|
|
January 9, 2000 - PRE PRE-PRODUCTION Familiar cold blushed complexions and smiling faces flicker above the candles I’ve lit aglow. A glass of Cabernet, a butterfly or two, and the sound of the rising winds that fall down the drapes in the Colorado canyon walls and roar to be let in from the bitter winter snow. I’ve invited 14 of my greatest Boulder friends, to come over and listen to the latest songs I’ve written and am considering putting on this next album (due to go into preproduction* tomorrow, the 10th Of January). There are 27 songs to get through tonight and I feel a bit uncomfortable about asking all these people to sit through the musical accumulations I’ve so shoddily put down on my 4 track recording unit. Too, I feel blindly naked and mutely conscious about how my friends will react. I’ve tried to relieve them from having to save my feelings by constructing a rating system that will leave them anonymous after the music’s over and the wine is gone. As they make themselves comfortable on the shaggy white shedding couch, I hand them each a sheet of paper which has printed on it a list of all the songs they are about to hear. I explain: "On these sheets are a list of all my newest songs. Since we can only put 10 or 11 songs on the album we need to weed out at least 16. Next to each song, in column two, I would like you to rate each song. A #2 will mean that you think the song MUST BE ON THE RECORD. A #1 will signify a TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT. And a 0 will mean OUST IT. In the column on the far right I request your comments, suggestions, and production ideas. Please try to be as honest as you can and you don’t need to put your name on the sheets. If I catch you looking at someone else’s papers you will be sent to the dean’s office, do not pass go; do not collect $100 dollars. Do I make myself understood? " My friends take their job seriously and as the music starts and the conversation monasteries*, I can hear them scratching lead #2s into column #3s and I smile but don’t move a muscle ‘til the 2 hours are up, as though the music might shatter like a mirror if I breathed too deeply, or thought too wildly. My friends WERE honest God bless their little souls and the night was a success. We were able to eliminate all but 16 songs from the running. We sat around the maroon dining room table after the listening and chatted and laughtered and slept awake in each other’s eyes. I am so grateful for my friends. I am so grateful for the music. I am so grateful. VOCABULARY: January 12, 2000 - Preproduction Preproduction has been, well, productive. With Michael White, our engineer/producer, waving his magic wand over us we’ve managed to work out the logistics of 5 songs in the past 3 days, working from 12 noon to 10 or 11 at night. Just to prove that time flies when you’re having fun, I realized today when I stopped home to pick up a guitar, that I hadn’t been home, not even to change my clothes, in the past 4 days, yuck! But there’s something nice about losing that much time, sort of like being in love. The preproducton rehearsal space is in a warehouse just outside of town. It’s where the second sock turns up. It’s where the dust gets swept to. And it’s where we feel most at home. In a high ceilinged room, under a fluorescent light that shines loudly, before a garage door which swings up and down, not side to side, atop a beer and oil stained slice-o-carpet in a place where we can bang and make merry until the next day becomes the next year and somehow we forgot to go home, here we play and play and play and preproduce our next masterpiece. Some times we forget that we’re tired, then walk out to find a dawn, gracefully lifting up the sky for us. Some times we forget where we are, in Boulder? Or somewhere in a dream? Sometimes I forget the words. Sometimes Kenny forgets the chords. Sometimes Brian forgets to eat and then falls asleep on his kit but Chris never forgets ANYTHING, and for that, we are grateful. January 14, 2000 - The Gig at Trilogy The stage glowed red. 4 huge candles danced in 4 huge glass holders, each standing at least 3 feet off the ground. Curtains draped satiny red from the ceiling to the stage floor and otherwise, the walls were black. I'd booked the gig months ago not taking into consideration that I would have been in the throws of preproduction, and barely have enough of a voice to laugh with let alone belt out a solo acoustic show. I also took for granted that I had enough material to do two hour-long sets by myself. But as the days approached (the opening night of the Boulder nightclub 'Trilogy') I started realizing my limitations both vocally and mentally. Preproduction was starting to wear on me. It was starting to wear on all of us. 11-hour days spent basking in fluorescent lights, moving forward toward an arrangement of a song only to realize we'd been moving in the completely wrong direction. We've been working on approximately 1 1/2 songs a day and are so saturated by these songs that it's hard to bear another listen of them. I eat health store sugarless gummy worms and drink my yerba mate tea and try to keep my voice from slowly disappearing but no doubt it's going; and now this gig. I got there at 7 for a sound check. The stage was like a painting. It was so perfectly theatrical. Having realized days ago I needed some help filling up two hours, I called on my brother Ben for help: "Wanta play a gig with me on Friday night? It be fun," I promised, but didn't exactly know what to expect myself. But he agreed and I felt some pressure taken off knowing that now I needn't worry about set length. I was also really jazzed to play with my bro. We've never really done anything like it before. I mean sure he's come up and sang back ups for me at shows he's been at but we've never actually co-worked a show. I was looking forward to it. Sound check was smooth. I asked Josh, the manager, if there might be a backstage space where Ben and I might be able to work up some stuff. Josh looked worried like he may not be able to accommodate us and then remembered 'the storage space' and directed us into a largish closet space furnished with boxes, an overhead light and a couple of stools, which no doubt had been set up for us. We were grateful for the privacy and kind of enjoyed the decorative gallon cans of garbonzo beans and clam juice which stared down at us from their shelves. Heather, a waitress, came in and brought us tea and wine and placed the cups like Christmas ornaments, all about the room on whatever horizontal lines lent themselves to being ledges. It was in that little storage room that we worked out a set list and some haphazard harmonies. As our friends arrived they too joined us in the closet. We were having a regular party back there. The show was great. Somehow I managed to hold on to most of my singing voice even though my talking voice was gone, and we had a really nice crowd. I'd sing most of the set, with Chris Soucy, my faithful guitarist coming on and off the stage to accompany me on songs where I need my hands to perform. And then my sweetest best brother in the whole wide world would come up and sing with me and then by himself. He sounded just like an angel. I sold some CD's and even traded one for a massage. Then Kipp took Ben and Brian Mcrae and I up to the Fox Theater to see Carl Densen's Tiny Universe which we funked out to into the latest part of the night. One more day of preproduction. Oh please tiny voice hold out. January 17, 2000 - Preproduction Waking up into a freezing cold house increased my feelings of paranoia/excitement. Monday. 66 degrees inside. Blank sky. Jackets on people passing by, clenched with white knuckles to the neck. My mind raced by them and into my day. I questioned myself: 'Was I suppose to special order those microphones?' 'Oh man did I tell Chris (the studio engineer/owner) that we're moving in today?' 'I need to call the keyboardest!' 'I really hope Chris called the cellist!' Etcetera. I made myself a cup of twig tea. I can't find a mug big enough for my liking so I use 2-cup Pyrex measuring glasses. I sat by my window relaxing for a moment just letting the tea's vaporous ghosts rise up and envelop my face. ' It's not like me to sit,' I thought. I'm usually too much of a doer to sit unless my 'doing' requires a seated position. There are couches and chairs in my home that are rarely used except to look at. 'Just sitting is nice.' Today we move into the studio. We start recording tomorrow and then every day except Sundays until we're through (sometime in late February I'm predicting). Preproduction was extremely tiring but good. We finished up on Saturday night at 10:30pm with a complete run through of all 12 band songs (the ones we're going to track* as a complete band). My voice was gone by dinner time and so I was speaking most of the lyrics which sounded to me, very much like a beat poetry reading and I kept laughing at myself even though my trachea was in bleeding pain. Marji and the kids from the Waldon school in Media, PA, had sent the band chocolates for Christmas and that's what I had for dinner. Chocolates and champagne which I bought to celebrate the completion of preproduction and the beginning of the next 5 weeks of recording production. I just really hope I wasn't supposed to call the cellist. *VOCABULARY: January 19, 2000 Ahh, the day breaks red over the forever green pine trees and the winds drift down the canyon halls blowing warm, fall-like winds into the basin , where at night the lights of town sparkle like a sequin evening gown dancing on your eyes. Wednesday morning. I don't bother getting out of my pajamas. I'll be here at the studio until late and should I put my day clothes on (which by the way, look very much like my night clothes) I will most certainly fall asleep with them on and they are far more uncomfortable. My hair is a tangley mess but no one seems to mind as I sit cross-legged on the maroon carpet, computer in lap, typing away in a hunch of a position. Soucy sits next to me stretching his quadriceps and changing his guitar strings. Michael White is sitting in the rubberband chair that's positioned in front of the sound board. He's trying to get drum sounds for the first take. It's sounding pretty good. Pretty loud and pretty good. There's a little carpeted bathroom just off the control room and when it gets too noisy I shut myself inside the shower and talk on the phone or write in my journal or do vocal exercises. The home studio we're in is huge. The ceilings are tall and slanted with huge lush plants peering onto us from the high ledged corners. The house smells like cedar and warm apricot honey. The sun rests gently in the main recording room with dust fairies drifting by oblivious to the musical production which persuades them sway and dance. There's a kitchen off to the left where we relax and converse and Brian taps on the wooden table with his sticks. On the huge black grand piano sits a purple bouquet full of lilacs. The scent teases summer into the room and we're all a little giddy today. Kenny brought the mechanical hula girl that he got from his father-in-law for Christmas. It sings Hawaii when you turn it on and dances in a circle. It's a nice distraction. We're going to work on "Split Decisions" today, a new song that I only just wrote a couple of weeks ago. It's very "poppy." Michael White, who is both engineer and co-producer, was crowned this morning with a baseball cap that Soucy doctored with scotch tape, paper and scissors so that over the bill hovers the letter "P" for producer and on the back, "E" for engineer. That way he can wear his two hats and we'll always know which roll he's trying to emanate. I really hope today is productive. We lost yesterday to set up and sounds. We really need to get basic tracks* done by this time next week to stay on schedule. January 21, 2000 - Sky Trails Studio Yesterday had its ups and downs. The studio is beginning to look more like home ... probably because, let’s face it, we’re living here. My clothes are strewn about the living room, my favorite mug and house plant have moved in, I’ve even adopted a couple of slow moving, delicate, innocent, cute, little bugs (I’ll play mother to what ever I can get my hands on). Set up took forever. We don’t have isolation booths here to control sound with so we have to be creative with what we’ve got. Michael and I had to build Mcrae a drum tent, which took about 2 hours. We strung string across rafters, slung rugs and blankets, propped pillows and jackets and then shoved Brian inside to bang on toms like 5000 times for everyone’s listening enjoyment (joke! Big joke!!). I feel strongly that each song should have it’s own vibe. The right setting must be created before each song. For example, when recording "Forty Years," I lit 30 candles and poured everyone a glass of cabernet. For the recording of "Split Decisions," we had to wait for the warm winds to streamline down the canyon and for the sun to slip through the skylights before we could get a good take. When Michael announced that he wanted to record "All this Time," in the morning, I had everyone rolling their pant cuffs up to their knees and stretching their socks skyward. "All this Time" is a very retro 70’s sort of a tune that I co-wrote with my friend, Scot Sax, in California. Appropriately, I just happened to be wearing my red striped knee-high tube socks. As the morning progressed we got more and more into the 70’s mood until I ended up in a pink feather boa hat and huge orange sun shades ... groovy baby! Yesterday was productive. However, we had ghosts in the machine come at nighttime. The computer we were recording on started acting up around 9pm. We tried to remain calm. We tried to stand by and have faith that everything would be all right but in fact, we’ve been worried. Every once and a while, and by no means all the time, a track that we’ve just recorded will refuse to play back for us. It’s as though the song has frozen and nothing will bring it back. It’s extremely frustrating and we’ve lost some important takes this way. Losing tracks means we’re losing studio time, equipment rental time, and most importantly, what money can’t buy, enthusiasm and energy. But on the bright side, today the computers seem to like us and we’re making progress on "Dvoren," An old song about an old friend. Time slips undernourished under the music, under the tidal winds that understand these canyon whispers and meets us somewhere soft, in our memories, in our morrows, inside the timeless of these hours. January 23, 2000 - Sky Trails Studio This life, it breathes me in. I am but a puppet in this beating production, clothed in skin and passion and wonder. I am exhilarated and exhausted. This first week of basic tracking* has been both exciting and the most boring time I can remember in the past year. I mean, even sitting in the van is more productive than this. We get into the studio at 10:00 am, eat whatever brown bag’s contents has been set before us, and chat about the 10 hours of night in which we were NOT together. I mostly complain about my present sleeping habits. I can’t seem to sleep between the hours of 3 and 5. My demons wake me up with stupid trivial questions like: "Did you call your new booking agent back?" "Isn’t it time you did some laundry?" "Oh my God! You forgot Heidi’s birthday!" After I’m jolted awake by my fears and concerns, I suddenly have all these "great ideas" for: the album cover, new stickers, production on a new tune, and some how I convince myself to get out of bed and write down a TO DO list for tomorrow at 3 in the morning. Then I’m up. Doomed for two more hours of sleeplessness so mostly I read but sometimes I write new songs or put together a photo album or just wander around my house in my flannel PJ’s cleaning and hanging pictures wondering whether the neighbors mind that I’m hammering nails in the walls. At 11:00am, the day has decided on a costume, usually sunny but very cold. Inside, we listen to the songs we recorded yesterday and decide whether we need to try to take them one more time. By around 2:00 we’re ready to record our first song. Until then, I’ve usually been reading, returning emails or knitting Kipp’s belated birthday sweater (never mind that it was in October). When we’re ready to record I’m on my feet just praying for something to do. I strap on my guitar prematurely most of the time and, caffeinated, stand in the middle of the living room, in between the chest high magenta candles and just right of the piano with the flowers (which are mostly dead now) facing the door. It’s usually another hour before we’re actually recording. First we have to get drum sounds, then bass sounds and then we have to get the right mixes (for each of us) in our cans. * I swear, it takes a shorter time to take over Russia! By the time we’re recording it’s 4:00. Believe it or not it only takes 3-10 times playing through a song (without technical difficulties of course: computer crashes, pee breaks, re-tuning) to get what we need on tape. Of course there are always a few things that need tightening up after we’re satisfied with a take: the bass is late, the drums are early, you can’t hear the snare, stuff like that so things need to be patched in, glued on, so to speak. By 6:00 or so, it’s time to prep the room again for the next song, decide which bass drums to use, which angle to place the microphones at, which bass tone, which version of the song to try first… Fast? Slow? Samba? Techno? By this point it’s 7:00, I am exhausted and there are people hanging out in the control room* listening and drinking wine and laughing and sometimes I’m laughing too. Sometimes I’ll have a glass of wine and a conversation with someone I’ve just met who is a friend of a friend of someone I’ve never met but lives in the (studio) house. But then I’m more exhausted and can’t imagine having to rearrange the room yet AGAIN!?!? But then, just when I think I can’t stand it for one more second, we listen back to what we’ve just made, what we’ve given birth to, the noise that’s turned into music and the lyrics that have taken shape and meaning propped up behind the chords and I am exhilarated like a proud mother watching her tiny baby take it’s first steps. Ah, looks like it’s time to listen back now. Got to go. *VOCABULARY: January 27, 2000 - Sky Trails It’s snowing here. The light outside is pale blue and deer dance, adorned with tree frame antlers, across the hazy white landscape. The horizon is dismissed from the day and it is quiet the way a bath is after the faucet is turned off. It is silent the way Christmas morning hangs pensively off her ornaments. It is calm the way velvet runs when it’s all running in one direction. I wasn’t going to write any thing today…. Frankly, there’s been little to write about. After all, it’s taken the past two days to get the right guitar tone for "Split Decisions." That’s El Blanco (Mike White) and Soucy’s job. But I want to be around for all the production decisions, call me a control freak. Chris sits atop a wooden swivel bar chair trying not to move or breath. The slightest eventfulness could be disastrous to the recording process and could completely change the tone they’ve worked so hard to find. None of us can afford for that to happen simply because we’re tired, exhausted, from having to hear the same song over and over for two days straight. So Chris sits perched dutifully like a tiny sparrow who’s trying to stay warm in a snowstorm. He remains expressionless except for moments when he looks disappointed, when after a take El Blanco turns to him and says: "Try it again." The room is hot; the music machines make it that way. It’s dark because none of us have noticed that it’s become night and turned on the lights. Hours slip away, rewind, play, and then rewind again. Let’s see, if "Split Decisions" is a 5 minute song and there’s 12, 5 minutes in an hour and we’ve worked on it from 10am to 10pm for the past two days, that means that I’ve heard this song approximately 1440 times. I think it’s almost impossible to like a song after that many listens, but some how we still don’t mind it and miraculously, we still like each other. I don’t have much to do here at Sky Trails these days. My role is pretty much to sit here on the wall to wall, back against the mahogany, listen, disapprove, approve, suggest alternatives, and help move things along. Most of the time I knit or read or write, or answer the phone and talk to any one about any thing so long as I don’t have to hear this song again! I imagine this is a little bit like jail with a punch out card. January 28, 2000 - Sky TrailsStudio YAWWWWWWWWN…. Another day trickles by. We finished up guitar on "Forty Years" this morning and moved onto "Devorin," which after 5 hours we decided we didn't really want guitar on. Despite the chaos, I felt really good and relaxed when I got to the studio today. Having gotten a complete night of sleep under my belt, I felt renewed and energized. But I could tell that Michael was stressed. Every other word he uttered was followed by a sigh and there were neck cracks where yesterday, there were none. He say’s he wishes things (guitar) were moving along quicker but neither one of us can legitimize picking up a faster pace: Speeding up the recording process means slowing down the mixing process. Being less picky about guitar tones means not having the best track possible. "We just have to let go of this whole time thing," I suggested, Indian style on the magenta mote of a carpet swirling around my teal green, velvet pants. He agreed, then sighed. I listen, I space, I listen, I go outside and listen, I go into town to pick up my dry cleaning. The suede pants I dropped off on Monday are no longer suede. They’re more cardboard than leather and I ask them why? "I don’t know what you’re talking about!," they say. "So why is the stain I brought them in for, still there?" "Oh, that's a catsup stain, that won't come out of those pants," They say laughing as though I'd asked how to get to Mars by bus. "OK," I say calmly, "so why is the hem line all taken out and shredded?" "It was that way when you brought them in," they say as though they'd rehearsed it and I pay them $24 dollars and take my cardboard on a hanger and sadly place it in my Rav 4 Toyota on the hand hold and drive away feeling very robbed as though some one had just stolen my favorite memory and said it was theirs all along. Later, back at the studio, we’re working the WaWa pedal on "One Step." It's a song about confronting fears; taking one step out into the unknown, towards the fears you've surrounded and entrapped yourself by, finding strength in your weakness and giving yourself into the abyss. Roadrunner scratches a line in the dirt. W. Coyote steps over it. Roadrunner scratches another line which W. Coyote crosses over, until he has been tricked into walking over the ledge of a cliff and sands there with no ground beneath him. The thing that always intrigued me was that he doesn't fall until he realizes that he is in midair. Metaphorically speaking, falling, floating and flying are all the same action; it is our presumptions and our fears that "no ground" means "down" that makes us fall. But we don't have to, and that's what the song is about: stepping one step out into the middle of the air, into the mystery of our existence, letting go of the fear which makes "no ground" mean "down" and, instead, deciding on "up." The song is a reminder to me to lose control, and in that chaos, find my freedom. February 3, 2000 - Sky Trails Studios Ouch, the hours go by. The slow ones itch. The fast ones bleed. We did vocals all week which is why I haven't written .... No Time. Maceo Parker came up to the studio on Super Bowl Sunday with his sax and laced some fat tracks down on "Devorin" and "Forty Years," what an honor! Last night, after 10 hours of working on the same vocal track: "For Kim,"
Michael and I went out to dinner. We just needed a break from sound. As we
drove down the dark canyon, planes hovering over Denver looked like
fireflies. It was warm out. Boulder was littered with bodies and we had a
hard time finding a place to eat. We were both uptight that things have been
moving at a snail's pace. The album's due date is suppose to be April 15th,
A mere 2 months away, and the budget, well we've long since gone over, not to
mention that we’re all EXHAUSTED. Neither of us could figure out why
recording's taking so long. We're all competent musicians. We'’re not just
"lollygaging" around all day; we're working 12-hour days - 7 days a week. So
why so long? It made me realize that making an album is a lot like making a
baby: February 6, 2000 - Party at the Studio. Party at the studio. Party at the studio. Boulder glittered like gold in water in the distance, riding the heat waves and putting the fancy out the corner of our eyes. Everyone I knew was there and adorned in Urban Outfitters. Girls entered the house and grimaced as they looked around at the other womanly bodies wearing their sequined dresses. Luckily, though my publicist Ariel and I, had been in Urban Outfitters earlier that night looking for what the invitation called for: "Whimsical attire"; we fortunately found nothing we liked. Brian Mcrae and a few other musicians, playing mainly funk, filled up the room with desire. Desire to dance, to see, to be seen, to float, to be devoured. It was warm out on the terrace overlooking the lit up treasure chest of down town and people wearing party hats and laughter, smoked their cancer sticks and flirted as thought the air had requested it it. "NO DRINKS PAST THIS POINT" read the sign outside the control booth, which Chris had promised would be there. But inside were drinks. And people, and people listening to our ruff takes, and people playing drunken guitar with their dogs. I didn’t really care though. It was a party after all and people flooded in and out of my conversation, in and out of my stillness, in and out of control. And, then suddenly, I was tired and my publicist was, too, and as people began to fade into chemically induced thunders, we too faded, down and down and down, through the switchbacks in the drive way, and into the gold puddle of lights shining brightly against the horizon. February 10, 2000, Sky Trails Studio I know there is a day out side She’s sitting up impatiently Sometimes I hide. In the studio I hide. I hide from my world at home. My world at home with the unmade bed and un-watered plants, my home with the sleepless nights and the screaming phones. My home with the haunted faucet: go drip, drip, drip and drip into my back ground to contend with the hum of mumbles and sighs. My home with the piles of unopened fed ex packages, stacked atop unopened boxes of Tomboy Bride CD’s and unread press clippings and unopened bills and bills and bills that I forgot to send out last month while I was hiding in the studio. In here, inside the music, up in these mountains, where my cell phone doesn’t work and the hours shoo the minutes away like flies at a picnic, I live my daydreams. Today, Boulder is white like frozen breath, like blank sheets on the bed, like Clorox like sheep like sightless eyes, which can not sleep. There is nothing out side except white. It’s as though someone in charge had made a typo on the morning and ended up whiting out the entire day. Trees, evergreen on one side, face the window white like the spray painted ones I remember seeing on "A Charlie Brown Christmas." When I was a kid. My mom calls me up and reads me old school reports from when I was six and we laugh and laugh and laugh and I sit on the bathroom sink (in my office) the only space not cluttered with noise from distorted guitar amps and feed back and we reminisce about yesterdays, yesterday and the day before’s distant cousin once removed; the past. Song after song after song. We’re in the studio all day long and all night too, hiding. Hiding from the unopened mail and the un-watered plants and the sound of the haunted faucet: go drip, drip, drip, and drip. I know there is a day out side She’s sitting up impatiently February 27th, 2000 - Martha’s Vineyard Mass I flew to my home island, Martha’s Vineyard on Monday. The island sighed, purple and honey and pine from the winter, frozen and lying quiet on the ground. We're rehearsing, my mother my brother and I, for a concert we're playing down in New Orleans tomorrow. We've never performed together all on one bill before, and my mom doesn't like to perform, period, so the whole week on the island was spent tightening up the band and loosening up the mom. The sky now crawls steadily in the key of A-flat against this plane which parts the thin air like a comb through straight hair. Cheese, crackers, sushi, omelets, sparkling water. I feel VERY spoiled. I'm excited about the gig. Should be fun. A lot of great songs. A lot of great musicians. A lot of pomp and a lot of butterflies (mom doesn't like to fly either). I’m looking forward to New Orleans too; To the silk-like horn-playing which seems to pour itself out of European arching window sills and sits like haze atop the streets, drenching the tarmac with its heartbreak. Home cookin', crawdads, lightning in the day, dark'ning in the midnight. The subtle breeze, which blows the beards of lazy old trees. Im glad to be going to this show but it couldnt be coming at a worse time. The record is back at home in Colorado, unchaperoned, unfinished. It's hard to leave a project undone. But maybe it's a good break and I'll be refreshed and ready to dash to the finish line with this album. I'm hoping that's the case. March 10, 2000 - Sky Trails "9:45" So my watch tells me. It snows. It stops. It breathes. It sighs. It snows again. We're almost done now. The studio is littered with memorabilia from the past 2 months spent all pent up in here for 12 hours, 7 days a week and I wonder how I'll ever get all of my home back home. Lilies sit passively in a vase. Vitamins and candles, knitting and books, cloths, food, video cameras, amplifiers, cables, capos, pictures in picture frames, plants, papers ... it's all here and we have to move it all out on Sunday. For the past 4 hours (no exaggeration) we've been trying to move a horn section on "Fall For Me," My ears don't work right any more. It's like you get to a point in listening where you know and can predict where all the flaws are in a track and you mentally prepare yourself so that when you know there's a mistake approaching in a song, you adjust your ears so that you don't hear the blemish. It's a very odd and frustrating phenomena. You can leave the studio one night thinking that everything sounds just perfect, only to return the next day to find your entire vocal track is too fast/too slow/ too high/ too low. I can't say I'm not completely psyched to get out of this room. This dark, cluttered, magenta, mahogany faced room that keeps neither hot nor cold. Yesterday I walked out to find I'd completely missed winter. Mike grumbles: "Get away from me fowl gain." "What?" I ask. "Get away from me fowl gain," he repeats absently, not looking away from the wavering computer screen. "I don’t know what it means," he admits ... and that's where we're at. In a space where there is no sense, no sound that isn't moving/changing to accommodate our ears, no season, no home, no outside, no day no night, no minute that takes just a minute. Time does not pass; it just piles up on itself like dirty laundry. I find myself in a rush constantly on my way to get nowhere. But there is no doubt; we are in a rush. A rush to get home, to get to the studio, to get to the next song, to get the art work done, to get to New York to mix down on Monday, to get this album mastered, pressed, and packaged, to get out on the road and promote it and run wild and chase ourselves down and rush toward the future, as though just wanting might speed the second hand around the race track perimeter of my watch. March 14th 2000, In The Studio It is rare; silence in a studio. But today it is certain ... no music. We've been setting up to mix down since 8:30am and we're still fixing settings and checking tones. A loud 2K feedback will ring out from the monitors like an ants amplified death and then the ring will stop and then it will start again and before I know it, that damn ring has found a home in my left ear. It's the sound of silver. It's the sound of after hours. It's the sound that dogs hear and the sound that hears dogs. It's traffic. It's the cold ice cream makes on your back teeth when you bite it. It's tinsel. It's nasal spray. It's the days that hang around New Years horns. It's too many hours. It's too much coffee. It'’s the sound of X-lovers comforting each other. It's annoying. I have a full bottle of Bach Rescue Remedy in my purse for just such occasions. I have Young Living Oils, I have chocolate, I have a picture of my brother, I have knitting, and most importantly, I have earplugs. March 17th, (St. Patrick's Day) Days blend, To the studio, from the studio, to the studio, from the studio. Morning, night, rain that turns into snow, and into slush. And if it weren't for the hour and 1/2 ride to and fro the studio, I would never rest at all. Yogurt for breakfast. Yogurt and apple sauce for lunch. Yogurt and apple sauce with honey for dinner. I catch myself in the bathroom mirror. I look tired, drained. My eyes, outlined by irritated, up-all-night red, and punctuated by storm black, dark circles definitely qualify me for the soup line. "All this time" is playing in the background of my dreams now, probably because we've been mixing the song down for the past 2 days. "Tangle- tangled- tangled up- tangled up in city lights swearing," stutters out of the speakers apace. Mike's listening with squinted ears for the perfect EQ for the vocals, for the right reverb, for the appropriate volume and the proper compression for every word. When he finds the right settings, he will ride the track to make everything sounds perfect…. Well as perfect as it can be made to sound. He's the man! And it just so happens that today's his birthday. It's also St. Patrick's Day and we bought shamrock health food cookies with
green frosting made from spirulina, sugar and water. To which I responded: At the health food store I also bought some color therapy shades. I've got the yellow pair on for "humor, laughter, and organization." And El Blanco's been sporting the green for: "Assertiveness and openness." The yellow glasses do little to bring cheer to the gloominess of the out doors. I stare out the window at the 1/2 frozen rain and the day which wears a moo-moo of death decay gray, the way widows wear the cold shoulder around their eyes. Inside however, is pleasant, warm and the sounds that Mr. White is getting out of this song are sounding great! A few days ago, in a letter to her email subscribers, Sally announced that the title of the album she is just finishing will be APT #6S. Here is her letter: When I was growing up in New York as a kid my family lived on the upper West Side in apartment #6S. My mom use to have groceries delivered to our house and she'd tell the check out boy "come to apartment 6S." But as a kid, what I heard was: "Come to apartment success." I thought we lived in success for a pretty long while and I still like to think of my self residing in success, an appropriate success, not a "6S’ that’s someone else’s, but my very own place, my own privet success (#6S) that I’ve designed to suit my life. APT, as well as meaning "Apartment," also means: "likely, appropriate, well-suited, and reasonable," and so I decided to name my album after my childhood home because apart from "Apt #6S’ meaning ‘the place where I was grown,’ it also refers to the fact that even though we’ve long since moved out of that home on the upper west side, I still live in success; my own, original, funky, appropriate success…. That I’ve designed my own way. The CD, APT #6S will be released in early May and will be available online from this website and at shows. March 23, 2000 So I went to visit my old Apt #6S. How could I resist? I mean I'm staying in New York and I'm mixing down the album that's named after the flat. So I'm on the upper west side in NYC picking up some CDs that my friend Andy has made for me and I'm driving back to the studio when I pass my old building. The doorman standing out side looks not so familiar and though I'm seriously contemplating parking, and going in, I'm wondering if the tall, olive skinned, Russian looking doorman will believe me if I walk up the gray blue stairs beneath the translucent, iron clad awning, wearing overalls and my green fizzy patagonia fleece and say: "Hi, you don't know me, but trust me, I use to live in this building and I'd like to just go up the old elevator and take a little look at my old childhood stomping grounds." However, suddenly, I have a cunning plan. I have my brother's girlfriend's little red camera with me and I decide that my excuse for wanting to see my old pad will be that: "I'm making an album named after my old apartment, "#6S" and I'd just like to go up for a sec to the 6th floor and take a picture of the door. 'd that be OK?" Can't judge a book by it’s cover. The new Russian doorman not only believed me, but was delighted. He called the new tenants and sure enough I was invited up to Apt #6S. As I walked down the beige marble hall ways lined with the same red carpet strip, I remembered practicing cartwheels down the hall with my girlfriend Lark, who lived on the 11th floor, in our long braids and peach leotards and laughing so loud that the echoes of our innocence were still now circling the high ceilings looking, helplessly, for a way out. As I waited for the elevator - the elevator that I always measured my height in by what numbered button I could reach that year - I looked up at the crystal chandelier still akwardly missing the gems that my brother and his friends used to jump and knock off for the their shiny, clear, tear drop, rewards. The mirror on the 6th floor still warped in the center making me always slimmer and taller, I noticed as I rang the unfixed, back door bell on the once red, now black painted door. "ding, futz" "ding, futz" it chimed into my past. A Hispanic, middle-aged woman wearing distrust across her eyes like a weapon let me in even though her boss wasn't there and even though his young son was. She followed me in her non-English speaking, head tilted, small stepped shoes as I toured my old home in the least threatening way possible. The kid loved me and couldn't get enough of the fact that I had a camera and a bag with mirrors on it. He was very cute and scurried down the long hallway to where my brother's old room used to be and brought me out a toy car to be impressed by. My room had been converted into an office but still had the white shelves where my dolls use to sit and the same view out the window of the alleyway with the cast iron gate. None of it was mine and I started wondering how much of it ever belonged to me outside of the memories I had there. I'd packed up my memories long ago and I realized I had nothing left to visit there and so I left the apartment with the view of Central Park and the hush blue hallways. "Thank you." I said to the woman apologetically. I felt as though I'd upset her sense of wellbeing for the 7.5 minutes I'd intruded into their lives there on the 6th floor and I took a picture of the kid who was begging to be photographed. For the first time the woman smiled as she closed the door behind me apparently relieved that I hadn't smashed anything or tried to kidnap the kid she was responsible for or taken anything from them except their silence, except the bottoms of their breaths for a few moments. It was no longer home, but that was OK. Home is where you store your memories. OK, it's also where you sleep and pay rent, but I'm talking metaphorically here! I returned to the studio very much at peace and Mike and I worked till 3:00am after which neither of us were in any shape to be driving so we passed out on the couches at the studio with some bed jackets and some caseless pillows for comfort. Morning came too soon. One more day. A few days ago, in a letter to her email subscribers, Sally announced that the title of the album she has just released is APT #6S. Here is her letter:
I thought we lived in success for a pretty long while and I still like to think of myself residing in success, an appropriate success, not a "6S' that's someone else's, but my very own place, my own private success (#6S) that I've designed to suit my life. APT, as well as meaning "Apartment," also means: "likely, appropriate, well-suited, and reasonable," and so I decided to name my album after my childhood home because apart from "Apt #6S" meaning 'the place where I was grown,' it also refers to the fact that even though we've long since moved out of that home on the upper west side, I still live in success; my own, original, funky, appropriate success ... that I've designed my own way. The CD, APT #6S will be released in early May and will be available online from this website and at shows. May 9th - day off, PA It is officially our first day off and I am on vocal rest. I haven't felt inspired to write lately. I think it's probably due to the heat. That combined with the amount of work I've set up for myself, not to mention the marathon of gigs that we have on the horizon which are both a curse and a blessing. My body and soul are excited for the dates but my voice is yelling: "When was the last time I said I'd work for you 7 days in a row?" It is decidedly heat wave material outside. There was no chance of me getting in a little post sleep jog without acquiring heat stroke. So when I got out of my feather light, crunchy, floral, red and gold covers, I droggely slugged my way down the cement gray stairwell from the top floor in my navy blue shorts, towel in hand, sleep still staining my eyes glassy, to "The hotel gym." Pathetic!!! A broken upright bike, a stair stepper thinggy, and a rowing machine that I made myself sit on all of 20 minutes before deciding to do some yoga instead. The History Channel was on. And snippets of useful information leaked like a faucet into my brain to mingle with the remnants of my dreams. |
