August 03, 2003

Incidental Music

As I feared, I lost a bit of momentum on the day off. That is, yesterday there was an abatement of the mania which tends to take hold when you're recording, and which is absolutely necessary for doing your best work. Or for doing your work at all. I think it had the same affect on Kevin Army. The pace was slow. Still, we did get quite a bit accomplished. The acoustic guitars are all done now; Jym did some percussion overdubs; we transfered the solo/acoustic-y songs from the demos so that we could start to work with them; and did some keyboards and spent a good bit of time experimenting with sounds.

There are four songs from the demos that we're working with largely "as is," i.e., we're going to use the tracks I recorded, adding a few things in some cases. "Big, Strange, Beautiful Hammer" works as I played it in my bedroom, but last night Jym played some subtle snare drum with brushes that sounded pretty nice. I was skeptical about it, but in the end I was persuaded. I'm still not sure about the vocal. I'm hoping to get a shot at redoing it today. "Institutionalized Misogyny" is going to be pretty much the way it is on the demo/CD, as is "Jill" most likely. (That's the song Kevin is least sure about-- but that might be influenced by Chuck Prophet's demo of the song, which he liked a lot better. All I know is, it's quite a crowd-pleaser, and a pretty well-composed lyric with a consistent and integrated "conceit.") The final one of these, "...and for my next trick", is one of my favorites, but a long shot as far as pulling it off: bossa nova-folk-vocal pop type thing. That's the one on which I spent the most time fooling around with synth sounds. I wish I had a couple of days just for that, but sometimes there's no use dreaming.

As I've mentioned before, talking about sounds is difficult: the attempts always fail, and are usually pretty funny. You should have heard me trying to explain to Kevin the sound I wanted to incorporate into the "Oh, just have some faith in me" arrangement.

"You know that airplane-y zhooew zhooew squink white noise wave thing that goes sheeeooorrrwoei and the other type that goes ffffewwwwwwwwooorrrr? Can we put those together with one going up and one going down across the stereo image and get a configuration that has a couple of glorps around the edges with a rumbly, bubbly blblblblbl (but no plink plink-- unless you think a little plink would help)? You know the kind of thing I'm talking about?"

Kevin: "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

Oh well, we'll figure it out in the end.

We did put some very cool sounds on "She's not a Flower." Like most of the synth and organ parts on our records, they're intended to be subliminal, felt rather than heard for most of the song, but maybe popping up at strategic moments once or twice. That's how it's going to be on that song, which is a very rational, fast, "rockin'" song-- probably the most like the traditional "pop punk" that my band is known for of all the songs. (There are others vaguely of that type on the list, but that one stands out.) However, while we were fooling around with the sound effects, we came up with a quick mix that turned the arrangement on its head and made it clear that, if we wanted to, we could make the song sound like something off "Heroes." (If those guys had been into playing songs at 199 bpm, that is.) I have to say, that sounded pretty great, though it's not how we're going to do it. If I could think of a place to have an alternate mix though, it would use it in a second. It would freak people out, anyway, which I always get a kick out of. Plus, it just sounds hell of cool.

For the acoustic guitar, we ended up using Kevin's old Martin. It's his guitar from when he was a teenager, and, owing to habits that are arguably more slovenly even than mine, it spent eight years in a dank closet in the '90s. When it emerged, it was covered with thick, white, putrid mold. Instead of throwing it in the trash like a rational person, he cleaned it with Clorox and restrung it. And it sounded great, better, legend has it, than it ever had before. Like a fine wine or single malt whisky; or a hunk of Stinking Bishop.

Here it is, complete with gay stickers and duct tape:

acou.jpg

Today is going to be back-up vocal day, though I'll probably try some more keyboards and lead vox toward the end.

Posted by Dr. Frank at August 3, 2003 04:16 PM | TrackBack
Comments

hey,

checking in to see how the new album is going. as far as acoustic guitars go, i fully believe that aging probably had a positive effect on the acoustic. most guitars are like fine wines that get better with age. i mean, why do you think that a '57 les paul sounds better than a '96? certainly not that technology has regressed over the years.

can't wait for the new cd; have fun in the studio. mtx is a big influence on me and my music...despite the fact that i'm in a ska-punk band.

Posted by: Jon at August 3, 2003 08:35 PM

"Hammer" with brush-snare! Awesome.

Thanks, Frank.

Posted by: JB at August 4, 2003 12:35 AM

The scary thing is, I think I know what you mean by that sound. I'm going to go to the padded room now ;-)

Posted by: Ian S. at August 4, 2003 02:08 AM