Tuesday, November 22, 2005 

Double shocker...

Tonight was an excellent session. I think we carried a lot of the positive energy from our Friday show into the session - things seemed confident and we were playing well together. After setting guitars, drums and basses back up (and jamming on "Suddenly") we did a couple quick takes of "More Than Ever", just to see if we could capture that elusive quality it has when we play it on stage. We're going to have to take a radical approach to that one, just to shake us up.
After that we did "Christmastime" while it was still fresh in our heads. Whenever we play that song it takes me back to working it out on Great American Ball Park in our old rehearsal space last year... great fun. The song has tightened up since then and we can't wait to start layering the fun holiday "flavor" on top... whip crack! Jingle bells... :)
"Sleeping With The Emily" was next - had a good feeling going. We did three complete takes and hopefully one of them is "the one". They felt pretty close. This is another jewel that will shine on the album. A different feel for us, much closer to our Beatles' roots, but with some cool key changes and lyrics that I'm very proud of - they tell a story. Jim was in rare form hitting his bell on his splash in interesting accents - stuff that will really make the final product shine. Great stuff.
Next we did "She" - first take had a lot of energy but was not mistake-free. Second and third takes were good too - possibly the third one is a keeper. This song has a simple rock groove - nothing fancy, no big dynamics, just straight ahead strumming and drumming. If we got the take down I think it'll be a great track.
We took a break and had a few beers and listened to our work. Randy had a special occassion to celebrate - I should let him spill the beans on that one. After a few playbacks we pulled "Happening" out of the bin and worked our way through it... muddled through it, rather. Though unsteady at times, the foundation is there for an incredible album track that will really pop out as "different" for us. I doubt we got anything work saving tonight on it, but it's good to get it back in the front-burners of the brain for future recording.
Last for the night was a loose, swinging version of "Wedding Day" for Randy... We love ya man.

Sunday, November 20, 2005 

Viper Charmers

Our show at The Viper Room was a blast... what a great club. We hope to play there again soon. Tony & Ryan made us feel right at home, Chris had the sound pumping, and the barmaidens were as quick delivering the beverages as they were beautiful. A lot of our good regular fans came out (thank you thank you thank you) as well as a few friends we haven't seen in a while and some new faces. We played some new stuff and some older stuff and the reaction to everything was positive. Lot of comments on "Superdave" and "Christmastime". My voice escaped and never came back by the time we "Man On The Phone", thanks to some smoke and a lingering cold, but I strained and scraped and managed to make it through most of the set. Had to skip "Modern Age" - no way I could pull that one off. Playing the newer material was great fun, particularly after a few weeks of just recording, but it was quite nerve wracking. I actually remembered most of the words... pulling out the dusty "Rex Dance" (Deb's favorite!) was fun - we probably haven't played that since our CD release last February! All the words just came tumbling back as we played, it was strange...
The Newbees were incredible, as expected, and debuting their new keyboard player. Yes, it's possible for them to sound better - it was great! They made a lot of new fans.
Super77 was their typical fun crazy selves, rocking with power and humor. They pulled out the classic ode the weatherman song and even let me scream my way through "Psycho Killer" - thanks fellers...
Next week it's back to recording for the remainder of '05, and hopefully we'll have the majority of bass & drum tracking soon.

Cheers!

Dave

SCREAMING MIMES - VIPER ROOM 11-18-05

MEDUSA'S GARDEN
IT'S NOT ME
MAN ON THE PHONE
SLEEPING WITH THE EMILY

TWISTER
ONLY LOVE
MODERN AGE
SHE
SUPERDAVE
GIRL WHO FELL IN LOVE
MORE THAN EVER
COMPLETELY

TV
EVERYTHING TO ME
WEDDING DAY
CHRISTMASTIME
REX DANCE

Thursday, November 17, 2005 

A weasel is chewing my face, Madam

Last night we worked on Everything To Me, Only Love & More Than Ever. It was a long session and afterwards we rehearsed for our show at The Viper Room on the 11/18.

Everything To Me went well. We slowed the song down a bit to put a little more bounce in the groove, which helped. I think on record this will work better. Hopefully there's a good take in there, it felt good playing it.

Only Love was a another tough one. One take worked well but was a little "polite". The next take had energy but possible tempo problems. It's tough to find that balance between passion and perfection when you know the recording light is on.

More Than Ever remained elusive, searching for the "groove". May be time to try a different approach. Band was tight, though.

Austin & Randy tweaked the drum sound by bringing the over heads in closer, moving the bass drum mic and Jim brought in his piccolo snare. It had a great sound that really cut through on "Everything To Me". While they were setting this up Preston, Jim and I did silly jams ala' Zappa about frogs and weasels.

Afterwards we went through our Friday set list and freshened up a few songs we hadn't played in a while - Completely, Sleeping With The Emily, Girl Who Fell In Love... but most importantly, Christmastime! Can't wait to bring this wintery chestnut back to the live stage.

Dave

Thursday, November 10, 2005 

I love Butterfingers and I love--love. Dave, you're pining for fall struck a chord with me since I've recently moved to the "country". I never really thought of Independence as being that far out from the city, but I guess it's far enough. Because of the lack of city lights, you can really see the stars, and it's really dark at night. In addition to that, living amongst the hills filled with trees gave us opportunity to really watch the leaves change this year. It wasn't a particularly great year for color, but what I saw was spectacular.

Anyway, it sucks that we couldn't get together last night. The last 2 nights of recording have gone really well, I think. It seems like we're letting the songs mature rather than just laying down tracks. We've had a chance to really listen to each other in a way we haven't done before. Who knew Randy was doing so much cool stuff?

It's much better recording with Jim in the same room with us as opposed to the segmented rooms we used before. It has much more of a "feel" than the last recording did because of that. What can I say, the rythym section likes to stick together!

I wish we didn't have to work our real jobs so we could just do this all the time. Is there anyone out there who wants to pay us a lot of money to play? Dave will write a song for you...

See you guys next week.

By the way, Caroline was fine--thanks for the concern Rando


- Preston

Wednesday, November 09, 2005 

Look OUT!!!

...it's real life colliding with the band!
No session tonight as work loads take their toll on all of use. That just gives us more time to think. You know... ponder that massive guitar solo that I'm sure I'm going to flawlessly crank out the very first time. No prob.
This fall is absolutely gorgeous. Leaves are falling like bits of fire from the sky - it's a constant volcanic eruption. Sunny mornings bisec the fog..,beautiful... I need to write a song about that.

Love & Butterfingers,

Dave

Wednesday, November 02, 2005 

I left my watch behind...

Last night was another excellent night. Laid down tracks (hopefully) for 4 songs.

Started with Superdave, picking up where we left off on the previous session, but re-energized. The first take had a nice, slightly slower groove to it that we liked. We did a couple more and they sounded good and powerful. This song will really stand out on the album I suspect - good hard rock behind a very melodic tune. I think I'd like to do a half buzzy synth and half guitar solo for this one... but what to play, what to play...

After that we did More Than Ever. It was tough to keep the tempo consistent - as soon as we were aware that we were recording, things would start drifting. By the end we got a take that we liked. This is us venturing into "dance" music but it still has a strange time signature, so it's not totally disco. I can't wait to play on the fade out, see what we come up with... Needs cowbell.

Next was Only Love - a very challenging song for us... it has to have that "groove" - that easy southern rock vibe that is still aggressive and driving. And I start the first verse all by myself and was terrified of screwing up the tempo. I suggested that Preston simplify the chorus bass line in anticipation of all the other parts that will be on it. Randy's guitar playing was brisk and commented on positively from Jim and Preston. In the end we got some good takes, but we may take another swing at it...

Everything To Me was next, the final song of the evening. The first take was loose but had a great feel - right amount of bounce and edginess. After that we did what I termed the "automoton" take. Then one more, which was pretty good. We agreed that we might want to try again next time.

In between all the work there was a lot of laughing. As we rattled off dirty variations of TV shows Austin came up with "Law And Order: Special Fisting Unit". This led to a particularly filthy version of "Everything To Me" with references to knuckles and proper hand use.

Kudos to Randy & Austin for doing all the heavy lifting for this recording project. They are hauling the equipment around, hooking it all up and making sure everything is getting recorded right. Jim, Preston and I get to stand back and look beautiful. :)

Dave