2003 Journal
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01/01/03 - Ogod, another year has elapsed and we still aren't done. Why doest
thou mock us???
01/07/03 - Talked about a mastering option that John Evans uses. Did some
editing/mixing on Parade, Two Pale Blackberries, Always Something and Babble. Pat added
a vocal to that follows a guitar line in TPB and added a flanger to the backing vocals.
Steve killed 2 rats.
01/11/03 - Added new mp3s for Little Joe, Parade, Terry The Pirate and Two Pale
Blackberries.
01/16/03 - Dicked around with high harmonies on the 3/4 part of Two Pale Blackberries
and added more oooos. Slapped our own hands before tampering with Terry the Pirate. Added
a Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm voice to Noggin. Planted a seed for the bridge of Always Something.
01/23/03 - Pat added some guitar noodlings to the bridge on Always Something. I
added a bit that I once heard a vocal doing during the chorus to play around with later.
Added some guitar parts to the 1st half of Two Pale Blackberries and Steven recorded a
keyboard part. Pat did lots of editing.
01/30/03 - Patty sassed me for the logs from the 23rd. He felt like they were
"uninspired". This was primarily because I failed to mention that the keyboard part that
Steve added to Two Pale Blackberries was done with the Juno though his vintage Gibson
amp. Ta da.
Tonight we worked on the Always Something bridge. Pat added some guide chords and some
vocal ideas and Steve layed down a guide bass. We also played around a little with a
new song of Steve's that both Patty and I have parts for.
I put on new drum heads last Tuesday and John's gonna come tune up pretty soon so we can
finish this thing before it turns into a "3 years in the making" project that the product
will never live up to. I feel OK about the material answering to 2 years but 3...
02/01/03 - John Bara tuned up the drums this morning. They sound and look purty!
02/06/03 - Worked on setting up drum mics, looking for Eko guitars and trying
to find out to add a hard drive to my VS-840.
02/13/03 - Steve bought a Teisco May Queen guitar and a vintage Magnatone amp.
Worked on drum/mic set up most of the night. Layed down some practice versions of
Two Pale Blackberries and Parade.
02/20/03 - Worked on laying down drums for Two Pale Blackberries.
Steve bought an old Alamo guitar. He is completely out of control. So much that he
hinted that I could take my '76 Peavey Vintage home to make room for the Magnatone. Shocking.
02/27/03 - Recorded drums for Two Pale Blackberries and layed down another try on
Parade.
Steve bought an old Resoglas Airline guitar. I'm going to put up a gallery on the site some where to show off
his recent accquisitions.
03/06/03 - Put drums down for Flap and Parade. We decided that we might want drums all
the way through Flap now so I need to relearn my old live parts.
Steve bought an old Eko.
03/19/03 - Worked on Parade. Took pictures of some of the vintage instruments to put
up on the site.
03/20/03 - More work on Parade. Added an intro. Monkeyed with the drums some more.
Redid one of the old Tele parts with the Airline through the Magnatone. It completely changed
the feel of the bridge so we added the pond noise we recorded last year. Recorded a
percussion part during the 2nd chorus that may not be long for this world...
03/25/03 - Steve picked up a mid 90's maple glo Rickenbacker 360, a National Lap Steel and
a Hagstrom Kent Model 1. Will add pictures as soon as I can.
03/27/03 - Parade: Did some drum editing and redid the bass part with the Dan Armstrong
Ampeg. Changed some of the lines around because the bass and the floor tom were really
stepping on each other. Took pictures of the Hagstrom, Jackson, Pat's modified Squire and
Alvarez acoustic.
04/03/03 - Worked on Two Pale Blackberries. Pat worked out a keyboard part on the Juno
and added 2 more high vocals. Did some drum editing. Steve got the Rickenbacker 360 and it's
amazing.
04/06/03 - Steven added some nice slide parts to Two Pale Blackberries with the National
Steel.
04/09/03 - Steven picked up a mapleglo Rickenbacker 370 so I get the 360. I also
bought a May Queen and a Teisco Del Ray ET-310 - the ugliest guitar I have ever seen. I am
trying to find a green and black sunburst Teisco Del Ray with a black floral pickguard and
4 pickups that I had as a youth.
04/10/03 - Messed around with GigaStudio for the 1st hour. Spent the remaining time
working on the bridge on Parade. Decided that the Supro through the Magnatone was causing
the bass to sound off. Recut the rhythm part with the Rickenbacker through the Blues Jr.
04/17/03 - Spent another night working on the bridge in Parade. Stripped it back
down to drums, water and bass. Experimented with some backwards Airline through the
Magnatone. Afterwards we took turns with the Lap Steel doing a simple two chord slide.
Pat ended up with the best take. Steve is going to redo the bass in the bridge to exclude
a note that Patty loves but that conflicts with additional melodic instruments. Hoping
to finish drums on Always Something, Two Pale Blackberries and Flap on Monday.
04/21/03 - Worked in the morning and early afternoon. Verified that we have good
drum tracks for Two Pale Blackberries. Borrowed a SM57 from Guttersnipe because we needed
to get a good capture of the floor tom for Flap and Always Something. Had tons of technical
issues and only got through Flap. Gonna have to do a backup and backoff before we can do
anything else. Steve bought another pretty Airline.
04/24/03 - Pat and Steve monkeyed around with Gigastudio while I wanked on Steve's
new Rickenbacker 370. We also had to some Sonar file clean up. This was fun because we
listened to some of the songs when they were just drums and scratch tracks.
04/27/03 - Steven and I went to a guitar show. I walked away with my childhood green
and black sunburst Teisco Del Ray and Steve walked away determined to buy a vintage Fender Jazz
and Hofner bass at the earliest opportunity. I removed the Violent Femmes Hallowed Ground CD
and popped in Relover on the way home to cement his decision. Early in our trip we
actually witnessed one of those LA car chase scenes where a guy with police cars all around
him refuses to pull over. On top of that we were also treated to it's conclusion. It was an
old guy with a ponytail and a shirt that intentionally displayed his violently protruding
midriff. Excellent crimewear.
04/29/03 - Two days later Steve has already landed a '73 Fender Jazz.
05/01/03 - Redid the drums for Flap. Dashed off a version for Always late in the
evening.
05/10/03 - I picked up an old Kraftsman guitar. Steve added a vintage Teisco Spectrum
ET440 to the wall.
05/15/03 - Spent about an hour on drums for Always Something and I think we did it. That
should be the end of the skins for this baby.
05/22/03 - Pat couldn't make it so Steven and I sat around and babbled about guitars.
We both picked up Aria Diamonds recently. Steve's looks like an old Mosrite and mine is a
six string that looks like a Hofner. Steve also got a Teisco ET-440.
05/26/03 - I picked up a Hagstrom I and a Kent semi-acoustic this weekend. Steve got an
old Heit deluxe.
05/29/03 - Went back over all the drums for Always, Two Pale Blackberries, Parade and
Flap to make sure that we can move on. Over the next few weeks we'll start to go back over
all of the songs and check for mistakes or better ideas.
06/03/03 - Steve added some lap steel parts to Two Pale Blackberries that didn't gel
properly with the existing vocal melody. Last week we commisioned Patty to come up with an
alt voc mel. He produced one today that is wonderful so I'll work on making it mine over the
next few days.
06/05/03 - Spent the whole night trying to get GigaStudio to talk to Sonar.
06/12/03 - Pat developed a new melody for Two Pale Blackberries so I layed down new
tracks. This one works better with Steven's lap steel bit.
06/19/03 - Spent the first half of the night marveling over guitars. Steven and I
both picked up Arais (Bruno Conqueror and Conrad) recently and Steven bought a Parker and a
Teisco Spectrum 5. Played live music for the other half of the session. Tried on some new
ditties.
Will add new guitars to the instruments page this weekend.
06/26/03 - Spent the first hour talking to John Evans. Worked on the intro and
bridge of Peteena. Decided that the album will open with Peteena and end with Little Joe.
07/03/03 - Worked on rewiring the board (Patty) and then spent some more time on
the Peteena intro. This primarily involved wanting to get a plink sound from water. Tried
a flat rock, an ice cube and a lime rind. The ice cube sounded the best. While Pat was
tracing cables we atched some video of Pat's other band and listened to some mp3s from a recent
performance by my other somethingcreativetodowhilegirlforsamsonspends6yearsrecordingatarateof2hoursaweek
project. We also listened to .mp3s from a website of a local classic rock cover band.
07/10/03 - Listened to half of the songs and made notes to determine what still needs
to be done. Left off alphabetically at Hey Paul. Next week we're going to put some new
walls up in the studio and then go back to work the week after. Also going to move Gigastudio
to it's own comptuer so that we can treat it like an instrument.
07/17/03 - Patrick and Steven monkeyed around with computers and software. I went to
a baseball game with a friend.
07/23/03 - Steve record bass parts for Peteena, 12 and Two Pale Blackberries with the
Dan Armstrong and the Steinberger.
07/24/03 - Worked on the computers s'more and then starting messing with mixes. Did
some fine tuning on Peteena, Two Pale Blackberries and 12. It was inspiring to tear everything
down to drums and bass and then start tacking parts back on.
07/26/03 - Worked on a Saturday. Added new pics of the three of us separately trying
to find the 2 perfect notes for a part in Blackberries using the Steinberger. As usual we
spent the first half of the session messing with the computers. Played with mixes on Peteena,
Blackberries and Little Joe and Rosalie. Determined that Little Joe has consumed the most
tracks thus far at 61.
08/02/03 - Worked on a Saturday s'more. Addressed the issue with the songs sounding
great at the studio but sounding wretched anywhere else. Determined that it was an issue
with the speakers mating with the shelving so we isolated them by putting them on their side
on top of foam. This seemed to resolve the problem. Added keyboard parts to 12 parts 1 and 2.
Remixed Babble, 12, Terry the Pirate and Little Joe and Rosalie.
08/07/03 - Patty went fishing so Steven and I played around with sounds for the
Two Pale Blackberries ending. As usual our session was fraught with technical issues.
08/21/03 - I think we just played with sounds during the 12 ending. I hardly stand
up anymore.
08/23/03 - Great Saturday session. Tightened up the ratchet and Steve added a cabasa
to the end of Parade. Worked on the feel for the ending of Two Pale Blackberries. Kept
the horn punches in-between vocal lines. Patty added some vocal lines in different
characters inlcuding Mrs. Miller. Also worked up an accordian part.
08/30/03 - Another Saturday. Pat cleaned up Two Pale Blackberries(2). Moved back
a guitar during the horn break. Steve's going to redevelop the bassline. Worked out a
proper ending and then spent the last hour looking for a whistle or theramin sound for
the last note of the song. Found a tone (B35!) on the Juno and recorded it through the
Magnatone. When I left Pat was trying to get it to slide down from an inaudible sound to
the proper tone. Is that glissando?
Pat wants to redo the song samples on the site. This is reasonable as many of them are significantly outdated.
Steve got the Parker Fly back a few weeks ago. He also picked up a May Queen with the proper headstock so we'll
be updating the pix soon. Maybe.
I have a large collection of slides selected from lots of different family slides. I kept
the unusual ones or the shots that I thought fit the theme of the album and sold off the chaff.
A friend and I are going to paw through them and make a pile of 20-40 for us to choose from
for a cover.
09/06/03 - Worked on a bass part for the end of Two Pale Blackberries. I wanted
Steven to play it using lower notes which sounded great. Pat was afraid that it would
be inaudible because the Steinberger is so low so Steve is going to experiment with using
the 'berger and the 'backer. Did some editing and mixing on Flap. Started talking more
about mastering, artwork, printing and duplication. Shooting for Valentine's Day next year.
Developed a tenative track listing:
Terry The Pirate
Babble
Two Pale Blackberries
Flap
Peteena Says
Parade
Noggin
Always
Hey Paul
Delirious
Little Joe and Rosalie
Twelve
Next week we are going to recut the acuoustic guitar on Flap because the original is too
squeeky. We're also going to add one to Parade.
09/09/03 - My friend Sarah and I started the task of finding an image for the cover.
At one point she suggested using 12 images instead of 1.
09/11/03 - The original acuoustic (using the Alvarez) in Flap is plauged with
squeeks so we spent the evening recutting it. Two problems: We still had some squeeks and
it's a pretty busy and difficult piece to play non-stop and error-free for 3 minutes. About
two thirds of the way through Pat decided to switch to the Ibanez and got a little less
squeek. Will probably work on it more next week.
09/18/03 - Patty nailed acoustic parts for Flap on both the Alvarez and the Ibanez.
I replaced the old Alvarez part in Parade with a couple of tracks of the Ibanez.
09/25/03 - Worked on the climax of Flap with faux accordian and voice.
09/30/03 - Patty and Steve got together for a very special Tuesday night session to
work on Always Something resulting in some beautiful sounds in the begining and a crunchy
guitar.
10/08/03 - Experimented with the chorus of Always. I remembered a vocal bit that
I was toying with a few years ago so Patty is gonna work on that this week.
10/16/03 - Pat came up with some lines for the busy vocal bit in Always that we
discussed last week but the cadence wasn't quite right so I was commisioned to fix it up
and even sing it. We also worked on some bass sounds and parts during the bridge. I had
to leave suddenly while the boys were trying to find a good fuzz sound to use with the
Steinberger.
10/23/03 - The objective tonight was to address the chorus and other issues with
Always. I was employed to develop something at home and couldn't. When we got together
tonight I disovered a beautiful fuzz bass part that the boys added last week and some
vocal parts that Pat had added to the chorus so it feels like we were back in business. Pat
played with some keyboard parts and will resing the whole song when next we meet again.
11/13/03 - Did some tweaking on Flap (boosted floor tom) and Always.
11/22/03 - Good day. Nice mix of creativity and production. Patty added a clavinet
part to the chorus of Noggin. Added hums to the intro in Two Pale Blackberries and stripped
out some parts. Also changed some of the bass patterns. Added a mellotron to Always Something
and some backing vocals.
12/04/03 - Spent the night trying to find a good shehnai sample to use in Two Pale
Blackberries. Once we identified the sound and the instrument we then had to find the sample
and then employ it. We failed at the end. Just couldn't get the controller and the sample
source to be happy at the same time.
12/11/03 - Spent the night working on Two Pale Blackberries. I worked up a simple
keyboard part for the chorus in between sessions that we were originally going with the
shehnai. We tried several different samples and finally decided to try the Juno and came
up with something right away. Also used it for a low part that compliments the hums in the
begining of the song and then Pat and I worked up a part for the bridge.
12/18/03 - Listened to everything and determined that after resinging a part of
Always Something and Steve re-recording his bass in Two Pale Blackberries we will be done.
We are already making arrangements to do some offsite mixing and start on the cover art.
12/30/03 - Backed up everything to the external drive. Went through a large pile
of vintage slides and found 3 images - 1 for the
front cover, 1 for the back and
one for the
CD. Worked a little on the transition between 12 and 12(2).
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