lawdy lawdy...
i somehow manage to get a decent chunk of work done in a short amount of time and somehow i manage to feel like i haven't gotten shit done at all.
we practised with hannah today- but i forgot my notebook with all of my string arrangements in it so we were really only able to do a few songs. since that was kind of a bust we did a few recordings- 'to the sky' which i saved for her to record since she's the one who learned the part first and i didn't see the point of teaching it to billy when we were so pressed for time and she already knew it. it worked out quite well. she has a different sound from billy. not sure if i can put my finger on it, but she sounds different on tape from how billy sounds. billy is kind of a total wild card and she's a bit more careful with what she's playing and really sticks to a pattern pretty tightly. i also had her play on the new recording of 'on the bridge' for the 'wish' digital single. at first i wasn't real happy with what stefanie and i had already recorded, but then when she added her part it sounded really really nice so i'm pretty pumped about it. stefanie and i still have to sing it, i have to add the reverb and possibly a bit of background texture.
after that i got home and loaded a few songs onto a tape to record vocals for and went ahead and did the vocals for the dreaded 'down to sleep.' i've already done this song twice and it's not real easy to sing- it's real all over the place melodically and there are several different parts- but only two chords ironically. so since it's not only difficult to sing it's even more difficult to sing and then double 9 times and have it match up. the scratch track i'd done as a guide to built the song around came to my rescue- i sang and played guitar onto the same track and the vocal was really raw and ragged but quite good and provided a nice framework to add the vocals around and it kind of preserved the melodic solidity of that original take (this isn't saying much as i can't seem to sing a song the same way twice- but for me the melody is pretty clear). need to add the reverb later. i can't figure out if i should add reverb as i go along or just try and finish all of the singing- i still have about 10 or 11 songs to add my vocals to. of those 10 or 11 stefanie only has to sing with me on 2. the majority of her vocals have been done for a long old time. ironically i made sure to get as much of her vocal stuff done first as possible so as to not drag towards the end- and now here i am dragging my feet recording vocals. to be fair i wasn't up to it physically for about the last three weeks. today at practise it was really nice to sing again and it was pretty nice and clear and confident, so i figured it was time to strike while the iron was hot.
my full-time job right now also seems to be to convert our record collection to mp3s- a daunting task. right now i've been converting all of my rolling stones records. somehow i have 8- not sure how that happened. 'december's children...,' '...now,' 'big hits,' 'flowers,' 'aftermath,' 'beggar's banquet,' 'let it bleed,' 'sticky fingers,' 'exile on main street' and some record of covers they recorded that my mom bought me for christmas and i still haven't listened to it yet... wow, that's actually 10- who knew? i actually am dead into the rolling stones right now. i all of a sudden understood how great the music was and why it was so great- which i didn't really get before for some reason. i still think that the beatles were better, of course.
we listened to 'forever changes' today while we were driving to hannah's. fantastic album! with every listen i love it more and more. i didn't think too much of it upon that first listen. when stefanie and i were at chipotle one day we heard some copycat cover of 'alone again or' and we couldn't figure out who did such a carbon-copy cover and why and why chipotle was playing this lame cover and not the original and amazing version? answer comes today- the cover was by calexico. big fucking surprise. i still struggle to understand why they are considered underground, subversive or indie in any way? they sound completely indistinct. i think they might be the james taylor of the indie world. people cream themselves about them for some reason and i just am not getting it.
an interesting tidbit that i never knew- pilsen looks exactly like greenpoint, brooklyn. a lot of the facades of the houses are exactly the same. the way they're smashed together is the same. the way some of the buildings are walkups is the same. it has the same feeling too- it's just that one is primarily latino and the other is polish and hacidic (forgive my spelling) jewish.
so i've been pretty productive and gotten the juices flowing again so i can take a nice quiet day tomorrow like always and feel pretty good about it. i would like to get back to work during the week this next week. get a sizeable dent out of those vocal parts. all i have except for that stuff is some simple dumping stuff into the tracks (some not so simple dumping the vocals in- such a pain), a handful of guitar parts to record, and those 11 vocals.
i should go though. it's so late and i am actually quite tired.
shame tidbit- i ate an entire box of fruit by the foot today. not the normal size- the jumbo bonus size that you can buy at target...
we practised with hannah today- but i forgot my notebook with all of my string arrangements in it so we were really only able to do a few songs. since that was kind of a bust we did a few recordings- 'to the sky' which i saved for her to record since she's the one who learned the part first and i didn't see the point of teaching it to billy when we were so pressed for time and she already knew it. it worked out quite well. she has a different sound from billy. not sure if i can put my finger on it, but she sounds different on tape from how billy sounds. billy is kind of a total wild card and she's a bit more careful with what she's playing and really sticks to a pattern pretty tightly. i also had her play on the new recording of 'on the bridge' for the 'wish' digital single. at first i wasn't real happy with what stefanie and i had already recorded, but then when she added her part it sounded really really nice so i'm pretty pumped about it. stefanie and i still have to sing it, i have to add the reverb and possibly a bit of background texture.
after that i got home and loaded a few songs onto a tape to record vocals for and went ahead and did the vocals for the dreaded 'down to sleep.' i've already done this song twice and it's not real easy to sing- it's real all over the place melodically and there are several different parts- but only two chords ironically. so since it's not only difficult to sing it's even more difficult to sing and then double 9 times and have it match up. the scratch track i'd done as a guide to built the song around came to my rescue- i sang and played guitar onto the same track and the vocal was really raw and ragged but quite good and provided a nice framework to add the vocals around and it kind of preserved the melodic solidity of that original take (this isn't saying much as i can't seem to sing a song the same way twice- but for me the melody is pretty clear). need to add the reverb later. i can't figure out if i should add reverb as i go along or just try and finish all of the singing- i still have about 10 or 11 songs to add my vocals to. of those 10 or 11 stefanie only has to sing with me on 2. the majority of her vocals have been done for a long old time. ironically i made sure to get as much of her vocal stuff done first as possible so as to not drag towards the end- and now here i am dragging my feet recording vocals. to be fair i wasn't up to it physically for about the last three weeks. today at practise it was really nice to sing again and it was pretty nice and clear and confident, so i figured it was time to strike while the iron was hot.
my full-time job right now also seems to be to convert our record collection to mp3s- a daunting task. right now i've been converting all of my rolling stones records. somehow i have 8- not sure how that happened. 'december's children...,' '...now,' 'big hits,' 'flowers,' 'aftermath,' 'beggar's banquet,' 'let it bleed,' 'sticky fingers,' 'exile on main street' and some record of covers they recorded that my mom bought me for christmas and i still haven't listened to it yet... wow, that's actually 10- who knew? i actually am dead into the rolling stones right now. i all of a sudden understood how great the music was and why it was so great- which i didn't really get before for some reason. i still think that the beatles were better, of course.
we listened to 'forever changes' today while we were driving to hannah's. fantastic album! with every listen i love it more and more. i didn't think too much of it upon that first listen. when stefanie and i were at chipotle one day we heard some copycat cover of 'alone again or' and we couldn't figure out who did such a carbon-copy cover and why and why chipotle was playing this lame cover and not the original and amazing version? answer comes today- the cover was by calexico. big fucking surprise. i still struggle to understand why they are considered underground, subversive or indie in any way? they sound completely indistinct. i think they might be the james taylor of the indie world. people cream themselves about them for some reason and i just am not getting it.
an interesting tidbit that i never knew- pilsen looks exactly like greenpoint, brooklyn. a lot of the facades of the houses are exactly the same. the way they're smashed together is the same. the way some of the buildings are walkups is the same. it has the same feeling too- it's just that one is primarily latino and the other is polish and hacidic (forgive my spelling) jewish.
so i've been pretty productive and gotten the juices flowing again so i can take a nice quiet day tomorrow like always and feel pretty good about it. i would like to get back to work during the week this next week. get a sizeable dent out of those vocal parts. all i have except for that stuff is some simple dumping stuff into the tracks (some not so simple dumping the vocals in- such a pain), a handful of guitar parts to record, and those 11 vocals.
i should go though. it's so late and i am actually quite tired.
shame tidbit- i ate an entire box of fruit by the foot today. not the normal size- the jumbo bonus size that you can buy at target...