Bard Wire Productions - recording, producing and publishing the music of Richie Monroe and friends.

Projects and Progress

August 2009, 2010 and 2011: Richie recorded the Known World Choir at the 38th, 39th and 40th Pennsic Wars of the Society for Creative Anachronism.

2007 - 2008: Additional segments of Alex Feinman's radio play were recorded.

Spring 2007: Richie performed as part of the grand opening series at Olaf's Plunder in Wilmington, VT. The shop is owned by our friend, Jim Revells, and features gifts, original artwork, scandinavian import items -- and Richie's CD "Reunion"!

Summer 2006: Richie recorded the live middle eastern music at a recital of the dance troupe Bad Raqsan'e Sahra. (That's Persian for Sahara Wind Dancers.)

Spring 2006: Several recording sessions with Wendy Hennequin. Known in the SCA as Mistress Fiana of Clare, her collection of stories, poems and songs will be made available on CD as "Bard's Dozen", probably this Fall.

Fall 2005: Recorded tracks for "Gary and the Geezers" for a demo CD.

July 2005: Couple of recording sessions of Indian dance music with Beth Pir. These will be duplicated for sale to her students; she teaches Indian dance as Mistress Lakshmi Amman in the SCA.

July 2005: Recorded the first two installments of a radio play by Alex Feinman with several audio actors.

6/21/05: Recorded performance of the "I Sebastiani" commedia del'arte troupe in Cambridge.

05/13, 05/19 and 06/10/04: Richie performed 3 live lunchtime gigs at Eurest dining facilities in Andover and Lowell MA.

03/16/04: Our first official reviewer wrote "this is a really good CD" - read the rest of the review at IndieShout.

02/15/04: We celebrated the completion of "Reunion" with some friends at Owen O'Leary's Pub in Southboro MA.

01/31/04: Our first selling date, at an SCA event - A Market Day at Birka, in NH.

01/22/04: We accepted delivery of our "Reunion" CD's, prepared mailings to all the team members, spammed all our e-mail lists, and are ready to SELL on-line.

12/29/03: The master copy has been delivered to ADA for duplication!

12/27/03: Susan put up all new web pages, including pictures of each of the musicians (on the "about us" page), and the new logo which was drawn by our friend, Thomas Moore. Known in the SCA as Master Spence Colby, he's the creator of the "Spookie" cartoons and many notorious archery tournements.

12/23/03: Phil Antoniades, President of ADA, pulled all the graphics work for the album together, and Susan approved sending it to the printer for proofs.

12/16/03: First master received; one song will be adjusted.

12/12/03: The album cover art painting, done by Jeff Webb, was received by the graphic artist.

12/05/03: Susan met with Abby Getman, the graphic artist at ADA, and provided her with all the photos and mock-ups for the CD printing.

12/02/03: Mixing complete! Little Dog added his own organ track to "Sunset Nostalgia". All tracks shipped off to be mastered, by Sjoko (Sjoerd Koppert) at Tantrum Records (formerly NGS Productions).

11/24/03: Susan met with Phil Antoniades, the President of Artist Development Associates. ADA will be manufacturing the CD for us.

10/22/03: Richie delivered all the tracks to our mixing engineer, David L. Sparr of Little Dog Studios.

10/5/03: The sequence of songs on the album has been changed, so the "Reunion" page has been updated accordingly.

09/28/03: Richie and Aidas converted all the tracks from the Roland to Pro Tools, and synchronized them.

09/15/03: Audrey returned and re-tracked a song or two.

09/7/03: We "go nowhere" a lot: Check out www.nowhereradio.com to hear new music and support independent musicians! Richie has been making his home mixes available there for commentary. You can go directly to any in-process tracks he has up by clicking here.

09/1/03: Susan updated all web pages, adding the CD program and song lyrics.

08/30-31/03: Mo and Carolyn retracked several vocals, using more flattering mic choices.

07/30/03: Audrey came over with her treasured viola and violin, and added pretty tracks for three songs. A woman with impeccable taste, she really likes the Kiwi.

07/19-20/03: Jeff returned to re-track trap set. With Aidas' guidance, mic placement was greatly improved.

06/14-15/03: Bill drove in (from New York) and added his superb fretless bass guitar foundations to many tracks.

05/30-06/01/03: Christopher flew in (from Oregon), played with every guitar on-site plus his own, and left us with some phenomenal lead guitar tracks.

05/23-25/03: Jeff laid down more drum tracks, including an appropriately old sound for "Woodsman" and terrific tribal rhythms on "Summertime".

05/16-18/03: Mo and Carolyn flew in (from California and Colorado) and tracked some wonderful vocals. The chair in the tracking station has been dubbed "the goddess chair", and the vocal booth is now known as "the womb". "Po' Cat Blues" now has chirps who meow!

04/25-27/03: Jeff drove in (from New York) to record his first drum tracks. The skin heads on his hand-drums don't like the damp basement, but several tracks were recorded. He found a heartbeat in "Requiem" and his stick work on "Goody's Song" sounds like train travelling; mahvelous!

04/14/03: We came home from work and found the studio under several inches of water, with Susan's harp sitting in the middle of it! Luckily all the guitars were protected in their cases or off the floor. Several pieces of soggy equipment took a few days to dry out, and the carpeting took a month. End result? Everything survived!

From January through April, Richie learned to use his cool new toys, modified some of his selections, figured out how to play without singing and sing without playing, and laid down all his guitar and vocal tracks.

01/13/03: The rack has been upgraded by the addition of an Avalon AD 2022 mic preamp.

01/01/03: The mic cabinet has been upgraded yet again, and a new shot of the whole mic cabinet has been placed on the pictures page. To-date, ten guide tracks have been done and sent out to the team, but several of them have since been improved upon, and most of the vocals will be re-tracked using the cool new mics!

09/28/02: A few new shots and an updated photo of the mic cabinet were added to the pictures page.

09/25/02: Richie obtained the "secret code" from Roland and was finally able to burn a CD of a mix and finalize it.

09/22/02: Aidas and Richie spent a long day doing their first experimental tracking with the Roland. They burned a back-up CD, then mixed-down a test "final", but could not burn that onto CD.

09/07/02: Susan finally succeeded in converting the MP2 files to WAV, using dBpowerAMP Music Converter. (For others who might need it, this freeware was downloaded from www.tucows.com)

09/02/02: The studio was ready to use by the end of July. Click here to see some pictures. Richie has been experimenting with various mic combinations and getting familiar with all the equipment.

07/02/02: The project recording studio is almost complete, and guide tracks for Richie's first CD should begin July 2002. Project One does not yet have a working title, but based on the participants who have been lined up, it should be called "A Parcel of Ringers". The playlist will include an eclectic mix of folk, rock and blues. For those of you familiar with "The Greatest Hits of Li Kung Lo", you can expect higher quality versions of some of your favorites! Completion is scheduled for late 2003.