Well, look at this. The kind guys in Kabob-O-Taj came to us recently with a brand new video of a brand new song. And because they were kind enough to offer it up as a world premiere … how could we resist?!?! So, check out the video for “Your Place.” Below are details straight from the Taj’s mouth. Or, well, at least from drummer Rob Wolk, who told us a little about what went into the video as well as the writing of the song. You’ll want to stick on this ride until the end, guys. The twists and turns here will blow your mind.
Anyway, here’s Rob:
“Your Place” was recorded and filmed on January 10 and 11 by Sean Mercer (engineering, mixing) and Nick Hughes (video) at Mobtown studies in Baltimore. As we’ve always done and prefer to do, we recorded the band (guitar, bass, drums) live on the 10th. I don’t remember exactly, but I think we did guitar, percussion, and keyboard overdubs on the 10th as well. Then the 11th was vocal/horn/loose-ends day.
Every recording we have done is recorded mostly live in just a couple days. With a studio video, we really wanted to capture that energy and show our recording process. We’re a real band playing our music live in a room and just going for it. Then we go back and record all of these little ornaments to highlight different parts of the song. The studio allows us to express the more symphonic parts of our ears. We want there to be a reason to see us live and a reason to buy the record. You can be sure that if you buy a record from us, you’ll hear very special versions of the songs. Live, we respond to the audience, we extend parts of songs because we see y’all getting down to it and we live in the moment. It’s more like making a sand picture that gets blown away with the wind.
Also, some of our favorite records are those that have these little Easter eggs. Even after hearing a song a million times, you’re like, “Oh! There’s this little thing I never noticed before!” There are some Easter eggs in this video, too. Can you spot them?
We’ve never done a single or a video before, so we had to face a lot of new challenges. Fortunately, we thrive on new and challenging things. Because it’s only one song, we knew that we had to make it more welcoming. It couldn’t be that new friend you have to warm up to. In hindsight, it also has a lot of qualities of Kabob-O-Taj in it. It’s funky, there’s a polyrhythm for a lot of the song (17/4, or 10+7, against 4/4), there’s a little freak out section, a groovy solo section, and an outro that has the potential to be whatever we want it to be on stage.
We recorded a pretty different version of “Your Place” for our forthcoming EP we just finished at Mystery Ton Studios with Kenny Eaton. I’m proud of both versions. We’re just not the kind of dudes that repeats ourselves.
You can hear “Your Place,” other new material, and some old favorites at Rams Head Live on May 1. We’re ridiculously excited to play on such a big stage. You can be sure that you’ll hear a Kabob-O-Taj performance that we couldn’t get away with in smaller venues.
