Notes From the Grid is a bi-weekly column about the Columbia County music scene written by Rob. It is featured every other Friday in the "On the Scene" supplement of the Hudson Register Star. See all »

April 23, 2012

The Chandler Travis Three-O and Lena Deluxe

Lena Deluxe is back in Hudson for the fourth time, inspired and determined to finish her record. I almost wrote her “new” record, but the process has been drawn out due to monetary concerns, scheduling difficulties and illness so that some of the material has been around for a very long time. In the winter of 2008/2009 this young woman from Lille, France came to Hudson as a multi-instrumentalist member of The Brisa Roche Band. Lena (who will respond to the name Sun Beam as her given name which I won’t give here having forgotten to ask her permission). Brisa Roche is one of a number of popular rock artists outside of the USA who are drawn to Henry Hirsch’s Waterfront Studios on the corner of 6th and Columbia, housed in a former church. You’ve seen it, it looks benign from the outside, there’s rarely any evidence of the big things going on inside those brick walls, though more than a few Hudsonites have had the opportunity to wonder why one woman would come from Australia, why some guy from Argentina would stay here for months and few of us realized that one of the processions of handsome young adults roaming around Hudson might actually be one of the most respected rock bands in France. Brisa brought her band here to record her newest album and Lena was there to help with keyboards and drums. She decided during this session that she would find a way to have Henry record her. She returned twice to Hudson, once to visit with Henry and Tina and again in 2001, ready to make a record. But sometimes fate has more say about things than an artist would like.

Lena Deluxe

Lena contracted a case of mononucleosis soon after arriving in Hudson last autumn. She was unable to sing and she was often too exhausted to play which was particularly troublesome because since Lena is such a compleat musician she and Henry had decided she would play every instrument and sing all harmonies on the record as well as composing each song. Her introduction to music was as a student of classical piano spending ten years studying piano and solfège (a technique for the teaching of sight singing) in a conservatory. At 14 she began to play guitar and at 17 years she learned to play drums and began to compose. In contrast to her early musical education her current methods of musicianship tend to welcome impulsiveness and intuition. Mademoiselle Deluxe rarely reads music any more and is a fine electric guitarist who specializes in sounds of the west coast sixties. So it becomes evident how the sense of simpatico was established between Henry Hirsch, a man who can so readily and capably enable that sound and Lena Deluxe, a woman who cherishes and manifests that same sound. Lena’s illness would not allow her to play every note on every instrument on the album, but neither the artist nor the man who would become her producer, recorder, mixer, co-arranger, friend and confidante ever considered abandoning the project. Henry worked with Lena on the non-vocal parts of the record, sometimes pushing her a bit in spite of her illness, ready to work with her whenever she felt well enough. “The record is now almost a duo record between Henry and me.” states Lena, “His ideas and his bass and piano are a big part of it.” When she returned to France she worked with her friend Fred Candeille, the owner of La Fabric studio in France overdubbing seven songs she had been unable to complete at the Riverfront Studio. Fred also has a profound belief in the project and agreed to accompany Lena back to Hudson to assist Henry in finishing the recording.

The reality that Lena would be unable to make every note of the album eventually morphed the project into another dimension and rather than limiting the material it has eventually given life to some new and otherwise unlikely ideas and arrangements. Lena describes her creative process as an evolving cycle. She writes her songs in English. Much of her earlier work would result from an odd riff or chord progression she would discover on the keyboard or more likely on the guitar, a process which evolved into writing lyrics and music together. But these days she generally already has something she wants to communicate when she begins to compose.

A case in point would be one of her most popular songs “D-Day” a self-reflective and touching song win which the refrain “It’s a beautiful day…. for dying…” punctuates each verse.

“It’s not that I want to die,” the young woman who sometimes calls herself ‘Sun Beam’ assures us. “I was depressed one morning and thinking about how sad people are when someone dies.” In France, she told me they have a day (November 11), not unlike the Mexican Dios de la Muertos when people consider and celebrate the passing that is called death. “People go into the cemetery and drink shots of rum and run around the graves” while reflecting on the transitory reality of life. “So one Sunday morning I was a bit depressed and thinking – in case I die – I would like this song to be at my funeral for my friends so they will know that there is beauty in death, like there is in life.”

Lena Walks Like an Egyptian

It is a simple song and is a good example of how perception and arrangement can cause a piece to take on a very new and different sound while continuing to embody the original concept. In concert, Lena performs this piece song on baritone ukulele, slowly and deliberately strumming two simple chords while singing lines like “there’s dew on the wood, sparkling like a million tears” Halfway through the tune Lena begins to stamp her foot, accompanied by a single drum beat in a dirge like reference to a funeral procession. “You see,” Lena confided, “performing is intuitive and demands a connection with the listener. Recording songs is more intellectual, it is hard to demand and keep the listener’s attention because there are other distractions. D-Day is a long song… in a club, in concert I can keep the audience connected with just the song and stamping my foot and the ukulele, but in the studio we decided to make it a little more symphonic:; adding, for instance a cello, because sometimes a person listening to a CD has to be engaged in a different way. This is why I love to work with Henry Hirsch so much, he is such a perfect person to have recording my music.”

Henry is like a coach to support me, this is the first time I met someone who is more demanding of my music then me! I have interpretation of 60’s music because I love it,that is what I play, but he has authentic experience.” Lena paused and laughed saying “We fought all the time” and remembering how adamant he was that this record needed to reflect her personality. “I learned to let him do his stuff and I have become so confident in his work. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t compromise, at one point we spent such a long time trying to get a Dick Dale 60’s surfer San Francisco guitar feeling and we did get it, we did it together. That was a big accomplishment.”

Lena also shared her good feelings about Hudson and how she feels it is the perfect place for her to record her solo album. “It’s funny how the antique stores dominate..that’s all you see at first but soon you realize there is such a creative emulation in this place, I was surprised to find so many great musicians here, we needed a sitar on one cut, we found one (Rich Hallenbeck), we needed a violin, we found one (Jonathan Talbot). It’s easy to gig in this town and the bands are much better here than France, I think because they play more and are able to make the best of bad situations like lousy sound systems and no monitor and no sound checks. Sometimes there will be 5 or 6 bands in a club here in the USA one after another. I think American bands are better be cause they have so much hardship that way, they have to just tune the guitar and start to play right away… that is not what happens in France… there we always have at least one hour for sound check, which makes the musicians more picky so the level of competency is higher here in the US.”

After the album is completed Lena will look for a record deal. She has contacts, is well known and has a booking agent in France where she just finished a tour with the Brisa Roche band in support of the “Takes” record which was mixed by Henry Hirsch here in Hudson but a tour and a record deal in the USA is what Lena would like the most. She would like to share the music she has created in the where the music that inspires her so much was created. “With my accent, it’s hard but I would really like to tour here.” She uses Northern California, where Brisa Roche is from, in finding a metaphor for her ambitions and dreams for her career and her life.  “The Sequoia trees, are like being in a fairytale. Feeling so tiny when you are below them, thinking how nice it would be to be up in the sky, to touch the sky.

Chandler Travis

Lena Deluxe will be playing at Musica on North Fourth Street in Hudson at 7:00 on April 28 (tomorrow). She hopes to convince at least one special guest to join her.  Following Lena will be the Chandler Travis Three-0 in a very special preview of the upcoming Hudson. Water. Music. concert series this summer. With luck the music will be performed on the Musica patio, otherwise, in the event of inclement or real cold windy weather the show will be in the Musica loft where the seating and standing is limited