Oddities & Endiness
Did we mention that we like The Smithereens?
EarthDay this past Saturday was a complete blast. The weather was absolutely spot-on and the crowd was ready to soak up some rays and some tunes. Ellery kicked it off with their special blend of haunting lyrics and soulful playing - and they're great folks too. We met the Mayor backstage - sweet guy. We ended up playing a pretty long set, which was awesome... despite a bout with major flu-ness the day before my voice held out and I even managed a little showboating during some songs. Peppertown rocked the crowd until the headliners. The Smithereens were extremely gracious and cool and sounded like pros live. The most impressive parts of the set to me were their ballads - they kept the energy up and the crowded enraptured. Great stuff!
But enough about them... let's talk some Screaming Mimes!
Randy & I worked on some mixes last night - going over things with a fine-toothed comb. This is where it gets really nitpicky and you have to go way back in time to find out what the hell you were thinking when you played a part. A bit strange & laborious but necessary for the final release.
Twister was first... not much to do with this one - it sounds great! We did move a sound effect (a rippy zippy thing) away from a lyric... made it sound like I was singing "right hand blooofffth" instead of "blue". DONE!
Sleeping With The Emily was next. Tweaked a little backwards guitar harmonic in the intro... balanced a harmony a bit. DONE!
Superdave - much discussion, nothing really accomplished. But a plan for next time!
Only Love - played with the lo-fi effect on the second verse. Think we got it. I really punches up the second half of the song. Still needs Randy's volume pulsing guitar intro...
More Than Ever - can't mess with success! DONE!
Everything To me needed a lot of vocal work. I grudingly realized that the lead vocal wasn't nearly my best performance. Eventually we completely redid it and double tracked it. Then we played with a few harmonies. Ended up being a lot fuller. Randy has done a great job with the solo. We talked about adding trumpets to the bridge. We found a very errant chord in some of the inversions I play at the end of the song - took a lot of editing to fix. Still need something with the intro and a livelier drum mix...
Happening - changed some guitar levels in the verses & played with one of the drum fills. In the end we left it alone. DONE - maybe!
Pretty Soon now - reviewed the bass track & talked about how awesome this song will be once it's done. Absolutely no pressure.
EarthDay this past Saturday was a complete blast. The weather was absolutely spot-on and the crowd was ready to soak up some rays and some tunes. Ellery kicked it off with their special blend of haunting lyrics and soulful playing - and they're great folks too. We met the Mayor backstage - sweet guy. We ended up playing a pretty long set, which was awesome... despite a bout with major flu-ness the day before my voice held out and I even managed a little showboating during some songs. Peppertown rocked the crowd until the headliners. The Smithereens were extremely gracious and cool and sounded like pros live. The most impressive parts of the set to me were their ballads - they kept the energy up and the crowded enraptured. Great stuff!
But enough about them... let's talk some Screaming Mimes!
Randy & I worked on some mixes last night - going over things with a fine-toothed comb. This is where it gets really nitpicky and you have to go way back in time to find out what the hell you were thinking when you played a part. A bit strange & laborious but necessary for the final release.
Twister was first... not much to do with this one - it sounds great! We did move a sound effect (a rippy zippy thing) away from a lyric... made it sound like I was singing "right hand blooofffth" instead of "blue". DONE!
Sleeping With The Emily was next. Tweaked a little backwards guitar harmonic in the intro... balanced a harmony a bit. DONE!
Superdave - much discussion, nothing really accomplished. But a plan for next time!
Only Love - played with the lo-fi effect on the second verse. Think we got it. I really punches up the second half of the song. Still needs Randy's volume pulsing guitar intro...
More Than Ever - can't mess with success! DONE!
Everything To me needed a lot of vocal work. I grudingly realized that the lead vocal wasn't nearly my best performance. Eventually we completely redid it and double tracked it. Then we played with a few harmonies. Ended up being a lot fuller. Randy has done a great job with the solo. We talked about adding trumpets to the bridge. We found a very errant chord in some of the inversions I play at the end of the song - took a lot of editing to fix. Still need something with the intro and a livelier drum mix...
Happening - changed some guitar levels in the verses & played with one of the drum fills. In the end we left it alone. DONE - maybe!
Pretty Soon now - reviewed the bass track & talked about how awesome this song will be once it's done. Absolutely no pressure.
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