Apparently, there were some fiesty e-mails flying around this week. Russell and Tony seem to have a real problem communicating in general, and using e-mail specifically. Anyway, Russell, Tony, and Kevin met to hash things out before the session. Despite some rumblings about sound quality, the root of Tony's discontent seems to have been a single fill in Da Glo Me. I think that Kevin and Russell finally convinced him that, while it may not have been recorded as intended, it's still really f***ing cool. Reluctantly, they all agreed to forge ahead. First up was to listen to Russell's guitar tracks from last week. He finally admitted that it did sound OK. When I put up both guitar takes and panned them hard left and right, everyone sat up. Kevin and Russell were high-fiving each other and claiming that they were now the second coming of Thin Lizzy. (As if THAT's something to aspire too. Sometimes I just don't get these old geezers.) Moving on from that high, we got set up to record Dick the Bruiser. Because this is a slow moody number, Kevin switched to his other bass rig (GK head/Sonic 15"). By inserting a pad in the B1's line we were able to move it closer to the amp and thus (hopefully) minimize picking up the rattle of the heating ducts. I kept hearing an unpleasant raspiness in the bass tone, but Kevin didn't really hear what I was talking about, so we decided to just record a take. The first take was pretty good and the bass sounded good and sat well with the drums, so we decided not to worry about the room sound. Both Kevin and Tony decided they could play it better, so we recorded take #2. It was, in fact, better and we called it good. On play back both Russell and I were very impressed with detail and nuance of the cymbals. It was getting late, so we called it. All in all, a pretty productive day and it was definitely a morale booster for the band to have rhythm tracks for three out of seven songs under their collective belts.
May 16.
Buoyed by our success last week, we dove into recording At the Oscars (although apparently Kevin wants to rename it). The first take was good, though both Tony and Kevin thought they could do better. As they listened to the playback, they realized that they had left out an entire verse and chorus. They tried again and nailed it on the second take. Next up was a newer song called Lanugo. Because the song is built around the guitar part and the bass sort of meanders in and out of it, it was decided to have Russell play along during the take. He set up a small amp well away from the microphones and played at an extremely low volume to help guide the drums and bass. There was a bit of bleed into the drum overheads because the song is so quiet, but it will probablly add some cool "air" to the final mix. After a number of gaffs and false starts, they made it through a couple of takes. The last take had spot-on, picture-perfect drums, but less than perfect bass. Russell felt that the bass sound was just not right for the song, while Kevin felt that he just couldn't get the feeling right without the guitar. Because the drums were so stellar, they decided to keep the take and rerecord the bass later after the guitar's been laid down. I'm a bit concerned that there might be some low-end bass-bleed in the drum tracks, but I will admit that the drum performance was really good. We ended the session with a discussion about what needed to happen next. Russell wants to push forward and finish up the drums so he can have his computer back. The remaining two songs, Sleep Full Blast and S.S. Montreal haven't been played in quite a while and everyone was feeling a little nervous about them. They finally decided to spend an hour or so reheasing next session, before trying to record Sleep. Montreal would be left for the session after that. The band hit the road and I backed up today's session.
May 23.
Tony, Kevin and Russell ran through Sleep a few times to refresh their memories. Tony decided that he was going to play a pretty straight beat through the orchestral ending section and overdub the rolling tom fills later. I made some level adjustments and Tony and Kevin were off, nailing it in one take. Upon playback though, they realized that several of the sections were shorter than they should have been. After much discussion, they decided that it wouldn't really hurt the song much and Russell assurred everyone that he would work his part into this abbreviated arrangement.
June 6.
Everyone turned up optimistic today. If all went well, this would be the final day of rhythm tracks. Once again, they ran through the song as a band (minus Chris, who hasn't really shown up in weeks). SS Montreal is basically a one-riff song with intertwining guitar and sax lines. The only tricky part is where the one stop is. There was much discussion about how long the "parts" of the song were and where exactly the stop came. Finally, some sort of consensus was reached and tracking commenced. Russell directed the proceeding, giving visual cues, and everything was going fine until Tony ended too soon. He waved everyone off and silently counted out a rest and motioned Kevin to come back in. It was a bit of a clusternut of an arrangement, but the performance was good. Again, after listening to the take everyone decided that the original arrangement would have been too long anyhow and that it REALLY was better this way. Tony and Kevin did think that the pause should twice as long so I chopped the audio tracks and we extended the pause. There was some chatter about putting some sort of glitchy electronics there eventually... With that, tracking of the rhythm section was complete and I helped Russell tear down and pack up. We'll be holing up in his basement for guitar overdubs now.
return to P'elvis recording diaries
