Tag: studio

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14 Nov: studio

NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR
HEY, CALIFORNIA
FALL DOWN
Pete McDade – drums

We tracked the drums for these three songs.

“Now Wait for Last Year” has just been added back to the list of potential songs (and is close to having worked itself into the set list). It’s been around since Radiant City, when we did it as sort of a 4/4 dirge. Later I played it solo for a while as a 6/8 waltz kind of thing, having removed a verse. It’s now back to being 4/4, but the rhythm is much bouncier. I love the chord progression which is why it still lingers. I can easily say that this song has the most storied history of anything I’ve written.

As we were wrapping up this song I got a call to call my boss. Our parent company is shutting down our office, effective Friday. I have no job. Thankfully I’ve just paid Rob a sizable sum of money to finish the project, so at least it doesn’t affect me recording. So I try to pretend things are fine and we continue.

“Hey, California” just features the drums at the end of the song, which is all we recorded.

“Fall Down” took the longest. We worked it out as a sparse, sort of jazz-influenced thing, but it just didn’t seem to work very well, so we tried it with a more straightforward beat, and that seems to have done the trick. Pete’s playing with bundle sticks, and it gives it a nice fifties sort of feel.

More tomorrow…

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9 Nov: Atlanta

If Coffeehouse (Atlanta, GA)
w/ Kate Simpkins, Eva Sotus

This was a good weekend for feeling like a musician.

Friday’s show went well. More amazement at hearing Kate play. She and Eric are really good, and I’m glad a lot of the people who came to see me got to see her, too. I sang with them on a couple of songs, our voices seem to blend well, though I wasn’t sure how well my choices went, but it seemed to work. Actually rehearsing (rather than coming up with ideas in my car singing along with her CD) would probably be a good plan, but we didn’t have the time for it before this show. When I came up afterward, she had to leave but really wanted to sing along with “Forget the Forget,” which I hadn’t planned on playing, but, who am I to turn down the chance to hear her singing along, so off we went, and she did an amazing job, I thought.

I played a set, and after writing these lately I’m not sure what to say about it specifically. The in-between banter was okay, a quiet crowd is always tough to work off of, but it seemed to go well and they got somewhat more responsive to my endless self-deprecation toward the end. I suppose dancing like a monkey has that effect on people. I kept getting told afterward that I had been really “on” and I certainly didn’t feel very “on” but I suppose there are those who will tell you that I never do.

There was a lot of lingering after the show, which is always good, getting to talk to people afterward. If you’ve got the time to kill and the patience always feel free to stay after a show and talk. My ego is so needy, people, you should really make use of it.

Saturday rolls around and it’s time to rehearse with the Million Box. Normally I wouldn’t bore you with the details except that it was part of an entire schedule of events this weekend. We don’t rehearse again, sadly, until the day of the show (Nov 29) and that’s a little frustrating, but it’s just trying to work within everyone’s schedules. It’s the tradeoff I decided was worth it, and this is the price I pay for it. Whether it becomes a price I grow unable to deal with is hard to say. But rehearsal is good, nonetheless, with the extra bonus of suddenly deciding to stick a hidden track on the upcoming CD. It will actually work out well, since the song is pretty upbeat and pop, and the way the CD ends (very darkly) it’ll be a nice counterpoint.

Saturday night I head down to the Hard Rock where weaklazyliar are playing. Hop up on stage to do backing vocals for them on “Snow.” They played a great set, given the weird acoustics of the place from the stage they give no sign that it affects them at all. A really strong set, and they seem to be getting much stronger overall. I love watching that. Gentle Readers played next, and played a number of songs I hadn’t heard them do before. Talked with them after the show and they want me to open for them at Eddie’s on Dec 20 (which I agreed to immediately, even though I have a show there 3 days later, but I don’t care and neither did they). Chances are I’ll do a song with them (they’re playing in their seventies cover band incarnation the Susi French Connection) during their set.

I thought that was the end of the weekend, and planned on writing this Sunday night, but Sunday morning I get a call from Rob asking me if I can stop by the studio later that day to track some backing vocals for Lithp. I end up going there around 8pm, Josh is recording a Christmas song and I do some high backing vocals and some hand claps.

Twice this weekend I have referred to myself as a “vocal whore.” I really would love to be able to supplement myself by doing vocals for people, it’s something I enjoy and I seem to be relatively good at it (quick, if nothing else). I just have no idea how you go about doing that kind of work, short of what I’m doing now, which is that I’ve been around Rob long enough that he knows me and brings me in when it comes up, and that I meet other bands and let them know that I’d be happy to work with them if they ever need it.

Anyway, there’s my busy (musically speaking) weekend. I can’t say I’ve had one like that in a long time, if ever.

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7 Nov: studio

OVERTURE
me – vocals

HITCHCOCK BLONDE
me – vocals

It’s good to be back at this.

We have two days booked next week, as well. Last night we tracked vocals for both of these songs. The lead vocal on both was done in one take, something I’m beginning to take some pride in. Maybe that seems silly, but I don’t have anything to put it into perspective, I haven’t really seen anyone else during that part of recording, but I do get the impression that normally tracking vocals is a tedious process. But the backing vocals went fairly quickly, too; a few repeat passes at a couple of bits, just to try and pin down the harmony line we wanted to use, but overall they were one take.

I’ve been trying to find something to “hang” this particular report on, rather than just have it be a dry recitation of events. I mean, I could try to repeat the goofier stuff that goes on… mocking some Black Crowes song off the new record; the glory that is “BOX;” but these things would be harder to explain and probably not really very funny in the telling.

I’m finding that I can be too vague. And while I feel a little like an ex-friend who once said “do people REALLY think I’m the king of sarcasm?” with a straight face, I’m going to talk about it anyway. I’m mainly talking about me musically. I know my lyrics are vague, it comes from trying to convey a mood usually, more than a story, but also I’m so leery of being too obvious that I think I err on the side of being too obscure.

And it extends to other aspects, for example: the last CD was actually a complete story. I didn’t spell it out on the CD itself, though, either musically (because, again, I hate to beat anyone over the head with something in a song, I’d rather they have to dig it out) or in the design of the CD (because I didn’t want anyone to be turned off by thinking it was a “concept album.” dude.). I did spell it out on the website, but I didn’t go to any great pains to point anyone to that page. So, as a result, no one knows. Just today I had to point it out to someone who had noticed that there seemed to be an undercurrent running through the songs and asked me about it (and that’s something else, I try to make it clear that people can ask me questions about anything in my e-mails and on the site and on the message board, but they just refuse to be drawn out into asking. Or no one’s actually listening.).

For the record, if you’re on the site, click on the picture of the rabbit and you’ll find it.

So, clearly, I am overcompensating for my fear of being too obvious. Any suggestions? Because the current CD is just as much of a whole piece. Not the linear story that Slumberland was, but there is an overall story behind the CD, something working behind the scenes that plays itself out through the course of the record.

And just as another example, I can’t begin to explain how uncomfortable I am explaining all of this without being asked. I feel a bit presumptuous and egotistical in assuming anyone even cares. This could be the real reason I am so willing to field questions about it, it’s a reassurance that spending time mulling all of these things over isn’t a sign of my growing self-absorption.

This is what it’s like to have to live with me. Send your condolences to those who have to, won’t you?