Screaming Mimes Blog

Wednesday we appeared on the local rock FM station WEBN to pimp our appearance at the MidPoint Music Festival. It was quite early in the morning (prime drive time for all the normals) and an awkward time to be performing... I think the last time we did something like this was for the local Fox affiliate two years ago.

WEBN, 102.7, was a fixture in my life as a teenager. Back then (this is pre-internet/ipods/podcasts/napster - hell, CDs were still a novelty) the WEBN morning show got me into school every day. We'd laugh at their juvenile jokes, sing along to hard rock bands... the radio station you listened to was part of your identity. Since there were only a few in town (WNKU played folks, 94.9 was classic rock, Q102 was Top 10, WOXY didn't reach my car) you were immediately indoctrinated into a large group if you could talk about the "joke of the day" before the homeroom teacher started class. Back then you could hear The Bears or Pure Prairie League... WEBN Album Projects featured tons of great poorly recorded local bands. Those were the days... and you damn whipper snappers better stay off my lawn!

So much has changed since then... DJs were shocked, station owners sold to Clear Channel, and playlists are generated by focus groups several states away. Local music dried up from the radio, with a couple of exceptions. WNKU still flys the local freak flag. WOXY hops on and off the airwaves (now it's settled on HD radio, thankfully) but picks and chooses carefully it's Cincinnati connections. No air time left on the big stations for any local flavor, unless it's a local car ad.

Sometimes though, God drops a crumb from the table. Or something.

I'm getting myself depressed. Let's get back on track.

We scattered in to the studio in the wee hours. WEBN has a rarely used but very well equipped band studio - incredible monitoring system, good drums, nicer amps than what I brought in. After a running a couple of songs down we were ready. A brief chat, TV, chat some more, squeeze the website in, Twister, thanks, done!



Everyone at the station was very complimentary and seemed to really enjoy our short set. Shroom & Dave made us feel like rock stars. Eddie Fingers and Bob the Producer, two names that kept me company as I fell in love with music, both seemed to dig it a lot. Eddie said we "f**king rocked".




I wish I could get a message back to that teenager in the late 80's sitting in homeroom, miserable that his band will never be heard on WEBN. Every once in a while you get to slip in the door.

Listen to the whole show HERE

Last night we did the trumpet, trombone & violin overdubs for "Pretty Soon Now". And when I say we, I mean that Mac, Ross & Freddie played the instruments and Randy recorded them. Which really means that I sat around, did nothing, and voiced my opinion a lot while everyone else worked. Upper management here I come!


This gave me a lot of time to snap photos and sketch, of course.

We worked on the second bridge first... this part features a big horn melody that goes over some very strange diminished chord/key changes. Luckily the Mac & Ross handled it perfectly. While this was going on I wrote out the final violin melody for Freddie and he went to the second studio to practice.

After a few takes Mac suggested doing a high blast on the very last chord, which sounded extremely cool. It's always exciting to hear the fresh ideas that other artists bring to your vision. This musical apex hits right before a large "end-of-the-world" swooshy sound effect and into the final verse...


Randy used a really nice ribbon micrphone that captured the sound of the horns perfectly... I've read a dozen theories about how to record horns. Cramming a condensor mic down the bell, ribbons on the opposite side of the room... I think everything has been tried. Anyway, the sound coming through was clean and clear and really captured the dynamics of the instruments.


We hadn't written anything out for the big ride out at the end of the song, but we knew we wanted something. I grabbed some paper and scribbled out some parts and Mac spent a few minutes transposing them for their respective instruments (under the watchful eye of cardboard Marylin). This overdub turned out to be a lot of fun, key-changes notwishstanding, and I think you'll dig the final result.


While the horns were working on the bridge I wrote out some long violin chords for Freddie. First we recorded the ending coda - legato style. It took some takes to nail down... there's a few tempo changes as the song winds down but Freddie kept at it until he was comfortable with the part. He then tackled the bridge chords, and with this section he was able to relax and got it in just a few takes. This completely changed the tone of the section, adding a timbre of sadness to an otherwise positive tone. Thinking of the lyrics of this section, I think it works perfectly.

After the gents were done Randy set about mixing all these new ingredients. It turned out rather well thanks in to small part to his mad editing skills. He found an errant bum note and was quickly able to fix it, and in a little over an hour we had all the horns and violin in. We then turned our attention to the clarinet overdub done by my wife a week ago. This part goes in the first bridge, and Randy used some mixing tools to soften the sound up and give it a bit more "woodiness". it sounds fantastic. We then worked on some bowed upright (me), violin (my daughter) and cello (my wife again), mixing parts in and out as needed for the song's big ride out.

Around 11:30, after suffciently turning our ears to mush after 8 hours of mixing/recording, we called it a night. There was no way we could objectively record the vocals that were still needed.... they'll have to wait until another night.

Blat!

Dave

Last night was a hum-dinger (a phrase which has sadly fallen from grace lately) of a rehearsal. We concentrated on new songs, even though we're sitting on the best album ever made of our previous "new songs"... oh well, that's the problem with just how awesome we are.

*cough*

Anyway, we worked on "Strawberries & Beer" a bit, but not TOO much. Best to keep things loose with this song. Looking forward to hitting the MidPoint Music Festival crowd with this one.

After that I started strumming an unfinished idea I had been struggling with for a few months. Great verse... but I wasn't quite sure how to get into the chorus. Luckily, Jim, Randy & Preston liked the idea a lot and we started banging on it until we had a rough song in good shape. It's a very emotional song with lots of tension & release (much like my back, but without the lack of tension - take that editors!). After an hour of jammin' and one broken string, we were feelin' pretty good about it. It has one of my favorite lyrics for it's opening line - "I feel there's trouble brewing, I want to take a sip". I was happy with that one.

We moved on to Everybody Knows Everybody Else, a song about religious types trying to impose their faith on you. Yer either wid us or aggin' us! *sigh* Not exactly undisturbed ground, I know, but I think it's a lyric that I'm very proud of and it really sums up my journey of the last year of trying to find a rational group of adults to discuss spiritual matters with. To sum up - I haven't! But I have alienated quite a few of them.

An exhausting night of un-airconditioned fun. We talked about religion, sex, ballads of the 80's, sex, the Reds, sex... pretty normal night.

Next Sunday brings the final recording session (Allah willing) for the new album. The cover painting is done and drying in my studio/garage/crap storage area, so I'll try and get a sample of that to you soon to enjoy. We're discussing what sort of goodies to offer at our CD release party (hopefully in January) - jerseys? Comics? Bottle openers? Randy's Homemade Ketchup? Actual CDs that you can hold and listen to in your car instead of reading about on this blog?

What would you like?

Drop us a line at dave@screamingmimes.com and let us know.

Cheerios!

Dave

When I posted this last week, it posted on the time line of when I saved the first draft. So for you newcomers, you would have had to physically be looking for the post to have found it. So I'm reposting it so it appears to be a new post ... even if it truly isn't ... enjoy !


SuperDave was the second song we tracked that chilly October '05 evening. We took 8 stabs at it within an hour and I believe we settled for take 5 or 6 ... I shouldn't say "settled for" because I think what we have has a great feel to it. Again, Austin was there to make sure we were happy. The guys were pretty much set with someone else tracking us because they felt it was too much pressure for me to perform & do the tracking duties at the same time. I had done that on the first album and I'd have to agree with them that it's just too much for one person to do and expect everything to be in it's place after all is said and done. Austin would throw out his suggestions when he had them and we all took heed of his comments. As you look back on it, you always wonder if it could have been better ... after all, it was the first night of recording. But we had played Twister & Superdave SO much before, we felt comfortable after the night was over and never looked back. Jim was rock solid as well as Preston's part was pretty much the same take with very little editing done to it.

Dave & I of course have to "re-do" our parts & stack more on top of more on top of more. More is never enough :-). But I do like what we did to start out with Dave's opening guitar work. At Sonic Arts, we have a recording booth that is at the end of a 30 to 40 foot hallway/walkway into our studio space. We put Dave's little Vox amp in the booth and miked it close with a Shure SM57. And then at the other end of the hallway, we put an Audio Technica 4033 mic facing the booth. We double tracked his guitar throughout the song like this. At first, I had his close miked tracks center and then his hallway mics panned hard left and right. But after I threw my tracks into the mix ... it was just too much guitar. I fought for a while with that mix 'til Dave or Austin suggested panning Dave's work left and mine right ... and that's where it is today. Except at the beginning of the song, I have Dave's 1st guitar takes' track close mic panned left and his 2nd takes' hallway track panned right. Can you picture that ? I'm very happy with the sound of that opening ... very roomy !

For me, this was the first time Dave had asked me to take a "lead guitar" part ... so to speak, on this song. I'm REALLY not the soloing type guitar player, but Dave worked something out that fits my style and I'm comfortable playing it. Dave also tracked a lead synth keyboard matched to it that really makes the melody thick & stand out. Plus ... if you really listen hard ... probably best with headphones ... you can hear nice little keyboard parts floating around throughout the song. Dave did some tasty keyboard riffing with hints of "Super Hero" themes.

In traditional Mimes fashion, we built a pretty big vocal track ... especially the ending ... about 1:30 minutes long ... :38 seconds of it being the fade out. Lots of layered vocals, but not as much as Queen this time. Dave usually tracks his lead vocals twice ... once we have a good take settled in ... just as a backup. But while we did the second vocal track, I monitored the first take as well and Dave matched that take SO well, it just sounded right to keep them both up in the mix. Really gave the lead vocals a punch for this song.

Dave's ending vocal of "Up Up & Away" has always been a struggle for him. It just all depends on how his voice is at any given time. This night he NAILED it ..... a few times that is ... LOL ! AAaahh .... the magic of computers. I dare anyone to try and maintain that ending as long as Dave did ! What a trooper.

Dave ... you're OUR Super Hero ... even if you say you "WON'T Come to Save Us" ... you always seem to anyway :-)

Peace & Enjoy
Randy