Go to the end of the journal.

01/01/08 - Our 8th year of noisemakinglife is just around the corner. Making Thomas a Girl was our most significant accomplishment in '07. Thanks very much to him, it looks like we could have the tracking done for Sleep Novox by Springtime. Then what happens?

01/05/08 - We were committed to trying to record a quality acoustic guitar track for Careful. Patrick faithfully arrived with his Alvarez. Good start. We wanted to use the room above the studio for the wood floors. Issue. We had to open a hole up in the floor and go buy some materials at the local electronics store. This was the first time all 4 of us sat in an automobile together. Afterwards, we went to the local coffee shop and got brews. Patrick and I both discovered that we knew Erica. We returned to the studio and Thomas started working on the wiring. In the interim, Patrick worked on some of the string parts from the last session.

Ready to go. Patrick took several takes but wasn't happy with the sound. Adjustments were made and I took a few shots at it. Part of the reason for taking shifts was because the song is difficult to play, the Alvarez is difficult to play and it is brutally cold upstairs. I failed to nail it in my 3 attempts so Patrick took three more takes. I think Roy Thomas Thomas has enough to make something.

The boys still want to add an electric. Steven is bringing the Marshall next week for that experiment.

We signed some CDs, both on the CD and on the back cover - careful not to obscure the goodies on the Sea Hag.

Patrick shared the Joys of owning an I-Phone. We watched a Heart performance of Crazy On You, because I referenced this song for the acoustic guitar opening.

Patrick passed me from behind as I was walking home and yelled out the window "Hey Sexy!" As he drove away it occurred to me that he probably had to lean over to the passenger's side and roll the window down manually, showing a real commitment to the bit.

I miss Mani.

01/14/08 - No Joy at Audiofaucet as a variety of schedule conflicts and minor catastrophes result in the cancellation of Saturday's session. Courage.

01/19/08 - Spent the first hour tweaking the acoustic guitars on Careful. Ended up cloning the track twice, panning them to both sides and the center and then adding flange to them. Thomas also did some stuff with some cords and EQ but I wasn't sure what. He tends to turn off all incoming calls when he is on a mission. I indicated to Steven that when Thomas is frightfullyfocused you can ask him a question and watch him cringe. I'm not sure if the cringe happens in his back or his neck. There's just the subtlest lurch.

Next task was to tackle the strings during the first change in the song. Thomas tried some things with horns and strings. Of course fuzz and something else electronic-y was added to make them more Patridelic.

Pita left at noon so Thomas, Steven and I decided to tackle the bass guitar part when the song turns around from 6 to 4. Thomas got out a bass and a mouse and a dandy part was born.

Mani sent tea. Thank you Mani.

Then we went to our homes.

01/26/08 - We started the session by listening to some mixing that Thomas did on Careful during the long break. He spent a bunch of time taking out all of the noisemaking that Patrick and I have been adding over the last month in an effort to make the song more cohesive and less cluttery. He introduced this to us cheerfully, admitting that cleaning it up made him like the song again. We spent the first hour filling it back up with keyboard sounds. Steven put down a new version of his popcorn bass part during the turn-around from 6 to 4.

Had a listen to Wrong Star. Decided to start over with the drums because the pattern never seemed to move and they weren't recorded very well. We initially tried some Eastern flavored percussion (there's a Patti Smith song on Easter) but ended up back at traditional drums. Thomas is going to futz with them next week.

Patrick took our pictures with his fancy-panties iPhone which was handy cuz I looked disheveled but not in a cool way.

Pita and I agreed that Her Satanic Magesties Request and Goats Head Soup are in our top 5 favorite Rolling Stones albums.

02/02/08 - Started the session with Careful. Thomas was still unhappy with the strings and such so we started on a mission of replacing many of the melodic parts with a guitar or a vocal. Steven used the Conqueror to replace his old bass melodies. Thomas had a go at the strings with the Conqueror and the Les Paul. I added a little slidey bit as a call and response to the verse lines.

Thomas pulled up Wrong Star and we considered ways to address the rhythm conflicts. We didn't do a lot beyond contemplation. Thomas did discover an earlier mix that was better to start with and started prepping it. Steven drifted off during this time. I know this because I said something to him and he jumped. He didn't snort but he definitely jumped.

02/09/08 - Thomas spent a lot of time on Careful this week so we had several listens. He added a bunch of nice vocals and I made him pull up 10cc's "I"m Not In Love" to show how they were similar in spirit. I also got him to pull up Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Claire" so he could see what I was going for with the harmonica.

Steven re-recorded some guitar parts straight-in with the Conqueror so that they would match the guitar in the intro. Thomas tried some egg shaker parts for the 6 to 4 turn-around but it wasn't happening.

We listened to the drums for Dingus and How Do You Sleep? to see how much prepping they would need. Decided to start on How Do You Sleep? first. After the session, Thomas sent me this YouTube link as a suggestion for a guitar tone. I've not even clicked on it or listened to it yet. You will hear it before me but after Thomas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi3TLDS7hm8&feature=related

Will it work?

02/18/08

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
The more I hide the more that the truth shows
Undone by a string of pearls

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
I stagger along on silver stilettoes
Nothing like a girl

And underneath my clothes I'm naked
And I can't fake it
The way a woman walks the way a lady talks
Plus ça change, plus ça change

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
Eyelashes on polish on my toes
But I'm still just a man

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
The powder goes on thick where the beard grows
Through like Desperate Dan

And underneath my clothes I'm naked
And I can't fake it
The way a woman walks the way a lady talks
Plus ça change, plus ça change

Sequins and hairpins and bows
The more I put on the more put on it all looks
I know

Underneath my clothes I'm naked
And I can't fake it
The way a woman walks the way a lady talks
Plus ça change, plus ça change

02/23/08 - I discovered The Uncle Devil Show a week or so ago and have become completely obsessive about them. I was quite anxious to take a CD up to share the joy with the boys today (see Jets, Bennie And The) and to try them out on some ears that I trusted. Affirmation? Well, the CD was burned from iTunes and for some reason it wouldn't play properly in the studio. Patrick, who was as determined as I to make it work, kept shouting suggestions for solutions at Thomas, alas to no avail. We even tried pulling up their MySpace page with Patrick's iPhone but it wouldn't load. I finally suggested that, if he wasn't uncomfortable sharing my ear buds, he could paw through the songs using my Nano. Which he did. He was properly enthused and I walked home feeling moderately satisfied with my accomplishment.

Thomas did most of the GFS work today. Patrick heard a little weirdness on the guitar splash at the start of Brother John, and some Honkey Cat meets Rocky Raccoon piano in the middle. Thomas experiemented with slowing that section of the song down so that when he recorded his part and then played it back, it would have that vibrant tinkly sound that suggests a bar room piano.

At one point Willis made a pre-throwing up "urp" sound that Thomas assured me was just purring.

03/01/08 - (From Thomas)

Don-

Here is what we did today. Some new Bkgd Vox's on BroJ and some new mixing choices. Two versions, with and without lead vocal.

We also discussed and tried out some bass and guitar tones for HDYS.

03/22/08 - First session with all 4 of us in about a month. Thomas kicked things off by reviewing which songs were finished and just needed primary vocal tracks. He produced 7 and asked Patrick to commit to trying to knock one off a week. Actually he kicked things off by playing a song that he found recently and loved. I don’t remember the title or the group. It was spare, a little ethnic rhythmically and had the word "sweet" in it a lot. I’m happy that he’s happy.

Next, we talked about slowing down the tempo of "How Do You Sleep?" This was tricky and tied up the whole session. When I say "tied up," I mean that it tied up the computer. Thomas was intermittently available to participate in our discussions.

Since there isn’t much to talk about from a recording aspect, I shall focus on recalling some of the topics. I should have put a colon after the word topics but since I did not, I shall add one here: OK, perhaps a missing colon isn’t something one can make up for later in the paragraph: It’s ironic that I am in charge of the blogs as it is an extreme challenge for me to string a few sentences together without a fistful of grammatical/syntax violations: The topics:

We tried to remember other songs that we slowed down. Since we don’t have an online computer in the control room Patrick had to use his Blackberry to comb (or plod awkwardly) through the blogs. He was checking specifically to see if we had slowed down Dingus. While pawing through our history he share a few interesting (to us only) entries: (again with the colon!)

* I wanted to call "12" Bander-log or Sheila. * "Always Something" had a throw-away title of "Raspberry." * Drum editing was referred to as "prepping" to fool you, the reader, into thinking that I was a brilliant, or at least adequate, drummer

At some point the reminiscing reminded me of a dream I had last week. Patrick used to always find brown recluse spiders at Aquasound. In my dream he found one dangling from a web, shrieked "BROWN RECLUSE!" and batted it at me. It went into the back collar of my shirt and I couldn’t get it out because in reality my arm was numb from sleeping in an awkward position.

We agreed that Dingus had never been slowed down, but probably should be.

I confessed that I loathe "Maybe I’m Amazed" and Thomas and Patrick both were. No maybes about it. Steve appeared to give no rat’s ass one way or the other.

Pita told me that he bought The Uncle Devil Show’s "Terrible Beauty" on iTunes a few weeks ago, which nearly caused me to tear up. It was a tender gesture.

Talked a little about Jesus and the US presidential elections. Never came close to blows.

We played a round of the "who would like to meet if you could go back in time?" game. Patrick settled on Edison. Steven was upstairs and Thomas had the headphones on so I went next. I settled on accused and convicted assassins and murders whose cases appear doubtful. Oswald for example. "Did you do it LH?"

Re-opened the debate about talking a verse in a song vs singing. See "Are You Lonesome Tonight?" I generally have the Con or Nay position but pointed out that I love "Sidelong Glances Of A Pigeon Kicker." Patrick agreed that it worked in that context.

A short discussion on credit card processing followed.

I discovered The Uncle Devil Show while searching iTunes for Gilbert O’Sullivan songs. "Hey Paul" is one of the most-play songs on "12." This lead to a conversation about a strategy using a naming convention for all of the new songs that would help lead listeners to us. We discovered that many of the new tunes already meet the requirements of this format - "Honey Pie," "Frank Sinatra" and "How Do You Sleep?"

Steven, the quiet Girl, shared a story about a speaker at an event he attended last weekend. The punchline was "inside."

Thomas managed to slow down "How Do You Sleep?" but thinks it’s going to need some more work. He suggested that we start on "Frank Sinatra" next. And we will.

Mani sent us a variety of teas.

03/29/08 - I made the mistake of going out for lunch and getting a coffee (I love you Miss Um Erica) after our session, so I'm sure I have forgotten essential and humorous details. Let's see how it shakes out. Let's see how it shakes out:

Thomas kept bugging me to re-sing Robins. I thwarted his advances.

Patrick sang Brother John. One of my roles as a Samsonite is identifying gifts from the gawds and making sure that they aren't dismissed as mistakes. We had one such moment today. The word "feeling" got split up by accident, leaving the F on one end of the gap and eeling on the other side. It was beautiful. It was also corrected, despite my earnest warnings and tearful pleas. We also experimented (my fault again) with replacing the line that sounds like it's sung though a megaphone with some falsettos. There was no resolution on that subject.

Willy/Willie kept howling at the door every time Patrick would begin to sing. Thomas finally jumped out of his chair, grabbed him and put him upstairs. We couldn't see this but we could hear Willy/Willie chirp as Thomas swooped down to pick him up with his hands under his stomach. The pussy equivalent of "ooof."

Patrick reacted with disbelief when I suggested that we start on the vocals for another song. He referred me to last week's blog, where I indicated that Thomas wanted him to commit to recording the lead vocals for one song a week. Pita interpreted this as one song per week, tops. We dispelled this myth by promptly starting work on the vocals for Careful. Patrick recorded several takes with all kinds of strange suggestions from Thomas and I. Patrick was having problems singing with the phones on and was getting distraught. And hungry. That seemed like a good place to stop.

Now to the good stuff. We talked about:

The latest craze (how many kids have to do it to qualify as a craze?) where youths store their feces in a zip lock bag until there is enough methane gas for a nose hit and a buzz. I sort of remember poppers being pretty cool, but you had to go to a shop and buy them.

Jason Faulkner - MGMT - Modest Mouse - Helio Sequence

Adding a search function for the blog to make it easier to look up hysterical facts

Why rock and roll belongs to the young

Professor Brown's recent purchase of a collection of vintage Fender guitar catalogs

Favorite cereals. Patrick and I both eat Kashi products. Steven eats oatmeal. Thomas, as usual, was working and had no comment. We all agreed that Cap'n Crunch tastes the best but cuts up your mouth.

Why it's wrong to use a bell in a song when there is a lyric referring to a telephone. I pointed out XTC's "Senses Working Overtime" and how the lyric "...and the church bells softly chime." is followed with ducks squawking as the appropriate way to handle this kind of situation. This theory and corresponding precedence was met with cool indifference.

Why I dismiss a lot of good bands with talented singers because their lyrics lack humor, irony or whimsy

Juicing - Thomas doesn't like oranges because of the pulp.

Pita and his other phobia (brown recluse being the first) - losing his lyrics notebook. "Where's my notebook???" "Did I leave my notebook over here???" "Have you seen my notebook???" "Did you accidentally throw away my notebook???" "What possible reason could you have for keeping my notebook from me???"

04/02/08 - from Thomas)

Worked on the lead vocal for Brother John and am pleased with the results. From an engineering perspective I think the tonal qualities we are now getting on vocals are much improved since changing our approach in that regard.

The sections of the song where we choose to use the "delay-effected" guitar (which happens with the snare drum fill into the measure of 5/4) wasn't getting to a place where I thought it could be. So I worked on those measures in particular and now think they support the song much better.

I blended and auto-panned the falsetto chorus vocals of Patrick's, that Don suggested, along with the previously recorded megaphone vocal. I think I like it. We only recorded the first section of the falsetto vocals and I couldn't remember if I was supposed to copy them into the second section or if we only want it the first time it happens. I left it out the second time and also to out the drum fill that was there, with the logic that the drum fill happens each time the 5/4 measure comes around. I liked the change, especially since it's the last hook of the last chorus.

04/05/08 - Patrick announced that he couldn't find his wallet today. Of course this was very unsettling news but he still managed to have a go at 2 songs. I think that we got some good takes for Careful, including some A and B variations on "as you dance awkwardly." Patrick sang while playing an unplugged Telecaster. He also took a shot at Marbeck but his voice gave out before we got the magic take. Actually, I think we are just missing one line.

I couldn't wait (I did manage to hold off for one paragraph) to say that Thomas sent Patrick's vocal tracks from Brother John to New York for some "processing". We often marvel at how many things we fix in creative editing rather than repeat the performance, and how little time it probably saves. I suppose if Thomas fixes it with software then we can still talk amongst ourselves. If someone has to re-sing or re-play a part then it's all "shhhhhh!"

I found a dead mouse outside. I dragged Willie/Willy from a sun-drenched bed of last Autumn's leaves to have a look. He gave it glance and a brief sniff and walked off. Dead mice are neither fun nor tasty. That's the message.

If you find Pita's wallet, please resist the temptation to keep it as souvenir from your favorite popular music star. Pita is just a man. A man who does not want to go stand in line at the DMV or spend an hour canceling credit cards. Consider how rewarding his gratitude would be if you were to simply return it to him. Wouldn't that be satisfaction enough? No? What if we were to work your first name into the title of one of the songs on Sleep Novox. Would that be enough? What do you mean you want cash? It's PITA FREAKIN MEAGHER for chrissakes!!!

04/06/08 - Time to call off the Pita Scruffs as the missing item has been found. His envelope (made of dried flesh) was discovered in the out of doors with all of it's nutritious contents intact. Praise Larry. Lawrence be thy name.

Curiously, I forgot to mention that yesterday Patrick displayed a large hole in his back pocket while explaining what might have happened to his wallet.

04/06/08 - (from Thomas)

I got the lead vocal for Brother John back. Being very familiar with Patty's original vocal, I listened to the new vocal by itself and noticed no changes in the performance what so ever. Then, curious as to whether each word had been altered or just bits here and there, listened to the old and new vocal track together. Understanding that where changes had been made I would be able to hear a chorus-ing effect. It was clear that almost each word was slightly adjusted, some more so, some less so. The overall result is wonderful. To me there is just more clarity. Nothing definable, the song just seems more focused.

Glad to hear you found your wallet Patrick.

04/19/08 - Careful - Tweaked T's vocals - not sure why. I think he and Patrick thought that some EQ would make his voice fit better in between our vocal sections in the song. Also worked on the decay of the tom fills to make them less biggish.

When we first started developing songs for Sleep Novox, Patrick would sing everything so that I could focus on coming up with drum parts. I would submit a song or a hunk of a song by singing and playing it for Pita, with no real plan for who would actually end up recording it, and then scurry over to the kit. After a year or so, Patrick would unconsciously start to change some of the phrasing in the vocal or the feel of the guitar part. I wouldn't correct him because I knew that at this point in the construction it just wasn't important. Sometimes I didn't even notice.

Once we began tracking the songs we occasionally ran into issues where Pita or one of the other Girls actually preferred the alterations. Occasionally I relent and occasionally it seems important to me to revert to the original part. We have one of these issues with Careful during the line "as you dance awkwardly to the circus tune stuck in your head." I used to sing it one way and Patrick sings it a little differently.

Worked the longest on Spider's Last Stand today. Patrick laid down several main and backing vocal tracks, employing the Quincy Jones/Michael Jackson method of doubling vocals at different distances from the microphone. Thomas also sang a few parts that he was hearing. There was some nervous hand-wringing towards the end of the session as we talked about how to mix this song.

Knowing that Thomas was a jazz enthusiast, I commented that I didn't know the difference between Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock. One Girl immediately replied "One's black and one's Hispanic." I did know that Herbie Hancock recorded Space Funk. I don't know what it sounds like. I'm guessing kind of jazz/rock fusion with some sort of wah or whooshy sound.

04/26/08 - Short session today. Spent it adding bits to Spider's Last Stand. I will identify those bits now and then some day, when you are listening to the completed product, you can marvel at our inspiration and resourcefulness.

Bit 1) For the past few months I've wanted to hear an out of tune harmony at the end of the line "...and here they coooooommmmmeeee!" I had heard this effect used in a pleasing way but could not cite the source. I knew that it was an XTC song, but which? Suddenly it struck me very clear (J. Cope), it is the "you should melt the guns" line coming out of the bridge on XTC's Melt The Guns. Patrick determined that this was a harmonizer. Thomas, as always, made it happen to our satisfaction.

Bit 2) There was a "Spider's Last Stand" echo in one point of the song that I wanted to add to the Birds line to make it more discordant. Thomas, as always, made it happen to our satisfaction.

Bit 3) Patrick wanted to add some randomy xylophone/bells or ukulele parts to a section of the song. He added bell parts, without listening to the song so that he wouldn't be decoyed by rhythm or melody. We ran out of time shortly after this. We listened to the tinkling that bridges English Roundabout and Snowman as we exited the studio.

05/10/08 - I was only around for half the session today so I can only tell you what I know. We listened to a beautiful mix of Careful. I wanted Patrick to add a harmony to the 4/4 section so Thomas built a harmony using Patrick's lead vocal track WHILE PATRICK SAT AND WATCHED!

Next, we listened to Patricks previous vocal tracks for Marbeck. We experiemented with several angryish interpretations before trying a Mole From The Ministry inspired speaking/singing variation. Patrick sang several low and falsetto tracks. We also tried one falsetto track with him singing the 3 & 4th verses over the low voice singing the 1st and 2nd verses. Nod to Harborcoat. (They crowded up to Lenin with their noses worn off.)

Knowing that I would miss the next two sessins, I asked the room if someone would volunteer to maintain the journal in my absence. Silence.

(Got some notes from Thomas about the 2nd half of session.)

Patrick sang two vocal takes and put down a new guitar part down on Wiloughby. Patty used the Strat and we ran it both through the champ and the Marshall using an m/s (or mid-side) mic setup. We like the original guitar part along with the side portion of the m/s setup mixed together. I (Thomas) will work on the mix this week to see what we've got.

06/04/08 - We've switched from working on Saturdays to just working 2 hours on Wednesday nights. This was the first night of the new schedule.

We started off listening to Marbeck. I was thinking right from the start that I had no idea how I was going to document what we did. Know this:

The song started life in 2004 with a sort of passionate vocal. I was always dissatisfied with that approach and recently talked Patrick into trying a low speaking part, which I liked very much.

This evening, the boys decided they wanted something more oomphy vocally. I played them the end of XTC's "Travels In Nihilon," thinking that a distorted screaming vocal in the back may fix the issue and let us keep the speaking variation. Shortly after this, Patrick exclaimed: "Thomas, unmute all of my previous vocal takes and add distortion to them!" Thomas unleashed several year's worth of takes and Patrick declared the end result to be good. I asked Thomas to treat the newly added low vocal as a main by bringing it up a little in the mix.

We now felt like this roar of vocals was too abrupt so we made some changes to the duration of the intro drum pattern in the start and that seemed to resolve it.

Finally, with so many vocals happening, there wasn't any punch left in the chorus. To remedy this issue, Patrick screamed/roared a melody (using the 57 - Thomas insisted) that sort of dances (in spikey boots) with the guitar. I think he managed to put down three tracks.

Thomas played us the most recent mix of Frank Sinatra. We all loved the bright garage-y feel and made an unspoken promise (that we are sure to break) not to add anything else other than some vocal tracks.

06/11/08 - Listened to Marbeck, Spiders, MPC, Careful, Hey Ma and the drums for How Do You Sleep. Thomas made a few changes to Spiders. Decided that we will eventually

duplicate the bass line in Hey Ma with a low organ tone

try a She's Leaving Home call and response approach to Spiders

scratch How Do You Sleep for this album because it's too fast

Did a lot of chatting. Chat chat chat, we went.

06/26/08 - I've missed the last 2 sessions. Not sure what happened on the first but Thomas has shared some secrets from the last:

"Steven used the Fender P-bass through an Ampeg SVT bass amp and Mesa cabinet to record a dandy rendition of We are all Frank Sinatra. There seems to have been some talk about adding some additional tracks to the song, the specifics of which now escape my troubled mind. I think with a nice lead vocal (I actually like the scratch quite a bit) its done." Go to the beginning of the journal.

07/03/08 - (from Thomas)

Frank Sinatra got our attention in Patty's absence. Everyone liked the "intro" sound during the turnarounds in the song, so we took out the existing bass and guitar parts and moved the intro part into those sections. "We likey."

Next we listened to Wrong Star and Dingus again and discussed whether or not we could breath the life into them that they deserve. No conclusions we made.

Thomas had Wrong Star stuck in his head all evening and the next morning until he heard Rawhide on the radio. Get em up...move em on.

07/10/08 - (from Thomas)

We are all Frank Sinatra was the loaf in the oven tonight. Thomas explained a bass line change in the chorus' and in the outro which uses Steven's part with a slightly different, shuffle like feel. Steve tried it out but will need a week to work it out so the feel is captured correctly. Thomas also demonstrated a minimal tom-tom drum part in each verse which would add some syncopation to all the other instruments which are very straight ahead and on the downbeats. He will put those tracks down over the weekend for everyone to judge next week. The main guitar part was moved forward in the mix to create a more powerful sonic footprint.

Patrick had a few notes about the latest mixes. We listened to:

Blunderbus. Patrick's new harmony had already been adjusted and was checked of the list.

Brother John. The intro didn't satisfy some, so we took out the snare drum. The song now begins with the lead vocal only. The "patty vocal loop" Thomas created in each chorus was reduced in volume a bit.

Careful. The only concern was the overall bass level. No changes were made, but will be toyed with in the coming days.

Hey Ma: Twice in the song there is a musical moment which Patrick and Steve always felt uneasy about. We auditioned several remedies, and ended up removing the snare drum which let the guitars, bass and Juno handle those moments alone. We also added a reversed reverb in that section which will need further adjustments to suit Thomas.

At this point we were on overtime, so we stopped, and will pick-up the mix tinkering process next week if time allows.

07/13/08 - (from Thomas)

The girls took a field trip to August Hour Studios to see whether or not it would suit our needs for the drums we need to record. Oddly enough our little drummer girl was absent. We didn't discuss the trip much, but plan to during our session on Thursday. Afterwards I tracked a tom-tom part on Sinatra but didn't like the sample I used and plan on re-recording it with real live drums using a pair of mallets maybe.

07/30/08 - Had a little lazy strategy session with Thomas and Steven. Talked about re-recording How Do You Sleep and Wrong Star or scrapping both of them, Dingus and The Great John Doe and calling it soup. Didn't sign anything one way or the other.

08/23/08 - Just completed what should be the 2nd to last tracking session for this album. Spent the first part of the day talking about mastering, artwork, BMI, printing etc.

I've had a vision of a sort of a "I Get By With A Little Help With My Friends" vocal idea for every third line of "Spider's Last Stand." Patrick started on it whilst Steven and I ran an errand, which resulted in a big hug from Mani and a generous quantity of basil! When we returned Patrick had recorded several nice harmonies and I added an additional voice to each line.

Patrick then had a go at re-singing "We're All Frank Sinatra" and recording a guitar part for "Willoughby" or "Wilaby." Sintatra was good but Patrick and Thomas didn't like the sound of the amp so that last task is on the re-schedule list.

Also on tap for the last session is the drunken chorus for "We're All Frank Sinatra" and a re-singing of my verse on "Honey Pie." We are also stewing a bubbly replacement bass part for "Wrong Star."

Viva la Girls!

(Sent Patrick the artwork for the cover after the session.)

08/25/08 - Patrick confirms receipt of the sea lilies scan. The Sleep Novax mountain shows volcanic promise. Burp.

09/06/08 - Essentially two things happened today.

1) There was a software glitch that consumed the first hour.

2) When Patrick introduced us to "We're All Frank Sinatra" I immediately imagined a chorus of drunken bar patrons helping out with the vocal in the last part of the song. We even employed this idea with some success on the demo. Today we did it in earnest. Approximately 8-10 tracks of mostly Steven, Patrick and I bellowing the lines in character. Two tracks were done as females, despite the fact that our female impersonator voices all sounded the same. Also recorded tracks of clapping and whistling ala Bennie And The Jets. One of the members of the organization took the lord's name in vain in the spirit of the audience reaction during the break-it-down part of The Rolling Stones live version of Midnight Rambler. "I'm called the hit-and-run raper in anger." Etc.

09/13/08 - Today was my favorite of all recording days - create-a-wash-of-psychedelia day. It started innocently enough as find-the-perfect-guitar-tone for Willaby day, but digressed deliciously after we discovered some whacky sounds in a plug-in. After recording a few guitar parts, we set up the Juno and started tracking keyboard parts. The 2nd track featured me holding down an F# with one finger ala Flock Of Seagulls while Patrick jiggled buttons. I still have a line to sing during the last half of the last verse. Perhaps next week.

Thomas yelled at me like 3 times for a variety of studio violations.

Talked a little bit about track sequencing. Thomas showed us an early idea that he had.

09/20/08 - I've always heard some of the lines from Jill Fetterman's song "Bridges" sung during the last verse of Willaby. Today I recorded a couple of tracks that Thomas spent half an hour making pretty. Patrick wanted one of them to be a female so Thomas pitched a copy of the keeper up an octave. I wanted to credit my girl character with a "backing vocals by The Candles" but there was only one so the bit lost it's legs. The rest of the session was spent reviewing some recent changes and futzing with software.

09/27/08 - Listened to a mix of Willaby and then spent the balance of the session tweaking the drunken chorus in Frank Sinatra and adding some organ bits.

Hi Kerry, Mani and Athena.

10/06/08 - (message from thomas)

I have been tossing around the song order in my head and, for my part, decided to go with an album orriented order rather than a "best songs first-weakest songs last" approach. Meaning that the flow of the song order that works best, is best (Sgt. Peppers, Dark Side of the Moon, Pet Sounds). After 5 or 6 different lists, here is where I am at now, for various reasons:

Willaby
Cafeful
Blunderbuss
Brother John
Robins
Honey Pie
We are all Frank Sinatra
Marbeck
MPC
Hey Ma
Spider's Last Stand

I worked on Sinatra, didn't care for the organ stuff we did last time. Had an idea and layed down some synth parts instead. Thought maybe we might try the organ line again but use a slide guitar instead. Just a thought. I got Honey Pie up and running at Audiofaucet and am very happy with it. There are a couple of songs that need some tweaking with the volume of the lead vocal, which I hope to get to today. Which leaves us finishing up Sinatra, adressing the outro of Marbeck, a little more tightening up on Spider's and John Doe. I'd like to think we can finish up by the end of the month.

I will make each of you a new CD and you can give as much thought as you'd like to song order, mixing changes etc.

10/11/08 - Talked a little about mastering and the sequence of songs. Patrick recorded some acoustic parts for The Great John Doe. Bone, of Hey Paul and Peteena Says fame, came over in the afternoon to record some parts for the Marbeck outro.

11/01/08 - Spent 4 hours doing another series of last minute tweaks, based primarily on notes that Patrick and I had made. The most dramatic change was a new ending for Spider's Last Stand. Thomas deleted the whole section and added the funky guitar part that Bone added a couple of weeks ago in it's place. We also worked on Careful, Blunderbuss and MPC.

Patrick kept asking me voting questions and I kept pretending like it was a personal matter, despite describing an anal/testicular reaction to heights earlier in the session.

11/15/08 - I was hopeful that this was REALLY the last Sleep Novox session. Everyone was in attendance for the 4 and a half hour editathon. We (Thomas) worked on the Spiders outro, MPC lead vocal volume, Frank Sinatra outro and Careful transition from 6 to 4.

Patrick wanted reverb backed off of many of the songs, a reaction, I believe, to the anti or pro-reverb teachings of Professor Louie.

Still have to work out sequencing, artwork, legal and other matters before we can start playing again.

11/22/08 - Spent most of 3 and a half hours working on Honey Pie. Fattened up the bottom and accented a sweet little hook of Pita's that got buried in the wash of guitars. Also worked on track sequencing and talking again about our approach for songs for the new album.

Steven was sick and we missed him.

Get better soon, Mani.

12/27/08 - I was so sick of referring to previous sessions as "the last Sleep Novox session" that I stopped posting journals. I think that July 15th, 2004 was when we first started rehearsing songs for this album and today it is mostly finished. In fact, we are scheduled to start working up new songs early next week.

Our sessions had become spotty of late because of weather, holidays and other commitments. During this time Thomas took a stab at mastering the album. We listened to his work today and loved it. There 2 songs that require adjustments and then it's off to the printer. Today, after listening to the mixes, we worked up credits and other liner notes and talked about the artwork.

There isn't enough room for the song lyrics, and possibly not enough room to list all of the song credits. So, I shall post it here for history. Enjoy it, history.

All songs written and produced by Girl for Samson
Recorded at Aquasound, Audiofaucet and Sunbox Studios.
Mixed and Mastered by Thomas Montgomery and Girl for Samson at Audiofaucet.
Graphics by Franklin Oviedo at Liquid 9.
Vintage images from GoGoMag.com.
Vintage guitars provided by VintAxe.
Additional musicians: John Bara, Shannon Swift and Phil Brown.
Thank you to Kristian Ball, Mani Brown, Tom Mardikes, Joy Moeller, Jason and Ashley Scheufler.

Blunderbuss
Don Thompson: Drums, Guitars
Steve Brown: Bass, Guitars, Percussion
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Vocals

Brother John
Don Thompson: Drums
Steve Brown: Bass
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Bass, Vocals

Careful
Don Thompson: Drums, Guitars
Steve Brown: Bass, Keyboards
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Keyboard, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Bass, Guitars, Keyboards, Harmonica, Vocals
John Bara: Percussion

Williby
Don Thompson: Drums, Percussion, Keyboards
Steve Brown: Bass
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Keyboards, Anvil, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Bass, Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals

Robins
Don Thompson: Drums, Guitars, Vocals
Steve Brown: Bass
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Bass, Guitars, Piano, Organ, Vocals

MPC
Don Thompson: Drums, Guitars, Vocals
Steve Brown: Bass
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Organ, Keyboards, Vocals

Honey Pie
Don Thompson: Drums, Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals
Steve Brown: Bass, Guitars, Percussion
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals

We are all Frank Sinatra
Don Thompson: Drums, Vocals
Steve Brown: Bass, Vocals
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Keyboards

Hey Ma
Don Thompson: Drums, Percussion, Guitars, Vocals
Steve Brown: Bass
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Bass, Keyboards, Vocals
Shannon Swift: Vocals

The Great John Doe
Patrick Meagher: Drums, Guitars, Mellotron, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Bass

Mar-beck
Don Thompson: Drums, Guitars, Megaphone Vocal
Steve Brown: Bass
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Megaphone Vocal, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Bass, Percussion, Vocals

Spider's Last Stand
Don Thompson: Drums, Guitars, Vocals
Steve Brown: Bass, Keyboards
Patrick Meagher: Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals
Thomas Montgomery: Bass, Percussion, Harmonica, Keyboards, Vocals
Phil Brown: Guitar

12/31/08 - Thomas brought over the mastered CD yesterday. We are artwork away from submitting the whole dealio to be printed.

We were supposed to start working up songs for the next project this week but it got canceled. It is chronologically sound that we are starting on it next year.

Ha.

Go to the beginning of the journal.