Tonight I took photos, I'll post them tomorrow - just to show you the studio itself. I brought along my best friend tonight to hang out while I did all the bass tracks. I figured, shoot, two hours, we'd be done.

6 hours later! I got the bass done on all the songs, some are shaky, but for the most part, it's what I want on there. During the process, I'm finding holes in other parts that I've already done... mostly flubbed notes in solos, or a rhythm part that doesn't quite sit right. I have to keep telling myself that there's much more to go on these songs - lead vocals and keys mostly, so either these little mess ups wont matter, or, HOW MUCH do they matter? On the solos, I personally like a screwup here and there - as long as it's nothing hideous, it adds some reality to the process.

I always like songs where you hear things that were done in the studio, and maybe meant to come out but in the end, it added to the feel of the song, so it stayed in. Good example - on "Beast Of Burden" by the stones, right before the line "You can put me out on the street" you can faintly hear Mick Jagger say "Let me tell you something" - which was done while they were recording the scratch track with the drums, or, crap, who knows, but whatever, they left it in.

Jeez that was a long-winded ramble.

Next, (later today) I'm going in to do the harmonica and start on the vocals. Then the next day, it'll be keys, more vocals, then guitars some more, more vocals, etc. I'm doing vocals every night in hopes of warming them up - getting them into shape for the songs with the belting. Or, to discover that I won't be doing the belting, time for plan b. (which, right now, is, uh, I don't know).

Had lots of fun, it's awesome, amazing, the stuff continues to sound great and blow my mind that THESE songs came out of my head, and now, they're sounding better than I ever imagined they would. Sure, I'm paying for it myself - that's not my point. I never expected a song like "She's Too Rich For Me" to sound like a real song on a real album. It's a great, fun demo that rocks out and you can forgive the sound quality, but now, well. Anyhow. Sounds awesome.

I'll post the pics tomorrow, (oh, I mean later today. it's 3 am). Having the in-laws over tomorrow. They wont mind if I doze off during the conversations.

So, from here through to Friday, I'm in every night. It's going to wear me out, but that's the deadline for the core tracks: next Friday. That's what, five days, 4 hours each, 20 hours tops to lay in all the keys, harmonicas and vocals. Given that it took 6 hours to do JUST the bass on the songs, I am now worried about making the deadline. Don't wanna cut corners, but wow, I don't want to spend this much time doing it. Gotta streamline somehow.

I hope these ramblings are entertaining you. I think I'll start posting all updates into just this one post now... I'm hogging the board and it's gotta be annoying some folks. Sorry to you.

gnite.
[Edited 6/2/05 19:54pm]

yeah what a board pig.

Here's a rough-rough-rough take. Nothing on this take stayed on the final, except the drums and the backing vocals - and maybe the main vocals. All the guitars have been re-done, and the bass was me noodling along to the rest of the stuff while it was getting mixed down.

But who cares. LISTEN TO THE DRUMS!


Edit. Oh. I forgot. I was messing with the mix - trying to see what it would sound like if I put the very ending back at the front... so it starts off crazy. So, yeah, just ignore that too.

So, then, to re-cap. Here's a rough rough. Ignore everything on it.

Yeah. That sums it up.
[Edited 5/16/05 6:09am]

Dope! Show me some of them bass licks, mf!

Loving the drummer. What's amazing is how it seems like he's falling apart but of course he's not. With that type of foundation for the tune, it has to take your playing/singing up to a higher level, wow.

This song is funky as hell!

nice.....!!

I dig where you're going with the music



1.618

10th day? 12th? I have no clue. I'm going on three weeks in the studio now.

Tonight I did the keys - organs, wurlitzers, pianos. Hoped to do some Fender Rhodes, but one of the keys was stuck, and I was just as happy doing the Wurlitzer - and in the end, it turned out better.

While Matt the engineer hooked up mics, attached doodads to thingies, I messed around on the Wurlitzer, looking for the right chords for a song that I've been worried about recording. The reason is, while it's a groovy vibe, it's a pretty boring tune when you stand back - just verse, chorus, repeat, and you're done. Funky, but super simple. I wanted something more to it, and due to that, I've dismissed the tune as sub-par.

Up until I put a wah wah in the chain. Now I don't care if there's lyrics to the jam or if there's somebody reading the phone book. Damn, the song is funky. Wurlitzer + Wah wah = the Nasty. There will be children conceived thanks to my song.

And speaking of, I also did my 8-minute grandiose homage to the nasty, "Can I Get Some Lovin". Complete with Organs, pianos, and other stuffs. I think tonight I made a breakthrough in the studio because this is the first night that I played stuff WRONG, knowing that it was wrong, and just saying, "oh, just roll tape, let's see what we get". Me, personally, I'm not so thrilled with the results, but Matt seems to think it will pull the CD out of the garbage can. So much can be said for experimental piano, I guess. Play it twice and call it Jazz.

Lastly, I did harmonica solos. File those under my experience as a drummer. I seriously doubt that my harp solos will make it to the finished product. I mean, they dont entirely sound horrible, but they're not the ripopgodazippa that my original solos were on She's Too Rich and Whatchagonnado.

Did more bass to make up for crappier playing over the weekend, and didn't nail the bass on Too Rich yet. I don't know what I'm going to do about that. I blame the bass. I need to find a bass that I can play without thinking about it. Or - HEY - here's a novel idea - PRACTICE.

Yeah right.

I'll post one of the two songs tomorrow. Right now, I need some sleep.

edit: no photos posted yet. I'm late for bed. outtamywaybitch!
[Edited 5/17/05 23:19pm]

HERE'S THE LATEST SONG ADDITION:

It's got the organ, buried way in the back, the wurlitzer wah, the bass, the only things that oughtta be redone now are the vox and the rhythm guitars, and, now that I'm hearing it on heaphones, maybe the organ.

The hard part is trying to figure out when to just leave well enough alone.
[Edited 5/18/05 6:30am]

Good luck with the project.

You should have taken a break last Saturday and seen the return of...




..."Cowbell Guy" (Will Ferrell) on SNL w/Queens of the Stone Age.
I guess they figured their cowbell-heavy tune Little Sister was most appropriate.





In Memory of Gene Frenkle (1950 - 2000)

The original sketch: http://mknx.com/v/cowbell.wmv


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm

I like that "Swing Down". The drummer is off da chain. I would have put the song in a key that's at the tip of your upper range to add more intensity/strain to the lead vocal. I know u are going to redo it anyway. I love the freestyle vibe you are giving all of your tracks.

No way! HE CAME OUT PLAYING THE COWBELL on that song? Oh that's just boss. Damn, wish I caught it.

theAudience said:

OH THAT WAS JUST TOO FUNNY!
If I'm ever up in Atlanta, I think I'll crash one of Beau's live shows doing just this!

There's a honking 171MB zip file containing both QOTSA SNL performances (Little Sister & In My Head) here: http://www.lftsa.tk/
Under "torrent section" tagged as NEW.

Sorry for the jack but I remembered the pic of your "More Cowbell" t-shirt.

So I figured...



...as possible inspiration for the late night sessions.



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...rmusic.htm

theAudience said:

That server is down but if you find it somewhere else I would love to see it. QOTSA are one of the current bands I still have respect for.

Honestly, I've heard this skit on the radio but this is the first time I've seen it. Thanks a million

Holy crap, it's timeless man. You gotta see it. It has to be maybe one of my top 5 SNL skits. I can't wait to watch the QOTSA stuff. I'll check it out tomorrow.

I just got back from doing the vocals on the CD and I'm a lot happier NOW than I was 8 hours ago when I went in. I was really nervous and expecting to really blow chow on this part. I went and bought that book - Vocal Technique, and it talks a lot about how your voice is good/bad based on your physical state, emotional, etc, and I've been burning the candle at both ends lately, so I expected the worst.

But, I did the hot tea and honey, warming up, relaxing, stayed away from all the drugs and booze, and holy crap, my voice came through. There's a couple of well-placed cracks in the stuff, but it's at places that benefit from a vocal breakdown, I spose I'd call it that.

So then, NOW, next time I go in is Sunday, when we'll just do a solid rough mixdown of what I've got so far and I'll take it with me on vacation. Get far away from here, stew on the recordings, scrutinize every little detail, and figure out what I want to stay in, and what needs to be redone. Apparently, a few nights ago I was a little crazy with the organ, (heh, how many times have I said THAT before) and so either I will redo it, or they might bring in some local hotshot to try to nail it while I'm gone. And, well, I'm certainly not opposed to that, but I seriously wonder if bringing in a trained, capable musician might stick out like a sore thumb when mixed in with my garbage-pail-kids performances.

Either way, things are still kicking ass. I continue to be very very happy with each song, at the end of hearing it. Seems like, half of them, EVERYTIME they're loading the song up on the machine, I think to myself, "emeeehh, this ain't that good a tune, really..." and then I hear it and think, "okay, this will be the big song on the record". Honestly, I feel that way about half of them.

- - - OH - CRAP - one more thing.

I'm re-doing and old one called "Superhot Lady Cop" - it's a jam. While I'm recording the vocals on that one, two cops come into the studio, just to look around, I dunno, the owner called them in, they were next door and wanted to take a look around, whatever, and they stopped into the control room while I'm singing my song. Some of the lyrics:
"She had a nice set of guns, 38s at least, and as we talked I got into trouble when I tried to show her my piece"
"As she stepped in the van, I heard her tell her partner, if the paddywagon's rockin, don't come a knockin".

It'll be a classic, made better only be the presence of a couple of cops in the booth laughing at me while I'm recording. You can hear me laughing and getting nervous on parts of it - I wanted it left in - it adds to the song.

Whatever. I'm gonna go kick the pillow for awhile. I sure hope all this effort takes me somewhere.

otan said:

Beau, this is great and funny, I sure hope you're keeping a copy of the progress somewhere (maybe myspace?) and I love the cop song, what a cool story to go with the recording/liner notes.

Be careful on that organ

I didn't know that Cowbell is such a wonderful instrument...

Let's see if i can improve my back catalogue with some extended cowbell solos!

BTW: "Swingdown" is great!

Thanks thanks.

I'm really hoping to put those studio photos up tonight.

BTW - the studio is EXOCET, in Atlanta, for those wondering.

05.27.05 - I Killed my Amp!

LISTEN TO THAT TONE!!!
http://www.blindslim.com/...o/asbf.mp3

After a nice vacation From It All, I went back into the studio tonight to try to wrap up the tracking. I'll get to the amp-death in a minute. So far, I've done all the basic tracking, but there are a few odds and ends here and there that just dont live up to the vision of the music, so I went in to clean those parts up, and then to do rough mixes of every song.

Tonight, I added more acoustic slide guitars, some more wah-wah wurlitzer (because the last time was such a great discovery), two guitar solos and two bass tracks.

So, the wah-wurlitzer goes into my 73 Fender Deluxe reverb, NOT the reissue, but the real dizzneal. It does well enough, but I'm just not happy with the damn song at this point. Dunno if I should scrap it or do the whole thing over, or what.

Then nail another guitar solo through the amp, this time running a strat, mid-level volume, wailing. Great no problem.

And then I throw a Les Paul into the thing, crank it a notch (or five) and get this awesome Angus Young AC/DC kind of thing going - honestly, wow, it was the sound of an amp screaming in agony.

Ha. Funny I should put it that way.

It WAS the sound of an amp screaming in agony. At the very end of the second take on the solo, poof, it's gone. No - actually, right before I ripped into the solo, I played, maybe, 4 notes and the volume suddenly dropped from the amp, but the screaming tone remained, so I figured, the engineer had done something goofy to pull the guitar out of my headphones. Whatever. I did the solo, and at the very end, wha? No more guitar at all.

And hey, what's that smell?

And hey, holy crap, that's SMOKE COMING FROM MY AMP.

So, well, uh, I killed it. Luckily, the solo was to die for, especially if you're a 73 Fender Deluxe Reverb. So, the solo stays, as a testament to the amp. I'll get it fixed eventually, but not today.

Later on, some dude shows up to pick up his B3 organ... we mention, hey, later this weekend, come back and knock out some takes on two of these songs, if you're up to it. He nods, and says, "but THE DUDE FROM P-FUNK IS IN TOWN - THE ORGANIST, IF YOU WANT ME TO GET HIM TO PLAY ON YOUR RECORD, it'll probably just cost a coupla bills."

...

hmmm.

...

$200 for name-droppability on a dude, whose name I dont even know, so I'd have to put in the liner notes:

organ on songs 3 & 7, Bill Froobeedoobee, the organist for P-Funk.

So, I shrug it off. Naah. They're not soloing parts, so the organ ain't even a featured section on the songs, it's wasted cash, except maybe to four die-hard p-funk fans who have to have anything and everything done by any and all members of the band. Unless I'm selling the CDs for $50 each, it's a no-brainer.

no biggie y'all. Don't be "OH MAN!"ing me. I had to make the call. I'm sure he kicks that ass. I'm sure he's awesome. I'm sure when Capital is paying for my record, he'll be on it.

I'm not posting any tracks tonight. We did the rough mixes, and right now, "Whatchagonnado" is really the standout song, except for the harmonica ass solos. I'm flying Lindsey in, (dude from my blues band who lives in Tampa right now). He'll do those solos and then, I think, I'll be done with the tracking and it's on to the mixdown process. Oh - no - except for the dude doing the organ parts, unless I'm alright with the crap I put on there. (CRAP being the key word in the sentence).

I'm beat. I'll post a tune or two tomorrow - maybe even the amp-killing solo.

Later friikx.
[Edited 5/31/05 6:22am]

bump: (the song that killed my amp)
http://www.blindslim.com/...o/asbf.mp3

and here's Whatchagonnado. Only thing missing is a good harmonica part, which was done over the weekend, but haven't mixed it down yet. This harmonica is me, apparently deaf and being attacked by elephants with dart guns. Or something. Phew.

http://www.blindslim.com/...o/wygd.mp3
[Edited 5/31/05 6:23am]

Really, really, really dig Whatchagonnado?

Two hot amp killing jams!

Have you read it in the newspaper already?

"Amps leaving town because of this crazy funkateer!"

Hahaha. Yes yes. The police have questioned me already.

otan said:

That's CLASSIC!!!

otan said:

Is that really his name?

Cool updates, Beau. How exciting this all is. Flying your friend out, huh? You're in the big time now!

You're on FIYAH!
[Edited 6/1/05 9:30am]

Yup. I flew him in!!

He drove from Tampa to Atl.

Okay, I'll try to add the photos here.

First - the big recording room - this is just all the guitars. Ooh it was Christmas time. (the guitars on far left and far right are mine, yawn)



Here's the main control room - I didn't get a shot of all the doodads, (compressors, verbs, eqs, things that go beep, etc)



Here's the vocal booth - the drums were recorded in here as well - this is just a shot of the microphone really, big whup:



Here's the smaller control room (that's attached to the vocal booth)

what's the MAC rig?

Both are Mac (big and small control rooms) G4 I believe. Maybe G5s, but I think they're G4s.