There is an arguable presence among the Rio Grande Valley’s youth that blinds them from seeing anything good in their hometowns, but one doesn’t have look far to discover Valley-bred talent finding success.
Indie rock group Dignan from McAllen has received public praise from established rock acts like Thrice and Paramore’s Hayley Williams. Armed with an Etch A Sketch, teenager Maria Quiroga represented Donna and the Valley at the South by Southwest Film Festival with her animated short film “Bon Vivant” earlier in the year. And what story about Valley fame goes without mentioning actors Valente Rodriguez, Kris Kristofferson, and Nick Stahl from Elsa, Brownsville, and Harlingen, respectively.
Edinburg resident Charlie Vela is one of those who might give Valleyites even more to brag about. Vela, a senior marketing major at The University of Texas-Pan American, is wrapping up a project with his most popular client to date.
The 26-year-old is a recording engineer who works mostly from home, but recently spent five weeks in a house on the Oregon coast recording 21 tracks for the latest release from Indie pop rock duo consisting of Meg and Dia Frampton. Their musical act is simply known as Meg & Dia.
The Frampton sisters began performing together in 2004, but it wasn’t until 2005 that they released their first album. After several tours, two albums, support from MySpace, and a stint on the Warped Tour, Meg & Dia signed onto Warner Bros. Records in 2009.
The gals found themselves in Tillamook, Ore., with Vela after manager Mike Kaminsky contacted him out of the blue. The two had worked together previously on music from Vela’s old band and kept in touch over the years. Recently, Kaminsky has been managing artists.
“I got a call from him one day asking him if I could just send some songs I worked on. I didn’t think anything of it,” Vela recalled. “About four weeks later, I got a call from him asking if I would be willing to do this project. They definitely had their pick of people to do it so I was pretty excited and pretty honored to do it.”
How it works
Typically, Vela explains, bands send him rough versions of songs and he’ll try to get an idea of what the band is hoping to accomplish before agreeing to work with them.
They begin by recording individual tracks and begin building up the song. Along the way, they’ll exchange ideas about changing various parts or using different instruments or changing arrangements.
“Once we’ve finished building up the songs, then that’s the mixing phase of the process where we take all of the individual tracks we’ve recorded and we mix them into a stereo track that can be played on a stereo system,” Vela explained. “We record anywhere between eight and 100 tracks on a song. A CD player and an iPod can only play two tracks, which are the left speaker and the right speaker.”
Vela began recording friends’ music at the tender age of 16. Over the course of 10 years, he has worked with several bands from the Valley, around Texas, and out of state. He also spent time in Kansas and Atlanta recording regional bands.
“When the music is interesting or different is like getting to work in a job where it’s constantly changing. I did a Spanish language rock album earlier this year that was a lot of fun,” Vela said. “This project I’m working on now is completely different from all those and equally as rewarding.”
He mentioned they made instruments out of objects found around the house and the nearby beach.
“Sometimes you work with bands where people have a lot of ego attached to what they play in a song,” he commented. “I don’t see that at all with this band. They’re really about just making something that sounds good. If that means one person plays one note in the entire song, they’re going to play the hell out of that note.”
At the moment, the album has no name or release date and the band is still deciding what label to release it on. Regardless, Vela said Meg & Dia fans should expect a much more stripped down, acoustic-based album than previous work.
“They have been used to doing records in a very regimented way where they come in from this time to this time and they’re there to record everything that was written. Here, they’re actually writing quite a bit while they’re out here, coming up with songs as we go,” he said. “I’m just trying to help them make an album that’s really true to themselves. It’s kind of coming out a little more raw in a really cool way.”
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