2004 Journal
Go to the end of the journal.
01/01/04 - Worked on selling the Lucky Man ending for Two Pale Blackberries. I think
they are softening.
01/08/04 - Did a lot of editing on TPB. Shortened two sections from the end. Talked
at length about mixing strategies, track listing, name and title on cover, why Patty thinks
that Penny Lane is too campy, how to proceed with the next album and enlarging the studio
space.
01/16/04 - Worked on the track listing. Newest order is:
Terry The Pirate
Babble
Peteena Says
Flap
Little Joe and Rosalie
Noggin
Parade
Always
Hey Paul
Two Pale Blackberries
Delirious
Twelve
Talked about marketing, sales, the cover and again - how to start writing songs together
again. Remember, we have been recording exclusively for years now and have only been
developing new songs in outside projects.
Pat spent 8 hours converting Two Pale Blackberries to wav files for John to mix.
We're getting together this Saturday to re-record some of the vocals in Always. Steve
still has some bass parts to re-record on Two Pale Blackberries but may do that where
we are mixing.
01/17/04 - Patty resang the choruses in Always. Added some crunchy and jangly
guitars. Patty then resang the verses. I added a fretless bass part to the bridge.
01/19/04 - Put up some fresh pictures of yesterday's recording session.
01/22/04 - Rerecorded some bass parts in Always and talked about mixing, mastering
and financial strategies.
01/27/04 - Put up some new walls on one side of the studio.
01/29/04 - Whacked the bass parts recorded last week and re-recorded the original lines
all though the song. Searched for another instrument to use the melody from the part last
week. Gave John a proper version of Two Pale Blackberries to start mixing.
02/12/04 - Loaded the newest version of Sonar and arranged the studio since it had
been dismantled to put up new walls.
02/19/04 - Reassembled the studio. Taught the boys about William Hung. Patty taught
us about the Gray Album. Had enough time after running cables to play Flap live. Next week
we start on new songs.
02/23/04 - Worked on a song that I came up with on an acoustic last year while waiting
for the boys to finish fiddling with the console. Patty took the horns and came up with some
words and melody and tada. Also worked on Wrong Star and a new song of Steven's.
03/04/04 - Added How Do You Sleep? to the possible list for the next project. We have
a ditty of Steve's and a ditty of mine that Patty came up with melody's for. We also have
a couple of songs that we half started during the recording process - MarBeck and Coming Back.
03/11/04 - Added End of Summer and a new song of Patrick's to the list.
03/18/04 - Worked on the new list of 6 songs.
Wrong Star
Willaby
How Do You Sleep?
Very Well
End Of Summer
Mar-beck
Gary The Fisherman
Comingback
03/25/04 - Worked on the arrangements for Willaby, Very Well, Mark-Beck and Gary
The Fisherman.
04/01/04 - Pat talked to some different studios about mixing. The tricky, thing besides
picking someone who's good, is picking someone who can accomodate the format that the tracks
are in. That's the tricky part. Worked on new songs. Pat married some of his and my words
for Mar-beck.
04/08/04 - Decided to mix the CD ourselves. Pat's gonna take care of some legal stuff
next week and I'm going to start bugging friends to find someone to help us finish up the
artwork.
04/22/04 - Worked on arrangements for new songs.
04/29/04 - Listened to a mix of Always Something. Worked on new stuff.
05/06/04 - Pat played us mixes of Babble, Delirious, Flap and Always Something.
Suggested vocal fades on the outro of Flap. Ran through the set. Decided to start
recording in June.
Pat's Notes:
Flap
- Fade out the last 6 “I found you’s” with a slowly increasing reverb…like a boat drifting off to see
- Beef up the toms; perhaps with samples
Always
- “carry on” vocal is too prominent in the mix
- Kill the drums in the bridge or make snare stand out
Babble
- Don’s vocal during bridge needs to come up
- Make the bridge build more; right now it is 8 measures of the same thing; or, alternatively, find a way to make the 8 measures sound more interesting
05/10/04 - Sparky Design is going to marry up our artwork ideas. Printing, duplication,
shrink-wrapping etc. will be done by Media Services.
05/11/04 - Sent Sarah the template from Media Service.
05/13/04 - Pat played us mixes of Babble, Delirious, Flap and Noggin.
Notes from artwork discussion:
Some debate over whether to have band pictures or not on the inside cover.
Discussed a variety of poses including heads in pond and infinity.
decided against lyrics and individual credits
all songs and performances by Girl for Samson
front - girl, bird, Girl for Samson, 12
back - hag, song listing:
Terry The Pirate
Babble
Peteena Says
Flap
Little Joe and Rosalie
Noggin
Parade
Always
Hey Paul
Two Pale Blackberries
Delirious
Twelve
inside - sky-water blue, pictures, website link, sparky link, legal
cd - bird, Girl for Samson, 12
05/20/04 - Listened to new mixes. Relistened to some old mixes. Little Joe
is the only song that hasn't been mixed yet. Brother John may be the first new song
recorded when we start again in June. Begged Pat for mp3 updates for the website.
Pat's Notes:
Delirious
– Steve says Pat’s post chorus guitar interlude is missing; find it and re-insert it
Flap
– The new, “I found you” fade out has too much reverb and mid range resonance…but it’s on the right track
Hey Paul
- Reverb on Don’s lead vocal sounds “boxy”
- Toms are lost during “dododos”
- Kick is missing, needs to be brought up
05/27/04 - Listened to semi-final mixes today. Listened in an automobile and on a
old home stereo for perspective. Found a couple of little changes and rearranged the track
listing. New list:
Peteena Says
Flap
Hey Paul
Always
Two Pale Blackberries
Terry The Pirate
Noggin
Parade
Babble
Delirious
Little Joe and Rosalie
Twelve
Pat's Notes:
Flap
- The new, “I found you” reverb is close but still sounds too mid-rangy; each one needs to fade out incrementally
Hey Paul
- Vocals are too hot
- There is too much 5k on the “hey paul” phrase; sounds shrill in Steve’s car
Terry the Pirate
- Acoustic guitar after 1st chorus is too loud, hits you over the head when it enters
- Toms are missing during verses, need some beefing up
- The last vocal line “waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for you to say” is painful; needs to be resung
Parade
- Guitar line after bridge is missing, put it back in bitch
- Froggies at end need to be fixed, they sound “off”
- Drench the new, backwards Don vocal during the bridge with massive amounts of reverb and lower it in the mix, make it watery (perhaps a cheap reverb)
Peteena Says
- “Up stroke” guitar bits during verses sound off, fix them, also, some strokes are too loud, others too soft
Little Joe
- Add a palm mute guitar to first or second verse (Steve recommended Pat to listen to a Tool song as a reference)
Two Pale Blackberries
- Bass on Ending needs more volume
- Make the sustaining, high pitched drone louder and try starting the song with it
- Keyboard part during chorus should be louder
Twelve
- Don’s “ba ba” vocal needs to come up
- Ending drums are too bass heavy
- Ending seems too long now, shorten it so that it proceeds to the final section sooner
End with just the Juno bass note droning
06/10/04 - My notes to Patty about the final mix:
1) I would like to hear your lalalalas better in Peteena.
2) The electronic rhythmic HISS HISS during the end of Delirious bothers me. Steve agrees with me for once. Not sure who championed it initially but I don't think it works any longer.
3) Parade needs more bass.
4) The transition in 12 from the song to the dream section needs some sexing up. I'm referring to the echoing voice. The dream part still needs some love too. Sorry that I can't be more specific about that. Will listen to it some more today.
06/11/04 - Steven's notes to Patty about the final mix:
Hey Patrick. I would like to get two tracks to you before hearing mixes on Tues. One is the little guitar bit in delirious and the other is a crunch guitar for lil Joe. I think my crunch guitar adds some crunch under Don's crunch and certainly helps with the authority of the guitar track.
06/14/04 - Took the images to a graphic artist for the CD cover. Here are
my notes to her for your amusement:
front cover:
12_front_light.jpg
use some part of the gull for text color
in upper right hand corner - Girl for Samson in a circle with 12 in the center - open to suggestions
inside cover:
background either #274D8E or a section of the sky (with or without bird) from 12_front_light.jpg
use some part of the gull for text color
text for inside cover:
all songs by Girl for Samson
recorded and mixed by Girl for Samson at Aquasound
additional recording at Guttersnipe Studio
mastered at (forthcoming)
salute to Bara, Bone, Cooder, Evans, Mani, Stemmerman, World For Ransom
vintage images from gogomag.com
artwork compiled by sparkydesign.com
band info at girlforsamson.com
(c) & (p) 2004 Girl for Samson
back cover:
12_back_light.jpg
centered track listing with #D4D7E0 as possible color?
text for back cover:
1. Peteena Says
2. Flap
3. Hey Paul
4. Always
5. Two Pale Blackberries
6. Terry The Pirate
7. Noggin
8. Parade
9. Babble
10. Delirious
11. Little Joe and Rosalie
12. 12
(c) & (p) 2004 Girl for Samson
cd:
background #274D8E or if this seems redundant perhaps a piece from 12_back_light.jpg
maybe a gull from 12_front_light.jpg?
same circular Girl for Samson as front cover
(c) & (p) 2004 Girl for Samson
spine:
Girl for Samson 12
perhaps different fonts to separate band name from cd title?
06/15/04 - Listened to mixes. Pat implemented many of the changes dicussed over the
past few days. Also added a tougher guitar during parts of Little Joe and Rosalie and
resang part of Terry The Pirate.
Pat's Notes:
Noggin
- Remove the cabbassa at the end, it has been deemed unnecessary
Little Joe
- Make the chorus “guitar build up” at the end of each phrase more prominent; try lowering overall guitar volume so there is still room to build (dynamics)
- Chorus vocal is too loud
Twelve
- The “In the motorcade” transition to the psychedelic ending is very jarring, needs to be more subtle or moved
- The drenching reverb on the ending does not sound right, experiment with something else
Two Pale Blackberries
- The new “phasing,” “mushrooming” synth sound needs to come up
- Turn up bass on the first hit of “don’t let it get you down”
Parade
- The whole song is still lacking bass
06/24/04 - Decided to go with Tom Garneau at Audioactive for mastering. Tom's credits
including work (producing, recording and/or mixing) on recordings by Prince, Sting,
Matt Wilson, The Breeders, Moody Blues, Big Head Todd, George Clinton, Donny Osmond, Chicago,
The Bodeans, The Time and more.
Listened to mixes. Decided to re-embed laughter in Peteena and leave a note sustaining at the
end of the 2nd verse. Also discussed having the echoing "in a motorcade" line re-appear in the 2nd part of
12. Adding more Thank Yous to the cover - aimee, ray hildebrand and little larry.
Should have new song samples in the next day or two.
Pat's Notes:
Peteena Says
- The gap between the chorus and last verse is missing a vital guitar bend making the transition very rough; put the bend back in
- Put the demonic “laugh” back in the 3rd verse after the vocal line “the sun demands your body back in heaven”
Two Pale Blackberries
- Try adding Don’s original vocal to the Mrs. Miller choir
Terry the Pirate
- Vocals still sound nasally and off; might need to be resung
Noggin
- Right “ping pong” guitar needs to come up
- Don’s main vocal is a bit too loud
Parade
- The song “fade out” sounds strange, fix it
Little Joe
- Remove second “frozen moon” from first verse
Twelve
- Sprinkle Don’s “in the motorcade” vocal throughout the ending so it ties into the rest of the song
07/03/04 - Patty uploaded new and much improved samples of all of the songs for 12.
While these are still unmastered they are pretty close to how the CD is going to sound.
He also sent me some demos for Little Joe and Flap which I'll link in a few days.
07/06/04 - Modified the Sounds page to accomodate our new found enthusiasim for
vintage Girl for Samson. Added an early demo of Parade, the bridge for Noggin and the
end of Two Pale Blackberries. Steven found a live version of the jungley ending to 12
and some other goodies that he will be sending over the next few days.
07/07/04 - Added the early ending for 12 to the Sounds page.
07/07/04 - Added Steve's original vision for Noggin to the sounds page.
07/08/04 - Listened to mixes. Patty added laughter again to Peteena. Added my
voice back to the Mrs. Miller chorus during the outro of Two Pale Blackberries. Worked
some more on the outro of 12. Gave a copy of the CD to John Evans to listen to. I believe
this is the first copy to slip out of a band member's hand.
Pat's Notes:
Little Joe
- Fade out the ending military drums early or fix the drumming hic-up
Parade
- Song should end like a train wreck to juxtapose the rest of the smooth endings on the album
Flap
- Add harmony (like the one on the demo) to the end
07/15/04 - You know what we did? We listened to mixes. Afterwards we played a little
bit - Brother John, Terry The Pirate, Flap, Wrong Star, The New John Doe and Dingus.
Pat's Notes:
Little Joe
- The ending military drums still noticeably slow down, fix it if possible
Terry
- New vocals are too prominent
- Music bedding has lost it’s sparkle, find out what happened
Notes from John Evans (from an E-MAIL to Steve)
As for the drums, my suggestion is to drop the overall volume of the
toms and inside kickdrum mic and bring up the room mics. i'd even
experiment with eliminating all close mics except kick and rolling off
the highs out of the kick. JUST for the sake of trial and error.
again i keep coming back to checking the main out buss. the mixes have
this kind of distortion over them that sounds like either (1) sending
too much signal from each individual track to the main output buss or
(2) there is a compressor or limiter strapped across the main output
buss.
to fix (1): this is a common problem in the summing buss of DAW
mixers. the math starts to get fuzzy when you sum all those tracks
together and the computer is bound to have math errors. Those errors
come in the form of mathematical clipping. You can try to help this by
lowering each individual fader by 3-6 db. If you lower each one the
same amount you will keep the same mix by lower the overall volume.
Also, if you can eliminate as many tracks that you don't need as
possible. Less math
to fix (2): take the compression or limiting off the 2-mix buss. if
the mains clip, drop the volume back.
If it's neither of these then it's something in the way the vocal track
is recorded/mixed. It just sounds like there are a lot of digital
compression/eq artifacts in the mix and particularly on the vocal.
When we listened at your house I thought maybe it was that i wasn't
used to the monitors but it's more pronounced here. In the end, i
don't know what summing buss your using to mix. it could just be the
sound of that DAW's math which i'm not used to. (what poetry! the
sound of math)
This DAW summing buss is a big hot button now among engineers. there
are a lot of solutions to solve them. When we did the St. Jude record,
we A/Bed between the DAW summing buss and the exact mix done on the
Mackie and everyone (even non-musicians/engineers) chose the mixes on
the Mackie. I guess bits won't replace iron any time soon.
07/16/04 - Added Pat's mixing "to do" notes from the last few months.
07/19/04 - Got first draft of cover artwork back. Sent pdf to the
boys for consideration.
07/22/04 - Sending the mixed CD off for mastering tomorrow. Submitted all
12 songs to BMI. Pat's note to Audioactive:
We really tried to make a classic feeling record. It is our hope that it will be difficult,
just by listening, to tell when the thing was made (that any of the last 5 decades would be
possible). However, please understand that when we say classic we do not mean classic rock
like Styx and Stones (although there is a 10 year period of Stones music that we mutually
respect/love). Now that being said, we don’t have unrealistic expectations. The album was
recorded almost entirely in the digital realm so it obviously suffers from more than a few
sonic limitations. We don’t expect a miracle, we just ask that you remove some of the
sterility, balance the levels between tracks, clean up the low end and bring up the volume
level. This would make us very happy.
Song Fade-ins and Fade-outs:
We attempted to fade out the songs ourselves but the software application we’re using
imparted an unnatural zippering sound to the fades. So, instead we left the songs unfaded
and included a red book CD to demonstrate the fades we had in mind.
Peteena:
- Fade in: The song begins with the sounds of a symphony warming up. The samples we
used conveniently faded up on their own so only a miniscule fade in is required.
- Fade out: We intend for the song to fade out with the music still playing. On the
included CD, we have the song ending start to fade on the 2nd “she won’t say” until the
4th is barely audible.
Flap:
- Fade in: No fade in required, song starts right off with bass and guitar.
- Fade out: The song ends on an acoustic guitar pluck, all that is required is a gentle
fade out.
Hey Paul:
- Fade in: No fade in required, song starts right off with kick/bass/electric guitar.
- Fade out: All that is required is a gentle fade out of the sustaining guitar chord.
Always:
- Fade in: No fade in required, song starts right off with acoustic guitar.
- Fade out: We would like for the song to slowly fade out with the acoustic guitar
still playing. Please reference the included CD for the timing of the fade.
Two Pale Blackberries:
- Fade in: No fade in required, song starts out right off with a sustaining synth note.
- Fade out: All that is required is a gentle fade out of the guitar chord and theramin
sustain.
Terry The Pirate:
- Fade in: No fade in required, song starts right off with acoustic guitar.
- Fade out: All that is required is a gentle fade out of sustaining guitar and ambient
background noise.
Noggin:
- Fade in: No fade in required, song begins with a 4 beat drum- stick intro.
- Fade out: We envision this song ending abruptly so no fade out is required.
Parade:
- Fade in: The song begins with a melodic, backward drum phrase that we envisioned slowly
fading up. Please reference the included CD for the timing of the fade.
- Fade out: All that is required is a gentle fade out after the last drum beat/chord.
Babble:
- Fade in: No fade in required, song starts right off with bass guitar.
- Fade out: All that is required is a gentle fade out of the babbling brook.
Delirious:
- Fade in: No fade in required, song begins immediately with drums, guitar and bass.
- Fade out: All that is required is a gentle fade out after the last beat/chord.
Little Joe and Rosalie:
- Fade in: Once again, we used a sample that faded up on it’s own so there is very little
fade in required.
- Fade out: The song ends with an upbeat bass line playing over a military drum cadence.
We envisioned the song slowly fading out before the section ends. Please reference the
included CD for the timing of the fade.
Twelve:
- Fade in: No fade in required, song starts off with guitar harmonics/cymbals.
- Fade out: We envision the song slowly trailing off at the end, just until you can hear
the reverb ring after the bass note stops.
Pauses between tracks:
We experimented with 2 second, 1 second, 0 second pauses between tracks using
CD Architect and found we liked how the songs sounded stacked closely together.
So if you could have each song run into the next one with as little a break as
possible that would be tremendous.
Thank you for taking on this project Tom, we look forward to hearing your work.
Please free to call or e-mail Patrick, no matter what time of the day, if you have
any questions.
Patrick Meagher
07/23/04 - Sent CD art revisions to Sarah and the promise of a shiny new gold piece
if she can get it put together before the begining of August.
07/26/04 - Tom e-mailed Pat to let him know that he has the CD in his hands.
07/27/04 - Registration with BMI complete.
07/29/04 - Played live. Ran through Brother John, Wrong Star and Willaby. Came up
with 2 more changes for Sarah. We want to change the color of the CD to yellow and add
our first names.
07/30/04 - Got 2nd draft of CD artwork from Sarah. Sent her more changes.
08/04/04 - Ran through 3 songs and then set up mics for recording the drums live
tomorrow. Going with an overhead and a mic on the kick and snare. The last CD was
recorded with a click track/drum machine.
Pat just got the mastered disc and is giddy. We'll listen together tomorrow morning.
Should be getting final draft of artwork from Sarah soon.
08/05/04 - John Evans e-mailed some thoughts about the pre-mastered CD:
Subject: Re: 12
Hey Steve.
Sorry it's taken so long to get back to you on this.
For my money, the "Hey Paul" song (#3) is the one where the drums sound
the most separate. I think it's because of the bass drum more than
anything. It just needs more natural room ambience. The toms have
this huge, spread out thing and on a song that's more "jazz" I'd like
to hear the kit more centered up. Panning the toms more on center
would help.
That "Carry On" thing still drives me crazy. But the drums sound
better on that song. That BIGASS reverb works for that one.
keep me posted on how its progressing.
je
Subject: add #6 to that list
Hey, I forgot, he could also stand to look at #6 for bringing the
drums together. On that one I would just bring down some of the
low-end on the bass drum. It's has nice ambience but it's really
belied by the low freq.
je
Listened to the master CD today. It seemed that the sound was less muddy
than our mix and certainly less cluttered. I feel like we lost a little bit on some of
the drums but overall it was a very positive experience. Tom changed the track order
towards the end and we like it so now I have to face Sarah with yet another change to the
CD cover. New track listing:
1. Pateena Says
2. Flap
3. Hey Paul
4. Always
5. Two Pale Blackberries
6. Terry the Pirate
7. Noggin
8. Babble
9. Parade
10. Delirious
11. Little Joe and Rosalie
12. 12
Recorded a live version of a little ditty that I had messing with lately.
08/06/04 - Met with Sarah and made the final revisions to the artwork. Just need
to figure out how to get it to the printer now.
CD Cover
CD Inner Cover
CD
CD Back
Pat did some work on the ditty that we recorded yesterday. It's now called Spider's Last
Stand.
08/09/04 - Today I learned the difference between 2 panel CD covers and 4 panel. We
are going with 2 panel which is a piece of cardboard for the front and a piece for the back.
We still need to decide if we are going with a color behind the CD or a piece of plastic.
Talked to Pat about some color for the chorus on Spider's Last Stand.
08/10/04 - Recorded live performances of Brother John and Spider's Last Stand.
08/12/04 - Recorded live performances of Brother John and Spider's Last Stand. Worked
On Willaby.
08/13/04 - Picked up the artwork CD from Sarah. Pat got the master CD from Tom so
we're going to put it in the mail to be printed tomorrow.
production master cd index
08/14/04 - PMCD, artwork CD, artwork samples and money off to printers.
Cleaned up the website. Patrick didn't like the picture of Samson's girl so she was kicked
off the team. Tidied up a lot of things that should have been tidied up years ago.
08/16/04 - Media Services has the PMCD and artwork so we should have online samples
tomorrow. Researching registering the barcode with SoundScan.
08/17/04 - Spent the first hour repairing Pat's headphones and dealing with an issue
with the GP100. After the dust settled we recorded new versions of the holy trio. Cleaned
up a few rough spots.
Artwork is online for proofing.
08/18/04 - Moved the barcode from the top right of the back of the CD to the bottom
and we are now ready to print. Should have a box of 1000 CDs in our hands before the end of
August.
08/19/04 - Worked on some changes for Brother John. Made the C part a solo rather
than a vocal melody. The GP100 died again and then Pat's headphones fell apart so we stopped
for the day.
08/20/04 - Add live mp3s of the 3 songs we're working on to the Sounds page. Spider
doesn't have words yet so Patrick is just sayin' stuff.
08/24/04 - Added How Do You Sleep to the rotation. Brought the Isle of Wight concert
DVD to circulate amongst the fellows. Recent DVDs that have made the rounds include The
Who's The Kids Are Alright and the making of Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
08/31/04 - Ran through the four songs. Experiemented with the bass plaing the alt
vocal line in the chorus of Spider and with singing the alt words to the chorus melody during
the last verse of Willaby.
09/02/04 - CDs arrived today. That marks the official end of this monster.
Steven and I worked on bass/drum parts for the new songs.
09/07/04 - Steven and I wroked on drum/bass arrangements.
09/09/09 - Full band workout. Added Mar-Beck to the set list.
09/16/04 - Added Mr. Dingus to the list. Still haven't sent any CDs to CDBaby or
Amazon.
09/23/04 - CD Baby now has CDs and we should be online in about a week.
09/24/04 - Mailed a large pile of CDs to college radio stations across the US.
09/29/04 - Sent out a 2nd wave of CDs to newspapers and college radio stations.
09/30/04 - CDs are now up at CDBaby.com
Ran through the song list which now includes Dingus, Wrong Star, Brother John, Spider's Last Stand, How Do You Sleep?, Willaby and Mar-beck.
10/09/04 - Flap gets a play on The Electric Love Blanket. Thank you DJ Lynn.
10/14/04 - Added a new song of Pat's and my Hey Ma to the list. Reviewed strategies
for the next album.
10/21/04 - Sent out a 3rd wave of CDs to newspapers and college radio stations.
Plan to record the next album in 2 waves. First wave will include:
Brother John
Dingus
Hey Ma
How Do You Sleep?
Mar-beck
Spider's Last Stand
Untitled
Willaby
Wrong Star
10/28/04 - Ran throught the set. Should have some new sound samples for the site.
Going to record Hey Ma on the 13th of November at UMKC.
11/04/04 - Worked on Hey Ma for the 13th.
11/11/04 - Added an instrumental section between verses. Played around with some
backing vocals and percussion ideas for recording this Saturday.
11/14/04 - Had use of the local university studio for the day so we recorded Hey Ma
and the drums for Brother John. Pictures from the session are on the pictures page.
Notes:
We were looking for a 1971 feel on the first half of Hey Ma and a Sergio Mendes Brasil 66 feel for the outro.
Recorded both songs live as opposed to using a click track.
I borrowed a vintage Slingerland kit for drums. We foolishly forgot the pedal, stool and crash cymbal stand so that created a frustrating delay.
I used Patrick's Alvarez (oft used on "12") for the acoustic part. It was recently polished and nearly destroyed my bar-chording finger as I am used to playing skinny-necked electric guitars.. This same finger was further abused by being bashed against the tambourine for 5 minutes.
Patrick played a great 1971 AM radio guitar solo using the Rickenbacker 360 through a Crate during the first interlude.
I noodled with Steve's Japanese 335 copy during the outro. It's a wonderful green sunburst and I am determined to own it.
Steven used his Eko Hofner copy for both sections. I would use this bass in every song if I had my say.
Aimee Sheffler drifted in to help out at the console and was promptly employed for game show vocals and a bouncy piano and organ on the Juno 106 during the outro - the first appearance of a grand piano and a grand dame on a Girl for Samson recording.
11/18/04 - Determined that we can use last week's recordings of Hey Ma and Brother John
on the next record. The potential issue is transposing the stuff from Pro Tools.
12/03/04 - Pat's been involved with a lengthy project but Steven and I are still getting
together twice a week to run through the list and adding some new things. One of the new
bits is based on a possibly unspectacular line I came up with while playing one of Steven's
newly set up 12 strings. The other is a 3rd of a song that I have been carrying in my belly
for too long.
An interesting note: We discovered that my drums eat Steven's Steinberger bass in certain
areas on the neck but his Fender Jazz yields nothing. She thumps right over the kit where
the Steinberger timidly hides amongst the cymbals and snare.
Another decidedly less interesting note: Steven has an old Magnatone amp that we use for
working out songs on guitar and it shocks him mightily whenever he touches the casing with
his bass strapped on and plugged into his bass rig. As promised, this is not all that
interesting except that the Magnatone sits right in front of my drums so I get to witness
virtually every occurrence of Steve's short dance when he becomes part of this mysterious
circuit, which is about once a session.
12/09/04 - Full band rehearsal. Worked on two new ditties and a new song of Pat's.
Listened to a mix of Hey Ma for Patrick's project. Steven commanded me to kill a cricket
and I refused.
12/16/04 - Worked on arranging the new songs. Planning on recording drums after
Christmas. Saw an ad from last year for a Randy Bachman album that claimed that he wrote
2 of the greatest songs in rock history. It didn't indicate what they were. We're guessing
that they are American Woman and Taking Care of Business.
12/21/04 - "12" makes CIUT's top 30 albums.
12/23/04 - Two hours of Patrick rewiring gear so that we could record live again and
2 hours of running through the songs. My hands were so dry (it's in the single digits here)
that I had to put olive oil on them to keep the sticks from slipping out.
12/30/04 - Dandy rehearsal. We decided to record drums at UMKC on the 7th, 8th and 9th.
The current list consists of:
Hey Ma (done)
Brother John (done)
Dingus
How Do You Sleep?
Mar-beck
Spider's Last Stand
Shaking Off The Sand
Willaby
Wrong Star
The Great John Doe
Go to the beginning of the journal.
