TITLE: SKIMMING

when i get out of jail
skimming
be your man
strawberry song
monday morning
grace
free
(not so) sad
breathe it in
underwater
coney island

DOWN TO PHILLY for mastering

Some key moves had occurred the night before we drove. For one, we switched "rebuild" and "(not so) sad" in the order. I've been scared of '(not so) sad' the entire time, but instead of worrying that it's somehow out of place in this collection of songs, we've decided it needs to be flaunted, and put in a strong place where it can cut against "free", bring humor and joy into that section of the disc, and set up "rebuild"...which we decided is not called "rebuild" anymore. The short version of the story is: I brought a song to the sessions called "rebuild", which I knew had problems, but had a theme and a message that I needed to present on the disc. Unlike other, much more realized songs that Blake found very easy to convince me away from recording, "Rebuild" was clearly an orphan that I found important enough to work on.

By slowly whittling away (and then trashing) traditional "song" structure, Blake coaxed the best parts forward: the beat, the acoustic figures, the concept of Neal playing a part, and the two best lyrics of the song. At first, I thought it wasn't enough musical information to even sustain a song...this from a guy who's put "Sex Machine" or War's "Galaxy" on endless, mental patient rotation in his lifetime. Literally, the song we ended up with is about 15 seconds of the 3:00 song I brought in, stretched out to, well, 3:00 again, with new ideas from both of us, plus Neal, plus Turner, plus Ellinghaus, and all resulting in a great, ecstatic celebration of EXACTLY the message that I walked in with. This is David Bowie's Recording Maxim: Turn the good shit up, and turn the bad shit down. Blake and I are a great combination, I think. And he's teaching me about Scotch.

Of course, after the smoke cleared, it was obvious the title "rebuild" made no sense. The whole chorus which would have explained that title was long gone. In its place, an obvious choice: Breathe It In. And then the thought of, "Wow. That'd be a pretty cool title for the disc, too." Hm.

NOW, OFF TO PHILLY

Phil Nicolo is so cool. Studio Four is so cool. There's more platinum on that wall than anyplace I've ever been. You'd never know it, from how down to earth Phil is. He fired up his kajillion dollar studio and gave us his time to focus all the mixes and nail down the musical portion of this project. (art will come later.) He was really impressed, which was hugely important to me and Blake, who has learned so much from watching him.

And then we ate lunch. And drank Crown Royal. And heard the new stuff he's been working on.

The disc is done. The disc is done. The disc is done. I keep repeating it to myself.

FINAL Listen down and tweaking. The moves are tiny, .3 db, accompanied by quizzical stares. Still, the itches are receding, and the overall disc is still jumping up levels. I think we're there. Only mastering is going to be able to push this further, at this point, and that's scheduled for tomorrow, in Philly. I called mom, and the car's available. Phil Nicolo was worried about a conflict with a Sly and Robbie project, but it looks like we're in the clear.

The song order has been shuffled again. The cards, now marked with dirty footprints, are still on Blake's floor. We're slowly getting courageous with the order. Fuck it - front load it with big stuff. Let 'em have it, full on. What the hell? Don't keep cutting up strings of uptempo songs with slower ones...

Of course, that philosophy could easily change tonight, or tomorrow.

Now I think we have:

when i get out of jail
skimming
be your man
strawberry
monday morning
grace
free
rebuild
(not so) sad
underwater
coney island

Sections of it really work, and "underwater" into "coney island" isn't smarty pants. It's just smart. After "underwater" there's basically nothing left to say or do. It's that big, to me.

I'm exhausted. I've done what I can with what I have, and I think it's great.

Called Blake. He tweaked late into the night. Hated "Underwater" into "Free" in the song order. I suggested flipping "Free" and "Monday Morning." We're working this evening.

Titles:
One Good Tomorrow
Breathe it in
Every Night is Halloween (no, but a great live CD title...for the future...)
Girlfriend Weather
Half Way There
Life Size....

jeez...

Jen came with me to the Listen Down. Tweaking has become minute, but critical. Nudge this up 1db, nudge that back .5db...

Blake put the songs up in an 'unsatisfying order' so that we were forced to listen and judge each song on its own merits. I broke out laughing the first few seconds into "Be Your Man" and "Skimming". They're just so strong, it's ridiculous. A few minutes later, during "underwater" and especially in the solo of "monday morning", my eyes started welling up. I turned my head away from Blake and Jen, trying to wipe the tears off my face with my shoulder, trying to make my sniffling seem like allergies, trying, and fooling no one, I'm sure. By the final chorus of "grace" I damn near started sobbing. I put both my hands over my face, and of course trust both of them enough to totally lose it, but felt that the work still wasn't finished, and that I had to do whatever it took to stay critical and be a pro. It was all I could do to keep my shit together, but I know that that's not going to last forever. There's going to be a private moment some night, in bed with headphones on, or in some random hotel room, maybe sober, maybe not, when I'm going to listen down to the disc, and I'll suddenly be able to hear everything, including everything that isn't there, everything I am, everything I'm not, what I was given, what I was denied, and what I did with both, and I will dump all of that primal baggage in one howling, agonized pile of confused, wretching human disaster. I don't know for sure, but I'd guess that this happens, to some degree, to every artist you can name -- Joey Ramone, Gene Simmons, Axl Rose, Krist Noveselic, Hank Williams, PJ Harvey, Pink, Giotto, Jackson Pollock, Kermit the friggin' Frog.

Blake wrote the song titles out on index cards, just like we did with "Tonight I Drink You All". We shuffled them, looked down, and paused.
"No. Can't have two with acoustic/Danelectro sections..."
Shuffle. Pause.
"No. Answering machine and tape player sounds are too close."
Shuffle. Pause.
"YES. I love how one leads into the other. And 'Underwater' can't be the song before 'Coney Island'. You know? The water, into the beaches...such a smarty pants choice. No way. And 'Grace' needs to be further up in the batting order..."
Shuffle. Pause.
"Well, this order sucks, but 'Rebuild' into '(Not So) Sad' is great."
...and so on.

The order we're at, right now (i think):

when i get out of jail
skimming
be your man
monday morning
strawberry song
grace
rebuild
(not so) sad
underwater
Free
Coney Island

While I was away in DC for the weekend, working, Blake went over each song, to tweak them "horizontally", or against each other, instead of just within themselves. This will add a uniformity across the disc. He called my machine after each song. "Dude, 'jail' is awesome..." click. "Dude, 'Be Your Man needed a tweak here and there, but it's friggin' awesome..." click. "Underwater is a masterpiece. It's just so cool to be doing this disc..." click. For each song.

We are scheduled to master with Phil Nicolo in Philly this Thursday. Who is Phil Nicolo? This is Phil Nicolo. He also did "Tonight I Drink You All". We're psyched for the road trip down.

oh, damn. I'm tired. I hadn't noticed.

Thank God I have a bottle of Absolut that someone gave me. And some OJ. (I'm out of NyQuil.)

sleep - and process what has happened.

SKIMMING mix day

This is it. The last day. Blake keeps having "breakthroughs" on the snare sounds, and we keep listening to the choices we made, and nod in agreement with them. After battling with this song structure for (literally) 2 years, and releasing an acoustic version called "Skimming (slight return)" on "Tonight I Drink You All", I think we finally found the direction for the original concept of the song. Now people will understand the "(slight return)" part from the other version.

As always, I'm policing the shit out of the vocal, and it passed inspection. A couple of tiny volume rides was all that was needed - I'm happy with the spirit of the take, for sure. The doubles were a touch hot, and I realized that I always think they're hot because I've never done vocal doubles on anything I've ever recorded. I've also never done a guitar double on anything except "7 Bottles", and I remember having to fight for that. Blake couldn't believe it when I told him. "'Daylight' has no vocal or guitar doubles?" "Nope." "And this was a major label..." He slapped his forehead. I mean, even the Beatles were using vocal doubles, and that was the friggin' '60s. On a four track. You can imagine what goes on, now. I have no idea what Susan Rogers was thinking, on this score. Live and learn.

Neal's back on this one, and adds that weird something that organ always seems to add. I'm so glad he's on this disc. He's just such a great spirit.

We listened down. The song ended. And we realized that the disc is mixed. Done. Blake broke out the scotch, and we hung out late into the night, both totally exhausted, drinking, and talking music.

I can't believe it. I can't even process it. I was up all night, even after a healthy shot of NyQuil which I occasionally abuse (I'm an insomniac), just shocked. I can't see the picture we created. I'm going to have to take a few days, step back, and see the forest instead of focusing on the trees.

Sequencing is starting to creep into our conversations. Blake's worst/best idea: end "underwater", and fade straight into "coney island" to finish off the disc. is that great, or so cheesy I can't stand even considering it? I don't know.

We're going to have to make index cards w the songs, and lay them out on the floor, and move them around until it makes sense. Pairs are emerging as worthwhile, and
Jail
Be Your Man
Strawberry

would be a great beginning three...

(not so) sad
monday morning

wouldn't be bad, either.

...and what about a title dumbass??? so far, nothing

UNDERWATER mix day

Back at it to wrap up UNDERWATER. Again, nothing to fix. Lower the doubles on the lead. Give the kick drum more...kick. Ride the bass on some notes. By the time Blake did the big moves, the changes were simply custodial.

There's one guitar track, pulled from my demos, that we called the "psycho guitar track". It's meant as an abstract way to create subtext for the lyric. We pulled a few distracting parts (it's "sub" text, after all), and rode it here and there. The middle section has eBow on, distortion on 11, phase shifter on 11. Still, it provides a harmony for the vocal, and a ceiling for the stereo picture being created. I hope. I'm going to have to listen carefully to this section when we comb over this on our final listen.

We fooled around with the aptly-named "nuclear guitars" at the end of the middle section, rode them up just a fraction. Blake is worried about mastering this one -- the song fluctuates by -12 db, right now. When it's quiet, it's super quiet, and when it's loud, it's loud. That was the idea -- it's just going to take some doing to nail it all down. "Rock and roll" doesn't usually fluctuate like that. Think of the difference between AC DC, and, like, an orchestra, or something. There are very different considerations for each, from an engineering standpoint. Not that this song is on either side of that spectrum. It's pretty dynamic, though. We decided not to be shy with the ambition of the song. 'Broad strokes' is another mantra for us. When Blake gets nervous, he mumbles, "Pocket protector...." and I respond, "...off." We're dorks.

At the end of the first real listen, I snapped back a little, in fear, and in anxiety. Part of that unsettled feeling is the point of the song, but part of it is a sense of separation anxiety from coming to an end of some of these songs that have been with me for a while. "Underwater" has really heavy associations attached to it, and a really heavy story behind it that I won't go into, here -- and it's hard for me to sign off on it. Have I honored the desire behind the song? Have I done everything I can to communicate this? Have I used all my resources? Do I even have the capabilities to execute what's in my head and get it on to a piece of plastic? Or are we just totally alone in the prison of our own skulls, lucky just to get a percentage of it out in a vaguely recognizable form?

Swimsuit models don't worry about this kind of crap after a shoot. They smoke cigarettes and bitch about makeup artists, ugly outfits, their boy/girlfriends...and, as usual, I'm overthinking. Luckily, the song won't suffer this retroactive mental masturbation. I'll just have to process this on my own, this letting go of a pain that has kept me company.

Blake just looked at me and said, "I know. It's heavy. On the other hand, this is one of the best things I've ever had to do with." Me, too.

10 down. 1 to go.