self-titled: ^_^
studio journal
Stuff I wrote in the recording studio this weekend
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2-22-02
Look at me, so goddam industriuos. I'm sitting in our recording studio in southie writing this because i have a goddam keyboard for my palm pilot. I rule.
Yesterday wwas friday i guess. Katie is looking over my shoulder. My class was cancelled so i went home and drank some beers with my roommates and dave lincoln's high school sister. So i went to work pretty drunk, it was fun. at work i uhh, i think i actually worked, fancy that. Then i came home from work around 5, put in my laundry and then ahowered and got dressed for the bostonians show. We were singing some benefit show for circle K, it wasn't bad, we did alright. Afterwards i went to late night because all i had eaten for the day was ramen. As I was leaving late night i ran into mancini, who was on his way to play poker, so i went back to edmonds with him and then to tony's for some poker fun. it was a much more chill poker night than poker nights passed, ended early, not many shenanigans, and the room total for consumed beers was at a lot. However, i still managed to win $15. Go me. we finished around 1:30-2 and then god knows what i did but i was up until about 3am.
I had a remarkably good night's sleep considering i was only asleep for 4 and a half hours. I got up, showered, and went outside to wait for the T. Got into southie and entered our lovely dark recording studio. We laid down the base for Buddy Holly and then i went outside for a cigarette, and the transition from the studio's lighting to the absolute brightness outside literally made me stumble. it was seriuosly the most extreme contrast in lighting i've ever experienced. And of course it was gorgeous outside, which is always nice to know when i have to be cramped in the studio for 12 hours. Then we did lullabye, and then my stomach nearly imploded and katie got me burger king. God that was amazing.
we're listening to superman in the studio now. God i love this shit. Mike sounds amazing, the song sounds great. This makes it worth it. Like last week, after 12 hours hearing beautiful day loud and finished. It's just an amazing feeling. I can't wait for this damn CD to come out.
Anyway, we'll be out of here pretty quick, then i'm gonna shower and get my party on. I don't have to sing jack shit tomorrow (unless i'm forced to do the buddy holly solo) but i have to be here at 10am again so i can sit around all day. Woohoo.
2-23-02
Dave Richard: I have a moral objection with putting those drums on this record. There will be no a cappella drums on this record. 'Ka' is not a snare
That quote courtesy of our friendly recording engineer. That is where i am right now, sitting as dimitrios and sean do much percussion. I got here at noon, Dimo was here at ten. It is now 3pm. I am tired and, i hesitate to say hungover, but i do feel as if i drank a lot last night. and guess what? I did.
it started innocently enough, i'm sitting in the mixing room, someone was recording something, and dave turns to me, makes the universal sign for drinking something (fashion your hand around an imaginary can/bottle/glass and tip it towards your mouth) and raised his eyebrows in a devilish dave way and said "thirsty?"
Fifteen minutes later and a case of Bud was delivered to the studio door. So i got to drink beers as dave did up some rough mixes for a few songs. Then at like 9 or so he drove us to kenmore and we took the T home.
I showered, and headed to 1653. The night was unfortunately predictable. Hmm, I'm not sure how exactly sure how I'm using that word "unfortunately."
Well, not entirely predicable. There were the freshman track guys running around like assholes in diapers (of course devolving into wearing nothing) and a rare winning streak of beirut with Brenda. And then, there was the walk home.
Nothing could have prepared me for what i ran into. I don't believe it happened, but i know i didn't dream it because i referenced it in my away message last night. But still, it is too unreal, a hallucination maybe, i dunno. The whole thing was very Lynchian. I was walking home along Comm Ave before the res walk and I saw Max Glick and Kate Bailey. Ha. No, that's not what i was talking about. After i saw those two, i walked home the res way and right before the corner i saw a figure.
Now details are unbelievable sketchy. I was pretty fucking blitzed. but anyway, to the best of my recollection, i saw a larger woman (?) with a black bra and possibly nothing else. She spoke with a husky voice and said her name was Lisa. It was dark, it could have been a man maybe, either pre or post-op. Anyway, i remember nothing, aside from she/he was walking towards me, said something, asked me to go into the woods (small group of trees) to which i obliged, fascinated by the strangeness of what was occurring and really drunk. After about 30 seconds i got increasingly bored and/or drunk, wished her/he a good night and finished my walk.
There isn't a single thing about that story that is right or believable. But i will swear it happened. I was on no drugs that have hallucinatory tendencies and i positively did not dream it (proven by the away message i saw when i woke up). So I'm fairly sure the very hazy recap i've given is accurate. So what then? No matter how you look at it the whole thing is very sad or very scary. So I'd rather not spend too much time trying to figure out what brought this figure so close to home in such a getup. However, the absolute fucked-up whacked-out lynchian surreal bizaritude i can contemplate for weeks to come. I wish i hadnt been walking home alone, or i hope that the people behind me saw it as well, or else i may slip into deep paranoia about the possibility of schizophrenia. At a time that i've been giving so much thought to the implications of memory and the imprecise nature of reality, the last thing i need is to have such a strange event in question after only 12 hours.
I'm in the studio for a bit more, In fact, probably till ten or so. This just in, only sean dimo and i will be in the studio today. percussion takes a long time.
Tomorrow in fiction class i get to have my shitty short story i wrote in New York torn apart. If anything good gets said about it and people overlook its painful triteness, then perhaps i will post it up here so you can peep it.
Ok, time for crossword puzzles. more later perhaps.
took a tour of southie earlier when i went to buy sandwiches only to realize i had no idea where the damn place was. So i walked around, and then some kids playing basketball in a park pointed me the right way. Dimo had the same sandwich he got earlier (i say "earlier" but it matters not as this place is a time sink, i've been here 6 hours today and everything feels like it was either yesterday or ten minutes ago) and i got a grilled cheese, thus going along with my "only order from the kid's menu" policy (i got peanut butter and jelly earlier). The grilled cheese really hit the spot.
So i'm sitting here in the studio, thinking about dave's comment about "ka" and then i thought of neil's percussion on "when Doves cry" (doom KA doom, doom KA doom) and remembering that dave produced that album as well. Dave put up with that shit then, but now he doesn't. Obviously, we've grown as a group, (alumni show anyone?) but really. We're not really all that young, the group was 8 years going when they recording gotta get up now. But know we're just completely different. Arrangements are a lot different, we're very aggressive in the studio... we have up to 4 percussion tracks on some songs. The songs on the new cd are just hip...
and then i look at me, in my cons and hooded sweatshirt, hanging out drinking beers and smoking cigarettes with our engineer. sometimes it gets hard to remember that a cappella is fucking lame. Because we rule.
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and now i'm back home. Got here finally around 11pm. Got a lot of shit done. All percussion is recorded and i did my solo for Buddy Holly, and for the first time ever, i don't want to vomit when i hear my voice on tape. Big big day for recording. And my throat is fucking torn apart from screaming "and i know you're mine" over and over and over. But it was fun.
I came home, played my football game, and bed is looking better by the second.
last night's events keep coming up and fucking with me, because i no longer believed it actually happened but i know deep down it did. see, i hate this whole transient reality thing.
i got middlemarch tickets. huzzah.
ok, sleep, totally.