Hello, You’ve Reached the Jones-Hay Residence. This is the Original Five Cent Mary…
The true story of the Jones-Hay Residence was years in the making, almost a decade in fact, and long before the original 5-Cent Mary selected their name around the dining room table at 5CM keyboardist Chris Curry’s residence, where the newly-formed band rehearsed.
The band’s namesake came about around that very table, in a first meeting, following a solid hour of throwing out possible band names, after which Frank turned to Chris and said, “5 Cent Mary,” after a comic strip from a”girlie magazine” the two always joked about in junior high school. Chris agreed, and the band loved it. It stuck.
Appropriately, if ironically, the band had started by phone, a land-line phone (1998), when drummer Frank Sardella called guitarist Kevin Slover and asked if he wanted to start a band. Getting his answer, Frank called Chris with the same response, with a call to lead singer Buddy Hay, and the same result followed. In under 20 minutes, the band was formed, rehearsal space was secured, and the road to The Jones-Hay Residence was paved.
Sardella, Curry and guitarist Kevin Slover had gone to the same high school and played together years before. Sardella, Curry and lead singer Buddy Hay had prior worked together in other bands and projects and so knew each other as friends and bandmates for some years, years during which many calls were placed to Buddy at home, often met with Bud’s hilarious analog answering machine greeting. Buddy lived there with his apartment mate, “Bill Jones,” who Frank always contended (jokingly) was imaginary because “Bill Jones” sounded like a made-up name.
The greeting featured a perfect capture of Buddy Hay’s personality, “teddy-bear-at-heart-ish” but outwardly sarcastic, loud, and semi-abrasive, with a keen, witty sense of humor, as well as an unplanned cameo by his lifelong friend and devoted fan of the band, “Ralph,” who could be heard calling Buddy’s name while Buddy paused at the end of his recorded greeting.
Appropriately, when it came time to name the album, Frank suggested the Jones-Hay Residence because of Buddy’s famed greeting and lobbied to include a digital recording of it as the first track on the album to run right into the lead-off single release ‘With You” just after the beep, perfectly framing and setting the tone and dynamic of the record, emanating the band’s true personality and vibe. Additionally and appropriate to the time, the album name echoed a feel typical of similar bands of the time (early 90’s) in the spirit of The Wallflowers’ “Bringing Down the Horse,” The Gin Blossoms’ “New Miserable Experience,” and others of the like.
Included on the album are 4 originals and a Led Zeppelin cover of “Since I Been Lovin’ You” recorded at a live show where 5-Cent Mary first announced the release of The Jones-Hay Residence EP and premeired it’s four original songs. The collection kicks off with a recording of Hay’s old answering machine greeting, as planned.
Highlight features of the project were that, first of all, it was recorded at Rocket Silo Studios in Gardiner, NY, in the foothills of the Shawangunk Mountain cliffs face, on the Mohonk Preserve.
Named “Rocket Silo Studios” because of the old stone silo on the property, the studio was designed and retrofitted into a 19th-century stone barn. The chief engineer who designed it was a physics major in college and so had all the angles down for the acoustics of the main room. He used the stone silo as a natural echo chamber. The studio was quite a fascinating experience in itself to say nothing of the ideal recording conditions.
In addition to the 1/4″ magnetic tape used for the recording, and which gave the songs of The Jones-Hay Residence their warm, fat tone, the mix was done on the board pictured with Frank Sardella sitting behind it. This board was taken by crane out of a second-story window just off Times Square on Broadway, where it had a significant claim to fame: Michael Jackson’s Thriller was recorded and mixed on it, a thrill for drummer and songwriter, Frank Sardella (host of the “In the Pocket Radio” podcast for drummers and musicians), because of the impact MJ had on him from a very young age, whose musical influence helped him develop such a deep “pocket” as he and his playing matured and inspired his ability to write a good hook in his songwriting.
Finally, the album cover was set up, planned and photographed by Sardella at an old barn by the furnaces in Harriman, NY, on the historic and esteemed Harriman estate. Having known its official historian (having been dating her daughter at the time), he was able to arrange the photoshoot on this very private and protected property. A tripod was set up just below at the bottom of a gulley and shot upward. Putting the camera on auto-timer, Frank had to run up the hill and get into position before the photo snapped. After a couple of dry runs, the perfect photograph was captured as the final version for their iconic album cover!
The trip to Rocket Silo that June was an interesting one. Just two days before recording, the band had planned for 3 originals and 2 covers for a total of 5 songs, 3 for the EP and two for demos to get club gigs (“Remedy” by the Black Crowes and “The Difference” by the Wallflowers, two of the best-sounding, tightest tunes in 5CM’s set).
At rehearsal two nights before, the band shared and expressed concerns that 3 original songs wouldn’t be enough, and that a fourth would be ideal and preferred. Having already contributed the lead-off single to be the first release as the “hit hook” song of the album in “With You,” Frank Sardella went home and wrote a song, bringing it in the very next day, only one day before the Jones-Hay sessions began. The band liked it and quickly rehearsed and produced it in one session of only a couple of hours. That song turned out to be the slow, slightly dark but driving and powerful “Hollywood,” the album’s second track to follow “With You.”
That was Thursday. And, after a Friday night of setup, and a Saturday of recording, here was the result… listen to the EP here