop something or change something to make the song better at a moment's notice. Each sacrificing themselves for the whole.
Throughout the process of mixing we were guided, mentored really, by Alan Douches at West West Side Music, who's hand has been on everything from Paul Simon's Graceland to Sufjan Steven's Illinoise and Grizzly Bear's Yellow House. His insight, and more than that his confidence and encouragement in us and our music, has been totally priceless. Thank you, Alan.
And the finished product? Is beautiful to me. We wanted to make an album that transports, and I feel like it does that. We wanted to make an album that pushes ourselves musically, lyrically, and in songwriting, and I feel like it does that. The album art by Justin Mezzell is shaping up to fit it perfectly as well.
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OK, you're dying to ask, when can I buy this thing??! In a very short period of time we'll be posting a new song for download and another one streaming on this very site. Contact us now to find out about pre-ordering the new album (more details to come). The album will be officially released on March 4th....and we'll be playing shows featuring our new songs starting with January 5th, Saturday, at the Social. Until then... | | 2008-01-08 05:51:04 | | BLOG ARCHIVE
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