Guess who is the WORST blogger in the world and has two thumbs.....this girl! I mean, how many times does Dillon have to tell me to update my blog before I actually do it? A thousand times apparently. But here its is, here I am, blogging before work. Huzzah!
Alright. My life. Hmmm....
Oh yeah! I recorded my EP a couple weekends ago, and it was really fun. It was at a place in Fremont called The Toy Box. It was crazy awesome. I should have taken pictures for blogging purposes but I was so focused on the task at hand that I forgot to. This was the first real recording studio I have been in and the place made me feel like I should be wearing velvet bell-bottom pants. Yeah, that kind of place. Complete with crushed velvet covered sound panels hanging from the ceiling, and a giant poster of the one and only Bowie over the leather couch, it was a 70's tribute in there. If only there had been a lava lamp or two.
I spent most of the day just kind of waiting for things to finish so we could get to the vocals. I did dome instrumentation but Wes Sp8 and Gareth (those are my guys!) were doing most of the work. Walking back and forth from the sound booth to the room over and over again. Fixing levels and going from drums to guitar to organ, it was all a blur. I have never heard my own voice so much in one day. The scratch tracks we recorded at Gareth's apartment played through the whole day so we had something to follow while recording different instrumental parts. I have to say by the end of the morning I was cringing at my own voice, I had to take my guitar into a different room for awhile to take a break from my own damn voice. I was driving myself a little bit crazy!
The good part about all that craziness was that I got to practice the Joni Mitchell song I have been working on. If you do a Joni song, you have to do it right!
By the time all the instrumentation was finished it was time to lay down vocals, and I had to get into the right head space for each song. I asked Wes to leave "The Wind and the Wall" for last because I felt that one was going to be hardest to get right. And it really was. I'm still not sure if the track we ended up going with was the right one. I guess that gives people something to look forward to for a live show, maybe I will get it right on stage.
So we ran through "Right In Front Of You", "Hollow", and "Try Again" in that order (I think) and those were pretty easy for me to get right. Iv'e been singing these songs for so long that it was not about getting the melodies right or the lyrics correct, it's the emotional depth that each song requires. Trying to get into the head space I was in when I wrote the damn thing. It's not always easy, but anger is easier for me to access than sadness so I did "Right In Front Of You" and "Try Again" pretty quickly. I think they were close to what I intended them to sound like.
When it came time to record the vocals for "The Wind and the Wall" I did this crazy walking-pacing thing trying to figure out how to make myself feel that sad despite the fact that half of my dreams were coming true that day. You try to be sad while your'e recording your EP in a real studio with these cool people! It was difficult to wrap my brain around.
I ended up sitting alone listening to "Ode To Divorce", "The Flowers", and "Somedays" by Regina Spektor. She really helped me get close to what I needed to feel to get the song right. God, I fucking love her. We did a couple takes in the vocal booth and then we were done. All headed off our separate ways.
And that was the day I recorded my EP!
I'm looking forward to seeing those guys again, Wes and I are going to do a song together, so yay :D .
Misc.
Listening To: "A Case Of You" Joni Mitchell
Drinking: A Cuppa...again.
Loving: Stripes
-H
