september 16th, 2002
Yesterday started at 7am. I somehow managed to clean the entire house in an hour. Mopping and everything. And then I went to get bagels. And then, it was time to do some recording. I’m not going to tell you how anything sounded, because I want it to be a surprise.
9:00
Jonathan came with muffins for us. Blueberry. But Jonathan wasn’t eating a muffin, he was eating a weird Vietnamese sandwich from Bale. This place is direct from the Twilight Zone. Some of the food is in shapes I never knew existed. Three-dimensional shapes. It blows my mind. Anyway, we spent an hour talking - probably to get ourselves lucid early on a Sunday, more than anything else. He recorded two keyboard tracks and one electric guitar.
11:00
Peter came, and he and Jonathan immediately got into a joking match about the phantom power. I know everyone’s heard the phantom power jokes before, but seriously, I’ve never heard them funnier. I was choking on my orange juice. After everyone calmed down, Jonathan hit the road. Peter did a few takes, and the first ended up being the best. Once we listened to it a few times he said “Hey, do you want me to go home and get drunk and come back with my plastic violin and then play mean?” That’s my second favorite quote of the day. You probably have to know Peter to know how funny this is…but trust me. It was a riot.
12:00
I took Peter home and went to get some lunch for me and josh. We ate sandwiches, I did a little flower arranging, and josh got a nap.
2:00
Mark and Chuck filled the entire room with equipment. I still don’t know what all of it does, but whatever it is, I like it. I kept thinking I wished I had film since Jaime would never believe our house looked like that. Chuck took one of Jonathan’s keyboard tracks, and messed with it a few times, and then did the same with Peter’s violin track. While Chuck was working, I got to chat with Mark on my back porch. Then he fired up his guitar and like…12 pedals, and gave us a track of ebow, and a track of picking. My first favorite quote of the day is Mark right before he started playing “So I’ll just try some stuff and if it’s blowing chunks I’ll try something else.” I’m embroidering that on a pillow this weekend.
4:00
Just as Mark and Chuck were finishing, Allison came with her clarinet. She did a quick, smart track, and we called it a day. Well, sort of. Between the three of us, there were still two rehearsals and a show…and some serious gear-hauling to be done.
8:30
After all that rehearsing (20min!) and gear-hauling, I finally made it down to Allison’s show with the SILVER measure, and their extension, The Square Root of Five. I got two beers that I didn’t pay for (thanks Allison and Davis!) AND a green sweater. I was cold, so Allison lent it to me. Then she said I could have it. Yay sweater.
That’s about it. I’m still not sure if we’re going to be able to include John the bass player. I don’t know if you were paying attention, but we have way more than 8 tracks recorded, and I still have to do vocal overdubs. But, mixing begins tonight (?) … and we’re going to sort it all out.
More soon!
xo
sr
september 20th, 2002
i liked peter's quote better. so, did he?? god, i hope so.
on the subject of oddly shaped food: did you ever see that horned fruit that rob k. and i bought when we were in chicago one time? it was yellowish orange, with spikes all over it. the size of a large potato. the fruit inside was lime green. strangest thing i have ever seen. i've been trying to determine what it was, but to no avail. we got it at a jewel, have you ever seen one there??
september 20th, 2002
1. peter did not, in fact, go home and get drunk and come back with his plastic violin to play mean. well, he tried, but we turned off all the lights and crouched on the floor and pretended we weren't there.
2. i have never (chomp) seen a fruit (munch-munch) like that (swallow)
and are you sure you weren't dreaming? and if you were, was this a dream like you have when you're sleeping, or the other kind of dream, as in something you really hope to do one day.
september 23rd, 2002
1. that really is too bad.
2. yes. no. i mean... i've got pictures, even.