Hi Friends! Welcome to another installment of Covered-20. This week, I've recorded "Gone" by Matt Nathanson.

I was first introduced to Matt's music by my best pal Joe Lemble, about an hour or so after being introduced to Matt, himself, briefly. Joe was on tour with Lifehouse at the time (2008) and Matt was the direct support on that tour. The moment he kicked into his set, I was grabbed. The guy is an amazing songwriter, and performer. He's so engaging and entertaining, that he completely upstaged Lifehouse at both shows I saw on that run. Since then, I've followed his career and rooted for him every step of the way. If Joe Lemble, and Jonah Matranga vouch for a guy being awesome, chances are he's awesome. Choosing this song was also easy, since it was one of the songs I heard at that first show, and I've been loving it ever since, especially since Mr. Jason McGerr of Death Cab for Cutie recorded the drums, and he's arguably my favorite drummer of all time.

That being said, this may be one of the only instances where I could match up to Mr. McGerr's drums with any form of confidence. I've had this song in my drum playlist for a decade, and I don't think I've gotten good at it until about 2018 or 2019. The beat that runs through the verses, with its ghost notes, as well as the rocking out bridge took time to get right, and I think I managed to do just that. This track was also the first time I used my Big Fat Snare Drum Donut with the little tambourine bells on it. They know what they're doing at BFSD, as it immediately made the snare sound nice, and added that sweet jangle. Even though the drums sounded great right after recording them, they didn't sit in the mix properly until I added some little things, like a pre-amp plugin to the snare, a little gated reverb, and adjusted my drum bus to employ some different EQs and compressors than I usually do. In the end, I like where they ended up.

This song also marked the first time I got to use the Stealth by Aston Microphones. Holy hell, is this thing awesome. The Stealth is their take on dynamic mics like the Shure SM7B or the Electro-Voice RE20, and speaking as someone who's used the 7B for almost all the vocals in this series and more, the Stealth is just as good if not better in all applications. I used it on some of the guitars and the vocals, and just by switching the voicing on the mic itself, both came out so vibrant and easy sounding. This is for sure my new go to.

Now, as you know, this month we're raising money for the National Independent Venue Association, to aid struggling music venues around the country. Just yesterday, it was announced that legenedary SoCal venue Chain Reaction would be closing indefinitely, due to their inability to generate income because of Covid. Places like Chain Reaction, The Troubadour, The Metro, and our own House of Independents here in NJ, are all being hurt by this horrible situation, and are struggling to find ways to survive, so please consider donating to NIVA, and please reach out to your representatives to voted on the updated HEROES Act which includes relief for just this.

Alright, that's it for now, see you all next week for our last song of October!