12.5.07 (Bass is the place)

(Bri......laying it down!)

Yeah man…we’re close. Brian laid down bass on two of the last three tracks we have to complete. The last couple of tracks have been written on the fly….I think I already explained the whole “I dig writing the last songs of an album on the fly” thing a few posts ago so read below to catch up on that, but what that means for Pete’s drum parts or Brian’s bass parts is that they end up playing to really raw, basic acoustic tracks with me talking them through the part. Tonight Brian had the pleasure of playing bass on two new tracks that he really had no idea what he was gonna play. It’s a quick fix though. Just grab the acoustic gtr and run though the deal a few times with him and we’re off. The first tune we tracked is called “Heard The Shot”. A pretty simple “pop” type tune and the bass went down in a couple of takes. The second tune we tracked “You Better Bring A Bomb” was a bit more of a challenge but gave him a little room to stretch out on the bass and that turned out to be a good thing. He nailed a solid bass track and added a sweet counter melody bass line for the “middle eight” of the tune that changed my whole idea of what that part was gonna be……Very nice!

-j

Well on our way….to the last weeks of recording!

Hit the studio at 7:00 this evening. Started with some drum tracks. Some of the last drums we need to record. It’s always a good sign of being close to the end when the last drums are put to tape…well “digital tape” anyway.

Pete put down a cool loop type beat in the verse parts of a tune called “I Don’t Know”.

And, yes that is a working title, it is a lyric in the song, but a very bad song name. “What song do you want to work on? “I don’t know”. Have a smoke, think about it. “I don’t know! Man”. It can be like the “Who’s on first” bit. Well, not really. I’m just realizing that I’m horrible at giving my songs an actual decent name. As we track each song in the studio I have to come up with a “song title” on the spot so we know what we’re working on and know how to find it on the computer tomorrow. I usually pick the first lyric of the tune…..not always bad, not always good. What I’m getting at is that a song now referred to as “I Don’t Know” is a pretty sweet tune and will end up with a much better/representative title like “Diamond Laced Fingers Stealing The Golden Horn Of The Ultimate Awesome Unicorn!” Ummmm, no. Gotta find something in between the two I guess. Most of the working titles of the tunes kinda suck, bit that’s an easy fix.

The second part of the night was spent putting some less conventional drum tracks one of the latest and final tunes we started tracking last week. This one is gonna be one of the only truly acoustic based “mellow” tunes that will appear on the album. Set up a floor tom for Pete to play and a rack tom that I played at the same time. I was looking for a “marching band” type effect. It worked. Then we laid down some stereo tracks of a snare and a crash cymbal to complete the effect. All this took up a good bit of the night and even though they are intended to basically be “headphone” tracks that most people will not really notice in the final product we still gave it our all and drank a few Miller’s in the process.

I’m now at the point that I need to come up with an album title too. I had one that I really thought was pretty great and was committed too, but I feel like a have to change now. I didn’t know the title I chose had a “double” meaning until a couple months ago. I’ll write about it tomorrow.

As always thanks for reading!

-j

Catching up Pt.2

The home studio.

So the past three weeks have been slow at the “real” studio, and the other guys have had plenty of free time as all the work we had put in the many weeks prior had been loaded up on an external hard drive and dumped into my home set up for me to add all the keyboards, noises, beeps and other random headphone type deals. It’s a little ass backwards that I spend so much time on shit that most people will not even notice on the final recording, but I just really love when bands pay attention the small details, the type of shit that creeps up on you only after a couple of listens via a good set of headphones. I listen to music all the time, but I never really consider it a “good listen” unless its turned up through a good stereo with a few adult beverages or cranked up on a nice set of headphones along with a couple puffs of grass. Any band you consider worth a shit should get your full attention and should be treated the same as watching a movie. Cut out all outside distractions and just enjoy the ride. I’m not saying you shouldn’t jam out to your favorite band while you dust the house or mop the kitchen floor, but just do yourself a favor and spent the time to really listen from time to time. I’m thinking this is becoming a lost art…..people actually “listening” to an album for the sheer enjoyment of the listening experience. Tis a shame, but if you take my advise you’ll be happy you did. It’s a lost art in the “digital” age. I love my ipod too. Shuffle rules, but you gotta get back to basics and just sit and listen to a full album now and again.

Sorry for the rant, but I’ll bring the whole thing back to my own “self promoting” ways that this whole blog is based on yeah?

I spent the last three weeks adding “sounds” to the first twelve tunes we completed at our studio and brought back to my home studio. The first week was easy. I just plugged in the parts that were already written via my early demos. Then the next two weeks were spent playing, deleting and re-recording tracks for hours on end every night to the point that I could even tell if what I was doing was good, bad, awful or awesome. At the end of every night the beers and weed told me all I tracked was gold, but the sober morning listen would usually tell me otherwise. After a few nights of suck I got on a roll and knocked out all the tunes and have now been cleaning them up at our proper studio.

Another weird/fun part of every album I’ve recorded dating back to all the albums I recorded with my old band Lenola is that I’ve always started every album with a solid eight or nine songs knowing I had to write a few more tunes to complete a full album. I like the pressure of having to write some good shit quick to complete the project. This album is no different. I’ve spent the past three nights with gtr in hand and finalizing lyrics for the “late comers” of the album. They usually end up being some of the best tunes of any record I make.

We were actually in the studio tonight putting vocals on one of these “late comers” called “Internal, External” and I must say it was an amazingly productive night and I tracked some of the best vocals on the album so far. Good times…..

Cheers!

-j

Since We've Been Gone

Man-o-man. Yes, as Pete said “it’s been a long time” since the last update. You could blame this on being lazy, but I’m gonna blame it on being busy making music. A lame excuse for sure, but it makes me feel better. The last we left off there was tons of whining and complaining about “shit not working” and “can’t wait to start getting shit done”. Well as we said well over a month ago, the shit works and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. Working, and I must say it’s been awesome. So awesome that I forgot that we even had this blog deal going.

So lets catch up shall we?

My goal for this record was to have 16 tunes to pick from before all was said and done. We’re gonna come up one short, but will still have to cut four or five songs for the album proper. Not to bad. We’re at the point where we can see the end of the road, but it’s a long flat road and the light at the end of the tunnel might be a bit further away then it appears, but if we keep the proverbial “nose to the grind stone” we should be able to wrap this fucker up in the next month.

The breakdown:

We have 13 of the 15 tunes just about wrapped up. Still need to tidy up a few details here and there. Wash’em behind the ears, change a few diapers, get the necessary shots and so on, but they are healthy and sounding better than I ever expected.
In the past 2 weeks we’ve laid down the basic tracks for the last three tracks. They are in the early stages, but the x-rays look good and we’re happy to tell you that they might end up being some of the strongest of our tribe.

It’s only natural that some survive and some must pass. We have a strong herd of songs my friends and the tunes that make it to the album will have proven their wealth through weeks of trial an error, leg wrestling and drinking games. I can’t wait for the final episode….

We’re back! More to come soon…….Posts…Pics….Vids…..

Thanks for reading!
-j

WOW!!!

it's been along time since the last post. we've been really busy or not so busy because we are almost done. well close to being done for the most part. we finished a lot of the tracking at the studio and moved all the tracks over to jays house so he can put the keys and all the little clicks and beeps down. so really we've all been bored. as you can see in this video.
after the video jay did finish the keyboard stuff and we've been putting the finishing touches on about 12 songs. we also did drum tracks for two new songs. i think we've got one more song to track which will more of an acoustic jam. we should be back in the swing of things starting this week and hopefully we will keep this updated a little more...

yes, it's really working...

well things are finally coming together. we've done multiple days of recording and no pops or crackle or any other weird noises, other then the ones we've created. actually we've been so busy we don't even have time to post.

well our new found love of the studio has brought on some good days and nights. now that everything is up and running we will get the video camera up and hopefully have some good clips. tomorrow we will start some new drum tracks and we should be on our way...

here is a video of jay playing guitar for a song called "vertical dance"...

enjoy...

Some pics.....

The problems are fixed....It's gotta have something to do with the magic monitor!




Psychedelic, no?




Pete's beard is real.....




I tracked through this fucker the other night. Quite an amazing amp.

Home Sweet Home Studio

So things have been a bit rocky as of late so far as the recording process and fucking stupid recording computers go, but as bad as it may seem from my bitching on this here blog some work has been accomplished. The 5 “b-side” tunes I’ve been working on at my home studio are 98% fini. Hard to call’em b-sides anymore as they really do sound awesome and even though I have many more tunes written for the new album I just can’t count some of these guys out just yet. Trust me man. Good, good shit is happening.

Not to get into any personal life stuff here, but tonight was my second wedding anniversary to my beautiful wife Colette. A very happy day that was only made better due to the fact that our main studio computer if fucking fixed and working better than…..well let’s just say the fucker is working and the game is back on. Before the thing decided to break down we did get a chance to track drums for three actual album tunes. The basic bass and Gtr’s will be laid down on these tunes starting tomorrow.


And now a quick embarrassing/funny story relating to tonight’s anniversary celebration. I spent the day in the studio with Pete and Dave tracking some Gtr’s and vocals. All went very well. A pretty sober affair for the most part. Had a few beers and a wee little joint in the last hours of tracking but I had to head home around 8 to meet the wife for some celebratory drinks at a local bar (the Cantina). We had some high-end margaritas and I did a few shots of tequila along with a few beers. Good times all around, but I decided to head into my little home studio to do some tracking after said drinks. That went well enough, but after all was said and done I decided to break out the digital camera to make a little video of the studio to post on this here blog. In the process of turning all the gear back on to make the video the beers and shots took over and tweaked my equilibrium and my drunk ass fell into two of the keyboards knocking them straight to the ground as I tried my best to keep myself from landing on top of them and rendering them into shards of plastic and wires that could only produce a sound worth recording if I tossed’em down my stairs and mic’d them up with a delay pedal and Robert Plant crooned over the noise they produced as they made their finial decent towards the curb that would ultimately be their final moments of glory before being crushed next to food waste in the next South Philly trash truck to come along. Being drunk I had a good laugh, checked my self for any injuries besides the blow to my “I can handle my liquor” ego and then set the shit back up and checked it to make sure it all still worked. It did work and everything was fine. Here’s a little video of my little home studio and luckily still working keyboards.



Much progress has been happening. Much more to talk to you about real soon. Thanks for checking in!



-j

It's Been Awhile

So yeah, it’s been a while since the last update. No, the band did not break up and no, the main studio computer is still not totally fixed. We have been able to track some drums and a few bass tracks for the album tunes, but once again, every time I plug into an electric gtr the dreaded “crackle” seems to rear its ugly head. Luckily we did have the second computer (the one that has ended up in my home studio) up and running and were able to get live gtrs and bass tracked for the original 4 b-side tunes we started at the beginning of this recording session. This second computer is now in my home studio, the place where all the keys, samples and programming will take place. Even though we’ve been eating from the shit sandwich that is the computer problem now know as king of crap mountain I have had some solace in the fact that I’m able to grab a beer or three and head up to my little home studio and work on the b-side tunes. And I must say it’s been a very rewarding project. I brought these songs into the studio as something we could record just to warm up to the recording process and make sure everything was working before we got to work on the actual album. These were tunes I wrote up to 3 years ago. I spent a few days listening through to some old demo CDRs and picked a couple that we could use a guinea pigs if you will, but now that I have all the live tracks here at home I’ve been spending the time waiting for the main computer to be fixed nestled into my little studio putting the final touches on the b-side stuff and I have to say I’ve really fallen love with the results. This is a good sign man. If this first session at the new studio has resulted in some amazing soundings tunes I can only hope that the actual album tracks will reach above and beyond my greatest expectations. The studio computer is being totally rebuilt tonight.

My fingers are crossed and plenty of beers have been cracked in the name of progress. If you’re a drinker crack one for us. If you’re not a drinker cross your fingers. If you’re into yoga, twist yourself into the shape of a working studio computer and hold that position until I say everything is working as planned. It could be a race towards ZEN! I hope we win, but at the worst you’ll be a little closer right?

Keep an eye out and an ear open as I’ll be posting here more often as things are going to get better. I promise…………fingers crossed!

-j

Here's a few recent pics from the studio. I'll have some pics and a video up of my home studio tomorrow.


Me doing Vox....through the control window....Trippy....or just a bad pic. You decide.

Jeff tracking some acoustic GTS on the B-Side called "Gold"

This is the new "power conditioner" rack. Should help with the "crackle".

ok computer...

well we're still waiting on the big computer fix. it really sucks, it's sorta like finding your christmas gifts in the attic but not being able to open the for two months. every thing is just sitting there looking really sweet and we cant even use any of it. we did manage to get some stuff done but the same problem arose on the other computer. it's utterly depressing.

well if this recording doesn't work out at least jay has a back up plan... yeah this is what it's come to, watch...

maybe next post will be about how awesome the records going. so check back in 2010 and we may have some stuff down...