I’m at Vox Pop, an artist lounge and cafe-bar on Cortelyou Road in Brooklyn. It’s Sunday night, open mic. It’s 2009.
Many of the performers are good. Some, like me, are playing solo and singing for the first time in front of an audience. I’ve been playing guitar for a long time, but never carrying the load by myself with vocals and guitar.
I see someone new get up to the stage. He doesn’t banter much at the microphone. He focuses on getting plugged in and getting the sound right.
The sound that comes out of this performer soars above the rest of us. He looks like a modern-day Paganini, his hair flapping as he throws his head back.
The first song he plays, called “What Turns You On,” is very contemporary, but not overly artsy. It’s a very listenable song with unusual lyrics. What turns you on, she’s asking me. The song is not about sex; it’s deeper than that. What turns you on in life? The lyrics keep you guessing. Great guitar playing, but not of the noodling kind. He’s playing what is needed. It’s economical, in service of the song. And he has an amazing vocal range, able to hit the high notes with power. And he adds sotto voce to the right parts.
That performer, Frank Miceli, stage name flezaDoza, still performs around Brooklyn, but mostly focuses his musical talents on producing other artists and helping them to develop their voice.
flezaDoza, a Brooklyn native in an era of Brooklyn wannabes, operates a private recording studio, aptly named Brooklyn Native Studio, out of his home. Some people show up to flezaDoza’s studio with just a melody and lyrics. He helps them develop the song, providing guitar, bass, keyboard, drums and background vocals.
Recording nearly everyone from the Vox Pop era, flezaDoza, of course, gets me to make a visit. He treats my recording like it is gold and deserves all the attention and care he can give. For my two-minute-and-forty-second song, flezaDoza repeats “one more take” over and over as he works with me in the studio. I’m fed up with myself and the song about four hours in, but flezaDoza keeps pushing me to produce my best. He is a perfectionist. In the end, it takes about eight hours of studio time to record. This doesn’t take into account the many hours flezaDoza cleans up the recording and adds dubs. He then presents me with various versions of the song. I like the take of the song with his background vocals on the chorus, a bass line thudding through the song, and drums.
flezaDoza is the consummate artist. He records musician-composers, ranging in styles from rap, to country folk, to pop, to punk and rock. He produces pop acts like G. Lokko and Marshall Franklin Ravel to hard rock artists like Concrete Groove. Being a superb musician, he listens and brings his vast knowledge to any collaboration. flezaDoza may offer suggestions, but ultimately the artist has the last word. Recording with flezaDoza is like having the wild genius of Paganini at your disposal. But the final product is up to you.
Learn more about Brooklyn Native Studio at brooklynnativestudio.com. Mike Fiorito’s most recent book, Call Me Guido, was published in 2019 by Ovunque Siamo Press. His two short story collections, Hallucinating Huxley and Freud’s Haberdashery Habit, were published by Alien Buddha Press. His website is callmeguido.com.
