so it's been a while. i appologize.
does anybody else ever have a letter or email to write that you put off, and the more time you put it off the more substantial you feel the letter or email has to be?
my brother did this to us for 3 or 4 years once. he called up one day and admitted that he'd been there by the phone listening to us leave messages on his answering machine, but was too embarrassed to pick up the phone.
i was suffering the same thing, but i figure its better to just jot a couple things down than write you a novel size account of what we've been up to.
we're nearly done. i have one day left of lead vocals to do, and then we're on to final overdubs and background vocals.
i've developed a serious addiction to hot water with honey and lemon. someone told me last year that it was good for the throat. i'd somehow blown my voice out before our first gig and needed a quick remedy. it seemed to work pretty well, so when dr. boss and i were talking about how we were going to knock off so many vocals in so few days, the answer was honey and lemon in hot water.
actually it was honey and lemon tea, but i the fool, knowing not to buy caffeinated tea, as caffeine dehydrates you, went across the street and purchased the first herbal tea i saw. sleepy time.
the fellows were quite amused. we unfortunately don't need any snoring takes on this record. maybe on the sophmore edition.
Dr. Boss is totally beating me up in there and i'm loving every moment of it. He somehow manages to rule with the iron fist, but not do it in such an abrasive way as my father used to.
Reminds me a lot of one of my first great teachers, mr. Stephen Heal, who sadly passed away last month. Heal knew how to pull the full extent of one's gifts out of them. For this and so much more i will greatly miss him.
It's nice how at key times, I can be reminded of such greatness, and Boss definitely does that.
We're nearing the end. Our baby is nearly born.
dom
Friday, April 27, 2007
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Back to the Real World
I swear the world stops when we're in here.
It doesn't, I just stop really interacting with it.
There are no windows and the only time we leave is to get sandwiches at the market across the road.
Needless to say it's a shock when we find out that it's still light outside or it's already dark.
And there's no internet and no landline phone (which there never seems to be anymore, i'm against cell phones by the way).
I go home at night for 2 hours before I pass out, to realize that my room is still a mess and I still have nothing in the fridge to eat. In brief stints, I love this.
We've just finished our first four days of recording, straight through easter weekend. Guitars, guitars and more guitars. Everything is sounding amazing. The first time i did this when i was 16 with shawn in a crappy little studio in Salmon Arm, (i say crappy cuz of the engineer and the quality of the equipment, but honestly it was much larger than the one we are in now) we had all these visions for how it would sound, and the recordings fell short time and time again. This time, the visions have only gotten bigger and our producer Mr. Cole or Dr. Boss, manages to blow us away and exceed our expectations time and time again.
Surrounded by the "O" of amps you can see in the picture below, Dr. Boss can do anything, i repeat everything. And that's not mentioning his ability to time and time again bring out a new toy out of his seemingly endless closet of tricks and contraptions.
I'm quite interested to see what will make the album. The list of songs we are recording is basically split into two breeds of songs. Both sides of the painted birds. There will definitely be some crossover, but it's interesting to see what gets picked in the end.
As a challenge i dare anyone to pick the 10 from the picture below that they think will make the album. and it doesn't matter if you've never heard the songs before. 10 from the list, on our comments board. Winner gets a copy of all the songs that were recorded including the ones that won't make the album.
Dom
It doesn't, I just stop really interacting with it.
There are no windows and the only time we leave is to get sandwiches at the market across the road.
Needless to say it's a shock when we find out that it's still light outside or it's already dark.
And there's no internet and no landline phone (which there never seems to be anymore, i'm against cell phones by the way).
I go home at night for 2 hours before I pass out, to realize that my room is still a mess and I still have nothing in the fridge to eat. In brief stints, I love this.
We've just finished our first four days of recording, straight through easter weekend. Guitars, guitars and more guitars. Everything is sounding amazing. The first time i did this when i was 16 with shawn in a crappy little studio in Salmon Arm, (i say crappy cuz of the engineer and the quality of the equipment, but honestly it was much larger than the one we are in now) we had all these visions for how it would sound, and the recordings fell short time and time again. This time, the visions have only gotten bigger and our producer Mr. Cole or Dr. Boss, manages to blow us away and exceed our expectations time and time again.
Surrounded by the "O" of amps you can see in the picture below, Dr. Boss can do anything, i repeat everything. And that's not mentioning his ability to time and time again bring out a new toy out of his seemingly endless closet of tricks and contraptions.
I'm quite interested to see what will make the album. The list of songs we are recording is basically split into two breeds of songs. Both sides of the painted birds. There will definitely be some crossover, but it's interesting to see what gets picked in the end.
As a challenge i dare anyone to pick the 10 from the picture below that they think will make the album. and it doesn't matter if you've never heard the songs before. 10 from the list, on our comments board. Winner gets a copy of all the songs that were recorded including the ones that won't make the album.
Dom
Monday, April 9, 2007
Lab Monkey Beginnings
Mr. Cole is able to give Josh and I the endless options that we desire for guitar sounds. 
From the outside in: Lab Monkey Studios. this is where the magic happens.
Shhhh don't telllll.. when josh and i were in portugal 2 years ago we actually joked about naming our band that. shhdon'tell.. it never stuck, but we still laughed about it.
these are what we have to choose from. the song list that is. the empty boxes need to all be filled in before we're done here. we've got work to do.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Recording @ Mushroom Studios
click the photo for more pics from the guys recording at Mushroom Studios, March 31.
badger, badger, mushroom MUSHROOM
the time just didn't seem to stop flying. we'd already scheduled to track drums and bass at Mushroom studios on March 31 and April 1st for a couple months, and the dates seemed to be flying towards us.
it was totally up and down. one week i'd have the fear, the next week i'd be totally confident. we didn't get in to do pre-production with our drummers until 2 weeks before which made most of us nervous minus our producer Shawn Cole. he assured us that we were in good hands, and after this last weekend i can confirm that he was quite right.
as calming as he was at the time, there was still songs i felt we were going in unprepared for. segments that weren't doing what i wanted them to do. time signatures that weren't coming together. 3 days to go and i have the fear again. great, i'm going in with the fear.
on friday, the day before we went in, i decide that the world is out to get me. i'd just found out that my employers decided to give every one of my colleagues a yearly bonus but me, and a handsome one at that, a professor does basically the same thing and marks me lower than the rest of my group on a group presentation, and my buddy from Shukov, Matt McD, phones me to tell me that the amp that i'd lent him is apparently broken. a fact that was quite new to me.
"you're having bad luck with guitars" he says. Nope i'm having bad luck in general.
It may seem as though these are only three small things, that coincedentally occured all on the same day. And looking back they are. But at times like this, i think a lot of us start thinking about all the stuff that's gone wrong, and all the reasons to feel sorry for ourselves.
The shit storm didn't stop the next morning. the van we'd arranged to borrow needed to be jumped. Berke and i already knew this, so after we'd stopped a couple different cars to jump us and we couldn't even get the engine to turn over we really start feeling like idiots.
"man we're really professionals. we're spending an arm and a leg to record this album at one of the best studios in town and we cant even get our equipment there". I mention how much each of our fathers would be shaking their heads at us right now if they could see us.
"with good reason" shawn agrees.
after renting two van taxis to move everything, we amazingly arrive ahead of schedule. from this point on, though i'd never have believed it, everything was great. i forgot all of my anxiety. drums sounded amazing, bass was tight, and the whole experience was a blast. i'll post photos when i get my hands on them.
if i had to make any more comments that it was awesome, and the days were long, but stressful and tiring in that wonderful kind of way, i would only be letting you in on what songs we are doing and what's happening to them. no i think i'll leave you all waiting. i will say that mushroom's piano is the silkiest object i've ever laid eyes on. All I Can do sounds 10 times better because of it, not to mention Shawn's (from notes from the underground and the doers...yes there were 3 shawns) new drum parts.
And as per mcnorton's demand we took a couple takes of the song for which this blog is named, just in case. twas a nice not to end on.
a thanks to nico and shawn and our publicity people pasternak and fischer.
onward to lab monkey, an equally creative environment, just not quite as prestigious or comfy as mushroom.
dom
it was totally up and down. one week i'd have the fear, the next week i'd be totally confident. we didn't get in to do pre-production with our drummers until 2 weeks before which made most of us nervous minus our producer Shawn Cole. he assured us that we were in good hands, and after this last weekend i can confirm that he was quite right.
as calming as he was at the time, there was still songs i felt we were going in unprepared for. segments that weren't doing what i wanted them to do. time signatures that weren't coming together. 3 days to go and i have the fear again. great, i'm going in with the fear.
on friday, the day before we went in, i decide that the world is out to get me. i'd just found out that my employers decided to give every one of my colleagues a yearly bonus but me, and a handsome one at that, a professor does basically the same thing and marks me lower than the rest of my group on a group presentation, and my buddy from Shukov, Matt McD, phones me to tell me that the amp that i'd lent him is apparently broken. a fact that was quite new to me.
"you're having bad luck with guitars" he says. Nope i'm having bad luck in general.
It may seem as though these are only three small things, that coincedentally occured all on the same day. And looking back they are. But at times like this, i think a lot of us start thinking about all the stuff that's gone wrong, and all the reasons to feel sorry for ourselves.
The shit storm didn't stop the next morning. the van we'd arranged to borrow needed to be jumped. Berke and i already knew this, so after we'd stopped a couple different cars to jump us and we couldn't even get the engine to turn over we really start feeling like idiots.
"man we're really professionals. we're spending an arm and a leg to record this album at one of the best studios in town and we cant even get our equipment there". I mention how much each of our fathers would be shaking their heads at us right now if they could see us.
"with good reason" shawn agrees.
after renting two van taxis to move everything, we amazingly arrive ahead of schedule. from this point on, though i'd never have believed it, everything was great. i forgot all of my anxiety. drums sounded amazing, bass was tight, and the whole experience was a blast. i'll post photos when i get my hands on them.
if i had to make any more comments that it was awesome, and the days were long, but stressful and tiring in that wonderful kind of way, i would only be letting you in on what songs we are doing and what's happening to them. no i think i'll leave you all waiting. i will say that mushroom's piano is the silkiest object i've ever laid eyes on. All I Can do sounds 10 times better because of it, not to mention Shawn's (from notes from the underground and the doers...yes there were 3 shawns) new drum parts.
And as per mcnorton's demand we took a couple takes of the song for which this blog is named, just in case. twas a nice not to end on.
a thanks to nico and shawn and our publicity people pasternak and fischer.
onward to lab monkey, an equally creative environment, just not quite as prestigious or comfy as mushroom.
dom
this is where thoughts go
i have to just put something down here so we're not working with a blank slate. then i can write something serious. this is just a throw away. i do this when i write lyrics, other wise i'll just stare at the blank page for hours, and feel liike crap when i finally look at the clock. which happens around every 5 to 7 minutes. there. that's probably enough.
thankyou for your patience,
dom
thankyou for your patience,
dom
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