Randell Young
The Martian Sessions
In late April 2003, my friend Dan Scheuer came to me with an offer to produce a CD for Martians Incorporated. Yes, I know that sounds sort of crazy but have you seen Sponge Bob Square Pants?
"Well", Dan said, "If you owned one percent of that property, we would be having this conversation on the oceanfront veranda of your Mediterranean palace at Ritz Cove."
So after researching Square Pants, I concluded that Dan had a great angle on a children's band/cartoon and licensing concept. Hey, he even had a patented Martian helmet. So I was in.
After we had agreed on a budget, he then informed me that, although he had most of the lyrics, I would need to write and record all the music and have a completed concept CD in his hand for a live dance theatre performance he had scheduled for June 1st at The Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood.
I did raise the obvious issues.
"Don't you want to work on some tunes, develop a creative direction and let the project progress at a rational pace? Don't you want to wait until you have a CD (or at least a few songs) that you are happy with before you begin work on the live show... or at least before you schedule a debut performance at a large theatre?"
"No. We don't have time for that. We need to write and record the CD, hire and rehearse four dancers, get about 500 kids into the Henry Fonda Theater, video tape the show and have a competed and edited DVD to take with me to the licensing show in New York the week of June 8," was where Dan was at.
Dan was giving me a lesson in add-on negotiating. That's were you design the discussions to disclose strategically certain details at the time most beneficial to your interest - or you withhold vital information until you have the other guy sucked irrevocably into the deal - depending on your point of view.
Dan's principal theory as to how that was going to work was that if we hung out and drank enough beer together, we would, naturally, come up with something. I knew there would be a little more to it than that, but then he really upped the ante. In addition to the usual fees and royalties, I was going to get stock in the deal (a lot of stock) and the band would get a share of the royalties and a taste of stock in the deal as well.
So, Dan and I sat down in my living room and went through some of his lyrics. Inspiration, luck, muses, a gift from heaven... who knows? But Dan's lyrics did inspire me to hear some interesting music and we started to put some ideas on paper. In a few days, we had our first nine songs. We were ready to begin recording.
So, I called on my usual crew and lined up drum tracking days at Castle Studios in the valley. Castle had just purchased the Sound Craft board that Tom Petty recorded most of his hits on and they had a completely up-to-date Pro Tools system with a DigiDesign controller. More importantly, they also had a couple of great engineers.
When I go in the studio, I always want to have Rick Shlosser on the drums. He has worked with dozens of successful record producers, played on many hits and really should be considered a drum producer in that his drums are always impeccably tuned, he always composes an outstanding drum track and he plays with precision equal to a drum machine. With Rick, I know I am going to get a technically-perfect drum track with great feel - and on the first or second take!
Once you've got that, theoretically, at least, you can keep auditioning other tracks until you have a great record. I say theoretically, because you never have the budget to do that and, if you bring in the right players, you don't need to.
I had Ronnie Shumake on bass with whom I had worked recently in The FireHawks and with British pop-singer LJ and I knew I could count on The Iceman to find the pocket and play the right stuff behind Rick's groove.
Stuart Elster had worked with me on my second solo CD (Guitar Noir) and on many live performances. I had him on electric piano (and later on a great old Hammond organ and Leslie that we rented from Harlen Spector).
Stuart, as well and Rick and Ronnie, knew my production concept inside and out so there was very little discussion required. Basically, I just threw down the charts and they knew what to do.
After our first two rhythm tracking days, Dan and I evaluated what we had. We we're excited with the performances, the tunes and the engineering. We could also see that we would need to add a few tunes to make the set more suitable for a live dance theatre performance. We got to work on that and a few days later, we had a new batch of tunes to go.
The Iceman had gone out of town but my old friend Reggie McBride had just returned from touring and could make the session in-between working on Keb Mo's next CD. So Reggie came in, put his vibe on and boosted the funk quotient on the project into the stratosphere. If you hear some licks that you swear we ripped off from Parliament and the Funkadelics, Stevie Wonder or Chaka Khan, relax, they were Reggie's licks to begin with and he can still play them with whomever he likes... even a bunch of Martians!
Square one of any recording session is getting a great sound on the drums. Rick Shlosser and John Prpich have worked together on so many projects we sort of consider John to be Rick's personal engineer - kind of like some major league pitchers that have a personal catcher. John did a great job tracking not only the drums but most of the guitar, bass and back-up vocals you hear on the CD as well. Here's John working at the Pro Tools mixer.
I always like to work with Cydney Davis and Theresa Walker. They've sang behind the likes of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Joe Cocker, Diana Ross, Barry White, Michael Bolton and Ray Charles and I have had the pleasure to work with them on various projects over the last 10 years or so.
They are great singers and they always come with a positive vibe... living proof that not all female singers are temperamental and difficult. Every time I hear diva stories, I always say, "Why do you put up with that? You shoulda called Cydney and Theresa - they are totally professional and they sing better than those prima donnas you're wrestling with!"
In this photo, we have Theresa's daughter Taylor (age 10) singing as well. Taylor came with Theresa to the session and we figured, what-the-heck, let's get her in on some of the rap vocal parts. We were pleasantly surprised to find that she adjusted to the head phones very quickly and was also able to sing on pitch (not as easy as it looks) so we used her on Time Out! as well.
I recommended Cydney to direct the choreography and to cast our four Martian dancers. I really don't know anything about choreography, but I've worked many live dates with Cydney and Theresa and they've always got some wild moves going on, they even dance while they are recording. So I felt certain that they would give Dan a great result and they did.
The Martian Wave was always headed in a Latin direction and after we added the vocals, it was just crying out for Mayuto Correa on congas and percussion. Mayuto had a brutal schedule but he came in at 4:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning and put down some great tracks.
Not so long into the recording process, Dan wanted to know how soon before the June 1st show he could get a CD. I told him he would have rough mixes of partially-completed tracks suitable for the dancers to rehearse with one week in advance of the show.
Then he wanted to know when he could have the completed and mixed CD ready for the show. I asked him what time the Martians were scheduled to go on. "One o'clock", he said.
"I absolutely guarantee that on or before 12:59 p.m., someone will hand over the CD to your sound crew. Just have your guy ready to pop it into your CD player at one o'clock and we'll be good to go!", I said.
Here is Stephan Villanueva during a 22-hour mixing session that ended at 10 a.m. on Sunday 1 June, exactly three hours before showtime. It took another hour to run off the copies and about 45 minutes to drive over to The Henry Fonda Theater and get parked. I delivered the CD personally - a little before 12 noon - a whole hour early!
After the initial performance at The Henry Fonda Theatre, we continued to develop both the CD and the live show. Keyboardist Rick Dellefield came in and added some wild space noises, digital orchestrations and a few piano and B3 tracks as well. I also wrote horn charts for Time Out! and That's Why and brought in Steve Crum (trumpet), Jock Ellis (trombone) and John Bolivar (saxes and flutes) to play them. John also added some scat soloing on the end of these tunes as well. Somewhere at Martian HQ are the photos to prove it.
Further along, Dan decided that he wanted the kids to do the lead vocals (both live and on the CD) and so the search was on for four kids (two boys and two girls, aged 13 to 14) who could sing, dance and act.
After weeks of auditioning every kid we could find - and every kid every agent in Los Angeles thought might be able to sing well enough to record with The Martians - we found four incredibly talented kids... fortunately or unfortunately they were all girls.
After much deliberation, Dan decided to abandon the two boys/two girls concept and go where the talent seemed to be leading the project.
So this is how Martians Incorporated became...
And here is Kristina Garnett (Zarbie) in the studio. Only recently turned 13 years old, she has appeared in Donald Byrd's The Harlem Nutcraker and completed some 180 performances at the Pantages Theatre as Young Nala in Walt Disney's The Lion King.
All of the girls did a great job with each taking about six hours to record all of their vocal tracks on the CD. Kristina took about an hour to track half the CD then came into the control room to have lunch and hang out for about an hour. All rested up, she then went back to work and completed all her remaining tracks in another hour.
This is a phenomenally talented young singer/dancer/actress. Notre etoile! (Our star!) Zarbie!
Darlene Parilla, age 14, plays a Martian named (Dingodangodongopingopongozanagloo). For short we call her Bluez. Darlene has taken championship honors on Ed McMahon's Next Big Star as well as Showtime at the Apollo.
Also involved with the group at this point is Krysten Leigh Jones (Deonz-Zeonz) who, at age 14, has already worked with Bill Cosby in Fatherhood, Denzel Washington in Remember The Titans and Bernie Mac on The Bernie Mac Show. We had a photo of Krysten here but, after she left the group, her mother asked that we remove it.
And here is our newest Martian... Shanica Knowles (Xzenzx) who, at age 13, has appeared on Ed McMahon's Next Big Star and Showtime at the Apollo and won the American Kids National Competition and the McDonald's Kids Talent Search.
Here is Photographer Bob Hodson of Studio Hodson working with The Martians on a their first photo shoot. Krysten's image has be redacted at her mother's request.
Soon after this shoot, The Martians went into intense rehearsals to create a new live show. Ed Moore (whose resume includes Whitney Houston, The Backstreet Boys and Michael Jackson) was brought in to further develop the choreography and Cydney Davis was hired to coach the girls on their signing.
After a number of dance and vocal rehearsals, creative tensions began to develop and with their CD release party only two weeks out, Krysten Leigh Jones' mother decided to pull her out of the project.
Fortunately, Darlene remembered that she had met a very talented singer/dancer/actress - Olivia Usey - who was represented by her same agency. We brought her in for an audition and she was great. So Olivia replaced Krysten and The Martians picked up an even more intense rehearsal program in order to be ready for their March 17th show.
On Wednesday 17 March 2004, Zarbie and The Martians debuted their new live show to an enthusiastic, standing-room-only crowd at The Beverly Hills Hotel. The evening was opened with a rockin' performance by 19-year old British singer/songwriter LJ.
By the way, The Martians sing all their own vocals and perform with a live band. Nothing is lip-synced or sung to pre-recorded tracks. Everything, including the back up vocals and orchestrations, is performed live.
There wasn't enough time before the show to bring Olivia in to re-record all of Krysten's vocal parts. So we really didn't know if Olivia would cut it in the studio. She was great live but there is no margin for error in the studio - the tracks have to be perfect - so we were a little concerned in that we hadn't had time to properly audition her under studio conditions. But, when the time came, she stepped up, did a great job singing on the CD and became the official, new Deonz-Zeonz.
As we were finalizing our mixes, Dan had this idea that he wanted to tie in Orson Wells' War of the Worlds with our Martian invasion. So we went through Well's original radio broadcast of 1939 and sampled anything that we thought might be useful. Then, we went through our own record looking for places where we might drop in some of Well's original dialogue or narration... and we found a few spots.
For a FREE MP3 from Zarbie and The Martians' Funk From Mars, CD produced by Randell Young, click on below...
That Thing You Do
(Randell Young) 3:41 MP3
That Thing You Do features Kristina Garnett as Zarbie, Captain of The Martian Crew.
But Dan wasn't satisfied. He had this two minutes of narration from Orson that we was dying to find a use for. It was a great bit. The problem was some of it fit our scenario and some didn't. So we rewrote the thing to suit our Martians and brought in former Criterion Music publishing executive Terry Wright "Can Do No Wrong" to perform it. (I have teased poor Terry so long with the "Can Do No Wrong" thing that it has become his real name so far as everybody other than his mom is concerned.)
Terry has a great, deep and crystal clear voice. I've known him for over 20 years and always thought it would be great to have him narrate something. Well, after 20 years, his opportunity finally came along and he did a spectacular job.
So now the record begins with Terry doing a Rod Serling type of opening narration with Rick Dellefield synthesizing some more Outer Limits-like space noises underneath.
But now we had another concern.
Dan, are you sure this isn't too scary for the little kids?
"Are you crazy?! Kids love scary stuff!" he yells.
The True Story of
Zarbie and The Martians
To learn more about
Zarbie and The Martians,
click on the photo below...
