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01/05/10 - Dark days. We've canceled the last two sessions because of holidays and holiday-related illnesses. The sunny side of the coin shows that the digital version of Sleepnovox is finally slithering across the web. Sssssss. Snakes say that. Sssssss.

Today Patrick coined the phrase "rolling Thomas style."

01/19/10 - First session of the new year. Patrick thinks the studio will be ready for us in a month. The dream is to lay down drums for the first 6ish songs so that we can begin tracking them and rehearsing 6 new ones simultaneously. Here's a typical guys-in-a-band moment from this evening - we rehearse with a click track piped through the PA rather than directly into my ears. We've never had to alter the volume once we got it set several months ago. Tonight I absolutely could not hear it. After a feeble effort to back the guitars off, the decision was made to just turn the click up louder. I'm am proud to play with the Girls because we don't have many moments like these.

01/22/10 - Sleepnovox has found it's way to iTunes and other quality music download sites. Now the Girls can employ the phrase "virtual units sold."

02/02/10 - We don't jam, but a few moments of improv last week produced a nice little ditty. This week we launched five times too many into blues/swing Spinal Tap's New Direction expeditions that produced nothing but a sore wrist for your humble narrator.

Mani gave us delicious crustaceans.

02/17/10 - Thomas plays the organ on the song Dingus, the last song we rehearse each session. He doesn't really like the song but can always be heard humming his organ parts as we put away guitars and put on our coats.

02/23/10 - I discovered that stomping in one special spot of the cement porch at Aquasaound made the roof sing like a jaw harp. Elated, I called Thomas over to show him my miracle. "That's a standing wave." he said, almost wearily. Upon exiting I show the trick to Patrick - "Standing wave."

03/16/10 - Topics: Standing Waves, Mic Stands, Patrick's new amp, Fleet Foxes, drum patterns for Domino, Thomas as a bounty hunter, iTunes, Bone, conducting, new How Do You Sleep section, Ricky Gervais Show, Thomas cutting his hair like Prince Vailant/John Paul Jones, 1967 Ludwigs, hearts, health, handguns and holidays

I should have mentioned that Thomas couldn't picture Prince Valiant or John Paul Jones.

03/23/10 - The Girl for Samson Facebook picture is several years old. I will describe how the subjects have changed since it was taken. Top left and clockwise - Patrick looks the same. I no longer produce dark beard hairs so my chin is now nakedish. Hair in bun. Steven looks the same. Thomas has long hair (see 3/16 blog) and today was sporting whiskers.

04/2/10 - I wasn't going to post since anything since we are just rehearsing and I've already sunk to the point of describing haircuts BUT, Steven insisted that I mention that we added 2 new ditties on Tuesday and Thomas shaved his head the next day. The Thomas thing is a little ironic, considering the last 2 posts. But you knew that.

04/6/10 - Well, the plan was to work up 6 songs, record the drums and then work up drum parts for the last 6 while adding tracks to the first 6. Didn't happen and now we have 9 pots on the stove so we'll most likely add another fistful and then go do them all at once. Wildlife spotted in the studio - bumblebee, spider and wasp. Steven says that bumblebees are smarter than wasps.

05/4/10 - Patrick made a wonderful song out of a ditty that I offered a few weeks ago. He commissioned me to write the words, which I have begun. Tonight, I told him that I am getting close but still editing. One phrase I was sure of was "ugly palomino." He winced when he sang it the first time. The second time his expression did not change. Added a loopy bit for the outro.

07/27/10 - Good session tonight despite problems with the PA and Patrick experimenting with vintage Japanese guitars with iffy intonation. Afterwards, as we were trudging single-file up the stairs, I heard Thomas behind me say to Patrick: "That was a sad ending, wasn't it." Patrick replied: "You're right. I didn't initially didn't think it would be, but it really was." They were talking about a Cormac McCarthy book.

Thomas and I saw a glorious cloud set in earnest blue right in front of the sun. It was so dense that the sun could not white-out its texture. The only hints of its presence was x-ray edging and Pink Floyd rays. The stage appeared to be set for something dramatic and not cheerful. God's loving fist or a beast on a sky-Harley.

08/10/10 - Worked on new ditties for the first part of the evening. Patrick overheard Thomas and I talking about an arrangement and was amazed when he thought that Thomas used the word eschew. Thomas had to admit that he had not.

08/24/10 - Thomas played standing up this evening. Unrelated to Thomas abandoning his chair - this sentence was spoken aloud: "You don't want your bit creating an ear worm for another song." Unrelated to that gem - a few weeks ago we ended all of the songs like the end of George Harrison's Long Long Long.

09/21/10 - Started working on Harriet last night - the final song to be worked up. Patrick sat down behind the drums while I was showing the boys the chords/arrangement and came up with a kick/snare pattern. I hope we have drum tracks by the start of the year.

Patrick had on different sneakers tonight. I forgot to ask him about them. I did tell him about my cello woes and he told me about cello dope. I bought some today and it was very helpful. If you have cello woes you should buy some. You can thank me or Patrick. You pick.

09/29/10 - Surreal experience hearing Patrick run the girls through Harriet while I was upstairs.

11/1/10 will kick off recording for the next Girls album. Much discussion about where to record drums, number of mics to use, where to track. I think the answers were AudioFaucet, 12 and Aqua Sound. Ready or not...

11/02/10 - Dragging John Bara's Yamahas over on Thursday to set up. Will hibernate the Ludwigs until we are finished recording. Still working on arrangements for some of the new stuff but should start tracking the completed material in the next few weeks. That's short for multitracking. Tracking. Patrick is playing a Conqueror at practice now. You should see him go.

12/28/10 - Spent the day putting new heads on the drums and getting mics on everything. 6 hours later we ran through End Of Summer a couple of times to test the setup and the engineers deemed the results to be quality. Had a band meeting at an Italian restaurant afterwords.

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