Although I'm sick today, this is what I usually see during the day, every
Monday through Friday.
Waoooohhhhoooooohhhh! You can see life through my eyessssss...!!
Spooky.
January 2009 Archives
(Just for the record, this video was shot by our good friend Tara Davies---camera/media unknown---at the 2006 Pilot Light Halloween Show.)
So over Christmas break Matthew Lovelace got to come visit for almost a week, and in that time we got to work on his album. It'd been awhile, and while Fred and I had done some work on it on our own, we were starting to lose the feeling that we all knew what we were trying to do and where we wanted it to go.
What an awesome week that turned out to be.
Some of the demos he brought in were good enough to use as final tracks, and between the work we got in on those and the work we did on pre-existing tracks, we got together almost the entire album. It's not finished, and all these songs might not make it (I've got 12 "definites" on my iTunes right now, but there are at least that many waiting in the wings that we could work up pretty quickly), but now there's a shape. I can listen to all that we've worked on, and there's a flow from song to song.
This is probably my favorite part of making albums. The bones are almost all there. It's just about fleshing things out now. Adding parts (or whole songs, even), changing the order around, thinking about the tone and feel. It's turning out a little quieter and more low-key than I'd expected. I'm excited for people to hear it.
(Parenthetically, this is also my favorite part of making albums because I can hear past the mistakes. Anything that's not right is just an opportunity to make the song better. This is in stark contrast to the deflation of getting a CD back from the presses and listening for the first time. "Well, that's not right. And it's there. FOREVER." (Second parenthetical: this feeling goes away after a couple of months.))
Still, there's a feeling that maybe the whole form is going to disappear. Not music, obviously. But as the media for music pushes towards electronic only, and people more and more buy music by the song, making a whole album seems like an archaic idea.
But I don't care. I still love collecting songs into groups of 10-14 and trying to get them to add up to something greater than the sum.
Before I got my tonsils out (which was fairly recently), I got sick all the time. It was just a regular thing I had to deal with. After a couple of sickness-free years, it's kind of a kick in the teeth catching a cold.
But here we are.
I started feeling not-quite-right on the way down to Memphis with Val, and one poor night's sleep and a day in a smoke-filled casino later, I'm full-blown ill. Other than that, our trip is going quite well. I'm having fun hanging out with mom and dad and val, and just generally taking it easy.
Tomorrow I'll pack the car with as much music junk as I can (which will mainly be a drum kit and, hopefully, a speaker cab), drug myself up real good, then drive on back to Knoxville. Good times.
Hard Drives and Memory
Rachel S-P came by last night with her compadre and bandmate Christina Horn to dub some flute onto one of the Hudson K songs we're working on. Turned out great. A bass part was nixed. Banjo was given the green light, although it was suggested that we use a clawhammer banjo with nylon strings for an "older" sound (essentially, the sound of gut...ew). Rachel will provide that. It was a good idea. The song's coming together well. Oh, and Rachel's one hell of a flutist.
Hello.
Recently recorded folks:
Whoot!!!
Recently recorded folks:
- Tommy Bateman (December, solo recording with Yon)
- Matthew Lovelace (week surrounding New Year's, for upcoming full length CD)
- Hudson K (throughout January, for EP due April)
- Kym Hawkins of Plainclothes Tracy (vocal dubs onto a few of Lovelace's tracks)
- Rachel Schlafer-Parton (flute on Zombies! musical; cello on Lovelace track)
Whoot!!!
Well, hello there. I'm really just making sure this works. But also, I'm trying to force myself to be more active online. I'm definitely a lurker. I enjoy looking at what other people have written. Silently judging them...
Well, no, not exactly. I'm not that judgemental. I can't properly explain the allure of lurking. But I have some suspicions as to why I don't write more. To me, writing is all about re-writing and editing. Even the simplest stuff I've written for, say, SotD usually takes at least an hour. Writing online is all about immediacy. Go with your first thought.
I'll try to write that way starting...right...NOW.
...
...
It's a work in progress.
-j
