Girl for Samson - 2001 Journal

2001 journal - writing songs and recording

01/11/01 - Picked up an AKG headset mic last week for drumin' and singin' without feedback. Were going to get a Beta52 kick drum mic this week. I think we are looking at the end of the summer, at best, for having 10-12 good songs recorded.

01/25/01 - Worked on new ditties and added a new bit to work on. Took pictures of everybody for the PICS page.

02/08/01 - Married some of Bone's bits into a new song. Also croaked my way through a new tune of Steve's. I actually scribbled the first verse in the car outside of his house on an ATM receipt.

02/28/01 - Pat and I got together and worked on vocals. Came up with a doo doo doo bit for Hey Paul, some nice falsetto ahhs for Delirous, and a cascading harmony for Carry/Always Something.

03/01/01 - Rearranged the practice space which has produced a better listening environment. Bone is going out of town for a few weeks in March so we are going to start up recording again while he's gone.

03/17/01 - Pat and I have been singing together once or twice a week since our band practice time is dwindled to once a week. Worked out Terry the Pirate. Bone is leaving for Ireland for a few weeks so I think we are going to make some time for recording whilst he's away.

04/13/01 - OK, we had a good "talk about stuff" meeeting today. We made some personnel decisions that we had been putting off for a long time. We also set some dates for getting the album rolling again, since we have aborted everything we have done so far. We are going to try to do a couple of songs from start to finish at Guttersnipe and then do the rest at our space in mid-June. This hopefully means that we will have this thing done by the beginning of the NFL season. Mixing might take a bit longer but we should certainly have everything recorded by then. The website will also be loosing the goth look and we will go with something a bit more, um, whimsical.

04/23/01 - Back to a 4-piece, which will actually speed up preparation for recording.

04/28/01 - Recorded bass and drums for the still tenatively-titled Delirious and Flap. Only issue was a new part I nipped from Towers of London for Delirious and a jungley-bit at the end. I used Guttersnipe's DW kit and it sounds great. I suggested to John that they almost sound too good. We may be using my Ludwigs for the rest of the record so it will be interesting to see if the difference is stark.

05/05/01 - Added newer versions of Peteena, Babble, Always Something, and Lie (Delirious) to the Sounds section.

05/23/01 - Should be adding guitars to Lie (Delirious) and Flap soon. Added Parade to the set list. This was an old post-Boxes of Love song that I recently added a bridge to. I think I lifted the bridge from the intro music to River's Edge.

07/03/01 - Had a very productive meeting on how to get the stinking CD finished. Came up with a list of what we need. Right now all we have recorded are:

Animal's Snout - Drums
Two Heads and a Tail - Drums and Scratch Voc
Flap - Drums, Bass, Guitars
Lies (Delirious) - Drums, Bass, Guitars
12 - Drums (we may scratch these)
Hey Paul - Drums

08/14/01 - First practice in 3 weeks. Pretty tight considering the gap. In recording news - Flap is nearing completion making it the first finished song for the CD. We just need a harmony and some color bits and we can shake hands all around and start on a second song...

09/13/01 - Recorded scratch tracks for the 22nd. Used a drum machine and played live on top of it.

09/22/01 - Visited Guttersnipe today and recorded "live" drums for 12, Hey Paul, Noggin, Delirious, Peteena Says, Babble and Terry the Pirate. Used click tracks for Little Joe and Always Something. We'll digest them later in the week and see what we have. If they are all good then we will have a great start on getting this album finished.

10/11/01 - Spent the evening listening to the drums from 09/22. Sounds like everything is OK. Little Joe is missing some toms and we think we can fix Flap. I want to record Two Pale Blackberries so that will give us 10-12 songs which is certainly an album's worth.

10/18/01 - Worked on the new ending for Two Pale Blackberries.

Loaded the second versions of the drum tracks and found an upgrade here and there. Still don't have the tracks for Little Joe but they should be here soon.

Steve is going to lay bass parts and then we'll will load them on the VS-840 so that we can play around with color on off-nights before officially recording them. We're going to start with Hey Paul since we have been working with it the longest.

Justin Randel will be helping us with conga, tuba and sitar parts.

11/09/01 - Steve and Bone worked on laying down bass and guitar parts. From Steve in an E-MAIL to Pat and I:

"...and recorded Phil's and my part for Hey Paul. For the bass, most of my time is spent trying to dial in a good tone. I used the Rik on Hey Paul and scooped out all the 800k using the EQ at the board. I think it's warm and punchy without the mud. I have a second bass track of the Rik with the neck pickup; it certainly doesn't have as much presence but I'll keep it so you can hear both. I recorded Phil's rhythm and lead parts on separate tracks to give us more flexibility down the road.

We also recorded Phil's part on Peteena Says. Here I recorded his verse and chorus parts on separate tracks. I used the EV mic which I think gives a pretty true picture of what his amp sounds like in the room. I sat his amp out of the room so that he can monitor the recording through the studio monitors rather than the headphones."

11/15/01 - Pat recorded the acoustic guitar part for Hey Paul. I added a supplemental part, also on the acoustic, to use later in the song for a bit of a build.

11/20/01 - Discovered that the acoustic bit that I added was only picked up by the room mic and not the two mics close to the guitar. This caused a bit of a delay that we tried fixing by adjusting the time. Will probably just recut it later

Recorded 4 takes of verses and chorus for Hey Paul. Experimented with singing the verse hushed or braying. Went with doubled braying. Lots of techie problems with gear.

11/28/01 - Redid Hey Paul vocals into pantyhose because of the strong P. Recorded the listing of states bit into the Walter Cronkite mic. Rearranged Pat's harmony using same mic. Pat added doodoodoos. Messed around with whisteling and melodica for opening.

12/13/01 - I did an acoustic bit on Babble. Also added a tambourine to Hey Paul. Bone added a intro with an electric which we like though it might be rerecorded without the slapback. Pat added an acoustic to Delirious.

I suggested "12" for the title of the finished collection. I liked it because we will end up with 12 tracks. That's the practicle application. Since most of the songs are about circles I like the idea of the clock reference since days are divided by 12 and it is the beginning and the end of a day. Lastly, one of the tracks is called 12. Ties up nice and neat.

12/18/01 - Record the lead vocal for Babble. Pat added 2 harmonies and then I added the trailer bit on the end.

12/20/01 - Recorded vocals for Delrious and changed the words around a bit. "undone and unaware" to "undone and on parade" to better fit the Kings New Clothes story and also to sound less preachy. Changed "uptown and upward bound" to "uptown and glory bound" for no good reason. Pat recorded harmonys. Added digi-wood blocks to Hey Paul. Steve recorded a new bass part for Delirious and added some keyboard ideas.

12/27/01 - Rerecorded verses for Delirious with a cheaper mic and a more enthusiastic performance. Pat and I added guitar fills on the chorus. We talked Steve into a bass part that didn't work.

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