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back in north carolina for the moment. i’ll be driving back to atlanta soon, but figured i would come home for a couple days since i haven’t been here for three weeks. i walked down to owen’s bagelshop this afternoon and worked on some layout options for the artwork. dom should be coming to atlanta soon to show me some rough drafts, so i’ll have a better idea of how the artwork will look after that. but if you want to be surprised with the final product, you should probably stop reading here. as far as the manufacturing is concerned, we’ve decided to go for an altered digipak design for a ‘bound book’ sort of feel. pulling this off might be difficult, but hopefully we can do it. we’re smart guys. at least we like to think we are. anyway, i don’t want you to think i’m a digipak elitist snob. i like jewel cases. some would say they’re boring and outdated, but digipak designs can be just as uninspiring. just using a digipak does not automatically make your CD cooler. i guess it's what on the disc that counts anyway.
speaking of trying to be ‘cool’, people keep telling me i should construct a myspace page. i understand it's a popular system of networking and all that, but there are too many things that irritate me about it. it is also owned by intermix media, which is owned by news corp., which is owned by rupert murdoch. mister murdoch also owns fox news, a corporation i detest with every particle of my body. but that's not the point, is it? not only does myspace force you to conform to it's design parameters, but its users are in turn being used to peddle scores of meaningless products according to demography. and though i also admit that those i would call my true friends might be low in number, i don't feel entirely comfortable having 'friends' i've never met in person. maybe when someone invents the teleport i'll sign up. but until then, no myspace for me. so, to borrow a phrase from an old louisville flyer... every product is a drug. every ad is a virus. every dollar is a vote. please consume wisely. word.
i had dinner tonight with phil skipper tonight. he introduced me to perhaps the best veggie burger i've ever had. it was brought to me by a nice woman from thailand named happy.
in the studio today i played absolutely nothing. we edited keyboard tracks for eight hours. we captured some great sounds, but now my eyes hurt. so i figured i would embrace the feeling and type some. tomorrow i'm headed home for a few days. frankly i'm a little tired. i've been home a total of one day over the last three weeks and we're moving to kentucky in a month. lots to do with packing and such. we're also having a yard sale next weekend, so if you need a set of couches and a mint julep, feel free to stop by. alright then. i'm off to get another bad night of sleep. more clips coming soon enough. sorry for the delay. here are some images from the road to tide you over: orphan front door jackson county means business billy ray flavor dom at the flyaway psychoturkey suburbanexplosion
today we worked on acoustic guitar, bass, and keyboards. the acoustic tracks went fairly quickly, but i ended up having a rather difficult time finding the right bass line for this one song in 11/8. i got it eventually though. we didn't have time to edit all the keyboard tracks this afternoon, so we’ll be sorting through all that tomorrow. we’re approaching a stopping point on this initial round of tunes and are now thinking about what songs to attack next. i have also consumed an extraordinary amount of coffee.
more new clips coming later this week...
my apologies everyone. i may have been have been a little rough on kenny rogers in my last post. i’m sure he has a plethora of responsibilities to attend to such as gambling and judging american idol and spreading his chicken across the globe. and who am i to judge? really people, behold the glory of this. and this. and most of all this. so from the bottom of my heart, i’m sorry kenny. i don't know if you can ever forgive me, but i'm just putting it out there.
i got stuck in traffic on the way to the studio again today. it appears to be a recurring theme. we worked on more drum and bass edits this afternoon, building from the ground up i suppose. next week we’ll be working on acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and keyboard arrangements. then we’ll take another short break i guess. these pauses between sessions have been working out nicely. in the past, the projects i’ve worked on have all been recorded during one long stretch. this new approach is clearly a superior method. time to reflect and all that. oh, in case anyone cares, i’ll be posting some new clips this week at some point. so right now i’m sitting in ‘the great american café’ inside phipps plaza mall waiting for my 9:55 screening of 'the sentinel’ starring michael douglas and special agent jack bauer. i have a cold pint of beer, a cubs game on the television across the bar, and hall and oates blasting over the speakers. what could be more american than this? i might as well order some apple pie topped with a slice of american cheese. i bet kenny would be proud.
back into the studio this week. i’ve been listening and taking notes to what we’ve already done. i thought i’d have some more time at orphan this past week, but kenny rogers took my dates. seriously. glenn does some commercial work at times and was contacted by kenny’s crew about recording some voiceovers for a casino advertisement. did you know the slogan for the roasters chain is ‘it’s the wood that makes it good’? that's amazing. what’s more, kenny subsequently cancelled his studio time too late for me to reschedule, so the 4 of you who read this and actually care about purchasing this impending musical endeavor can blame kenny rogers when it comes out a week late.
so in lieu of being able to record, i drove to destin florida for easter with the weihes. aside from the obvious joy of being in a city with only a one-letter difference from my actual nombre, i got to immerse myself for a spell in the gulf of mexico. plus this morning i finally paid my taxes. a blast as usual. and now i’m sitting here in tallahassee waiting for dom to return from his sister’s confirmation in louisville so we can talk about artwork. i actually had to ask what getting confirmed involved even though i went to saint xavier catholic school for 3 years. saint xavier employs a system of discipline called JUG (Justice Under God) where students are forced to stand and stare at a wall for an hour after school. it’s as productive as it sounds. sorry. you probably don’t care about any of this. who are you anyway? i wish i knew you. here i am delivering segments of my life on this machine, typing these little pieces of plastic and then posting it all on a website with my name on it. i just let out a large sigh. i wondered a lot about how it would feel to keep this journal. i guess now i know. but is there value to this? am i providing insight or confusion? is this even remotely entertaining for you? well, regardless, perhaps this will interest you for the time being. i was in sixth grade when i went to see my first show at a club in louisville that had been converted out of an old laser tag arena. the following is a site from mister Bryan V about the hardcore punk rock history of louisville. it’s fantastic. i grew up listening to most of the bands on this site and wanted to share them with you just in case you wanted some information on some of my earliest and deepest musical influences. i hope you enjoy.
first day of recording yesterday. i woke up around 9:30 and drove to the studio north on 85 and promptly got stuck in traffic. some sort of construction i think. i arrived about 40 minutes late. awesome. by the end of the day, we had drum tracks for five songs, plus we added some loops and overdubs. it felt really great to actually collaborate with someone for a change. i've been listening to these demos for so long that it was exciting to hear some fresh perspectives. i haven't had the opportunity to discuss making music with anyone since the days of filboyd studge. so next week glenn and i will tackle bass and guitar, then we'll move on to keyboard and string arrangements i guess. i say (or type) all this, but i'm figuring this out as i go...
after we finished up for the day, i drove down south to explore atlanta and find a place to eat dinner. i stumbled upon a place called the varsity and quickly learned it was the perfect place for me at that point in time. the coke i ordered even had that special type of crushed ice that makes for excellent slurping and/or crunching. then it was back to the home of beth hudson in brookhaven. she's a friend of my wife that has bestowed the incredibly gracious offer of a spare room. she also has a giant elk head mounted in her living room. there is a post office, grocery, coffeehouse, package store, sushi restaurant, drug store, and pizza parlor within a mile of here. so i got that going for me, which is nice... i'm listening to jonathan downing right now as i type. he's a friend of my pal dom guarnaschelli. i met jonathan a few weeks ago in tallahassee when i was in town to discuss the artwork for the album with dom. we played bocce on the lawn for a while and then ate steaks and such by a bonfire behind dom's apartment building. good times. another ensemble i've been enjoying lately is reading. last year they released an album with one of the finest design concepts of all time on debauchery records, a louisville label with several other solid artists including my good friend john whitaker. by the way, the urban ministry center opens its new building this sunday, a very important occasion for the homeless population of charlotte. estimates are that about 5000 individuals go without shelter each night in charlotte, so the center provides free counseling, showers, laundry, phones, transportation, health care, and lunch everyday except sunday. lawrence cann and i are working on having on open mic night there soon. lawrence is the art director. once a year he organizes an art auction comprised solely of works by the homeless. and he also coaches the center's soccer team and traveled with them to the homeless world cup in edinburgh last year. please consider for a moment how amazing that is. if anyone has any instruments or materials they could donate to the center to assist with the open mic, please let me know. so it turns out i haven't really included much here about recording. sorry. i guess it's only been one day. just stick with me everyone. now that everything is underway, i'll be posting more often. but for now, i invite you to roll with me.
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