About Me
Miner Street Recordings is the home of Producer Brian McTear, and Engineer Amy Morrissey.
Usually associated with the independent rock scene in Philadelphia from1997 to the present (Mazarin, Matt Pond PA, Espers, Danielson), McTear's musical endeavors began in high school performing and writing songs with his band The Marinernine (AKA Mariner 9).
During the Mariner nine years, McTear and band mate Jason Knight began operating a small recording studio in their college apartment living room. The thinking was that it'd be cheaper to invest in their own reccoring equipment and make their own albums than to pay someone else to do it for them (it didn't take long to realize the opposite is true). Nonetheless, there they recorded the Lucys, The Diane Linkletter Experience and many others. By 1996 Miner Street Recordings moved to Manayunk in Philadelphia, hoping to be near bands like Bardo Pond and the Lilys, and where they began to record local artists such as Eltro, The Trouble with Sweeney and many others .
In 1999, after Knight moved to California, McTear partnered with Live Sound Engineer Gary Ferenchak (GWAR, Good Charlotte), who ran a studio, Cycle Sound in a larger space across the street from Miner Street.
From 1999 to 2005, they built the studio into an impressive vintage analog/digital hybrid. There McTear produced Matt Pond PA’s Measure, The Green Fury, and The Nature of Maps, Mazarin’s Watch it Happen, Tall Tale Story Line, and We’re Already There, The Bigger Lovers Honey in the Hive (with Producer Thom Monahan) and This Affair Never Happened, The Capitol Years Jewelry Store EP (also with Thom Monahan), BC Camplight’s Hide, Run Away, Hail Social’s Hail Social, Apollo Sunshine's Apollo Sunshine and The A-sides Hello Hello. Also in that time, McTear engineered and/or mixed Espers Espers, and The Weed Tree, and Danielson’s Ships.
In 2002, McTear was named Best Producer by the Philadelphia CityPaper. In that same year, he began his own musical project, Bitter bitter weeks. In late 2002, the self titled debut Bitter bitter weeks was awarded 2003’s Best Record Already, by the Citypaper’s A.D. Amorosi, and in December 2002, McTear was featured on the Citypaper cover.
In 2004, with new partner and Co-Producer Amy Morrissey, Bitter bitter weeks’ Revenge was released.
In the Spring of 2005, McTear and Morrissey, wrote and recorded the film score for Pennsylvania director Lance Weiler's second movie, Head Trauma. Weiler's love for the avant-gard, and admiration for McTear's old band The Marinernine brought them together for the project.
In late 2005, McTear and Morrissey designed and built a new home for Miner Street Recordings in the Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown. There they have produced BC Camplight’s Blink of a Nihilist, Hail Social’s Modern Love and Death, The A-sides Silver Storms, WXPN Artists to Watch - Hoots and Hellmouth's debut record, as well as a third Bitter bitter weeks album, Peace is burning like a river, and Morrissey’s debut band project, The Novenas The Novenas (all released in 2007). McTear also mixed Espers II and many other excellent recordings in the new space.
In 2007 McTear and Morrissey recorded The Valerie Project, a new soundtrack to an old film from the Czek Republic put together by Greg Weeks, Brooke Seitenson and a whole crew of others from the Philadelphia world of psychedelic folk. They also recorded the fabulously insane Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears second album (first with a full band... and an amazing one at that), called Flight of the Knife.
Additionally in 2007, MinerStreet has become the stopping ground for other engineers in the Philadelphia area including Nicholas Krill (Spinto Band, Okay Paddy), Bill Moriarty (Dr. Dog, Man Man, Thunder in the Valley from Minneapolis), and the young but impressively talented Jonathon Low and Joe Bisirri (Matt Duke,East Hundred, Hoots and Hellmouth).
In 2008, McTear produced albums for Canadian Invasion, Blue Sinatra, Milton and the Devil's Party, Adams Wilson, East Hundred, The Mural and the Mint, MeWithoutYou (with Daniel Smith), and Greg Foreman's The Rarebirds. He also mixed albums for Like a Fox, Hoots and Hellmouth,Audible,Woven Hand,Dan Zimmerman, Greg Weeks,Soul Junk,Jennifer Gloeckner, Paper Trigger,and Missing Palmer West.
