Screaming Mimes Blog

Mixing - to combine (substances, elements, things, etc.) into one mass, collection, or assemblage, generally with a thorough blending

2009-11-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

Final mix session... we've been at it for 4 hours now. When I say "we", I mean 3/4ths of Screaming Mimes. Randy and Austin have been mixing and mixing and mixing like mad over the past several weeks trying to get everything sewn up, balanced, tweaked, equalized, compressed, maximized, edited, shredded, repaired. Jim just threw up his hands in disgust and left. Actually, he had to get a present for a certain lady friend and couldn't stay. The club downstairs is pumping out the best of the 90's dance hits, but we're upstairs trying to salvage art.

Preston is obviously thrilled by something Austin just played.

Mixing is always a tough contact sport. Lots of subjective opinions... egos at risk, feelings at stake... make my guitar louder, dammit! But it's great to hear the almost finished product come together. Austin and Randy have worked really hard and put in a ton of time to get us to the point where Jim, Preston and I can tear it all down... and they're being very good sports.

We started with "You're The Kind Of Girl", a song we started playing at the CD release for the last album back in 2008. This one was well rehearsed when we tracked it last December and for this recording we really picked up the tempo. Sounding great, just as planned.

"Open", the last song written for the album and rehearsed and recorded in just a few weeks, was next... lots of textures on this one, very different for us. Austin made some interesting decisions throughout the song.

Memories starting to blur from earlier... but we did "Got To Tell The World" and "Ohio" - no major changes there... sounding excellent.

"A Little More In Love" surprised everyone, considering it was almost tossed off the album a few months ago. The pieces really came together to give the album another texture.

Lots of discussions where had about percussion and double tracked vocals- are there too many of this type or that type between everything? This led us to taking down some vocal effects on some songs and making a few things simpler.

"World Turns Around" and "Motion" where next. We were split about "Motion" - some of us love it, some of it don't think it turned out like it could've. We'll have to let you decide I guess.

"Take Yourself For Granted" surprised me again in it's excellent, to be frank. Everytime I hear this song I fall in love with it again.

"Beating Like A Drum" went quickly, now we're chugging away on "Everybody Knows". Lots of power on this one...

I wonder how we're going to translate a few of these songs live? This album is going to be a 15 track monster.

12:01 AM, just finished "Everybody Knows". Starting an acoustic number called "A Love Song". I wrote this on February 3rd 2007 to mark a very important personal anniversary with my lovely wife. Nice to hear this one finally come to fruition... in some ways it didn't turn out at all like I thought it would. Mandolin and an odd keyboard patch add some great texture to it. Now the great debate continues... double track vocals or not?

Working on "Somebody New" now - a throwback Mimes track in the great late 90's ska tradition - or at least as close as we'll get. This song is actually related to "TV" in a lot of musical ways (ebow and key of B notwithstanding). This should be a quick mix! I hope! PRINT!

"Saddest Girl In The World" is next. We've been playing this one for a couple years, this performance is pretty solid. Vocals are too low, dagnabbit... gotta fix that. I should stop typing and pay attention now. Tamborine down, acoustic guitar up. Got rid of the Howard Dean scream, too bad so sad. PRINT!

Oh lord, final song... "It's Not Over"... 10 minutes of long, long jamming.

Randy & Austin bounced out all the files and placed them on the ftp for Yes Master in Nashville to download and begin mixing. We'll pick up the story in Nashville on Friday.

A Lil' Moron Love

2009-10-15T07:16:00.001-07:00

Had what I hope to be the final dubbing session (for me) for the new album yesterday (actually it started the night before and went into the early early morning). Randy and I started off recording a new guitar track for the song "A Little More In Love"... a nice simple song that is going to serve as a break in the middle of the album... sort of marking "side one" from "side two" on the album, if CDs and mp3s hadn't ruined that concept. I got through it in one take except for one missed chord... no, I'm not that good, it's just that simple of a song. Unfortunately I've begun thinking of the chorus in my head as "A Lil' Moron Love", which completely ruins the sweet yearning sentiments of the song.

After that we added some djembe to give the song a little more textural interest (how about that for pretensious?). I still can't pronounce the word djembe. Is the d silent? The m? Help me out here people.

A little shaker and egg added to Jim's already awesome drum track, just to give it a bit more bounce. I learned that from hip hop. Randy and I listened to the rough mix and discussed adding some vocal harmonies... I'm in love with the songs on this album but I'm exhausted from working on them... a bit out of ideas at the moment, so we agreed to let it rest for now.

Next we added a guitar melody to "Open", which hopefully is the album opener, ironically enough. Something about the title. I love the way this song starts (Jim and Preston!) and the fact that this song had a super-quick (for us) turn around time from conception to album recording (a week!) makes this super special. Often time I write a song, we arrange it, rehearse it, perform it live for a while, then it gets into the next album recording session... this was broke that mold.

I love the simplicity of the arrangement (despite my best efforts to over-complicate it), the structure, the lyrics... the verse and chorus contrast each other nicely and really support what the song is about. Everyone sings on the chorus on this song, which is a first.

We added some jingle bells and tambourine to the chorus to give the percussion a little more dynamics... and to justify my purchase of jingle bells.

After "Open" we worked on "Motion" - another one of my favs that has some fun lyrics inspired by the book "Ghost Rider" (not the crappy comic). The novel by Niel Peart documents his journey back from the depression over the loss of his wife and daughter, and a long period in his life where he couldn't "be" anywhere, but he had to keep moving (across several countries on his motorcycle). It wasn't the destination that he was seeking, it was the journey that kept him alive through that period. Great inspiring novel... despite the heavy overtones, the song that it inspired is fun, hook-filled and hopefully will connect with you when you hear it in a way that works for you.

Ever since we did the initial recording for this, I'd heard this little one-note lick in the chorus in my head... it got to the point that whenever I listened to the song in my car, I had to whistle it... compulsively. Was it worth all the effort to add this tiny miniscule lick to the track? Hell no... but it was like a shadow on the wall from an old photo that was taken down... something had to go there! No one else will care but me.

Randy was thrilled to indulge me at this late hour. Especially when I wanted to dub a worthless djembe part to the very end of the song...

So Austin from Sonic Arts has been busy mixing mixing mixing. He's knocked out four mixes as of today and they sound fantastic. I think a combination of Randy's recording skill and experience and Austin's talent and fresh perspective on the material is going to give us the most sonically compelling Screaming Mimes album yet. Austin is bringing a very different feel to the songs as an objective 5th party. This is our 3.5th (?) recording project yet, and it is great to hear the continued growth. I know our chops have improved. I hope my writing skills have lived up to the growth as well.

Can you tell I'm excited about this?

Next month we plan to master the album, with an early January release date.

Details, album art, and various promotional rah-rahhing to follow.

Dave

9/12ths through 2009

2009-09-25T18:21:00.000-07:00

Been far too long since the last blog... apologies! What the heck have we been doing all year?!?!?

We played a few shows. Good times at the Cincinnati Zoo, Great American Ball Park, and a few others...

Mostly it's been recording recording recording. We're in the middle of 15 new songs... another session or two should have them wrapped up, then mixing galore.

Preston and Randy worked on some final vocal overdubs for a few songs and I laid down a very long mandolin dub... lordy, my fingers were burning afterwards.

Some of us went to the beach, some of us went to Colonial Williamsburg, some of us went to Carmel Indiana. It's been a strange sporadic summer for Screaming Mimes... bursts of intense rehearsals and activity followed by droughts of emailing back and forth and recording sessions.

Now we have some big decisions to make... song order? Anything get cut? Album art - for that matter, album name! Where to master... where to have a CD release... should I try and play that mandolin live?

We'll try and keep you posted on our decisions... look for a very early 2010 release.

Chubs,

Dave

New Year, new album

2009-01-03T05:11:00.000-08:00

Day Two of recording the next album (tentatively titled "Got To Tell The World") went a million times better than Day One. Randy and Austin had worked diligently over the week to dispel all the technical gremlins that assaulted our Monday December 29th session, set us back up in the larger studio and the four of us collectively got our blah blahs (or ya-yas, or jitters or whatever) out. Looking back the morning after (There's Got To Be...) it's hard to believe we got as much done as we did.

Friday, January 2nd, 5:00 - Jim & Randy get together and change some drum heads and tweak some drum sounds. Getting the best drum sound and performance out of each song tonight is paramount. We also record the bass guitar to capture a tight rhythm section, but any bass mistakes can be "punched in" later - unlike the drums. What it is is what it is. It has to be a perfect performance, with all the mysterious energy and vibe Jim could muster. And he had to do it all night long on as many songs as we could track. Jim had supplemented his usual kit with some roto-toms and a piccolo snare (his big honking floor tom would be delegated to the cutting room floor). Jim worked to get a slight rattle that had appeared in one of his toms after changing the head.

By 6:00, Preston and I arrived and set up our guitars. Randy had gotten our pedals and stuff arranged and with the additional space in the bigger control room we were able to situate ourselves so we all had line-of-sight with Jim in the big isolation room. While we would hear a big loud mix of everyone playing together live, Jim would be in silence (except for his incredibly loud freaking drums).

My corner had my blue Surfcaster guitar, keyboard, microphone to do guide vocals, my Pod XT Live & eBow. Preston had his bass head, Fender Precision and 5 string fretless Music Man.

We listened to the previous sessions recordings for a moment. "You're The Kind Of Girl" had all the elements we were looking for, a definite keeper. Everyone got situated and we decided to record our newest rocker, and title song for the album, "Got To Tell The World". The first take had a couple flubs but right away we could tell the energy for this session was going to be good. Everything had a great "up" feeling. After a couple more takes we nailed it and moved on.

"Ohio" was next, a brand new song penned off of a riff that Preston & Jim had come up with during an early rehearsal. We ran through a couple of tricky parts in the song and discussed how we wanted it to end on the album. A few takes later, it was in the can.

We kept it going with "Somebody New" - a crazy metal/ska break up song that was original written for the band 4 years ago and then rewritten last year. By the second take we had it - Jim rocked it hard. This song has some fun heavy metal meets our song "TV" pieces to it. I get to do my "wah wah wonka" filter guitar sound and sing some goofy lyrics about guys who should know better.

"Motion" was next - we attempted to play along to a click track with it but it sounded very stiff and pensive, so we bagged the click. Our first take was good, but then Jim & Randy decided to switch to the piccolo snare (a much tighter and higher pitch snare drum, more of a "ping" sound). At this point we broke for a quick dinner from Shanghai Mama's - yummmmmmm...

We started up with "Motion" again and nailed it in two more takes. It had some great life and bounce to it. We did pick up a take in the middle so we could do a particular drum fill in the last verse. Should sound great! I started getting a bit emotional, because only a few months ago I had demoed the song in my basement, dreaming of how it would sound in the studio... and here it was. When Jim hit that fill with his piccolo snare - mmmmm, fresh tasty.

"Take Yourself For Granted", a mid-tempo keyboard song was next. We ran over a few things and took a swipe at it. It wasn't until midway through the first take that we got the groove going. A second take on it captured it the way we wanted it. This will definitely be an album show piece...

Since we were set up for keys, we moved to our newest song "Open". Driven by Preston and Jim, this one has quickly become a band favorite. Jim does a special technique on this one that only the most discerning listener will hear. We did a couple takes and felt really good about how it was sounding. It amazes me to think how fast this song has come around - I wrote it on 12/6, we rehearsed it on 12/9 and now we're recording it. Fastest. Turnaround. Ever.

Next we worked on "Everybody Knows", a song we've been playing out for about a year. It's nicely seasoned at this point. The first take was great, second one was better. This song will have a nice interplay of harmonies for Randy & I on the verses, with Preston on the chorus, and some fun acoustic guitar work if I can play it. Maybe we'll sprinkle a little percussion on the chorus.

We did a slightly newer song "World Turns Around" - this one has been in the mix for a year and a half as we've continually jammed and shaped it. This is a departure for us, with some more modern beats and big dynamic shifts in it. There's also some U2 jamming in there. We had a couple of false starts but then got into the groove. This one is a great showcase for Randy's tasty guitar licks, as he dons his "Edge" hat and lets the guitar fireworks take over.

A softer song (Preston's favorite) was next - "A Little More In Love". This song has a very nice melody and some great drum work by Jim using his "hot sticks" (not as dirty as they sound, they are bound reeds that give a thicker, but softer sound, than drum sticks).

After this we took a look at what we had recorded and what we had left - we had almost tracked (drums and bass) the entire album. With a few songs to go and energy reserves getting tapped, we decided to go through the remaining songs and see if we could actually do it. We made the right choice.

"Beating Like A Drum", an old favorite from the early days of the band, was next. This Randy-sung song was written in 2002 when the four of us originally got together. Jim left the band before we could actually play it (I wrote it for his style, lots of Police-like rhythms) and though we took a stab at recording it on our first album Live My Life with Tom Jansing drumming it was left on the cutting room floor. Jim had always wanted to tackle it since he re-joined the band, so we threw it in the recording mix. After two takes he nailed it - doing a fantastic job and really capturing the energy and spirit of the song.

At this point we only had one song we hadn't recorded yet, and two from Monday's session that we felt we could do better on. We started off with "Saddest Girl In The World" - a groovy rocker with a nicy funky/lazy beat. The first couple tries had some botched moments, but by the second take I felt we had it. Randy felt we could do a little better - we did one more take and he was proved right. The "bounce" was working on that one.

We re-did "Where Do You Go" next - this is one of the newest songs and one of the most challenging. It has an uptempo swampy groove that we haven't really done before - Jim is bouncing all over the toms and Preston is driving the whole song along with a hammering melody on the bass. We did two takes and they were much better than Monday's performance. Fantastic!

For our last song, at midnight, we let it all hang out and went nuts - a 10 minute jam on one riff, the album closer, with extended crazy guitar solos, drum fills, stops and starts... it was the ulimate garage band jam. All the tension, pressure, joy and inebriation was expressed in that performance - a one take, never to be repeated slam and bang job. You'll either love it, or hate it.

Well, that's it. One acoustic song will be done in the upcoming weeks for the album, and we'll begin adding guitars and vocals to the various songs. What a great night - 12 songs tracked in 8 hours. Almost Beatles-esque in our recording session. We wanted to capture a more "live" snapshot of the band and I think we got it. The new few months will tell how good this album is going to be. MVP of the night was Mr. Farmer, who never faltered despite the intense work of the session and the demands of all the different songs.

Below, enjoy my double shot of caffiene and alchohol... it does the body good!

Got To Tell The World recording begins!

2008-12-31T05:02:00.001-08:00

... at least, that's what we're thinking of calling the new album. We've got 15 songs in the hopper - some will make it, some won't. 13 of the songs have been written since the end of Tragedy Comic. One goes back to the early days of the band but wasn't successfully recorded... One popped up in the band a few years ago but was re-written. 4 or 5 of the songs were written within the past couple months... either way, it's all pretty fresh and tasty and we're hoping you'll love it.

To begin, on Monday December 29th (crisp winter's evening) Preston and I grabbed all the gear from the rehearsal studio and took it down to Sonic Arts in downtown Cincinnati. Right across the street from the Electric Banana. Jim & Randy met us down there and we all loaded in and began setting up. A few digital gremlins and a bad preamp made for a slow start but Randy worked diligently to get everything ironed out. Within a few hours we were up and running and recording a take of "Saddest Girl In The World". Sounded pretty good so far. Deciding that wasn't the best song to warm up on, we jumped into the molten lava of "You're The Kind Of Girl" - our up-up-up tempo rocker. After a few takes we talked about which was the best of the three.

Soon we startedup one of our newer songs, "Where Do You Go", a groovy swampy song with a complicated drum pattern and bass interplay. Our first pass was way too slow, so we stepped it up a bit on the next two takes. Nice!

After that we were all collectively fried... We have a bit session scheduled for later this week (Happy New Year!) and we look at getting some more done after this "warm up" night. We'll keep you posted!

You stay classy,

Dave

Screaming Mimes

Let it snow, darnit!

2008-12-08T06:37:00.000-08:00

We here at Screaming Mimes Inc. have a lot to be grateful for - good friends, cold beverages, warm rehearsal rooms... this past Thanksgiving we were able to give something back to a dearly departed friend, Katie Reider. What a great show it was... we met some new friends (Amber Nash and her magic ukulele), partied with some old friends (Emily & Whitney rocked the house!), and expressed some joy and sadness on stage with a few hundred friends. We met some members of Katie's family and shared some stories and hugs. The highlight of the night for us was leading the crowd in one of Katie's show stoppers with the help from Emily Strand, Carole Walker and Whitney Barricklow. Click the link below to check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHv8wepCoXw

Whew, what fun.

So what's next for Screaming Mimes? We have our most ambitious plans yet for 2009, and all of them involve great music music music. We've been writing & rehearsing like mad the past few months and have 14 new songs to record... some of them have some very new sounds and arrangements for us. We're playing better than ever together and want this new album to really capture the "band" sound - more live-in-the-studio recording and less overdubbing. We'll see how it goes.

For me, the most fun (so far) was last week. I was driving home on Tuesday and a verse melody burbled up from nowhere... I pulled out my cell phone and mumbled some off-the-cuff lyrics into it. A moment later, a chorus appeared... I reached for my cell phone, one hand on the wheel (don't try this at home kids) and sang that into the phone. All the next day, the verse & chorus kept circling around in my head. 7:30 PM Wednesday, I get to my studio at home and play the cell phone recording into the microphone, guitar in hand, and start working out the chords. ProTools running, I open Word and type up the lyrics - they seem to spill out from nowhere, already written, like a memory of nothing in particular but significant in ways I haven't 100% fathomed. I record a demo of it, working out rough drums and bass, some acoustic guitar & keys, and a little ornamental electric. I bounce out an mp3, email it to the rest of the band, print out lyrics and chord changes... by 10:00 I'm done. 24 hours later, near the end of band rehearsal, I play the demo again and talk about my vision for the song. Within a few minutes Jim & Preston are jamming out the verses while Randy & I split up guitar parts. Soon I'm on the keyboard, lyrics sheet in hand, and we've got the song down. A whole song, from seed to finished performance in three days. Fastest turnaround ever. Best part is, it turned out great!

It's those sorts of moments that really bring out the best of the band. Great shows with a great crowd, working up a new song that really pulls everyone together, plotting our next album... we begin recording at the end of this month, so I'll keep everyone posted along with some pics and videos. Wish us luck!

Dave
Screaming Mimes

Tribute To Katie Reider

2008-11-11T06:45:00.000-08:00

Back in May I wrote about Katie Reider fighting for her life and her influence on me. Her friends had just launched www.500kin365.org to help raise money for her medical expenses and family. Back then I believed deeply that I'd see Katie on stage again in no time once she had kicked her tumors ass. Everyone did.

A couple months later, Katie passed away. The tumor in her head she had fought against dislodged and caused serious bleeding.

Katie is survived by her partner Karen and their two children. There are still tremendous expenses and financial needs for her kids. Because of this need, Friends of Katie Reider have organized A Tribute To Katie Reider for Saturday, November 29th at The Southgate House in Newport, Ky.

This multi-band show will feature bands who loved and were influenced by Katie. You'll her some of her songs redone, and a bunch of other great music, all performed in the spirit of celebrating one of the most talented people we've ever known, along with being a great friend to everyone she met.

You can find out more about the show at www.tributetokatie.com . We hope to see you there.

Dave

I got a rock...

2008-10-31T04:35:00.000-07:00

Hey Mimes-dom - how you been?

We had our website go down for many weeks, thanks to the good folks at the now defunct cincymusic.com. Boo on them. So if you thought we had fallen and couldn't get up, you weren't wrong - internetically speaking.

After a slew of big shows this summer we Screaming Mimes regrouped and started working new material for *ta da* THE NEXT ALBUM. That's right... a new big fat CD of Mimes music for ya. I don't know when it will be recorded, mixed, pressed and in your greedy hands for injesting into your iPod, but we're pretty excited about the selection of songs we're working on. Not a stinker in the bunch (unlike that last album, with that ONE song, you know the one). Some of the tunes we've been playing out for some of this year, some we've been hiding from you.

We had a great rehearsal last week where we worked up four new songs from scratch - that felt awesome. One of them was a good old Screaming Mimes rocker... soon-to-be standard in our stage show I'm sure. One was a keyboard-based mid tempo tune that sounded like something from the 70's with a modern twist. Another song was like Dan Bern covering KT Tunstall. The last song was inspired by the new Julianna Hatfield album - I was in a "I'm going to run this chord progression into the ground" kind of mood after listening to her latest disc (which is terrific, check it out) and came up with a very cool moody rocker that everyone seems to dig.

It feels in a lot of ways that the band is hitting on all the right cylinders right now - we're very focused on refining the new material and getting it ready to record, and it sounds like a great album is in there.

A few folks have asked if we'll ever release "Behind The Mask" and the "Superdave" video in a better format than YouTube. The short answer is - YES. To expound on that, the rough plan is to put an album together of all our recorded material that didn't make it to the previous albums for whatever reason - we ran out of time, the song didn't fit the flow, or something about it bugged us, whatever. Early recordings, concert videos, etc... we'll put together a multi-disc package that will satisfy your every craving for Screaming Mimes - and then once you're hooked, you'll be begging for more. Or something.

But wait, there's a big show this weekend (Saturday, Nov 1st) that you need to get to! It's for a great cause - details below:

BIG FREAKIN' SHOW ALERT: This Saturday, Nov 1 at Jasper's in Mount Lookout Screaming Mimes joins some of Cincinnati's best bands for the Cincinnati Cares benefit show! This wonderful group raises money for Shriners Hospital, which is pivitol in helping young burn victims recover. In addition to the great all-night music, there will be an all-you-can-eat appetizer buffet, fantastic silent auction, lots of special guests... and way more cool stuff! You can't miss this show...
http://www.cincinnaticares.org:80/Events.html
Cincinnati Cares Benefit for Burns Concert & Silent Auction
for Shriners Hospital for Children in Cincinnati
Nov 1, 7:00 to Midnight
Jasper's Restaurant & Nightclub www.jaspersmtlookout.com
3187 Linwood Ave (in Mount Lookout Square)
Cincinnati, OH 45208
$15 Adult tickets, $10 in advance

Anything else? We posted a few clips from our West Chester show on YouTube - you can watch our pinch hit drummer and Campbell spawn Matt Campbell reunite with us for a song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl6oSKC18-o

Catch you on the flip side, have a great Halloween and I'll see you in the voting line on Tuesday!

Dave

C&B Golf outing for Autism 9/13/08

2008-09-02T09:42:00.000-07:00

Hey Screaming Mimes fans! Thanks for the friendly faces we saw during our cool West Chester show... really need outdoor space - HUGE! We played until the sun set and threw a whole bunch of new songs out...

Our next show is a terrific golf outing benefit for the Autism Society of Greater Cincinnati - we've done this every year and it's always a blast. You can have a fun time hanging with friends or meeting new folks, then stick around after you're done swinging for a show by us! Food, golf, beverages and music... what else do you need? Best of all, it's helping a great organization. Check out the attached flyer or go to www.chickenandbooze.com for more information. Everything is tax deductable, so if you have donations to offer that would be great as well! Let's try and beat last years $15,000 raised for the ASGC!

C&B Golf Outing benefitting The Autism Society of Greater Cincinnati
September 13th, 1:30 PM
Reeves Golf Course - 4757 Playfield Lane, Cincinnati OH 45226
$95 per golfer - registration closes soon! Sponsorships available, volunteers needed.
Find out more at www.chickenandbooze.com, or email Dean at dean@chickenandbooze.com or call 859-393-8603

Screaming Mimes concert after the scramble!

Dave, Jim, Preston & Randy
Screaming Mimes
www.screamingmimes.com

Screaming Mimes this THURSDAY in West Chester!

2008-08-27T06:31:00.000-07:00

THIS THURSDAY is biggest thing to happen to West Chester since Extreme Home Makeover - Screaming Mimes invades The Square at Union Center! Beginning at 5:30 and ending at 8:00, this FREE show features great music (of course!), great beverages & a great atmosphere to unwind after work - and you still get home in time to watch Supernanny or the DNC or whatever the heck we watch now that the Olympics are over.
We've put together a great set with a bunch of BRAND NEW songs that have never been played out before and a few oldies that we haven't performed in 3 or 4 years... along with all your Screaming Mimes favorites, like that one song... you know which one I mean.
And now, a short fact list for those who skim big paragraphs blog posts:

WHO:
Screaming Mimes
WHAT:
Extra-long Screaming Mimes concert, great outdoor atmosphere, party on with your friends!
WHERE:
The Square at Union Center
Centre Pointe Drive, West Chester, OH 45069
DIRECTIONS:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=Centre+Pointe+Drive%2C+West+Chester%2C+OH+45069
WHEN:
5:30-8:00 PM, Thursday August 28th
WHY:
Because it's free! And you really should be spending more time with your friends...

One more thing - if you haven't checked out our amazing "Superdave" video, just what the heck are you waiting for? Click on over to YouTube and check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQXdewuyjQU and let us know what you think! Thanks to everyone who helped put it together!

Dave, Randy, Preston & Jim

Screaming Mimes
http://www.screamingmimes.com

Screaming Mimes Upcoming Shows

2008-07-15T13:10:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, July 19th, Screaming Mimes take back the Fan Zone stage at Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds at 5:10 PM until around 6:30. Catch a show with your favorite band and then stay for the post-concert entertainment - a ball game! Tickets are available for as low as $7 at www.reds.com .

Also coming up, on Monday, July 28th at 8:00 PM EST Screaming Mimes return to the hallowed studios of 89.7 FM WNKU for Studio 89 - an intimate gathering of music fans, musicians, and one overwhelmed host. We'll try our best to behave this time, but you never know what will happen on live radio. Listen on air locally on 89.7 FM, online anywhere at www.wnku.org, or better yet sign up to be a part of the studio audience by clicking the link below.
http://www.wnku.org/page_wnku.asp?p=0530720
You can cheer us on, sing along, and take photos of Randy's shoes.

Still not enough Mimes? Man, your are insatiable! Well, prepare to wet your whistle at Union Square in West Chester as Screaming Mimes invade on Thursday, August 28th for their After-Hours @ The Square concert series. Music starts around 5:30 and goes until 8:00 PM. This will be a great show to take in after a day working on the grind. Find out more at http://www.westchesteroh.org/services/square.html !

Keep your calendars marked for the 3rd Annual Chicken & Booze Golf Classic, all benefitting the Autism Society of Greater Cincinnati, on Saturday, September 13th. We'll play a post-golf concert, of course! Find out more info at www.chickenandbooze.com

We really hope to see some friendly faces at some of these shows! If you haven't yet, pick up our new CD "Tragedy Comic" while your there - we'll awesome have some exclusive merchandise available AND we'll be debuting & road-testing lots of new songs - seeing which ones need air bags, better roll cages, etc.

One more thing - Monday morning a dear personal friend of ours (and incredibly talented musician) passed away - our thoughts go out to her family and friends. Katie Reider spent the last two years in a courageous battle against a rare tumor. Those lucky enough to see Katie perform or hear her music know what a loss this is. Those who managed to spend some time with her will never forget her impact on this world. Please stop by www.500kin365.org and consider donating a dollar to help pay for Katie's medical and funeral costs - in exchange you'll get 9 beautiful recordings, and you can read more about her incredible will in the face of this tragedy. We were blessed to share the stage with Katie a few times and we will always be grateful for that.

Dave, Randy, Preston & Jim

Screaming Mimes
www.screamingmimes.com

A dear friend struck down

2008-05-26T03:58:00.001-07:00

We've been lucky in this band to be in Cincinnati, surrounded by such talented friends who make us better. A little over 10 years ago I was trying to re-enter the music world after a long self-imposed "strike" from bands and performing (and an unwelcome drought in writing) and one of the first shows I went to featured Katie Reider. I was dumbstruck and spellbound by her talent. Her writing, singing & general stage presence seemed unlike anything I had ever witnessed in this town. I purchased whatever albums I could that night and was truly inspired to new levels of my own creativity.

I met her a few months later I saw her after another show and told her just that. She seemed taken aback by my rabid fandom but was gracious. After a few more run-ins (I still remember the night, climbing down from a stage as she was getting up, she complimented my on my Rickenbacker - joy!) we finally had the chance to spend some time together when a show of hers was rained out. I took her band on a tour of the facility they were going to play and we all bemoaned the fact that the weather hadn't participated. I wanted to engage her in conversation again about what a talented songwriter she is, how emotional her voice is, how her songs continue to inspire... but thankfully we kept the conversation to the friendly and mundane. A few days later she sent a signed 8x10 of her and the band - I think she knew how hard I was restraining myself to not embarrass her.

Over a year ago I first read that Katie had disbanded the band and moved to New York... only to be diagnosed with a mysterious tumor. At first I imagined that we'd go through a period a shaven Katie, perhaps some sad months where she recovered, but then she'd be up and about and taking over the music world and I'd see her on Austin City Limits or hear her on a hit movie soundtrack and think "I knew her when"... but this isn't the way it happened. Katie is fighting for her life. This tumor has taken away her left eye, her physical strength, several of her teeth, and now it has robbed her voice. A year of chemo and therapy has led to small victories and heartbreaking changes... but through everything Katie has kept blogging and letting her fans know that she is determined to live through this. I quote from her blog:

Here we go. I have since undergone 2 chemo treatments since my last blog. Each of them required at 4 day stay at the hospital. Needless to say, I am eager to get home. I am very tired but seem to be handling the second round better than the first. The reason we went ahead with round two was because my MRI scan showed the chemo was shrinking the tumor! YAHOO. The news that came shortly after that was that I have now lost vision in my left eye. They are pretty certain it is permanent. This was hard at first to accept, but I am okay and will love looking at life one eye if that is all I have! I just want to live. SO, shrink that tumor, and lose eyes site in one eye.. worth the trade off.

Why share all this with you? Because Katie's fans have launched a website to help raise money for these increasingly expensive treatments, but it won't succeed without the help of everyone. www.500kin365.org is offering a 9 song download for $1.00. The goal is to spread this donation offer around to enough people to make a serious positive impact on Katie's expenses. And you get a return give of incredible music.

Please pass this information on to as many people as you can. Fans of music, fans of life... everyone you know... anyone who might have a dollar to spare for 9 songs and a beautiful soul.

I hope and pray that a year from now we're all celebrating the good news of Katie's vibrant health... and remembering this period as a time when we knew her when.

http://www.500kin365.org

Dave

PS: As an added bonus, shoot me an email at dave@screamingmimes.com after you've donated and I'll email you my favorite "Katie-inspired" song demo from way back when...

Can I get some Summer here?

2008-05-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

Wow, long time no blog. Trust me, I'll keep the ruminations about laundry to a minimum.

Think your Mimes have been hibernating? We make the greatest CD ever, release a ton of concert videos, create a penetrating and perplexing "Behind the Mask" video, and that's it? We just abandon you? Well, sorta...

We've been busy busy busy holed up in our downtown luxury rehearsal suite working up songs for our next album - and we're pretty pumped up about it. Seven are in the hopper... if you came to our Tragedy Comic CD Release show you heard two of them... they are funky, fresh, and phat. We're using some new textures & rhythms and getting into some areas that we've never explored before, which is really thrilling. We don't know what form the next album will take, but we know it's going to be another notch in the Screaming Mimes growth chart (hmmm, that gives me a good merchandising idea!).

If you'd like to hear a few of the new tunes and sing along with some of your favorites, we've got a few shows this summer that you need to keep bookmarked.

On Saturday, July 19th we'll once again sweat upon the stage at Great American Ball Park before the Reds versus Mets game. Join us as soon as the gates open at 5:10 PM and eat some good ballpark food, then stick around for the game afterwards. Tickets start as low as $7, you can order online at http://www.reds.com.

On Thursday, August 28th we'll play in West Chester, Ohio as part of their summer concert series. We'll play a special 2 hour show starting at 6:00, so bring your friends and family and join us for a great time in the outdoors in a beautiful park. Directions & more details are coming to West Chester's website.

There may be another show or two to tell you about once the details are ironed out... in the meantime we'll continue fleshing out the new material so you'll get a sneak preview of our latest greatest at these upcoming shows. Thanks for listening/reading/and watching...

Dave
Screaming Mimes

You call this archeology?

2008-04-26T02:43:00.000-07:00

Today I pondered the significance of the laundry hamper.

As I unloaded and separated it's densely packed cotton and blended contents, I realized that I was excavating a significant record of my families activities over the past few days. There's the shirt my son wore to school on Wednesday with the hole in it that I keep telling him not to wear. There's my daughter's socks that she got grass stained as she learned to ride a bike. There's the "intimidating" schools my wife and I wore to that meeting that the school. There's my damn itchy socks that ruined my Thursday.

As I touched and sorted each piece of clothing ('round here we have a great system of sorting the main hamper into 4 sub-hampers - darks, reds, whites, lights. I can't believe it took me 20 years of doing laundry before I started using this system... I can't take credit though, the missus figured it out) memories of the week began flooding back in reverse order. Each dig into the fabric stratum revealed the goings on of the days before. Some sad, some happy... but it led to a peaceful rumination about the period and a chance to say goodbye to some of the less savory moments.

Soon they'll all be washed, dried, folded and placed back in the top of the drawer. The significance of the week's events will have been lost as their order is scrambled (and it my case the odor is removed). They'll never truly be the same again (damn pilling!) but for the most part the stresses of their use will have been cleansed and they will wait until they are once again called upon to shield us from the elements and prying eyes of civilized society.

Thus endeth the sermon on laundry.

I just hope I remember to get rid of those damn itchy socks this time.

Dave

MIMES GONE WILD

2008-03-29T08:14:00.000-07:00

SHOCKING VIDEO RELEASED!

SCREAMING MIMES EXPOSED!

TRIPLE X (size shirts) HOT HOT ACTION!!!

Okay, have I got your attention?

If you missed Screaming Mimes CD Release Concert on January 18th at The Historic Southgate House and you've been losing sleep (or even if you were there and you want to confirm that it wasn't all just an incredibly cool dream filled with great music) you can now relive the experience in the comfort of your own living space/office cube. Of course, we suggest that you really get the 'club' experience going and find an old plastic chair, spill a little beer on the floor, crack a window and turn on a heat lamp - just get all the senses activated. Maybe have a friend serve you a cold beverage every once in a while... then you'll be able to watch the following concert videos, courtesy of the fine folks at zStreetTV.com. And big thanks to Robert McCoy and everyone at Top Secret TV Productions and Alex & Billy from Mind Ignition for their video & audio recording skills, and Sonic Arts & The PPS Group for their audio & video post production awesomeness...

Screaming Mimes "Tragedy Comic" CD Release Concert Part I

INTRO - Twister - Superdave - Everything To Me - Happening - She's Waiting - Sleeping With The Emily

Screaming Mimes "Tragedy Comic" CD Release Concert Part 2

Only Love - SHE - Suddenly - More Than Ever - Pretty Soon Now

Screaming Mimes "Behind The Mask" Documentary Concert Intermission

Screaming Mimes "Tragedy Comic" CD Release Concert Part 3

You're The Kind of Girl - Wrong - Never Be Enough - Completely - I Don't Need Anything - The Girl Who Fell In Love - Everybody Knows

Screaming Mimes "Tragedy Comic" CD Release Concert Part 4

Strawberries & Beer - It's Not Me - Wedding Day - The Man On The Phone - Rex Dance - CREDITS

Ordering information for Tragedy Comic can be found by clicking here

Catch you on the flip side,

Dave

"Gather 'round lads... 'Smell The Glove' is here!"

2007-12-22T09:13:00.000-08:00

We had our Spinal Tap moment at last rehearsal.

Our new album arrived just a couple of hours before we gathered to begin refining and rehearsing for the CD release show. Luckily it went much better for us than those hapless English musicians... several boxes full of discs, no major issues, no "none more black" comments. Everything looks terrific. The printing looks really great and all the extra effort and cost that went into making this special is worth it. That moment when you first hold the final product (?) in your hands... wow. Indescribable. So I should just stop, right?

Let's backtrack and cover some recent news...

Redsfest 2008 was a blast, again. We closed the event out at Duke Energy Center and played about an hour... with a couple of surprises near the end. We got some dancers (thank you!) and some T-Shirt sales (thank you again!) and got to pull out a few surprises near the end of the show... The Big Show, from Cincinnati Clutch Hits, is a song we VERY rarely play, and of course Christmastime, our catchy-as-johnny-bench ode to the holiday season. Here's a bit of us rocking it out at Redsfest on youtube.
Big thanks to Alex and everyone from Mind Ignition for giving us such a nice mix on stage, Gapper for his musical contributions, and YOU for coming to see us!

Speaking of Christmas, if you live in the Greater TriState, tune in to Fox19 on Christmas morning at 8:45 AM and watch an exclusive live performance of "Christmastime" that we shot in their studios... Santa hats and everything!

T-Shirts? Did I forget to mention that? Available at our CD Release show on January 18th at The Southgate House... here's Jamie showing off the shirt in Atlanta:

Pretty sweet. We'll have ordering information on the t-shirts soon on screamingmimes.com.

But first, the CD. January 18th, 2008, is the official launch date of "Tragedy Comic". You will be able to order the CD before the show at www.cdbaby.com in a week or so. Friday the 18th we're having a huge, bigger than bigger, grander than grand CD release show at the historic Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky, directly across from Newport on the Levee. We're pulling out all the stops for this show - creating tons of video content, uncovering old nearly forgotten Mimes tunes, and debuting a few new tunes we've been working on that we know you're going to love. We've assembled hundreds of hours of interview footage, live clips, and special behind-the-scenes & making-of segments. In addition, after the show we'll debut our new video for "Superdave" - the song you've been begging for in a visual format. There will be cameras, great music, cold beverages and lots of Screaming Mimes merchandise for sale that night, so mark your calendars, book the babysitter, pry off the house arrest bracelet from your parole officer and get ready for one of the biggest shows in the Cincinnati music scene. If all goes as planned, we'll even have a bunch of cool surprises for you before, during and after the show...

So, back to that CD. After starting recording over two years ago on September 29th, 2005, with incalculable hours spent tracking the original full band recordings with Austin at the helm, Jim giving his all into every performance... Preston playing his fingers to the bone perfecting every bass note... staying up into the wee hours bent over my guitar on my solos and overdubs, Randy mixing and mixing and mixing while simultaneously laying in his guitar lines... all the nights of yelling at a microphone by myself in a dark room, trying like hell to get back into "that moment" when I wrote the song and trying to get something down on tape... the steady stream of "just another tweak" to the mix, driving Randy to the brink of insanity... contemplating dropping certain songs that we wondered if we'd ever be able to save in the mix... recording way more than we needed and making the "hard cuts" on certain songs... the joy of hearing the perfect balance for the first time... the final months of hearing all the tracks together, in order... going to Yes Master and adding the icing to the already decadent cake...

After all that, it's been worth it. Broken strings, stress, burned out ears, late nights... we owe our family members more than we can ever repay but the end project certainly reflects all the sacrifices and talent that went into the CD. It's eleven tracks long, with songs dating back to the recording of Live My Life (I was writing a lot during that album) to the night before our final recording session in November of 2006. I was writing a lot during this phase of the band, and all the songs were written with us in mind. This album also has our first band collaboration, along with a lyric writing adventure "in-the-round". It also represents a lot of the support we get from some amazingly talented people and the generous contributions meant that we had a lot more time and energy to concentrate on making the music great. Certainly nothing was more critical to this project than Sonic Arts Digital Services and all the time they gave us.

So to you, gentle reader, we hope to see you in January with Tragedy Comic in hand, listening and singing along, laughing at the jokes, wincing at the behind-the-scenes, and genuinely having as good a time as we've had bringing all this to you.

2008... I can't wait.

Dave

Screaming Mimes

That was PERFECT! Let's do it again...

2007-11-04T03:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (Saturday 11/3) we gathered in the impressive cavernous Midwest Studio to shoot a video Superdave. Midwest is the premiere production facility in town - huge seamless cyc, tons of lights, dressing rooms... The Camera Department supplied the HD equipment. That's right, you'll get to see our smiling faces in all their 720i 24p glory.

Scott Thompson was Director of Photography, an old friend of the band and great guy to have on a set. Always sarcastic and surly, his sense of humor and talent kept everything moving along at a brisk, easy pace. He was ably assisted by Jake and David, who were there to set lights, run the dolly, and generaly make everything look awesome.

Deb, Riann and Leann were on hand to make sure we looked good (a true challenge, that) and all the moving parts kept moving. Deb is one of the first people I met "in the business" and has always been there with great guidance and positive vibes. Producing the shoot, particularly with so many young Mimes fans in tow, was a big blessing for us. The three of them kept the atmosphere and good vibes perfectly in tune. Leann took the photos for this wonderful blog, too!

We arrived at the studio around 9:30 (as Jim says, a great time to play rock and roll). After loading in our equipment (no amps for once, thank the maker) we set up the full band in the center of the stage against the white cyc. Randy brought a CD player with a delightful high-pitched squawk everytime you hit "play" - I think I lost that frequency that day. We all placed bets on how many times we'd hear "Superdave" - I lost count around 12.

"Okay, we rolling?"

Suddenly a hundred questions run through my mind. What do I do? How should I stand? Should I sing to the camera? Into the lens? Who am I singing to? A thousand strangers? A single soul? Do I dance? Do I move my feet? Do I smile? Are my glasses sliding off? Am I sweating a ton? Does my guitar look too low? Why is the crew giggling? What am I doing here? Do I have bagel in my teeth? What are the words? Did I play the wrong chord? Can anyone tell? Will Preston use this shot when he edits? Did I just make the most ridiculous face into the camera? And so on...

The first take was the four of us, not too energenic (it was still a bit early, mind you) playing through the song and singing to the camera. No major disasters. For the second one we were a bit more animated, jumping around a bit and interacting more. I tried not to block Jim too much but I'm not sure I was successful. For the third we spaced ourselves out a bit and Scott raised the dolly up high for a slightly unusual composition. Nice! I was settling into a zone of enjoying singing to a tiny white dot in the center of the lens. (I read someplace that the best way to look into a camera is to imagine a little puppy in there. I doesn't work for music videos, I tell you). After the group stuff was done the camera zoomed in on Jim for some "drummer-only" shots and I ran off to cool down and chug some bottles of water (those big lights get really freaking hot).

Jim put on quite a performance, singing along to the words (I had no idea he knew the song so well), hamming up his drum hits, a "raising the bar" as Randy said several times. Spectacular. Scott and his crew did several angles of Jim, high up, straight on, and from down on the floor. Very cool stuff.

We (the band) took a break as Scott, Jake & David moved in the massive green screen - maybe thirty by twenty feet? It was huge, anyway. Filming us in front of this would allow Preston to put a variety of backgrounds behind us (more on this later) in the editing suite. Randy stepped up and performed the song solo in a variety of medium and tight shots. Of course, he broke a string - but quickly recovered!

Preston got set for his instrument close ups, playing through the song and singing to the camera. Very animated. It was fun to sit back and watch the band mates really "sell" the performance - most of the time on stage I've got my face jammed into a microphone and I'm singing to the audience - I rarely get a chance to look around and see what the other guys are doing.

Next I had some instrument close-ups. Nervous about screwing up a chord or botching the guitar solo (yes, I'm the only one who would ever notice - but I'd notice, dammit!) we ran through it with Scott following my fingers up and down the neck. Preston seemed really pleased with one of the guitar solo moves I made - I'm not sure what happened, but as they said in "Almost Famous", just make me look cool...

Another cool down for me while Preston did his medium shots. Then I got back in once again for dancing and prancing in front of the camera. I was beginning to get into it a bit more, forgetting the hundreds of questions from the first take and just performing. Once in a while I would lapse back many many years to that kid with a broomstick in front of the mirror singing along to songs taped of MTV. Then I'd remember that I'm an adult now, and there's a bunch of adults behind the camera wondering what the hell I'm doing. Ah, self-consiousness!

Jim came back in for some tight shots of him singing the chorus for "Superdave", once again raising the bar. These were tight formal shots of all of us singing in that Brady Bunch style. Then we pulled out some goofy glasses for the "never gonna take these glasses off" line - the only band gag. Stacked up on boxes to form a standing diamond composition for the camera, we battled glare (my regular glasses) and sang through Superdave several times, with Preston, Jim and Randy doing a bit of synchronized performing for the chorus. Of course, standing like that wear all black, we couldn't help but break into some awful versions of "Bohemian Rhapsody". Oy!

Get down to the end, we ran through a take of my close up singing the complete song. At this point the day was wearing thin and the crew restless (we'd been going for several hours at this point) I came up with the spectacular idea of shooting the individual guitar players from a high dolly shot against the white cyc. Of course, with only half an hour left of everyone's good graces, and children reaching the end of their rope, Jake and Dave quickly got the green screen struck and put away while Scott set up for the next shot. Randy, then Preston, then me (Jim had been done in the beginning of his shots earlier in the day) - and we were done!

But not quite - Caroline, Jacob & Anabelle, some of our youngest fans, joined us for a free form dance off before the cameras were turned off. What a blast to see all the kids dancing. Great ending to an amazing day.

Requisite Rock 'N' Roll hand for all my secret devil fans.

Jim loads his drums in early-morning rocker mode.

Caroline and Leann play director & star on the movie set.

"No Caroline, don't touch that button!"

The young Mimes fans rock out.

Cooling off with Leann.

Preston shoots more material for his ever-expansive & always-comprehensive Screaming Mimes documentary.

Lucky MySpace friend Riann with her favorite lead singer in Screaming Mimes.

Preston is obviously thrilled with something Randy is doing.

Are we done yet?

Big, huge, bear-hug thanks to everyone who got us through this production - Deb & Preston led the charge and got everything connected. Preston's organization & vision kept us on task. Scott's talents were irreplacable, and for him and Jake & David to give us a beautiful Saturday was beyond generous. Riann & Leann were awesome help and great to have around on a stressful day. Caroline, Jacob & Annabelle were perfect entertainment as well whenever we started feeling tired - they were inspiring. Midwest & The Camera Deparment - we owe them a big solid. Having friends like this in the industry makes us better and knowing that we can count on people for favors of this magnitude really let's us know how loved we are. We wouldn't be anywhere near super without you guys.

Biggest thanks to Preston, Randy & Jim for making me laugh and being the best comrades-in-arms a guy could have.

Let's do it again!

Dave

PS - we've got a big surprise brewing for the main part of this video. If all the stars align and we hit our deadlines we should have something spectacular to show you in a couple months. I don't want to spoil the surprise, though... you've been warned!

Yes, Master!

2007-10-19T14:38:00.000-07:00

Friday, October 19th2:17 AM
Randy and I left for Nashville Thursday evening, arriving before a horrendous thunderstorm in Nashville (just south, actually, at my friend Richard’s house). The sky was lit up on the right I-65 with mad scientist horizontal lightning. Quite beautiful, if a tad disconcerting. We stopped at Sonic on the way down for a quick bite. Grilled cheese and strawberry smoothie. Yum.

After some Rush & Yes singalongs, I plugged in my iPod and was blessed with some wonderful randomness. Paul McCartney, Police & B-52s – kind of a retro mix, but hey, that’s what my iPod picked. How can Fred Schnieder be simultaneously annoying and so charming, like a kid misbehaving at his own birthday party?

Richard and Cindy and their 4 dogs and 3 cats (that’s 31 legs) welcomed us with open arms as we evaded the storm. The wind blew their awning apart and Richard and I exchanged memories of bygone bands. Good fun, at least for me.

Tomorrow AM we go to the mastering house, Yes Master. I’ll update shortly.

8:44 AM
Beautiful wet morning here in Murfreesboro, about 25 minutes south east of Nashville. The storm blew all night and destroyed the awning on Richard’s gazebo, but all the cats & dogs are accounted for, so that’s the important thing. I was up reading for a couple of hours and Richard and I discussed work and paintings I had done that he had. Some blasts from the past… a painted called “Sin and Death” which was deemed too vile to hang by his family, “WWW” hanging in his office, and a strange one in the bathroom of a very simple kittens nursing. Did I really paint these?

11:42 AM (10:42 Nashville time)
After a quick fast food breakfast (eesh) and a couple of wrong turns we made it to Yes Master. Cindy’s dogs were quite sad to see us go. I tried to smuggle Muffin in my computer bag, but she would have none of it.

Jim DeMain from Yes Master met us at the door at 9:55 and warmly welcomed us… we quickly got to work. Within a few minutes he had an incredible mix working of “Sleeping With The Emily”. Jim is really responding to the musical choices we made over the past year, which is really rewarding. He seems to get the sound of the band. Very nice.

Randy is standing over his shoulder asking deep technical questions… like a kid asking questions in the airplane cockpit. Cute. “Joey, you ever seen a grown man naked?”

The bass is punching through the mix better than ever. The cymbals are creamier and the vocals are sitting right where they need to be. This sounds better than I could have dreamed.

12:06 PM
Jim is working on “Twister” now. I’m sending out mass emails about the show next Friday. Randy is happy. The dynamics of “Twister” are coming into focus.

“Superdave” is really growing as well. I’m going to run out of hyperbole for how good everything sounds. Imagine a large forest squeezed together in a parking lot. Jim is putting the space back in between the trees. You can listen to the individual sounds now.

Jim has brought a lot more definition to the bass on “Only Love”. What was a very chaotic chorus (lots of big guitars & vocals) is really falling into place. Jim is really enjoying this song, singing along to the chorus.

Listening to “More Than Ever”, Jim really responded to the various bells and whistles. Commented on how “there’s a lot of smiling in our music”. I couldn’t agree more.

I heard Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill” the other day on my iPod and realized how much influence it had on the structure of this song. I really wanted that chiming descending guitar sound on the choruses…

3:15 PM

Lunch at Baha Buriotos (or something like that). Really delicious. Fresh fresh fresh, particularly after two fast food meals. Veggie tacos and a beer.

Now we’re back to start on “Everything To Me”.

Quick. Now “Suddenly”. Really sounds big. Jim loves the guitar solo. ;)

“SHE” sounds great. Jim really liked the mix we brought in. Just punching up some EQ and a bit of compression.

“Happening” now. It’s all happening, as they say. Young groupies say that, I suppose. At least according to Cameron Crowe movies.

It’s nice hearing “Happening” in this context. This song was the quickest to mix so I’ve spent a lot less time analyzing it. It sounds pretty damn fresh. I don’t know if listeners respond to the song as much as we do, but I still love it. Backwards guitar solo, woo hoo!

This is where we wear (yikes) our Rush/Yes influences on our sleeves. Funny that’s how the trip started. To me those bands seem like really great teachers I had in school – very impactful influence at the time, but kind of irrelevant to me now. I still love their music and think of them with great affection, but I just don’t “live” their songs like I used to.

If you read back in the blog several months you find the post about this song where Randy and I had to write a brand new verse right before we recorded the vocals… pretty funny. Luckily it holds up really well in the context of the song.

4:40 PM
Last song. “Pretty Soon Now” Jim is rolling and got a great mix of this blended pretty quickly. I can’t believe we’re almost at the end of this audio adventure. Of course, album art needs to be finalized, ISRC codes need to be assigned, text IDs need to be written…

We’re getting close to the finale of “Pretty Soon Now”. Trumpets are building, gratuitous back vocals are vocaling, violins are tuning up… quite a thrill.

A few nights ago (Tuesday the… 16th?), after our photo session, Randy & I ran up to Sonic Arts and did a final tweak on “Pretty Soon Now”… we brought up some guitar on the chorus, remixed the guitar solo, brought down the lead vocals, and added a slight ocean sound effect at the very end, just to give it a little gentle pad. It’s significant to me… don’t know if the listener will get it though.

Didn’t I mention the photo session? Shame on me. Despite the light blogging, we’ve been quite busy with shows and rehearsing and Tuesday we all brought some various clothes and lights and took over our rehearsal building. Jason Bechtel and Jami Patton came in to shoot the proceedings.

We started in the dark vault of a beautiful empty bank. The door to the vault was about 9 feet tall – a beautiful ornate contraption of etched brass and steel. Exquisite. We put on some suits and looked alternately bad-ass or goofy at the camera. Then we moved upstairs to the same floor where we rehearse and found a rather neglected corner of the room for more of the same. Glaring, smiling, happy, sad… all in the days work of a rock star.

I’m getting off track. It’s been a long day already.

Jim is working on balancing all the elements together. Having gone through the songs one by one and created (“printed”, he calls it) individual files he is now laying them into a giant album-length timeline. From here he is bouncing around from song to song balancing out all the elements – volume, eq, etc… how do all the songs blend?

October 20 2:48 AM
Back in Ohio. A laborious drive uphill (does North seem uphill to anyone else?) after a fine dinner with some family and friends. Good company and good laughs.

Where did we leave it with Yes Master Studios? Jim made us a couple copies of the running order for us to review, with a promise of quickly addressing any changes we might have. Hopefully there will only be a few. After we thanked him profusely and said our goodbyes, Richard and I drove to a restaurant just a few minutes North of Nashville. We chatted about the past, future and present (not exactly in that order) - he is a great soul and his life is really good here. I'm jealous of everyone in this town who gets to spend time with him.

Randy and I listened to the reference disc on the way back - noticed some small things to tweak but overall it was incredibly pleasing. Richard mentioned that he'd like to take this disc back 15 years when I was very frustrated musically and show me what I would one day be a part of. I understood exactly what he meant... I think I would be very proud, and hopeful. Like I am right now.

I'm Multi-tasking!

2007-10-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

Right now Randy is editing the final vocals for "Pretty Soon Now"... pretty damn exciting. It took some doing to get into the headspace for the song... it's a letter to someone and getting the right "voice" for each verse was challenging. Lot of up & down dynamics... this song has such deep undercurrents of sadness for me beneath the happy chimey melodies.

The third take was definitely the best. I managed to sing each take pretty differently. The dynamics on the first one were pretty flat. By the second one I knew what I wanted to do. The moments of funeral-esque quiet into the massive-big-huge-angels-from-on-high started to come through.

Randy is doing some neat editing tricks - double tracking some sections of the bridge, fixing the occassional bum note (yes, it's true, I'm not perfect)...

He did his backup vocal pretty quickly too, which is cool because he hadn't sung it before. Right into the fire, baby.

Uh oh, that line sucked. Whew, there was a good take.

I should probably stop typing and pay attention.

Dave

Go Mime Yourself

2007-09-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

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

Horns of Plenty

2007-09-24T06:39:00.000-07:00

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

Trouble Brewin'? Pass me some!

2007-09-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

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

SuperDave IS super ! Again ?

2007-09-12T07:12:00.000-07:00

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

Pretty darn soon now

2007-08-30T05:14:00.000-07:00

I know I've been saying this in the blog for months, but...

We're REALLY REALLY close this time!

Last night Randy & I mixed in all the elements I'd been cooking at my studio for the past 10 months into Pretty Soon Now. When we recorded the basic track last year it was very inspiring and I spent a lot of time listening to the rough mix and coming up with ideas... some nuts, some inspired... but they were all there. Randy was very positive about what I'd recorded and we have a blast bringing the elements in, chopping some pieces off, bring some up in the mix... lots of guitars, various keyboards, and a ton of vocals. Some sections of the song completely changed course (hopefully for the better)... by the end of a long night we had a great mix going.

Somehow this song, which has been sitting on the horizon like a giant monster waiting to stomp a coastal town, has been incredibly easy to mix. We had one other one on the album - it took just a couple of quick session to get everything happening. Pretty Soon Now has the best drum sound on the album, the instruments all sound clean and clear, the vocals all blend, the bass is grooving along... it's such a relief when that happens. Other songs fight against mixing and you really have to push and squeeze to get everything audible. This one is completely flowing together.

Folks have asked what it's like in the studio... typically it's moments of great inspiration separated by vast expanses of tedium. Luckily Randy is great in the studio so those good moments happen a lot more frequently. But during the tedium I usually doodle... and sketch... I've posted some things in the past - here's some samples from the past couple sessions:

The back of Randy's head gets sketched a lot. I think I know every nook and cranny by now. Jim Sux is accurate. Ha ha!

Yes, I have a ukulele fetish. "Nudulele Reclining"?

Nothing says ROCK like vines and musical staff. This is the solo for the second half of the bridge... and look, it's the 16 voice Pretty Soon Now Choir!

So - we couldn't get the lead vocal done because the damn stupid bar downstairs started cranking up the "woo woo" music. That will have to wait another day. Besides, I need a couple days to do a final tweak on the lyrics. We're going to probably add a little violin, clarinet and some brass - hopefully we can get this all wrapped up in one session. And then we'll be done! Done, I tells ya! DONE!

Something about going to band-related activities activates the accident magnet in my car... lately every time I've left the house my car leads me directly to a major traffic snarl due to some horrible car flipping wreck. A few weeks ago there was a horrible one on the 275 bridge over the muddy Ohio River. Last night three cars had flipped and rolled and tangled up at the foot of the 471 bridge over the same murky river. Maybe it's bridges, not my car.

It's always very disconcerting slowly drifting by wrecks. Fear hangs in the air, angry cops crowd around the guilty driver while other nervous groups of drivers huddle for protection. Everyone slows and stares, breathing easy that it wasn't them. Moments like this always make me think ponder my own mortality. What would happen if I was involved in that wreck? What would my kids do? My wife? My dogs? Would the album get finished and released without me? At least I recorded that crappy scratch vocal - the album could be released, with apologies, with that vocal on it...

On the way home from the session I listened to the latest mix and pondered the work accomplished and what remained undone. I usually take some less popular streets through downtown Cincinnati to get to Pete Rose Way (ugh) that surprisingly takes me all the way along the river to my house. (It's when I don't take this route that I see wrecks.) Driving down the dim streets, with bright lights in the distance, I suddenly realized that a white trailer was sticking out several feet into the street. I swerved and narrowly missed a collision. It had no reflectors, no cones, and it looked like it had been there a while. If I hadn't seen it it would've flattened the right side of my car and surely sent me to the hospital, or worse.

I wonder if folks driving by would've looked at my crushed carcass of a car and absorbed the cautionary example. Or if they would've seen it as another absent-minded idiot on the road, a thinning of the herd.

I would like to think that they would remember to live their life to the fullest, because for all they know the end could be coming... pretty soon now.

Dave

There can't be much more... can there?

2007-08-24T05:04:00.000-07:00

This past week was busy busy for Screaming Mimes. First off we had a great time at our August 11th show at Great American Ball Park. Super kudos to those who made it - we love you and all that sweat was just for you. It was a scorcher but that didn't prevent us from tearing it up on stage. You can check out the results here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLS9-JaS5yk

Massive loads of love to Billy & Alex from Mind Ignition who slaved like dogs to give us the best monitor mix ever. I wish everyone was as talented & committed as you guys. Scott Preston showed up too armed with his camera and took some great shots.
http://www.cincyphotos.com/gallery/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=8286

After the show we stuck around for the Reds game - great time. They scored a lot of runs so my family was happy. I'm still wiping the sweat off the guitars.

Last Thursday, the 16th Randy & myself met up at the studio to work on the drum sound for Everything To Me and tweak some parts for Suddenly. I added a neat mandolin part - that's two mandolin songs on the album. Next one I'll hit four! Just don't ask me to play it live. We got the snare popping and the cymbals swishing (in a totally manly way) for Everything To Me. Huzzah!

Sunday the 19th we met up again for a marathon session for Pretty Soon Now. Unfortunately, I had spent the majority of the day bouncing out session files of my guitar parts... only to have the power go out mid-DVD burn. Very frustrating. But what are you going to do - the power was out for several blocks. I can't scribe the data on a DVD... so I threw my percussion bag together and headed to the studio, sans guitar parts.

Randy & I quickly got to work dubbing a bit of percussion on She's Waiting - some nice special touches to the verse, I think you'll like. Then we set up his tiny Octava (sp?) mic to record the ukulele. If you read this blog regularly you know about my crush on my Uke. I've been envisioning playing the album closer Pretty Soon Now on the ukulele since it was first written and today was the day to finally try it out. Suffice to say, it sounded great. I'd never played all the way through the song before so Randy was very patient with my mistakes, but the end results were fantastic.

Satisfied, we added some tamborine, djembe, and bells to various sections of the song. The drums sound so fantastic on this one - Jim really nailed it down. Preston's bass parts are a thrill. This is going to be one of the strongest things we've ever done.

Randy is out in LA for a few more days so I'm going to tweak some vocal harmonies and then we'll add in all these parts to Pretty Soon Now. After that... maybe one more session? Hopefully? Everything is pointed towards a good fall release.

Cheers Cheers Cheers!

Dave

Harmonicas & Ukuleles

2007-07-25T05:01:00.000-07:00

This has been an unusual summer so far.

For the most part I hate travelling. I've had 3 trips in the past two months. Living out of a suitcase, hating the clothes that I've packed, trying to squeeze all the liquids I'll need into a quart-sized ziplock bag... what the hell is up with that mister airport?

Planes, once so fascinating, have become Draconian endurance tests. Thankfully my wife found my iPod. I listened to a Patton Oswalt album on one flight... I was trembling with laughter the entire time - sure the other passengers thought I was having a seizure or something. Next flight I listened to The Magic Numbers album... such nice stuff. I did find myself skipping a couple of songs though... is there an album for you that you never hit the skip button? I mean, besides your Screaming Mimes album. I guess for me it's still Oranges & Lemons. There isn't a song on there that I'm never in the mood for. I'd like to add to that list...

So I got back from a short trip to Denver. I know a lot of people who rave about this state. I just didn't get it. To me it was like a scrubbier Kentucky. A few nice mountain ranges, but being without my paints it didn't do me any good. It seemed to take a hour & 20 minutes by bus to get anywhere. So-so... not impressed. Although I did enjoy seeing prairie dogs.

Last weekend we journeyed west to Brown County, Indiana - a small "artists colony" filled with little funky shops in the middle of some lush hills. 15 years ago I went there with my soon-to-be wife and a couple of bandmates. We had a great afternoon and we found a very strange music shop - I remember it was the first time I had seen a sitar in person. Unfortunately I couldn't afford the $1200 price tag for one of those, or I'd be raga-ing my butt off by now. Instead I picked up an $89 melodica - lime green, like the ones they used in music classes for grade schoolers back in the late 60's. It still makes a lovely tone. The Hooters made them infamous. I've tried to sneak it onto a Mimes album but so far it hasn't found a home.

Anyway, this time around I was greatly looking forward to finding that funky music store. Maybe the sitar hadn't sold and they'd marked it down a thousand dollars or so. Fortunately, the store was long gone, but instead I happened upon (and I do mean "happened upon" - some unseen force guided me down a tiny alley of uninviting shops and right to the front door) the Harmonica & Ukulele Store. They specialize in Bushman Ukes. As a matter of fact, I think they make the darn things right there... I'd been looking for a nicer uke ever since seeing Joe Brown play "I'll See You In My Dreams". Heck, it even goes back farther to that seen with Steve Martin & Bernadette Peters in "The Jerk" when they sing "Tonight You Belong To Me" on the beach. Sadly my little freebie ukulele couldn't really muster the proper tone (or stay in tune much) so I set out to track down a decent one. Must be big - I'm a big guy. Must be electric... never know when you might need one on stage. Must be cool looking.

So, I wandered in and starting touching all the instruments on the wall in the manner that is sure to annoy the shopkeep. My eyes gravitated towards a large cutaway model, concert tenor something, with nice pickups. I picked it up and strummed a few chords - not very good. But I really wanted one. I tried another... kinda buzzy, don't you think? Finally, on the corner of the rack, was a small pineapple shaped uke. I strummed it just to compare it to the others... what a sound! It played perfectly. Somehow my hands worked their way around the neck. But I didn't want a puny ukulele, I wanted something cool! I put it back and tried some of the other ones. After 20 minutes, I kept pulling up the small pineapple uke... it was undeniable. It was love. The store owner broke off his conversation with a local country band's saxophonist (must be one of the easiest jobs in music, like a death metal band's kazoo player) and began extolling the virtues of this particular instrument. It didn't matter - he couldn't have talked me out it if he'd offered a $50 sitar instead. The best part? It actually had a pick up hidden inside... I couldn't believe my fortune.

I've spent the last few days getting more familiar with the instrument - it is so relaxing to pull it out and strum for a while. I've written a few bits and pieces on it already and I've worked out "Tonight you Belong To Me". Still need to hit "I'll See You In My Dreams", though.

Whatever happened to Crispin Glover?

Last week Randy, Jim & I met at the studio and mixed "Suddenly" & "SHE". For "Suddenly" we added a little percussion and mixed the guitars a bit more on the chorus. A quick edit on the guitar solo and we were done. Randy pointed out that the break between the first chorus and second verse needs... something. Or needs to be edited out. Good idea. This morning I woke up early with a short melody in my head that fit perfectly. I recorded it with the mandolin and a strange whistle keyboard effect - I think it will work out nicely.

For "SHE" I wanted to totally redo my vocals. This song is a tough one to sing... it has some major interval changes in the melody and doesn't sound very good if I "over sing" it. It requires a weaker, softer approach. So I sat down in a chair as low as I could, darkened the vocal booth and closed my eyes... trying to get my voice into a more private state. After a few takes we got closer to the sound I wanted and I think we pulled off a good performance.

That leaves just a few more songs before the album is done. "Everything To Me" needs some drum-mixing... "She's Waiting" needs a little sparkle in the mix. "Pretty Soon Now", the epic album closer, needs one gigantic session in order to be finished. And then...

Next month we return to the stage at Great American Ball Park for a long afternoon show starting around 1:00. We really hope you can come out for that. Next will be MidPoint Music Fest in September. We'll be working like mad to have some great surprises for these shows and to have the album done in time for a big media/gig blitz this fall. We hope you can come out and be a part of these events... and we'll keep you posted.

For now, the uke is calling me. I must obey her plinky siren song...

Dribbling on myself...

2007-06-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

Someone asked what a dribble castle is. I can only say that if you haven't made a dribble sand castle on the beach, then you truly, truly, are missing out on one of life's great joys.
Behold!

Okay, enough languishing in my glorious memories of the beach.

Last night a little work hiccup (which is about as politely as I can translate Preston's voice mail) caused us to cancel our scheduled rehearsal, so Randy & I met and worked on "Everything To Me". As I read the latest issue of Rolling Stone with The Police on the cover (which is strange because I haven't read Rolling Stone in 3 years and this summer I've read the last three - Amy Winehouse is a gifted singer but a total trainwreck, by the way... which reminds me of a total trainwreck I dated in highschool, but that's another blog post... or a song... or-) Randy mixed away on the drums trying to breathe a little "roominess" into the sound. We had made a very big decision to use the piccolo snare on this song (a very thin, bright snare drum) and now we were regretting it a bit. Everything had a "cardboard box wrapped in rubber bands) sound to it (as I helpfully described - Randy loves it when I give helpful descriptions). We made a copy of the snare drum track and used a bunch of tricks to thicken it up - pitching it down, EQ the crap out of it, throwing in a ton of gated reverb... finally we got it down to a livelier sound.

Next I went into the booth and added a little tambourine and shaker to the song. This was fun because I'd spent a lot of vacation time thinking about this part (seriously, that's fun to me, so you shut up!). Each section was to have a different treatment - double time accents on the chorus/intro, single hits on the 4 beat of the verse, and 2 & 4 accents on the "in-between-the-chorus-&-guitar-solo" sections. Got it? Took a couple of takes, and afterwards my wrist was sore (let the jokes begin!). In the end it really loosened up the rhythm and added a little bounce to the overall mix.

At this point we brought my guitar down in the mix a bit (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!) and this lightened up the overall mid range. I played a little supplemental tom sound on the octapad. Preston's bass is just DIGGING IN on this song - sounds like one of those massive earthworm monsters from the movie Dune. Not the book Dune, the movie. *cough* Anyhoo, we played with some of the vocal balances and a few hours later we were both ready to NOT listen to the song again for a while.

I think we got it much closer to where it needs to be, which is good... a bit of deconstruction and reconstruction. I think we made progress which is good.

A few more songs, some artwork and then it's off to the presses!

Dave

Life amongst the hermit crabs...

2007-06-12T03:37:00.000-07:00

Finally made it on the old family vacation. We're down at Hilton Head Island, a place I haven't visited in 20 years. This used to be a regular summer stop for the Storm family. Strangely, not much has changed. There's a Walmart and some new development along the way, but once you cross the bridge and hit the island it's still the time capsule it was when I arrived here as a young boy.

The clouds are dissolving away now and the salty air is mixing with fresh rain. Nice smell, good for the sinuses. Yesterday we swam with a small pod of dolphins (they sneak by within an arm's length - you can watch the patch of bubbles they leave, and then rise up out of the water to catch a breath), made a huge sand castle (dribble-method, it's the only way) for a bunch of hermit crabs, marveled at the awkward grace of the cranes and penguins... the island is teaming with life that you only see in the sullen environment of the zoo. And it's just milling around you. Alligators stew in the lakes by the houses, lizards crawl up the screen doors, tree frogs crank up the jams as you navigate the pine tree forests at night. For a kid, it's fantasy land. For an adult clinging to his childhood, it's therapy.

I can hear the lolling waters as I type this. Which is pretty rare, the water is stunningly calm and warm and perfect for my 4-year old who is on her second year of swimming. The few times a wave is large enough to knock her down she laughs and takes it square in the face... which pleases me to no end. Most of the waves tickle your feet and lap lovingly at the base of your sand castle. After yesterday's fortress I've promised that we'd build a grand palace this morning. I can't tell which I enjoy more - building the castle of the horrid destruction of it by the tide. I'm so giddy down here it's all mixed up in some joyful stew.

Last night we went to see Greg Russell, the singer songwriter who has been doing his show under the big oak tree in Harbour Town for 31 years. Heck, I probably saw one of his first shows. Eek, that dates me. Anyway, he looked and sounded pretty damn good. He had his 12 string guitar and I pondered how much he inspired me at the time to pick up a guitar in a few years. The way he worked the crowd, told corny jokes, handled hecklers... I never would've acknowledged it but he might have been a big influence. I've written a bagful of children's songs that haven't seen the light of day but I bet he would think they were alright. He pitched his tapes and DVDs and CDs quite a bit more than he used to (when I first saw him he didn't have anything to sell) but it was still a good show and very sweet to see my daughter laughing at all his jokes that I used to be mesmerized with.

It got me thinking about how this place used to inspire me as a child and young adult. As a kid I kept to my own imagination quite a bit but this was one of the few places that could draw me out and get me engaged 100%. I didn't need to slather on any layers of fantasy down here - it was (is) a magical experience on it's own. Eyes wide open I'd dig in the sand, dive in the waters, and chase lizards until I would collapse, exhausted, behind a curtain/lounge chair fort I'd made in the living room. There my Star Wars figures and drawing pads awaited and I'd work out all the scenarios my hyper imagination had built up.

When I got a small Casio keyboard one year and began trying to make music on it, a beautiful young woman of Asian descent showed me "Heart And Soul". I still remember her bright red nail polish on the tiny plastic keys. I practiced those chords a lot. Then I started moving my fingers apart... C became F which became G. I wrote a song from it - "On The Beach". It was an ode to Hilton Head Island.

A couple years later, on what was to be my last trip for a couple of decades, I was officially a musician and brought my bass guitar with me. I ended up writing several great riffs and recording them on the living room stereo. Many of them became songs for the Rush/Yes/Van Halen-esque band I was in at the time. I can still play a couple of them... but they haven't aged well.

Entering college was difficult. My insecurities swept me up and it felt like 7th grade all over again - starting at the very bottom of the social barrel. Hadn't I just escaped all this crap? Luckily I had a very kind, strange English professor. I wrote a story called "Turtle Beach" about the childhood joys of Hilton Head Island... and he loved it. He said I was a good writer. I shared it with my family and they loved it too. I was the first thing I had written that anyone really seemed to take notice of (besides the jokey comics I wrote in high school skewering various teachers & students). The island was once again fertile ground for my creative exploitation.

I've brought my sketchbook down but haven't had time to do much in it (afternoon naps are taking care of that - it's been years since the afternoon nap). Hopefully today will be the day. I'm hoping for more inspiration. I've managed to clear my head quite well these first couple days. The pace of this life has taken some getting used to but I'm there. I suspect I'll be thrusting a bunch of beach songs in the key of C on you soon.

The dolphins are calling. Time to trot down to the beach and start the latest sand fortress for the hermit crabs.

Dave

Peace & Love & Randy

2007-06-01T02:06:00.000-07:00

It's getting hottt around here. Two squirrels having relations in a sock hot. Conversely, my little above ground pool is freakin' freezing. But it does offer some relief. Heat stroke to hypothermia in 40 minutes - that will clean your pores!

Wednesday the band worked up another new song... "Somebody New" - this is one that had actually bonked around a couple years ago but never really stuck. I wrote the majority of it in the same period as Completely I think... which is funny because lyrically it's the exact opposite of that song. Sometimes that happens. You follow the musical idea or theme down a rabbit hole long enough that you want to do something completely (pun intended) different next time. So that song was written in a batch with some other tunes but I was never satisfied with the chorus. Nevertheless, we banged on it a few times with a very fast shuffle beat but eventually it got shelved.
The lyrics are from the perspective of the man talking to his ex about how absolutely fabulous his new girlfriend is - all the while it's completely obvious he is still obsessed with her. We've all been there, yes? Denial, the songwriter's catnip.
A few months ago I came up with a quick little chorus without a home and realized that it was the missing stone in the path. Before the rest of the band arrived I was setting up the recording equipment and banged the elements together. I think what brought it all back is for some inexplicable reason the lyrics for the song (originally titled "The Point") where laying defiantly on the music stand. Why, I have no idea... but I quickly cobbled together the two ideas written a couple years apart and thus a song was born anew. Huzzah!
Randy & Preston and Jim walked in and we kicked back up with "Strawberries & Beer". It sounded even livelier and more confident than last time. Encouraging. The grove had a little more bounce and although I forgot most of the lyrics I was having more fun playing with the talking/rapping verses. This will be a fun song to explore as the months go on - trying different phrases and whatnot. Maybe we'll debut it tomorrow at the little acoustic show.
Next we worked on "Everybody Knows", punching up the bridge & intro. I wanted it to start off a little harder... and I think we came up with some cool stuff for the bridge.
After a couple hours of work I threw back out for consideration "Somebody New". Within a few minutes we had a good working version of it... it's a fairly simple song. Jim came up with some excellent Police-esque beat shifts for the song and I was able to bring back my old "wah" guitar sound. It feels like finding a perfectly fitting, in-style shirt in the back of your closet. Or something more manly than that. Whatever!
Jim rolled out at this point and Randy, Preston & I worked on some acoustic arrangements for Saturday's show. We may have some surprises for you - it's always interesting hearing songs that you've played a thousand times stripped down to bare acoustic arrangements.
Oh yeah... we played "Never Be Enough" for the first time in a LONG time and I had this complete out-of-body experience during the guitar solo... it was very strange. This solo has always been a tremendous challenge (I curse myself for writing it - damn you Dave!) and as the third chorus ends I always get a flash of anxiety - I have to play it perfect! Well, my hands & brain & heart went somewhere very strange and I played it pretty much spot-on... I don't know how it happened and I doubt it could happen again but for a moment there I wasn't sitting in downtown Cincinnati in our rehearsal space... I was in whatever la la land is reserved for savant-esque moments of inspiration. A rare visit, to be sure. Remember that moment in the movie "Somewhere In Time" when Christopher Reeves gets sucked back into modern day after finding the penny? No? Hmmmm... well, then think of a manly movie then and pretend I never said that.
Well, that's the haps down here. Three new songs, some big gigs coming up, and a lot of album still to mix. What's new with you?

Dave

Fruit & alcohol...

2007-05-18T04:51:00.000-07:00

Last night we set back up in the rehearsal space for the first time since our last show and jammed on some new songs. Well, first it was "Sweet Home Chicago" which is about the only I IV V blues song I know. I was on my acoustic so I had some fun bonking out an awkward solo on it. Choice!

Next we worked on a "newer" song that we started arranging several months ago. It has a very cool Dave Matthews-esque vibe and we locked into a pretty happening groove right away. I love singing and playing this song... that's a sure sign that we're onto something good. Jim started off saying "I don't remember a thing about this" and played almost perfectly through it the first time. I guess he remembered more than he thought.

After a few run throughs of that we hit a new song that I had just roughed together... the chorus bubbled up while I was working in the yard the previous Saturday. Wednesday afternoon I typed a bunch of lyrics for a non-existent verse, then early Thursday morning I laid down a quick "gotta-record-this-quickly-before-I-forget-everything" demo. That evening we were banging it out. I played the acoustic on it again which a lot of fun and really opened the song up. Randy did some sparse little melody bits on the verse and then came up with this great crunchy part for the chorus. Preston and Jim locked in a great groove and within about an hour the song was taking shape and we were working on little arrangement tweaks. This song is a lot of fun and the lyrics are about the "fantasy" of being in a rock band and touring. You'll know it when you hear it.

At the end of the night I passed around some more "test versions" of the new album for everyone to review. They had the latest mixes that Randy has been working on. About 1/4 of the album is done mixing, another 1/2 is 90% done, and there's another 1/4 that is 50% there... not a totally undoable mix. I think in a few weeks we'll have the 90% done done and then hit the last couple songs that still need a LOT of work. Hopefully they will go quickly, although our goal is to make the big album closer something really really special... and we won't settle for anything less than spectacular for the mix. I know you're getting impatient, but remember... it's all for you.

Attack of the Sci-Fi Keyboard Effect

2007-05-04T03:47:00.000-07:00

Last night Randy & I wrangled a track that we hadn't touched in several months... "Superdave". The previous mix of this, while good, had fallen from grace a little bit in the sonic light of the other songs. I felt some of the tracks where fighting for attention too much and a lot of the musical joy was being cancelled out. So we rolled up our sleeves and started making some painful decisions - "unmixing" some of the guitars & keyboards. This is akin to going into a pot of soup on the stove and removing some of the spices & vegetables you plopped in a few minutes earlier. Difficult, exacting, but ultimately, or hopefully, you have a better dish.
First we did some tricks to supplement the snare sound. Jim's drums sound best when they are at their "livest" - meaning that you let all the idiosyncracies shine. Often drums are deadened in the studios with loose heads, blankets, tape and super close micing, then brought back to life using compressors, gates, eq & reverb in the mixing stage. For Jim this approach is rarely needed. This doesn't mean that Randy doesn't work some serious alchemy to achieve a kick-ass drum sound... but it does mean that you can't always tame the bull to behave in the china shop. Such is the case with Superdave... with the wide myriad of guitar sounds in the verses, Jim's "loose hi-hat" approach meant that some of the snare impact was lost. So Randy & I spent a chunk of time sprucing up each individual snare hit so that it really punches through the hi hat and guitar sounds.
I learned long ago that most listeners only "hear" the beat & vocals of a song. While I spend countless hours laboring over carefully crafted guitar parts the average listener will never hear them. They may hear the guitar as part of the overall sound... but primarly the song is made up of beat and lyrics - to the typical fan. Of course, a Screaming Mimes fan is special, so we pay extra special attention to all the little musical spices we put in the mix - all for your advanced pallate.
After the snare stuff was done (and by that I mean my role was finished but Randy still had hours of syncing to do to the track) we moved on to the guitar intro. My vision for this has always been the classic 70's guitar hero intro... the kind of riff & sound that 13 year-old me would love to air guitar along with. We stripped away a lot of the room "effect" that we'd worked so hard on (sniffle) and cranked up the volume on it to the point of ludicrious. So wonderful! I hope you strum along when you hear it.
Next we went through the song and did the "rob Peter to pay Paul" approach to mixing... we had a balance, and every new instrument that was introduced into the song came at the sacrafice of another instrument or part... for the first pre-chorus, we took out the 12-string melody and brought up the keyboard. Second one, we reversed this. For the second verse, we took out my guitar completely and brought up the chimey 12-string part. For the bridge, we cranked up the keyboards and took out the 12-string. The guitar solo was cranked up at the expense of the rhythm guitars. And so and and so forth. All in all, we listened to the song for what seemed like a hundred times, tweaking and tweaking all the individual levels.
For the keyboard solo we wanted to bring the sound to life a little more. Randy found a spectacular effect that modulated the pitch ever so slightly... but then for the F# minor build before the final chorus we cranked up the frequency of the effect until the keyboard "warbled" wildly, like some silver laser gun out of a sci-fi movie... it struck me as the perfect reflection of the lyrics of the song... the bridge is all about Superdave versus a super villian... the solo section is guitar verses keyboard... in the climax the keyboard sounds like it's zapping the walls and bringing about the end of the world. Awesome!
The contrast between the solo section and the final chorus is incredible. These are the moments in the recording studio where the engineer really gets to show off. Randy has all the elements building and building until suddenly the scene changes to something completely different. Very dynamic and cinematic.
For the very very long ride out we wanted to add a "flying off into the sky" effect to the "up, up and away" lines. Randy's solution was to increase a large spacial reverb over the chorus of the ride out while bringing down the vocal... Superdave keeps singing, farther and farther into the clouds... is he running? Is he off to save someone else? We'll never know!
With all the guitar parts that begin popping up over the ride out, we began stepping down the volume on other instruments and vocals to clear up some sonic room. There were some real treasures buried there that are now rising to the surface, like a lingering spice. In the end an interesting effect was achieved... like the "song" was stepping away from centerstage and a heavy guitar band was taking over. I guess when you dub nine guitar parts these things happen.
We left the night drained but excited over the changes in our good friend Superdave. I can't wait to hear the latest mix...

Up up and away!

Dave

SuperDave IS super !

2007-05-03T13:39:00.000-07:00

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

Oddities & Endiness

2007-04-26T05:22:00.000-07:00

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.

This is Pat.

2007-04-07T03:04:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while something so totally cool happens that my brain just implodes for a while. Yesterday around 11 my phone at work rings...
"This is Dave."

(Growly voice, cigarettes & Jersey accent)
"This is Pat."

"Uh..."

"Pat Dinizio."

Wow. Just calling me up, no big whoop. I had contacted him earlier regarding the show we're playing with The Smithereens in a few weeks... and now I was stuttering & struggling to put together a cohesive sentence. In the span of the conversation we discussed their new album (awesome, by the way - pick it up now!), baseball history (no crazies in the game anymore)... just casual cool chit chat you'd have with someone you meet in a bar or in line to a concert. It ends with "look me up after the show" - holy sheet. Yessir, Mr. Dinizio... I'll track you down.
Okay, enough jibber jabber. I'm going to listen to "Blue Period" and try and calm my innner fan-boy down to normal operating levels...

The Beginning - Twister

2007-02-28T07:54:00.000-08:00

Twister.

This seemed to be the beginning of the second phase of Screaming Mimes for me. When we were first running through the arrangement, the excitement of hearing something NEW finally coming together was evident. I believe this was the first song I programmed into my new guitar processor, the Line 6 Pod XT. I sat in my living room with headphones on, as well as the amp setup right in front of me, so I knew what I was hearing in the phones was the same that was coming out of the amp. I wanted something "swirling" around my head ... since I didn't know what the final lyrics were at the time but knew they would be maybe a combination of the mess a Twister leaves behind or how playing the game Twister can get messy. I had a lot of fun programming this.

We knew right away that this was our next album opener, so appropriately it was the first song recorded. We wanted to handle recording differently this time around, so we called in the talents of my fellow employee at Sonic Arts, Austin Gorrigan. Austin and I spent time the night before setting everything up in our rehearsal space and checking out possible problems and getting drums sounds and line checks so that when we all got there the next night, we'd be ready to roll right out of the gate.

HA !

That was far from true ... but after about an hour of running through headphone mixes with everyone and stamping out a few fires and throwing a temper tantrum (I'm good for one every once in a while .. I'm too sensitive under pressure), we got the hard drive spinning and we were on our way. It took us a few takes to simmer down and get into a groove and I believe it was around take 4 that we had what we needed to move on.

Preston has another great tone going on with his moving bass parts. His 2 basses are very good recording axes. We've done everything from direct into the board, through various DIs. This time we miked his amp as well as took a line out of his amp head. What stuck on this song was the amp. Nice growl going on and the only processing we have on him is 2 compressors ... one for the kic drum to punch a hole in the bass and one for the bass. I made a few edits to his take but thats pretty much Preston all the way through.

Jim .... what a rock .... drummers always have the pressure on them during recording and Jim just keeps getting better and better in the studio. That's him all the way through. Need I say more.

Both Dave and my tracks always seem to be scratched afterwards ... obvious reasons for me for sure. We have been trying to keep our track cuts down on this album and I think we did here. Dave has 3 and I have 2. Dave does all his tracking at home between the hours of midnight and 3 in the morning. I do mine afterwork at Sonic Arts since I don't have a setup at home yet. Both are pretty straight forward here. I did set up a 4 x 10 stereo speaker cab using Austin's power amp to drive it. Miked 2 speakers with Shure SM57s and away we went. I sat in the control room while the amp was stationed in the big studio all cranked up. I record alone because I don't want to put anyone through what I have to do to get that one "perfect" take ;-)

As far as vocals go, pretty straight up again. Dave tries to have fun while he is in the booth ... never standing still. That's how a lot of the oddities get thrown into some songs. Thats usually how shakers & tambourines end up in there. Dave starts banging on things laying around and before you know it they find their way into the mix. There are several "hidden" sfx throughout the song ... mixed mostly for headphone listeners. But of course ... my 2 favorites have to be the whistle siren and the "Duck & Cover" voice over from those old instructional films of the '50s & '60s. Dave finds these treasures all over the place and I think we were able to use it objectively throughout. The whistle siren is that little toy mouth whistle that you blow through to make this really high pitched siren sound. We recorded it and then pitched it WAY down to sound like an old air raid siren. To our surprise ... at the end of the song, it stayed in pitch with the final chord and hit at that final stab of the song. Dave and I laughed for hours over that. Oh ... and Dave usually only takes a few runs through the song and we pick and choose his best vocal lines. Preston & I do ours when we can ... and of course nail them in 1 take ...... yea right.

Well, thats pretty much it for Twister. If the other guys have thoughts, they'll add comments to this post I'm sure. And if I think of something else, I will too.

Have fun listening !
All Things Mimes
Rando

HOLY MOLY ! Almost a YEAR ?

2007-02-13T08:24:00.000-08:00

Wow ... I can't believe I haven't taken the time to just jot down a few notes here and there to give you all a look see through someone else's eyes other than Dave. He is such a work horse ... he truly never sleeps ! Certainly the driving force behind the Mimes in all aspects. Gotta love spirits like that.

Anyway, I read my last blog posting back in March of 2006 ... so much has happened since then. Life is certainly movin' along. I was really hoping to have an album out by now ... so was everyone else I'm sure ... but life's road just hasn't aloud that to happen for us just yet. The last album took us 18 months ... we are in our 15th month with this one ... AAAaarrrgh !

Can't really pin point why either. We all have our lives to deal with ... most everyone has children under 10 except for me ... mine is in college and almost through with it at that. A sound job here, Red's games there, Butler County Fair week every year, summer vacations, rehearsals for upcoming gigs, illness, recitals, birthdays, holidaze, work & home priorities ... these things add up. And when you can only do one night a week ... two at best ... you just can only do so much. Ear fatigue sets in very quickly as well. I can't tell you how many times we'd have to go back to the drawing board and re-do something because of ear fatigue ... usually MY ears. We REALLY went into this project ready to do it too. And with our friend Austin's help, we did tracking in record time. Austin did a wonderful job with keeping us on target with performance levels and enthusiasm. So, obviously, if we did this as a living, time issues would've been different.

Well ... enough of trying to figure out the obvious. As I look back, this has been and will be absolutely the highlight of my musical career to date. Being able to do something like this with your best buds ... can't get any better than that. It certainly keeps you young ... even if it's just at heart :-)

So ... my goal for the next few weeks, is to post my views about each song from behind the mixing console. Our triumphs, our failures, our surprises, our mistakes turned golden ... whatever I can remember about recording the song, I'll do my best to paint the picture and make you feel like you were there. If not, I just hope to make it worth your time reading it.

Braving the "ICE DEATH of '07"
Randy
All Things Mime

Happy New...! Oh wait...

2007-01-26T13:46:00.000-08:00

We're three weeks into the new year? Are you freaking kidding me?

My resolution was to blog more. Oops.

Hey, have you gotten over to YouTube to check out all our concert videos lately? Why not? What's wrong with you? There's some great ones of our performance at Redsfest in December...

Last night we all met up at the studio and worked on some overdubs for More Than Ever and She's Waiting. More Than Ever needed the infamous "ohs" - all four of us did them and they sounded pretty great. We also threw in a latin feeling hand clap behind the guitar solo. Preston laid down his main chorus harmony and then he and I stood cheek to cheek and sang our vocals for She's Waiting.

Afterwards we discussed the next 12 months - we're determinded to get some new songs in the set and make this upcoming CD release one of the biggest shows ever. After that, we want to look at some alternatives for releasing our future material. Single song downloads? A live album?
What do you think?

Christmastime is Almost Here!

2006-12-07T06:17:00.000-08:00

Yes, but you can wallow in the holiday spirt by download our "Christmastime" song RIGHT NOW! It's our little gift to you. Pay it forward... and by that we mean send the link to your friends. :)

Just polished off our last gig of 2006 at Redsfest in Cincinnati. Whatta great night of music. Kicked off with our fabulous Freekbass friends, Ryan Adcock hypnotized everyone, then we sashayed aboard the stage. A very tight set with some of the highlights. The mix was pretty wonky there for the first couple songs, but eventually it came together. It was great to see so many in the crowd singing along! Thank you! Psychodots did an amazing bang-up job (great licks as always, Rob!), Kinsey Rose was angelic, Greg Mahan was spectacular, Noah Hunt had the crowd jumping, and Bronson Arroyo closed out the night with a fiery set. It was a LONG several days of setting up, stressing over sound... but in the end WELL worth it.

For now we concentrate on the second batch of songs we recorded (More Than Ever, She's Waiting, Rex Dance, I Don't Need Anything). It's the first snow here in Cincinnati and it's a good one... it should be cold enough to stay around all day. That's a good sign, when the first snow of the season actually has some oomph. I'll keep you posted as the mix progresses. In the meantime... read a book!

Mixin' it up...

2006-11-10T02:58:00.000-08:00

Last night was more of our run-of-the-mill mixing session. Randy and I tackled some tweaks on "Only Love" first. Mixing down a tamborine overdub and tweaking a few levels. "Happening" was next - a song that hasn't been touched since it's last guitar overdub (of many!). The mix came together rather quickly thanks to Randy's familiarity with the session - by applying some effects and levels from the "Suddenly" session it sounded pretty darn good out of the gate. There is a LOT of instrumentation in this song - big thick chimey guitars color most of the verses. The chorus sounds very cool, very prog rock. Randy liked the backwards-toms effect I futzed with in the middle. We played with some delay effects on the chorus and within an hour or so had a mix that sounded pretty nice.
"Twister" was next - hopefully the final tweaks on this one. It has a lot of power and we're playing close attention to it as it is (nearly) the album opener. We want it to knock your socks off.
"On The Way Back Home I Wrote A Song For You" was next - a short acoustic piece that we recorded to set the tone of the album - and then completely smash it to bits. Almost like putting "Her Majesty" at the beginning of Abby Road (if the Beatles had done that, which they didn't - but if they did it would be kinda like that... but different). It's made up of me on acoustic, Preston's fretless bass, some chimey swirly guitar by Randy, and Jim, Preston and I on tamborine, shaker, and wacking-on-a-vinyl-chair-with-a-pair-of-brushes, respectively. I hope this makes the album and works as I envision... if not, then into the dustbin it goes!
So, did you listen to the increasingly out of date but still really cool mix if Twister on our myspace page yet? Yeah? Will, go there now and listen some more!

Recording-palooza

2006-11-05T03:11:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had our mammoth final tracking session for the album. It was all-day and we accomplished WAY more than we anticipated. What a fantastic time. Wish you could've been there! Of course, you'll get to hear the results soon...

Jim & Randy had set up the drums the night before in the smaller drum booth where we hadn't recorded before. Mic-ing drums is a strange and arcane art form in which all sound engineers have opinions and none of them are "right". So much depends on the drummer, how he/she hits her drums, how in tune they are, room size, materials, mics used, mixer, engineer, alignment of the planets.

Luckily for us, Jim is an inherently good-sounding drummer, so there isn't a ton of correction to do... you just want to find the sweet spots for the mics and then accentuate a few things in the final mix (give the snare a little more snap, the cymbals a little more sizzle, etc...). We've been lucky on this record and Randy & Austin's skill has gotten us some great drum tones. This session Randy went with even less drum mics and a single overhead ribbon mic behind the kit - but just monitoring it in the studio we knew it had a LOT of power. Should be a great sound.

Preston and myself got to the studio at about the same time with our guitars. I brought along my bag of percussive goodies for an overdub of our "super secret song" later in the day. The pressure was off me for today - I just had to be there to help guide Jim & Preston through the song but none of my playing or singing would be used in the final recording. Excellent!

We spent the morning setting up our instruments, checking levels... we've been through this before so it was standard procedure. We knew we had a big workload today, but despite the pressure we were all determined to keep things light and fun. Preston periodically pulled out his video camera and taped the procedings, some less family-friendly than others.

After Jim arrived we talked about the plan for the day. Two songs HAD to be tracked (drums and main bassline, everything else to be over-dubbed later), one was a big priority, one was a bonus... and then there were a couple of "nice-to-haves". In the back of our minds I don't think anyone thought we'd get everything done.
We started with "She's Waiting", a song I wrote for Randy but I was going to sing the rough track today. Which I hadn't done since I wrote it over a year ago. Eek. The first couple takes were a little nervous as they always are, but after pushing it a bit we got a good vibe going. This song hasn't been played by the band as much as some of the others, so the material was a bit "fresh" (re: we didn't exactly have the parts nailed down)... but that was part of the nervous magic of the day.

After getting it down we moved on to "More Than Ever", complete with a new approach - cowbell click track! This is a relentless but perfect tempo click on the quarter notes that keeps us from slowing down and speeding up. Which, after the first pass, apparently we did a lot! In the crazy world of rock and roll this is sometimes called "swinging the beat" - Rolling Stones did it on just about every song of theirs. Sometimes it's just called "feel". For this time around we wanted More Than Ever to have a very steady, almost "club" vibe - pounding home those quarter notes. After a few takes we got it down... this song has always been special to me because I so vividly remember writing and recording a demo of it in two hours late one night... it's a fun, catchy, and should sound great on the record.

After a pizza break we got started on the funky disco version of I Don't Need Anything. Those of you who have copies of "Live My Life" will recognize this song, although this arrangement is totally different. We came up with this version this summer and all fell in love with it - very Bee Gees, Prince - all the bands we loved growing up. Not exactly standard Screaming Mimes rock pop material, and it's great! As we were tracking it we came up with some ideas for the vocal treatment - I can't wait for this one to be mixed. Of course, I have no idea how it's going to fit on the record!

Next came the most challenging song of the day, Pretty Soon Now. This one has been scaring the hell out of me for months. I wrote it last fall - just a very rough demo of it - but never really sat down and arranged it properly until Tuesday night this week. I know I had been avoiding it because it had to great... my own expectations for it were a little daunting. The band had jammed on it twice before but we were really unfamiliar with the song... we knew it had to be epic, emotional, dramatic... and yet still accessible and the ultimate album closer. It had to leave the listener exhausted.

Luckily this past Tuesday a small song fragment bubbled up from the past that could slip right in to the song... even the original lyric was the perfect compliment. I took this down to the home studio and added on some strange diminished chord changes, channeling The Beach Boys and ELO... from there the arrangement took shape and I began recording... and recording and recording. When it was done I had an eight minute pop song with only three distinct parts. How was this going to work?

That's where the band kicked in... building the drums like laying railroad tracks, we tackled it a section at a time. This verse we take this approach... okay, on this chorus stop then build up to this. How about this fill here? It was a totally new approach for us, but thanks to Randy's technical savy and Jim's skill we crafted a very dynamic track on which to layer all the icing and frosted flowers we want. Listening to the playback I could here strings, harps, horns... all sorts of swirling instruments. Anyone want to hire an orchestra for us on this one?
Suffice to say, I was on cloud 9 at this point. We had climbed the mountain.

Now it was time to have a little fun. We had about an hour left in the studio, so we whipped out a couple of Mimes chestnuts and let 'er rip. Thanks A Lot Mom is a song I wrote exactly 10 years ago and was a sarcastic ode to some rather oppresive moms some friends of mine had. Not mine, though - she's a gem. :) Rex Dance was written back in 1990 and was one of the first songs that Randy & Preston and I played together back when we met several years ago. We swore we'd never record the song with the band... but demand has been too much. It's Preston's wife's favorite song, after all. Will it make it on the album? Time will tell...
One more piece for the drums - a coda, if you will... Jim and I whipped out a short waltz piece that may possibly wrap up the album... or not. We'll see.
Then Jim, Preston & I gathered around the mic and knocked out an important overdub for the super secret special song that you'll find out about soon. Randy sat at the mixing controls laughing at us.

From there we tore down all the drums and equipment as fast as we good and sped off to enjoy the remains of the day with family. I was exhausted but energized from all that we accomplished and couldn't stop babbling about Pretty Soon Now. My mind hasn't stopped chugging on possible overdubs, sounds, tweaks and effects... Can't wait to get back in the studio!
Thanks for reading. Keep your fingers crossed that this album will have the same magic when you listen to it that we had in the studio yesterday. Cheers!

Hello blogger my old friend...

2006-10-27T04:58:00.000-07:00

Last night (Thursday, 10/26) Randy and I worked on a few more mixes. Everything is sounding awesome... totally.
Randy had been working on Suddenly, Superdave, Twister, SHE... got a good handle on the various parts. Suddenly may win the award for best drum sound... the snare really snaps in that one. Lots going on in that song and it's very dramatic.
Sleeping With The Emily sounds amazing so far. This was the first time we heard it with all it's parts - harmonies, all the guitars, etc... the next challenge is to strip it back down in the beginning of the song and build towards the final verse/chorus.
Only Love sounds great. We added some tamborine to the chorus just to give it a little sonic spread. The guitars are very solid. I'm actually happy with my lead vocal. Randy rocks the six string on this one.
The Super Special Surprise song was also worked on, adding a lead vocal. We'll hopefully add the addition parts at the next big band recording session and then we just have to mix! And mix and mix and mix.

I approved this message...

2006-10-06T05:05:00.000-07:00

Last night was a great rehearsal - working on some songs that aren't quite as familiar to us as the others for the new album. Great fun, in the spirit of the "old days". "She's Waiting" is a song I wrote for Randy. It has some elements of old 50's rock and roll (Teen Angel-esque?) with some very cool modern touches. Jim & Preston really tear up the bridge... I get to play some ornamental lead and Randy carries the song, which is great. I play a lot of high 12-string work and it compliments nicely what's going on - particularly the "Getting Better" chord. You'll know it when you hear it.
"I Don't Need Anything" is our 2006 Bee Gees remix. I can't wait to get this down in the studio - should be a LOT of fun.
"Pretty Soon Now" is a very personal song that has a bitter sweet message. We're looking at a pretty ambitious arrangement, perhaps some strings added on too. It might close out the album.
Finally, we worked on a brand new song called "Everybody Knows" - it has a bouncy acoustic riff and really pumps along. No way it will be done for the album... but still fun to work on some new material.

This message is paid for by the Party to re-elect Screaming Mimes.

L-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuh-ve

2006-09-29T05:59:00.000-07:00

We had a great gig at Courtyard Cafe' for our MidPoint Music Fest showcase - thanks to all the fresh faces who came out! Even Dancing Man - he never quit. Despite the lack of monitors folks say we managed to put out a good show and even got to have a little audience voting on our next-to-final song. Farmer was happy about that...

Last night we met at the studio (Sonic Arts in downtown Cincinnati!) to talk about the status of the album and dub some stuff. Preston added a space bass sound effect to the beginning of Superdave and some more vocals on a whole bunch of songs. Randy wanted me to be sure and mention that in "Only Love" he sings "lllluuuuhhhhhhve" while everyone else goes "ahhhhhhhhh"... oh, that Randy!

Jim, Preston & I got out the bag of noisemakers and added a bunch of percussion to "Suddenly" while Randy manned the controls. Lots of fun. It certainly thickened up the chorus a bunch too.

Heading into the home stretch for the next album we picked about 5 songs to take a swing at. We'll see how many can get polished and make the album. For "Live My Life" we left two on the cutting room floor. Oct. 28th is the scheduled "final tracking" day, and after that it a rush to overdub everything & mix. In a little while we hope to have a wonderful present for every Mimes fan out there... but we can't spoil the surprise just yet.

Ducks uncovered...

2006-09-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

Last night Randy & I worked on mixing "Twister" - the big album opener and long-assumed single from the upcoming album. We knew this was an important one and had to be "right". First we added a little tamborine to the chorus, just to give the high end some more definition. From there we added in some quotes from an old government "Duck & Cover" video - remember the black and white footage of children crouching under their desks in the event of a nuclear crisis? Full of great quotes: "We must be ready for a new danger... it can smash buildings, break windows all over town" etc. GREAT stuff. This was mixed in with the siren effect and really added a great emotional texturee. From there I went back behind the mic with a box of widgets and Randy and I came up with "response" sound effects for the verses - almost like poetic folley work. Listening to the lyrics we came up with various dings, shrrrps, scratches, clangs... all WAY down in the mix but again another sonic element that will pass the listener by the first couple times.
From there we started balancing the instruments more and worked on the drums. After some experimentation we found a very nice, round reverb for the snare which really gave it some "gunshot" power. The moment where the song breaks down after the guitar solo and Randy's guitar carries the riff, the snare HITS - we were high-fiving and jumping all over the studio. Sounds very powerful. I've only lived with the mix for a day but this may be the best "sounding" thing we've ever recorded.
Now I really can't wait to get to work mixing the rest of the songs... woo-hoo!

Do re me fossil...

2006-09-02T07:37:00.000-07:00

Last night was a late-night vocal session with Randy. Started around 7:30 and went until 1:00. Lots of singing, laughing, and mixing. After some pizza and a little Bengals pre-season (good for the voice!) we got to work on "Superdave", loading the guitar solo and new keyboard track I did the previous night. Randy liked my futzing on the keyboard enough to paste it all over - what was a dorky throw-away has become an important part of the song. We played with the drums sounds and mixed out some of the overwelming guitars (seemed like a fun idea at the time) and then started laying a low harmony to the chorus. Thick!
"Suddenly" was next, bringing in the new guitar solos. Randy was pleased with it, which was good. This song has really taken off the past few sessions... I'm surprised at how dynamic and engaging it's turning out. Lots of color. This will be a bear to mix... the harmonies on the chorus sound very lush.
We did harmonies for "Happening", quick and simple... just a lot of it! This is the song that needed an additional verse when we went to record the lead. Somehow during the back track I was convinced that we had an extra verse in there. 'Doh! It all sounds good and the words, despite their random assembling, tie together nicely.
"Sleeping With The Emily" was a tax on both of our voices. I hope the results sound as good as we imagine it in our heads. This song just rises above everything I've ever written.
"SHE" was a quick recording, with some additional harmonies (call and response during the last verse, big three part on the bridge) added at the last minute. Before we left Randy threw together a CD with "Superdave" & "Suddenly" on it... very exciting to be getting closer to the final product!

I could do that...

2006-09-01T03:11:00.000-07:00

Did guitar solos for two songs last night. I always put those off until the last minute. Luckily my "opportunities" for guitar solos is limited on this album. The last one it seems like every other song had 16 bars of blank space for me to fill. Big intimidating blank space, like a wall-sized chalkboard in 8th grade math. "Live My Life" was the last solo I recorded for that album and by that point I felt I had exhausted all my ideas and just let it rip... every crazy jam riff I could think off (and some I made up on the spot) went into that solo and it ended up being, by far, my favorite. Typically those solos don't work out too well for me though... I prefer a guitar solo that you can sing - that adds another level to the melodic content of the song. Dave Gregory of XTC is excellent at this. His solos on "Oranges & Lemons" are short but incredibly sweet and memorable. Weezer solos are strong and simple, little blues riffs sifted into chiming pop scales - they sound so integrated into the song that to remove the guitar solo would shatter the entire structure.
Bottom line is I like a guitar solo to be singable, along with the vocal melody, and a vitally important component of the song - not a moment when the spotlight shifts, but a break in the lyrics that is still going to give you some emotional content. The guitar solo has to carry the story another step and set it up for it's final punch... It's like a break in the dialogue in a movie, but the plot is still driven forward (think the music-only moment in Say Anything where Cusack holds the ghetto blaster over his head). How do you drive the plot forward with 8 bars and six strings?
I think "It's Not Me" is a guitar solo from the previous album that achieves this. It has a clear tone and some catchy licks and propels the song towards it's final verse. I wrote it at the same time I did the demo and it hasn't changed (unless I mess it up). It feels as much a part of the song as the lyrics!
"There You Go" was not as successful and is a good example of desperate "riffing" trying to move the emotions along... but in retrospect not entirely successful. It comes off as a bunch of wanking in the end. I tried to write/perform a solo that would appease all the fellow guitarists out there and lost sight of any sort of melody... although the sliding octave bit worked out okay.
"The Big Show" has one of my favorite solos because I had just cracked this riff from another guitarist that I love - so it's built many on that! Still, it sounds great, it's short and sweet, and it picks up the frantic energy of the song and runs with it... until dropping the ball for the breakdown (intentionally).

So... worked on "Superdave" last night. Several months ago I split the time in half for the guitar by recording a Cars-influenced keyboard solo over the second part. So something had to get the song to that point. I'd avoided this guitar solo like the plague for months... live it was a very difficult song for me to solo over - for some reason the key change and the simple vamping over the key of A really brought out the worst in the old reliable "crutch" riffs from my early days. Nothing was sticking, though... so last night it was crunch time. Little melodies had been fermenting for a while now, so I spent an hour working them out on the guitar, practicing them and making them fluid. Eventually I had an odd little intro into the guitar solo worked out by taping and sliding up the neck. I seemed a bit Belew-ish, but not nearly as accomplished! From there a chiming chord high on the neck brought me into the "trouble area" but from there I was able to do a nice high riff that led to a callous splitting bent "E" at the top of the neck. Somehow the sustain worked perfectly on the first pass... but there was still this trouble area. On the second pass I kept the structure of the first solo but played a frantic scale that I always used live in the song for the middle... it fit and I stitched the two together. Hmmm... sounds nice! Did I play that? How will it sound when it hits the keyboard solo?
Next I cracked open "Suddenly". This is a song that is very different for us - lots of heavy rhythm and jam band vibe. The guitar solo live is a real treat because I lapse into this Brian May guitar sound and just let the notes flow... my first couple of passes in the studio lacked the same vibe. That self-consciousness really overwelms when I play guitar - how will the everyone judge this? Screaming Mimes has never been a big indulgent solo band, and suddenly (pun intended) the gap in this song seemed like the Grand Canyon.
I broke the guitar solo down into three sections. The solo starts of low with lots of blues scales and popped harmonics... a rapid hit and pull riff on the E & B string... then some trusty finger tapping. Then the Queen flag really flies - harmonized scale that echos the verse melody. A strange arabian harmony (F & B over a G chord, bent?)builds the tension to the final chorus. Whew! Inspiration seemed to strike. Hopefully I'll still feel good about it when we mix.
Tonight we're doing to work on some vocal harmonys - just need to get my throat in shape. It's raining here and leaves are just beginning to fall, so I'm sure my annual cold is on it's way.
Remember to cross your arms when you hear these guitar solos for the first time, shake your head and smuggly remark "I could do that."

Can you sign this?

2006-08-24T19:39:00.000-07:00

When I was in the 4th grade I signed my first autograph.

I was Tom Sawyer in the Woodfill Elementary production of "Tom Sawyer" in Mrs. Bonds' class. Mrs. Bonds was angel. I was an extremely shy, awkward little boy and yet she saw some potential in me. After auditions I was convinced I was so bad the best I could hope for was the part of the chair. Next day in school I was shocked - the lead? What had I gotten myself into?

Rehearsals started. Scripts were mimeographed (ah, that smell!) and instantly doodled all over. I spent several days going over my highlighted lines... no idea what I was doing, but darn it I'd be prepared. My beautiful costar Nancy glowed everytime she threw the crystal doorknob... I couldn't keep my eyes off her and yet I had no idea what it was like to have a crush. I learned the songs, somehow, even though I couldn't read music or listen to the soundtrack at home... the music teacher would coax the notes out of me every other day... dress rehearsals, learning to dance together, wearing straw hats... Finally the big opening night arrived, with all the parents filling the cafeteria/theater. The musty curtain opens and everyone else sings "Hannibal Moooooooooo-sori!"... or something like that. The indelible memory from the evening is standing out at the edge of the wooden heavily varnished stage, hands in my pockets, singing "How Come" to a single spotlight at the back of the room. The musty curtain brushed against my elbows. The parents heads were encrusted in slivers of light from the spotlight, their glasses glinting in the darkness. As I reached the end of the slow ballad the crowd was sniffling, handing each other tissues, eyes soft with tears. I hung my head in sorrow and exited stage right, pushing aside the curtain... and breaking into the largest grin ever to grace my 8 year old face. Mrs. Bonds hugged me in her frilly blouse and chattering necklaces, her face damp with tears. All the time I felt like laughing out loud - ha ha, I got you all, I tricked you... it was the ultimate prank! I had convinced the entire audience to come along on this journey with me, and they had! They had bought it! They had followed me...
At the end of the night congratulations were being handed out between beaming parents and embarrassed children. My oversized raggedy costume flannels were hanging awkardly over my hands... and a couple of children in a grade below me came up with their single page folded programs and their mom's blue pen with a local bank engraved on it.
"Could you sign this for us"?
I mumbled an shocked afirmative and scribbled my name in lower case (cursive was still many challenging years away) on the cover of their program. I remember thinking what a strange sensation this was - autographs are for famous people, and I'm not famous. I'm a fourth grader in a small school in a small town.
Fast forward almost 3 decades and I signed an autograph after a recent show. A dear friend who I haven't seen in years insisted on the whole band signing her recently purchased disc. She knew us all and made us feel like rock stars for a few moments with her earnest praise. As I scribbled my name and a doodle on the cover art I had designed almost 2 years ago I thought back to that Tom Sawyer program from the late 70's and wondered if it's still in around - did some keep it or did it head to the trash heap at the end of the school year? I still have my script. Somewhere there was a hat with the entire cast's signatures on it... I'm sure it's long gone. An 8mm film of some of the big choral pieces is out there somewhere, but I only remember my dad threading it up once and yelling at me for standing in front of the camera as he panned the stage. I wasn't trying to be a camera hog, I was the lead and I was told to stand there. I don't think I'd like to see that actually, it would probably tarnish my memories of my prepubescent voice.
I ask for autographs occassionaly, but mostly only from folks I know. The Swarthy Band has entertained and thrilled me at every one of their shows, so at their CD release I made every one of them sign my CD. Our good friend Jim (the really tall guy with long blonde hair who shows up at the second half of the set and stands in the back) did the same to us at our CD release. Katie Reider was sweet enough to sign a couple of CDs that I'd been carrying around for years for me recently and then followed it up with a wonderful glossy photo in the mail. What a dear.
My autograph isn't worth the ink it was written with in the open market. But the few times I've been flattered by a request for one from a fan or friend makes an indelible memory for me that will last much much longer. And on those insecure days when I think I'm only good enough to get the part of the chair at the audition, that's a good keepsake to have.

Vacation, all I ever wanted...

2006-07-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

Well, not really. But we don't have any gigs scheduled for a while so we can concentrate on the album for a while (in between all those "life" things). We've got the ingredients for a great meal... but a lot of vocals left to do and some serious mixing. I haven't made anyone's job easier - I've been recording a lot of different guitar parts and textures for each song and it's going to be difficult to see which ones make the final cut. Maybe none!
Wrapping up an exciting month, we played the big Bronson Arroyo/Raquel Aurilia show at The Madison Theater earlier in June. What an amazing time... the crowd was really into the show and it was definitely a highlight of our live shows. After the gig we had an impromptu jam with the LA band and some of the ballplayers - singing every bad cover song we could think of. Dueting on "Our Love" with Adam Dunn is certainly something I'll never forget.
June 30th we rejoined some old friends at the newly-named Poison Room (formerly Viper Room) on a balmy Friday night. The ever-amazing Swarthy Band opened the show and completely rocked it, as always. Their songwriting, while very distinctive, never ceases so surprise me. Very dynamic and aggressive pop songs in the vein of Kinks & Who with some modern punk sensibility mixed in. Of course, they didn't do my two requests, the bastards. The Newbees where next with a fantastic set of their thick, melodic groovey tunes... they are mixing just the right touch of country into their sound but staying with the pop sound that makes their songs shine. Everyone in this band is a thrill to listen to.
We were next. I had spent the majority of the time with the previous bands trying to get Preston, Jim & Randy as drunk as possible. The AC was broken in the club so by the time we hit this stage it was as hot as a Brangelina... I began hitting "Superdave" (thanks to everyone who recognized my shirt!) and we muddle through the set list with absolutely no vocals in our monitors. All I could hear onstage was bass and a little of Randy's guitar. Everyone in the crowd said it was a great set, but I was cruising totally on memory - maybe my guitar solo was in the right key, maybe not! I think I sang all the right words...
Buckra closed it out with their awesome funk rock sound and kept the ladies dancing. Great night! Great, sweaty, steamy night.
So, back to recording. I've got a few song ideas I'm going to be fleshing out this month too, so maybe I'll have a surprise for you at some point... thought about doing a podcast with some of my song demos. What do you think?

Chicken, Booze & Sunshine

2006-05-23T15:22:00.000-07:00

The beer has finally drained from my system from the 1st Annual Chicken & Booze Golf Outing this past Saturday. What an incredible event. Special kudos (accolades, not the little chocolate bars that act like healthy snacks but are actually really bad for you) to Dean, Scott & Leann for pulling off such an incredible event. The weather was better than perfect (it gave 110%). Jim M. and Becky kept everyone stocked with booze, Michelle & Michelle & Michelle & Michelle brought it to the "Puttin' With The Chicken", & Renee & I brought our "A" game to the registration table. After that the talented and PA-rich Randy arrived and we set up under the sun on the patio... Jim & Preston came next and we got into full band mode... after my normal run through of bad Van Halen riffs, we were ready to rock.
The crowd was cheering, raffles were raffled... we raised a lot of money for the Autism Society of Greater Cincinnati... and had a few laughs.

Vocals vocals vocals...

2006-05-20T05:07:00.000-07:00

Thursday night (5-18) Randy and I met up at Sonic Arts to work on vocals. Walked in with no notion of what we might record... didn't bring lyrics or practice anything. Randy had "Everything To Me" up, so we started with that!
Randy has done a lot of guitar work on this one and it was great to hear what he'd laid down. Cool acoustic/electric combos, very interesting stuff.
"Everything To Me" was in the upper register for my voice (everytime I write something in the key of E I get into trouble) but since we'd started playing it months ago I'd gotten more comfortable. The mood of the song is this kind of desperate joy which lends itself to a higher vocal sound. The first take was pretty close but had some technical flatness... the second pass was much stronger. Randy and I chopped elements from both together to create the final version... a line here, a verse from this take... the funnest part was finally singing the "bridge" they way I'd imagined it - combine two vocal takes so that they almost overlap. Live this part comes off a bit rushed, but the recording will reflect the original vision.
"Superdave" was next. Note the lower case "dave" in the title. Very important. This song is more along the lines of some of my older material like "Wedding Day" and "Man on the Phone"... the character singing is a bit of a sad sack and is confessing to his love that he will never be the romantic hero she deserves. In my own relationship it was a big blow to my ego when I realized I had limits - I couldn't pull off the impossible and be a knight in shining armour all the time. We're only human... and though our relationships make us stronger, we'll always have our weaknesses.
This was a fun one to sing... the intentional falsetto bits at the end of each stanza used to be tough to pull off but listening to the first and second take together it was very consistent and had a nice effect. It took me a couple tries on the bridge - I wanted some power in my voice there but I'm singing some pretty rapid-fire lyrics. The best was the "up up and away" bit - we did a big series of these and picked the best and repeated them... they kind of grew more operatic was we went on. It was nice to pull this off after I choked on them so badly at the last gig... sometimes your voice just can't do it (particularly in cold air!).
"Only Love" was next, the oldest song of the bunch... I wrote this right after we finished recording "Live My Life" and it was one of the first songs we introduced to Jim when he rejoined the band. This song is very emotional and personal and has a lot of dynamics... I didn't know how far to go with the whisper/scream stuff. Don't want it to sound "over-wrought". In the end I think we found a good mix, although it took a lot of takes on the post-guitar solo breakdown... got right in there and kissed the microphone for that bit.
Randy and I had a nice discussion about lyrics and I explained some of the "Bonnie & Clyde" references.
After that Randy bounced out backing tracks to "Suddenly" & "Happening" so I can start laying my guitar bits down. I've been looking forward to these two songs because they are very different from some of our other material and I get to play guitar god on them. "Suddenly" will require some new sounds and strange approaches and "Happening" is more of a classic rock approach from my teenage years. Rock rock on!

Take me out...

2006-05-18T13:29:00.000-07:00

What an incredible weekend. We just played our show at Great American Ball Park on Saturday, May 13th - and it rocked! We got there early in the day to set up... despite forecasts of rain all day the sky was clear and a warm breeze was blowing through the ballpark. We slowly unwrapped cables and tuned guitars, all the while watching this deep bruised cloud coming in from the west. My heart sank as predictions of concert-cancelling rain started to appear accurate. We couldn't soundcheck as the drizzle started to appear. I went into Eeyore mode and sulks around the stands as the Cincinnati Reds took the field. This was one show I had been looking forward to for a long long time and now it looked like the dream was going to be whisked away.
But the 3rd inning the rain had subsided and a spring chill had taken over - not ideal but still playable conditions. What should have been a sold-out crowd at the ballpark was about 10,000 short due to the weather, but it was still a mighter crowd than we have ever played for. As the 7th inning approached, we tuned up and took the stage to introduce the crowd to Screaming Mimes with our own unique rendition of "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" and to encourage them to stick around after the game to watch the show.

We sang... the crowd cheered. Calmed nerves shredded. What was left of the sunlight began to sink over the skyline & river. As the last out approached, we stood at the ready, waiting our cue. Then... - we're off! "It's Not Me", remember all the words, here's the guitar solo, the crowd is building - bang, it's over! "Medusa's Garden", quick quick... then a new song. High up in the register... people are applauding, getting into it - it's GREAT!

The set was over in a whirlwind... George Foster came and signed "Cincinnati Clutch Hits" CDs and Raquel & Rich Aurlia showed up to support us as well. A ton of friendly faces and some new ones danced along. Mr. Red, Gapper, & the Reds Crew danced and got a big group of kids jumping right in front of the stage. Overall a dream night. Cold, but perfect in every other way. Thanks so much if you were able to stick around and watch us... I hope you liked what you heard. I know I was blessed to have such a dream come true.

Dave

Dragon!

2006-04-23T05:33:00.000-07:00

We had a great rehearsal Thursday night. April 21st, for those keeping score at home. I managed to get the laptop recording for most of it, LOT of material there... some older songs getting a new spin (a cooler version of "Bleed") and the Prince/Bee Gees version of "I Don't Need Anything"... some fresher songs that we haven't really played out ("Happening", "SHE", "Suddenly")... overall big long dynamic set. And some funny jams. This is all in preperation for our big concert at Great American Ball Park. We're going to be playing a lot longer than most of our club shows. I'm working on making sure my voice can hold out - it's been a long time since I've sung for that long! Lots of lyrics to put in the old brain bank. "Three Cheers Cincinnati" & "The Big Show" will also be debuted here as well. Yoiks!

creative spelunking

2006-04-17T03:13:00.000-07:00

It's the post-"beautiful weekend with family and now I gotta go back to work" morning. The rest of the house sleeps away the 80 degree weekend... I'm contemplating what to pack for lunch (and dinner, it's gonna be a long day) while I avoid emptying the dishwasher by typing... this. In all honesty, it's been a great 3 days of playing with the kids, connecting with the wife, and doing a lot of overdue maintenance on the house. Everything here is still so fresh... I worked on the roof and the yard and there's still parts of the lot that I haven't walked in. Probably because they're filled with brush. But still... exciting and new. Come aboard. With a grub hoe.
What's the point? Oh yes. Yesterday I was explaining to someone what the feeling of songwriting is like (for me, anyway) and compared it to a paleotologist discovering a new species. The looked at me like my head had cracked open like an egg and a chocolate donkey had sprung out. Not one to accept defeat with my ideas, I went on about how a scientist is probably digging and digging in some spot in the middle of a barren Montana wasteland, watching all the other scientists jump up and down as they discover new fossil after new fossil over and over again. Of course, the get to name it "Heyjulieasaurs" and "Circlingthesunatops" and it will last forever in the cannon of great melodic discoveries. Meanwhile our intrepid scientist keeps digging in the hot sun, drinking tepid water from a dirty bottle, wiping the dirt off weird rocks with a shaving brush. Then one day, he finds a strange tooth... then part of the spine... a hip bone, a skull... Eureka! He fits all the pieces together as best he can (sometimes the fossil record is incomplete and he has to guess a bit) and ta-da! A Sleepingwiththeemily Rex!
At this point the listener blinked a few times and went over to the veggie tray.
I sure can thrill them with my bizarre analogies. Anywoo, that's the feeling. Music writing is more the thrill of discovery than inventing. As a visual artist I'm additive (adding layers and layers of paint on the canvas until it's "done"), as a musician I'm subtractive (taking away all the tonal and melodic possibilities until you've discovered the perfect core melody and arrangement). As a lyricist I depend too much on a rhyming dictionary. As a bloggist I've got to go make a cheese sandwich for later. Or maybe I'll indugle myself in some ravioli? What would the scientist in the desert do?

Dave

Made it!

2006-04-05T03:40:00.000-07:00

Made it through my busiest day of the year... it was a stress, but thankfully all behind me now.

My wife and I set up my studio again - 8 months after the move. She was insistent. I wasn't sure, but now that it's back up it's weird that it wasn't here at all. I've been adding some keyboard twinkles onto a few songs and look forward to writing again after a 3 month drought. It happens from time to time, but it's never less un-nerving. Got a few ideas stashed in my phone's memory for new songs.

Preston & Randy worked on bass parts last week for a bunch of songs - doubling up a few bits here and their (fretted & fretless meet!). I've got "Everything To Me" & "Only Love" to work on. Randy always changes the spelling into this weird Prince/Comic Book mash up on file names, so it becomes "Everything2ME" and OnlyLUV" or something. Gotta save space with those file names where you can, I guess. Heh.

Hopefully we can do vocals for "Twister", "Superdave" & "Sleeping With The Emily" next week, as we're going to submit them for our Midpoint Music Fest entries.

That's all for now! You stay classy, blog reader!

Dave

I get by...

2006-03-11T04:43:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while it hits me like a ton of bricks... we have so many people who have stepped up and helped the Mimes a success. Taking stock of all the great friends and tremendous support they give us is truly staggering. That's the greatest confirmation that we're doing something right - folks out there want to help us.
First and foremost is Sonic Arts - not only do they employ our premiere guitarist/vocalist/producer Randy, but they have generously opened their doors to us since our earliest demos back in 2002, before we were much more than a loosely rehearsed group of friends. As we step deep into this next record and back into their hallowed halls I know the pressure is on to respect their gift and make a damn good record. Enough credit cannot be given to them. Austin, in particular, has stood out lately by selflessly engineering and mixing his heart out, guiding us along the path of getting that elusive "best take".
Secondly, the Cincinnat Reds & Diamond Properties have, at alternate points, provided rehearsal space for a band with sporadic and demanding needs. Secure, private, space to be creative and spread cables across the floor. We're so in love with Diamond Properties we're tracking the drums and bass in the room - a former lawyer's office with a receptionist desk that makes the perfect mixing room. Even the bass amp has it's own office. Without this, we'd be homeless!
The Cincinnati Reds get extra props for employing all the members of the bands in a variety of roles. For me, it's my full-time job and passion. Beyond that, after our performance at the park in 2003 we're coming back to the newly opened "Late Night Concert Series" on May 13th. Very much looking forward to that.
PPS has been a great supporter as well, sponsoring us at various time and helping with our video needs. They rawk!
On the media front, we've found no better support than the wonderful folks at WNKU - everyone at the station has been incredible and treated us like hip royalty. From Homegrown Music, Studio 89, and all the plugs and in-studio appearances they have taken us from unknowns to a respected band in Cincinnati and beyond. www.WOXY.com, WAIF and others have been big Mimes backers as well. WXIX & WKRC have broadcast Mimes performances - thank you! Local mags such as Citybeat, CinWeekly, Enquirer and Post have all written generously about us and we love reading about ourselves. Websites such as www.I-See-Sound.com, www.cincymusic.com, myspace have helped us reach a much bigger fanbase then was possible just 5 years ago. All the incredible clubs we've played at have treated us with respect and honor us the most by inviting us back again and again.
There is no one who sacrifices more for us to live as rockers than our families. Our kids and spouses continually put up with long rehearsals, late night gigs and smoke-smelling clothes in order for the band to live. And they still embrace us. We wouldn't be anything without them.
Suffice to say, there are hundreds of others that contribute to Screaming Mimes beyond the 4 guys in the band and any leaps we make is shared with them. These folks don't take anything in return, they just want to help. What did we do to deserve this?
Finally, no one gets more credit than you, the fan who likes our music. If you've come to a show, purchased an album, listened to us online or on the radio, or told a friend about us, then we owe you big time. Without your ears there really isn't a point to any of this and the fact that you're receptive to the noise we're making is the validation that makes us work harder and harder to make better and better noise each time. Thank you. Check back often... we think you'll love what we're cooking up next.

- Dave

Mimes Memories

2006-03-08T13:07:00.000-08:00

Do you ever wonder if what you do, no matter what it is, touches others heart, mind or soul. What a great way to start Hump Day. Walking into work this morning, one of our clients (he also works in the same building as me) caught up with me on the street and wouldn't let me go until he passed on this story he had. As you all well know, the Mimes recorded a couple songs for an upcoming Cincinnati Reds Community Fund album. During the time we were recording, my client begged me to hear one of the tracks we were recording at the time. We had a good enough mix going that I felt comfortable enough with sending him an mp3 ... as well as feeling comfortable enough with him that he wouldn't be sending it all over the world as well. He LOVED it. However, along the way, he was talking with a fellow Reds fan who lives out of town now ... not about anything really, just surface talk, when he brought up the Mimes and how much he liked this song we did for the Reds album. Of course ... his friend begged him to hear it and he broke down and sent it to him.

Last week, his friends' Grandmother passed away, which they was very close to each other. They had a common bond with the fact they were both Reds fans. Feeling sad, he turned on his computer to listen to some music to drown his sorrow and our song came on. He began to smile as the song went through the history of the Reds and it brought back memories of his time with his Grandmother. As he would visit her on the weekends, they would sit on the porch together and listen to Marty & Joe on the radio and talk baseball. In just a few short days, our song has brought someone comfort and joy during a time that usually is very somber. His friend can't wait for the album to come out to hear what else it will bring him.

As I talked with my friend about writing this story on our blog site and that I wanted to get the facts right, it reminded me about my own Grandmother and how much she was a Reds fan as well. And how we would sit in the breezeway of her home and do exactly the same thing. We would be breaking up green beans that were fresh out of the garden or shucking corn ... we would never just sit there and listen to the game. But I remember she never made it feel like we were working. I can still smell that breezeway ... I can still see her clearly, with her apron and her hosery that only went up to her knees and her hair in a bun. And if the Reds would lose, she would always say "Oh ... those poor Reds." ... meaning she was just sad they had lost. Any time any one of the players would do poorly, it was the same - "Oh ... poor Tony or Pete or Johnny" ... who ever it was. And as we would leave for the night, she would either be standing at the breezeway railing or barely looking out the kitchen window (she was only 4' 10") ... and she would wave goodbye. Man I miss her. I miss those times. I LOVED sitting with her and talking about her lifetime. There is nothing like the love of a Grandmother. My Son has a relationship with his Grandmother like I had with mine ... only better. Though he does have memories of his Great-Grandmother, my Mother has been a MAJOR influence in his life. He wouldn't be the fine young man that he is today, if it hadn't been for her being there for him as much as she was. Though his time with his Grandfather was short, he still has great memories of him as well ... and thanks to video tape, he is able to preserve them.

My friends' story touched me deeply today. The long hours that we all put into this music ... seems to be worth it when you hear stories like this. The power of music never fails to amaze me.

I hope this brought a smile ... a memory ... maybe even a tear or 2.

peace
Randy (Your Favorite Mime)

Beautiful Day

2006-03-05T06:29:00.000-08:00

Gorgeous morning in Cincinnati. A bit chilly, but you can sense that Spring is banging down the door of the Ohio Valley winter. We've had very very little snow. Too bad. I love snow... everyone else in town hates it. It covers our yards and houses and streets and cars and makes us all the same little Eskimos huddled in our igloos. Everything is still and everyone is the same - no farking status symbol is left uncovered. The lack of reverberating sound during a good snowfall is... well, it gives you same feeling of being in the deep woods and not hearing car engines. Startling at first, then very very real.

Anyway, it's sunny. I spent a few days on the west coast in LA and then went to Florida and dipped my feet in the February gulf waters. Pretty cool feeling. I don't travel much and it was nice to hit both coasts... I need to get off this continent someday. When it's right.

We're back to work on our new collection of songs after a period of working on a couple of songs for the Cincinnati Reds. We need to finish a few of them to submit for the MidPoint Music Festival, which we're pumped about. Always a great time. We're scheduled to perform at Great American Ball Park in May, other than that it's studio studio studio. Thanks to everyone who made our last few shows a big success... Southgate House was a BLAST - nice new sound system and the best monitor mix in town.

I had a dream last night that I was working on a song and the guitar sounded awful and it was way too fast and we were out of time - we had to release the record. It sucked. Part of the challenge of recording is accepting nothing less than your absolute best. And sometimes it isn't possible. Records aren't released, they escape, eh?

Read this morning that the passage of time is a mistake by our nervous system. Time doesn't pass, it "is" and we pass through it. Now my brain hurts.

Just checked out our stats on Rhapsody, the online music store. "Wedding Day" was downloaded 26 times recently. I wonder if folks are looking for good songs for their wedding and stumbling upon that one. Heh heh... sorry about that. I love iTunes - a lot... but the most fascinating thing is seeing what else people are buying who buy our songs. Carbon Leaf? Zapp & Roger? Idlewild? Who are these bands? Well, I'm sure they're asking the same question about us!

Love ya mean it. We'll keep you posted on all the doings in Mimeville.

Dave

75 Degrees

2006-02-23T12:05:00.000-08:00

Greetings from the sunny land of oranges and sunglasses. I'm down here in Spring Training camp for the Cincinnati Reds. Lots of fun. Been listening to the reference master for the Reds CD - sounds GREAT! You folks will love it, I'm sure. Our tracks sound excellent (thanks to Randy & Austin) and all the songs are incredible.
We did our last show for a while at Southgate House on Friday the 17th. Great great fun. The Chicken And Booze crew was there singing a long and dancing and cheering for The Newbees (what!). Lots of old friends and many new ones. We had a lot of fun dancing on the big stage and the sound through the monitors was the best mix EVER. Every vocal came through really strong. A few Fosters later I was having a great time... even did some okay solos. After not playing as a full band in such a long time it was great to shake off the cobwebs and have some fun.
Next week we'll hopefully get some more work done on the new songs. Twister and Sleeping With The Emily are two priorities - heck, it's all a priority! I've got some weird ideas for Emily... can't wait to get started.

Cheers!

Dave

TGI F_IDAYS!

2006-01-28T03:54:00.000-08:00

Wednesday we had our first show in a while. A benefit organized by our good friend Mike Sparke to raise money for Dystonia research. GREAT turnout. We entertained acoustically (minus Jim, who gets nervous without his bass drum) and played a couple of new tunes for the crowd. I had guitar problems so all my majestically rehearsed guitar solos went in the trash. Sorry to all my rabid fans who were looking for me rip it up on the Elvis guitar. I owe you one.
It was nice to play for such a friendly crowd and by the end everyone seemed to really be getting into it. We played "I Don't Need Anything" which we haven't done in 2 years! Yowza.
Before the show, early in the AM I was on Fox19 to promote the event and played "Wedding Day". Tried to cut it down for time and ended up flubbing a line. I don't think anyone noticed besides you. Now the secret is out. They are very supportive down there at the station and we'll probably be back in the near future.
The Reds project is picking up steam... we're finalizing artwork, lineup... all the tracks submitted have been incredible.
Once these Reds tracks are done we'll work on finishing two tracks to submit for MidPoint Music Fest and start recording again. We've also got a big show coming up at the Southgate House in February. I'm off to LA this week to soak up some sun.
Cheers!

Dave

Meedlee meedlee meedlee MEEEEEEEEEE!

2006-01-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

That's the sound of doing guitar solo over and over and over and over... and over.

Saturday (1-7-06) I worked on my guitar parts in front of the fireplace. A nice setting. Switched between four guitars. My main Rickenbacker 330, my 12 string Rickenbacker 330, my Miller Lite Fender (thanks Jennifer!) and my Surfcaster. Each guitar has a nice unique character and I tried to apply it to every part. The Surfaster has a very "sharp" sound so I saved it for a lot of rapid accents (The Big Show) and guitar solos - it cuts through nicely. The Rickenbacker is thick and creamy, so it did the majority of the rhythm on "Three Cheers Cincinnati" - big crunching chords with lots of space. The Fender added some spice in little solo bits here and there. The 12 string hit the bridges and chorus with it's distinctive chime. I started using the POD first then switched to the PODXT to get my custom "Dave tone" that I use. Found a nice Tremelo effect and some other noises for "The Big Show". Pulled out the keys and added some quiet chords to both songs (I hate searching for synth tones) and frantically banged out a piano part on "The Big Show".

Now I've done the shopping and brought the groceries to Randy - it's up to him to chop it and throw it in the stew the way he likes. :)

Dave

Like the morning dew hanging off a cantalope...

2006-01-05T20:46:00.000-08:00

WOW! What a night... exhausting in all the right ways. We managed to twist Austin's arm with the promise of a group photo and some extra "Mimes Bucks" (it's like real money, except it's not worth anything) to work the boards while we slammed through "Three Cheers, Cincinnati" & "The Big Show". It was AWESOME. After scrambling to get set up we did Three Cheers three or four times. Each take got better - by the last one it had the right mix of energy, command and danger... Jim described it as going up an old wooden roller coaster. After going backwards on the Racer we tackled "The Big Show" - which led to some frustration. But after a break we nailed it - it's going to sound incredible. Both tracks have a freshness and excitement that I think will really carry through to the final recording. I'm on my third draft of the Three Cheers lyrics, probably one more pass to go before it's done done done. That's after Jim's initial outline... wow, never spent so much on the words! We're working hard to make sure the emotion is strong in what amounts to a history lesson and cheer. Pulling the listener in by starting it with "imagine", inviting them to remember a time long ago... it's a challenge.
Both songs are different but have a very "us" kind of sound - good guitar based rock and roll. We'll add some harmonies to both songs - should be excellent.
Three cheers!

- Dave

squack!

2005-12-29T17:22:00.000-08:00

Today Randy & I laid down my guitar bits for "Twister" & "Superdave" - loads of fun. Yesterday (my birthday!) I spent a few hours putting together 12-string parts for "Superdave", particularly the "ride-out" ending. Awesome, indulgent fun. Used setting 5a on the POD with a treble boost. Betcha glad you know that.
So we stuck the Vox amp in a booth and cranked it up to the unholy volume levels of hell. Seemed to be holding up. Best amp purchase I've ever made. I think it was $70 back in '99. Heh heh...
For "Superdave" we ran a mic cable allllll the way down the end of the hall in front of the audio booth and opened the door just to catch a little extra natural echo. We'll mix 'em together and see how it all comes out.
"Twister" was tough for me. I can play that song backwards and forwards but playing it ABSOLUTELY perfectly took a little doing. It was so easy to mess up little chords here and there... but eventually we got it all down. Struggled with the 16th note solo Em run - yikes... but with some gentle encouragement from Randy we finally got it down. I'll never play it cleaner.
Next week we'll try and record some more. New Year starts this weekend!

Dave

Christmas Eve Eve Eve...

2005-12-23T05:21:00.000-08:00

WOW! What a difference a week makes. After a quick ceremonial breeze through "Christmastime" we started work on "Three Cheer Cincinnati", the Reds song. We nailed it. Changed the chord progression a bit in the verse (from a straight A to an A/D/A/D rhythm) and it made all the difference. Jim attacked it hard, Preston drove it all the way. Randy and I banged out the guitars like a couple of punk poppers. This song went from code blue to "a million jillion billion times better" immediately. Thank goodness. I had a new bridge to throw in as well which seemed to work well. We'll record this very soon here and get a sample available to the public - can't WAIT for you to hear it!
Next was refining "Big Show" - even better. Jim worked hard to keep it at the arm-busting tempo. If we can get the bridge the way we want it (secret overdubs) then it will ROCK! I did a lot of crazy wanking on the solo - great song to cut loose on. I almost hear some piano banging on this one... hmmm....

Have a great holiday. I know Christmas came early for us - we got these songs DOWN!

Dave

Hooray!

2005-12-19T08:17:00.000-08:00

Just a rehearsal on the 15th... which was actually pretty tough! First we went through "She's Waiting" and reaquainted with it. Been a LONG time since that one - maybe June. We picked up where we left off and tweaked a few things. This song has a nice Beatles/Byrds vibe and I think Randy is going to knock it outta the park on the album. I wrote this one for him last year in a time of strife... I can't wait to hear it on record and show off some more 12-string Rickenbacker licks!

Next was our first Reds song, "The Big Show". I wrote this the day before (Wednesday the 14th) in a fit of creativity after working on a demo for "Three Cheers Cincinnati". Fast rocker about the moment of acheiving the dream of reaching the Majors. All the players I talk to pinpoint that moment as the greatest of their career. The work and sweat that leads up to that moment where you step up to your first Major League at-bat. We dove right in and had it pumping right away. Came up with some great ideas for a bridge too... can't wait for this one.

"Three Cheers Cincinnati" turned out to be much harder than we originally expected. The song has a moderate "bouncy" feel that we'll have to tweak. The song was written by me from lyrics by Jim Farmer, the resident baseball nut. They tell the story of the Reds championship ways from the beginning to the future... it's a long song and different from most of our tunes. This will be a challenge but we're all game.

Dave

Indian giver

2005-12-01T07:34:00.000-08:00

Last night we tackled a couple of the newer, less familiar songs, "Suddenly" & "Happening". Suddenly is an unusual song for us - cool 6/8 groove, almost latin in it's feel. Preston & Jim discussed possible percussive additions to the song. The chorus was a bit of a struggle - recording it with the basic four piece arrangement left it kind of flat, but we've got plans to add some interesting layered guitar parts or guitars... just some textures and colors.
We did about 4 takes (I think) then moved on to Happening, last attempted the previous session. This song is going to be a a great rock song. Doesn't need a lot of flash to the arrangement - once that groove gets going, the song just rides it all the way.
Afterwards we stumbled a bit through "She's Waiting" then listened back to some of the best takes of the previous weeks work. Sweet. Preston & Jim are really stepping up and laying down some great beds.

Double shocker...

2005-11-22T20:37:00.000-08:00

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.

Viper Charmers

2005-11-20T11:21:00.000-08:00

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

A weasel is chewing my face, Madam

2005-11-17T07:42:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-10T12:01:00.000-08:00

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

Look OUT!!!

2005-11-09T19:14:00.000-08:00

...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

I left my watch behind...

2005-11-02T10:01:00.000-08:00

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

Timing ..... is Everything !

2005-10-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

Timing IS everything !

Well ... life seems to throw curveballs at ya every once in a while and it sure did on Wednesday the 26th day of October in the year of our Lord 2005. Most importantly, nobody got hurt ... not that there was an incident of any kind ... just wanted to make that clear from the start. But Preston did find himself at the Urgent Care Center with his daughter. Everything was fine except for the wait ... an hour and a half.
AAArrgh !

But the fine people at Children's UCC took care of the situation quickly and everyone is well. No matter what though, I always worry about our kids and their health. Together, we all have 7 children and they ARE our reasons for getting up of a morning ... mainly because they're whining about being hungry or something like that ... Geez ... you gotta feed 'em too ? (Just kidding ya'll ... I know they have to be fed.)

Also, Wednesday decided to be the day from hell at Sonic Arts for Austin and I. Everyone has those projects that are just doomed from the get go and ours came through that day. I won't go into detail (to protect the innocent) but that was the last thing Austin and I needed was to sit in front of another computer for 3 more hours trying to hash out a couple of songs while our minds were back at SA wondering what the heck went wrong. We ended up at work until 8:00pm as it was.
AAArrgh #2 !

So, to say the least, we missed out on getting together and enjoying a relaxing evening of Miming. Dave did get a chance to stop by SA and lay his voice down for a Toyota radio spot and take a gander at a couple minutes of what we laid down the week before and talk a few minutes about life ... which is always enjoyable. It also gave me the opportunity to apologize to him for being such a stinker at our last session. Again, life got in the way of focusing on the moment. Here we are ... at our ages ... having the time of our lives .. an opportunity that a lot of musicians struggle to get ... and I'm worrying about the price of rice in China.
AAArrrgh #3 !

Austin and I had a chance to "Tech Talk" about some things, mainly getting the opportunity to dust off and bring my analog 16 track recorder in and seeing what sound that would bring to us. It may be more trouble than it's worth, but we do want to try as much as we can to make this album different. Not for different's sake, but more for how the Mimes sound is today than it was 2 years ago. So we are up for trying anything new ... to us, that is.

Well, it's time to get back to eeking out a living. I'm really looking forward to next week and I hope it shows with how much we can get done ... but more importantly ... how much fun we have at doing it. Until the next time ...

All Things Mimes
Randy

filling up the hard drive...

2005-10-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

So, we got some stuff on "tape" last night!

Austin and Randy worked tirelessly to finish setting up everything Tuesday (the 18th) evening and Wednesday we managed to get a few sounds down on the hard drive - which was GREAT! After getting everyone's headphones set and a few adjustments, we played through Twister several times. The intial playback was incredible - drums sounded crisp and clear and the bass was very powerful. Luckily for me my guitar will be replaced... I lost my mind several times during the song. One take had me going straight for the last chorus and skipping the entire middle of the song.
We went through Superdave several times as well but couldn't quite get it entirely nailed down. What started out as a tight, punchy performance eventually slid too loose as the night went on. We agreed to take another look at it next time.
I'll leave it to Randy & Austin to explain the technical side of the recording - what/how/why... pictures are coming...

Nov. 18th

2005-10-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of pieces of promo art for our upcoming show in November...

stinky mic stands

2005-10-14T04:07:00.000-07:00

Last night we went through 4 or 5 songs and discussed recording options... little bells and whistles (literally) that we'd like to hear and add onto the songs. "Twister", "Only Love", "Superdave", "Everything To Me" seem really ready to go and will probably be recorded pretty straight. "Sleeping With The Emily", "Suddenly" were worked on with a few questions - how to approach a chorus, endings... "Pretty Soon Now" was banged through... which was really fun. I love this song so much.
We ran the snake for the microphones and miked the drum kit and moved the bass amp into a side room... it will be a challenge to get good seperation from the bass & drums while still getting that "feel" that we think might have been missing in the previous album. The interaction between the bassist & drummer is critical to a good groove and we don't want to sacrafice that on the altar of seperation...
The mike stands were stinky... they had been left out in the moist air a few days and had rusted a little bit... *shudder*
I made data DVDs of our past year's recorded rehearsals for everyone - 4 gigs of mp3s of us working on songs for this album. The current line-up has been working on this for exactly one year - Jim rejoined the band in the first week of October '04. It was interested going back and looking at our growth. Somethings dramatically improved, some were locked in from back in day one. I know we're a much better band than the one that went to the recording studio back in July of 2002. These songs blow most of the first album away. We're playing better than ever...
Gotta go - breakfast to make.

- Dave

Wall of shame

2005-10-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend I spent my time creating my "media wall" - which is a polite term for unpacking all my CDs, DVDs & VHS tapes that have been in various boxes, shelves, and scattered in corners of the house. My CD collection had out grown to storage units, then two standing units I stole from Preston, and eventually wound up in a teetering pile of cardboard boxes. We mounted shelves on one whole wall of the family room, 5 inches apart, and started unpacking.
Staring at them all together up there for the first time ever, I realized that A. - I'm a shamelss glutton for music and B. - these are the photo albums that chart my musical growth. I don't "enjoy" music the way most people do... barely hearing it as a soundtrack to the main action in the foreground... if there is music playing it is front and center for me. My ears seek it out and my brain begins the disection - what is the drummer doing, how is the bass fitting in, what sort of guitar is that, how does the melody play against those chord changes. It's a bit of a "Beautiful Mind" moment, even walking into the freaking gas station... I heard one song while I'm pumping gas, walked into the station to pay and a DIFFERENT song was playing. Very confusing. That's why I listen to symphonic music when I need to relax... so much of the structure of a big orchestra is still foreign to me and I can actually have a listening experience instead of trying to examine the harmonies. I'm shocked that music is EVERYWHERE - our cell phones broadcast it, it's in the elevator, every commercial is pumping it, toys spit it out when squeezed, iPods would have you believe that you're abnormal if you don't march down the street dancing in your mind to your personal soundtrack playing in your earbuds. I think iPod's appeal is more to cut the unwanted music that assaults us everywhere than to carry our own personal 1000 song mix tape around. I sure could use one once in a while.
Back to the wall of CDs... finally all on display, little 4 inch boxes of art. Eractic, eclectic, excellent and some of it embarrassing. I've probably bought and sold the entire collection twice... in financial crisis I'd box up all but the essentials and take them down to Phil's. I still have my first CD - Sgt. Pepper. I can pull out every CD I recall it's point of origin... a gift, an impulse, a rare treasure in the used bin, a trade with another band. A few signed CDs from those brief encounters with my heroes. Some artists are represented completely, others have a disc or two there and that is enough for me. There are a few holes - someone stole my copy of XTC's Apple Venus Volume I... a few CDs have been scratched beyond playability but remain there for some odd reason, like a plaque on the wall where the painting once hung.
Touching all the CDs last night as I finished the task, I began to ponder where our next CD will end up on this shelf and what artists will be represented in the final recording. Some inspiration is directly accountable, other more subtle... will my several 10,000 Maniacs CDs make an appearence? Nat King Cole? My large section of strange movie soundtracks? I'll check back in several months and let you know.
I just remembered I've got two boxes of CDs in my car I need to unpack. Better make some more room on the shelves. Anyone want to buy a Candyskins album?

- Dave

It's that time of year again !

2005-10-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

Time for family fun, food, games and rides at the Butler County Fair ....... (car tires screech .... record scratch) Crap ! Don't you hate it when you have a song or commercial stuck in your head ? You try anything to get it out and move on, but yet it stays ... like a Mother-in-Law over staying her welcome ... like a party guest that just won't leave ... "ALL I WANT TO DO IS GO TO BED AND WATCH THE FAMILY GUY !

Ok ... now that my rant is over ... Man am I pumped. So much is happening. Finally making headway with remodeling my home, work is steady and the Mimes heading back into the studio for album #2. Austin and I sat around yesterday (and really the past couple of months since he agreed to help us out) throwing out ideas how to do "this and that" differently this time around. Austin is a great engineer with a degree from Full Sail (a school designed around engineering music) and I'm lucky to get to work with him everyday here at Sonic Arts. It's great to be able to sit around during down times and just tech talk. With this album, it will give us both a chance to do things that we talked about doing for years now. Austin is from England and as you well know, the Brits "think" differently (which is a good thing by all means) ... so we will have a fresh perspective on all the new stuff. I think musically this album will be better just due to the fact that it's been the same lineup for the past year and we all had a hand in each track from the beginning. Though most of the songs again are mainly written by Dave, he really pushed us this time 'round to add our own ideas on top of his ... musically and lyrically.

So here we go. Life is good. And I get to play music with my buds ... what more can I ask for. I have so much more to write ... but no more for now ... I have "Bowling Balls for fingers" when it comes to typing. I do hope you enjoy our lil' blog, but more important ... that you are as excited as us with the new material.

All things Mimes
Randy

Rebuke the uke?

2005-10-06T10:05:00.000-07:00

So we've got a potential song for the next record... a bit of a "departure". I hate that term. It's like we're on a very strict path and we accidently went off the road and fell in a bear pit and the drummer has to throw down a rope made of vines and I've got some cuts from the spikes at the bottom of the bit and some of us have poison ivy and...

Anyway.

How crazy do we get with the instrumentation? Last album we stayed pretty close to the two guitars/bass/drums arrangements... with a few exceptions. "Completely", for example. 7 guitars at one point. "Prove My Love" - lots of stuff.

So this one song needs a ukelule. Seriously, a uke. I have one. A pretty good one. Could be really really really corny. Could be incredibly awesome.

I don't think I'll have the nerve to record it. But I'm practicing just in case...

-Dave

2005-10-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

I've been working tonight on some of the guitar parts for songs, like "Superdave" - wondering how many bells & whistles this song should have... Well, working on it at this point is carrying a guitar outside with me to play for the dogs before they come in for the night. Tinkering on a solo lick or little noodly accent for the chorus. One of my great musical passions is the tasteful coloring that a choice guitar part can add to a song. Not just the chunky rhythm parts I usually slog out... some sparkles, some icing... maybe a plastic choo choo train on the top of the birthday cake. How much is too much? I guess that's up to the final mixing to decide. In the meantime I'm thinking it's better to go over-the-top now and remove ingredients from the cake batter later. Kind of reverse-engineering the cooking process... "Ugh, that doesn't taste good, I hate coconut! Take that out and add a layer of frosting in the middle!" Or, "Cripes, that stupid chimy guitar part during the verse is really distracting and fruity - just pull the damn volume down on that one!"
"Prove My Love" off of Live My Life was a lot like that... there was WAY too much going on in the song and Randy and I had to keep reducing, reducing... less less less - until we got to the song. Chipping away at the marble. Subtractive art. I've always been an additive guy - slop the paint on, throw the clay - build! That's why I love the recording process. Mixing is subtractive - pull the back, balance it all out, take the guitars down a hair... wiggle-shift-cram-thank-you-man got it all in there... can you still hear the bass?

- Dave

It begins

2005-09-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

Last night we loaded all the equipment and instruments from our cars in the rehearsal space, which we're converting to a recording studio to track the basic elements for our upcoming CD. Based on how well the results sounds, we may do everything but the vocals there... it's a comfortable collection of rooms on the 11th floor of an office building downtown. Carrying equipment in and out is a total drag, but we've managed to get some good drum sounds in the room just recording rehearsals and we're hoping we can replicate and improve on that for this album. We wrote down all the potential canidates for the CD, about 15 or so songs... seems like a very strong collection and though some will probably be dropped it'll be hard to narrow them down... they all have something we like.
We'll keep you posted!

- Dave