When I attended Hocking College for music industry management and production, my classmates and I worked collaboratively on a project that encompassed all of the skills taught to us over the past two years. Together, we booked a number of audio/visual sessions set in historic log cabins found on our campus in southern Ohio. We named the sessions after the village we filmed them in, Robbins Crossing. These are the complete recordings of those sessions that were never properly released in audio format.
Personally, I booked 3 of the 5 acts. Squid The Whale, Envoi, and Jane Smith came from all over the midwest to do this thing and I'm still super proud of pulling all of these artists together for remain unique performances, recorded for all of time. I also produced the artwork and branding for the project and conducted the interviews that occurred between sets for the video portion. Those are not included in this audio release.
It's interesting looking back at the project now, almost 5 years removed. In a lot of ways, what we were doing then is much like what Audiotree and Little Elephant are doing now. Granted, the production of Robbins Crossing was only somewhere between amateur and professional and wasn't fully planned to perfection like most modern session-based projects, but I don't think it came out too poorly.
Fun facts about Robins Crossing:
- We recorded these sessions in late 2012. It was very cold so we brought electric heaters into the cabins to warm them up. This honestly didn't work too well and in the videos (namely Squid's), you can occasionally see the artist's breath. If not for subjecting our artists to frigid temperatures for our enjoyment and personal gain, it would have been a miserable time. To be fair, there was pizza, hot chocolate, coffee, and a decent guarantee for the band to cash in at the bank.
- This was Jane Smith's first ever solo performance with her solo material. I followed her after Belle Histoire disbanded and knew we had to be involved in the next step of her career. She was the first recorded and she was very nervous. Her session is my favorite.
- Each session was recorded in a different cabin. In retrospect, this was a bad idea because the acoustics of each were drastically different. That's why Envoi's session has so much echo while Adam and Jane's came out much more even.
- Evan Wenner was a student in our class who volunteered to soundcheck at least one session for us. We recorded "Sailboats" as a bonus track.
I've often considered remastering the sessions, but the wait to publish these sessions has been long enough. I hope you enjoy these tunes as much as we all did working on them.