it is finished

well, mixed anyway. now on to the final step, mastering. i've picked out the place, just a short train ride upstate. in the meantime, i'm not sure i'm going to be playing any of it until it's completely done. but, i may put together a "greatest hits" clip and post it on the website. give everyone a glimpse into what is surely to become the best rock and roll album of my career to date.

on the last song we did, for 4 bars i drew a comparison to jon bonham. for what it's worth to anyone.....

supremacy concrete

Yesterday was quite a full day. I must have played the same Playstation game for at least 3 or 4 hours throughout the day. Meanwhile, John did some really cool things to the c major songs. To me, they are my meal ticket as they are unabashedly radio friendly. We're super pleased with the drum sounds on them. John feels the snare sound is one of his favorite he has ever done, in the top ten. And he's worked on quite a few albums.

I definitely have some songs to put first on cd's headed for record labels.

Today we have 3 songs left, so we should be in fine shape. The saddest thing is the realization that i will return to work in 2 days. i will try really hard not to quit prematurely. but the minute i get a good offer to play this music...well, they won't even see me leave.

the waiting game

tracking officially ended yesterday. without a second to spare. my voice was tapped. this is definitely a rock album. you'll know it when you hear it.

so today we are mixing. actually, john is mixing. in the meantime, i'm killing a lot of time in deep ellum in dallas. this is becoming the most anxious part of all as i'm just patiently waiting to go in to the booth and listen to the mix with fresh ears. i still have creative control, but it's hard to not have my hands on a knob or something. in the meantime i guess i'll just have to al bundy it on the couch and watch some movies.

john has already had some really nice ideas and did some nice production things on the first track, so i'll calm down soon. to bad the Cubs aren't on TV anywhere.

i'm not going to lose my voice.

it's just going to be raspy for a while. drinking lots of nice hot tea has helped, along with some sage advice from john. first thing i do when i get back to NY is buy "the rock and roll singer's survival guide."

yesterday was a long day. we did 4 songs, including 2 of the c major songs. so not only are we right on schedule, but things are feeling good too. i let some things out of mouth yesterday that probably should have been kept in it. well, for the health of my vocal chords anyway. i'm not sure how john could critically listen for pitch and performance for that long, but the results will speak for themselves. today we are trying to get done early so that john can rehearse with the pAper chAse, and I can go get some tattoos....

i'm going to lose my voice

probably some time thursday night after we are finished. yesterday had its share of annoyances that delayed are start. had to wait for a gospel session to leave the pAperhouse, then had to run back to Nomad because the original firewire drive thought it was a PC drive, so all of the files wouldn't open on a Mac. weird. once we did get started, we did good work. did vocals for 3 songs. i intentionally chose the third song because i knew i would be raspy after doing the 2nd song. i was finally able to track through a Neve pre, well, a Vintech repro to be exact, but it was still cool. just like john lennon used to use.....

capes at full flap

yesterday was a nice leisurely day at the studio. it didn't start off that way. once we got to the studio, it took some time for the dvd's to be copied over to the G5 at the studio. so after a while, i decided i would start dialing in the distorted guitar sounds i needed for the days work. i didn't get very far. seemed like a preamp tube in the house marshall amp, the only guitar amp there, was going bad. i was instantly a little worried because i had a lot of clean guitar to do as well. we decided to hook up the bass amp and see what kind of unique guitar tone we could get through that, but it had some major problems too. no sound at all. not even a bad one. so at this point, i'm thinking the entire day is wasted. john made some calls to the studio owner and he was nice enough to rush us over a mesa boogie trem-o-verb. which was pretty fortunate because there were a few things i wanted to do with tremolo.
while waiting for the amp to show up, we decided to get started on the acoustic guitar. at the beginning, i was only planning to use it on the normal parts of the one song i always use acoustic on. but when i started playing it, we instantly realized its potential for creating some nice textures blended with the distorted guitars. it also added a lot of gypsy flavor to a few of the arabesque songs. it was a late 50's Gibson, and it really made me want to go shopping for acoustic guitars. it had a pretty small scale for an acoustic so making the transition from the mustang to it was pretty seamless.
once the amp arrived, we got to work. it had its problems too. the person it belonged to seemed to never ever ever ever use the clean channel, so the gain knob on that channel was pretty noisy. good thing the dirty channel had a "blues" setting and i was able to get a nice sound out of it. we layed down a lot of textural things that will give the album a whole lot of cape flap.

family time

in the midst of the storm, today i was able to squeeze in some family time. got to see G-ma Madole and some of that side of the family. it's been a while since i've been able to go back to Missouri, so it was nice to see everyone.

i think i've gone over the deep end on the sleep cycle. last night i basically laid down for about 20 minutes, then had to leave for the airport. sleeping on the plane was near impossible. then i did something stupid and fell asleep for 4 hours in the afternoon. luckily, i'm still feeling quite tired so i should have no problem getting to sleep.

we will head to Nomad tomorrow to track the remaining guitars [the mustang survived its first plane ride intact] and whatever else we want to add. maybe we'll even start working on vocals. john and girlfriend lisa are being very gracious so i think i will be comfortable and ready to rock everyday. good thing since the most stressful part of the sessions, the vocal sessions, are coming up fast. i think it will make or break the album more than the whole crossover genre/string quartet rock band will.

seriously, why?

it's 2AM and in 2 hours the van will pick us up to go to the airport. why did i think it was a good idea to play the antenna lodge show tonight? and why did i want to save money [albeit around 400-500 USD] by flying out so early?

anyway, basically all of the main distorted guitar work is done. there are a few parts to catch, and then a few clean guitar parts and acoustic tracks to record, but that is the first thing on the agenda when we get to Dallas. i've learned that we will be tracking that at Nomad, doing vocals at the pAperhouse, and mixing at Lastbeat. look through previous posts for links to those studios. i'm too tired to do everything for you.

there are some sick guitar sounds so far. the mustang is doing well. the album will have an unmistakebly Fender sound to it. which is good since that is what i like.

one thing i've learned while recording this, during a project, a lot of inside jokes develop amongst involved parties. also, after a 12 hour day, every word out of everyone's mouth seems hilarious. like daniel's suggestion that instead of using an ambient mic on the stroh violin [ala pinky w.(again, check earlier posts)], why doesn't the player just stand further away from the mic. which is basically saying, instead of moving the mic far away from the instrument, why not move the instrument far away from the mic. comedy.

i've got blisters on my fingers

the main guitar parts for the more raucus songs are in the bag.

the early bird

as usual, i am the first one up. my body just will not stay asleep after a certain amount of time. things have been going quite well. like i said, the strings are done. we have a few edits to make, but we are in very good shape. today we will just try to get as much guitar done as possible before splitting for the antenna lodge show.

fun on the g-string

we did it. strings are done, minus a few edits. we even had time to overdub some stroh violin. visit pinky's webpage to see a picture. it's super beautiful/creepy. i must go now. sleepy time.

i'm playing through a marshall???!!!

i know i know. i never ever like marshall. but my mustang and this vintage JCM 800.....a pretty good match. something about the tone these 2 are producing is working very well with the strings. plenty of space for both to be heard. that's why i'm paying a producer.

we were able to track 5 string songs last night. all of the c major songs, plus another song. i feel the c major's are the harder to perform, so i think we're in good shape. not ahead of schedule, but definitely not behind. hopefully the girls will be energized for tonight and we will knock it out.

we're spending a good amount of time getting guitar sounds, so i'm not sure how much will get done here today and tomorrow. hopefully we will get all of the distorted guitar done.

drums

they are done. even sampled for good measure. my arms hurt. played way too hard. but it resulted in some pretty mean sounding drums. 2 hours till the strings show up. just enough time to get in a little more editing.

i can't make it on my own

so, first day is behind us. things are looking good. my drums sound good in this live room. something about the way i've tuned them sits really well with the room. daniel and i are performing well together and john is doing his thing. did 6 songs yesterday and will finish the remaining rhythm tracks today before the strings come in at 6PM. don't have time to say much else, nor do i want to. to busy listening to click tracks be put down on tape.

i hate you i love you i hate you

well well. i thought this blog would be good to chronicle the recording sessions. but i realize just how busy i will be and how unlikely a planned nightly update will be. peter jennings had agreed to help me out with my reporting, but que sera sera.

so so many things have been happening behind the scenes. some wonderful folks are helping me secure the money while i wait for checks to roll in. i also had to make a somewhat last minute lineup change to the string quartet. now playing violin is Angela Harris. not related to, but recommended by, cellist Lenae Harris. things are going much smoother in the quartet and we are in good shape to lay down some clean takes.

john c flies in tonight and we begin work tomorrow. i hope i'm awake for it.

here's the planned schedule so far:
Wednesday-find Hoboken. Track all drums and bass.
Thursday- Half day guitar, half day strings
Friday- looks a lot like thursday
Saturday- guitar solos ala Kelly Kendrick, any additional guitar work left

who knows what will happen. i'll know soon enough.

music?-the whining voices of my co-workers.

stress gives my face character

so, everything was*is going well. the initial source of the funds for the album is being delayed 2 weeks. this puts me in quite a bind. my plastic can finance about half of what's left, so i'm in search of money. i guess i could post my paypal address here..............

i'll be okay though. i've already entered the mode i go into with these sort if things. one foot forward, then the next, then the next, then a break for air, then repeat.

the quartet met for the first time saturday. it was.....okay. some parts were better than others, but there's almost 2 weeks before the strings will be recorded, so there's plenty of woodshed available for everyone. i had never heard 2 of the songs performed before, and parts of them were truly magical, even on sightreading. nice to know i'm inching closer to putting down on paper what i'm hearing in my head. we will have at least 2 more rehearsals, so the outlook is good. i'll have a better idea how stressful the recording sessions will be after the next rehearsal.

daniel, former bass player of the antenna lodge, is on a train as we type heading to brooklyn. we will begin practicing tomorrow. daniel and i have been playing together for a while, so even though we have not done so in over a year, i have no doubt that we will be in the pocket in 10 days.

finally, in news not related to the project, i bought tickets for XIU XIU! friday sept. 2. they came through a few months ago but were sold out. since then, i've been succumbing to internet ticket service charges to gaurantee i get tickets. they are one of my favorite bands right now so that will be exciting.

music? nine inch nails-broken [it's funny how someone else's pain, translated into song form, helps alleviate my own]