MONDAY MORNING mix day

This came out great, from the start. Great ingredients going in made for great product going out. The drums are big and open, like Radiohead's "High and Dry," but they pump more, which I love about them. Ellinghaus also plays with brushes, but he hits the damn drums so hard, you might not really notice. By the end of the sessions, one of his brush sticks had exploded, and the little wires that make them up were spilled all over the kit. That's a great example of how he plays.

The lap steels, again, are imported from my demos, and add that lo-fi weirdness that is peppered throughout the disc. Neal's back on the upright piano, and plays a cool, supportive role. After the solo, he hits a chord, and it just rings for days. Blake's on tambourine -- he's really good at it. Everyone thinks they can play tambourine, because it looks easy, but that's really not true. It kind of makes you look back and respect the great under-rated tambourine players of the late 20th Century: Noel Gallagher. Mick Jagger. Cher. Davy Jones. The girl from "The Partridge Family". Josie, from The Pussycats. Sure, laugh all you want. But you probably don't play tambourine as well as you think you do. These people made a living out of it.

Blake seems to have come up with a unifying strategy for compression on this disc. I kind of understand it, but had to keep asking him to slow down, define what he meant with ratios, thresholds, etc. Finally, he said, "Let me put it this way. Who would you rather be: Mutt Lange or Steve Albini?"
I thought for a second. "Well...who's Steve Albini married to?"
Blake stared at me, exasperated. "That's exactly right. Damn it."

Shania aside, Blake's committed to a more transparent approach. It works better for me.

7 down---

titles:

Your Party Dress
Will You Wait for Me?

fuck...

WHEN I GET OUT OF JAIL, CONEY ISLAND mix day

I was pissed that I couldn't be at the mix all day, and by the time I finally got to the studio, I was exhausted, and making no bones about it. I was literally groaning with fatigue, like a dying animal. Blake said, "Well, I have coffee, and some leftover carrot cake..." "No coffee, dude. I've had 300 cups today." I tried to lighten up. "But how about some carrot cake? With a candle in it. I feel like shit." I forgot I'd said it, and a minute later, he handed me a paper plate of carrot cake with a "Happy Birthday" candle in it. "What? You think I fuck around in here?" It was the laugh I needed to get my head out of New York and into the mix.

These are the two songs that will bookend the disc. The first sounds you'll hear will be my voice, and then my Danelectro providing time for the rest of the arrangement to hang upon. It will say to the listener, "This is what's at stake, here," and will draw them in to the rest of the recording. It's a great first pitch, an arching 72-mph curve ball before a succession of 98-mph fastballs to each corner of the plate. At least that's the plan.

The e-Bows, as well as other parts throughout the disc, were imported directly from my demos, and provide a lo-fi feeling that you just can't capture in the studio. Plus, I'd never be able to beat them, performance-wise. They have a magic. Blake calls it "crap-tacular", but I call them "crap-tastic". We're at a standstill on that one.

"Coney Island" will be a reduction of "Jail", and also a nod to the original version, on "Tonight I Drink You All," where I simulate a beach scene. We found a great lo-fi beach, and left my guitar and Neal's piano part playing off each other. These are the stakes of this disc. And the end is that promise fulfilled.

Six down, five to go.

Jan. 1 - Day off. Lay around. Assess life. Sleep.

Happy New Year

Dec. 31 - REBUILD mix day

The transformations continued straight through the mix of this one. I brought it to Blake in a VERY different form, and through an incredible process of pulling, twisting (and judicious deleting), something really great emerged. Blake's mantra, lifted from David Bowie, was pretty simple: Turn the good shit up, turn the bad shit down.

We came to the mix with a very different idea for the intro - we were going to fade up the acoustic guitars, solo, and then have the band kick in all at once at around bar 8. But luckily, about 2 weeks ago, I got tickets to see Dave Matthews at Madison Square Garden, on a night when James Brown came out for a cameo. James lit the place up, just torched it, and, yes, he gave the drummer some. What a freakin' genius. Hear ye: If the drummer kicks ass, and you have the opportunity, you give the drummer some. It's as close to a Commandment as music has. And if someone's going to deliver the sermon, who better, living or dead, than JB? Thank you, James, for reminding us of what's important. Turn the good shit up.

Back at the mix, we switched things around, and gave the drummer some. Not only did it kick ass, but in the overhead mics, you can hear the faint scream of a siren panning across the speakers. It works like a background string part or something. We were totally psyched, and pushed it louder. You gotta love NYC soundproofing.

Neal signals the band in with his organ. I remember Blake and I watching him play. His first chord is literally him slapping both his hands over as many keys as he could reach. Looked crazy, sounded awesome. The organ and harmonica play against each other, and reminded me of the way the guitar and piano complement each other in "Jail". Melissa's up there in the high registers of the vocals, sounding great, and the whole mix congealed in plenty of time for me and Blake to hit New Years Eve parties.

Four down...

STRAWBERRY SONG mix day

We first listened down to "Free". Very cool. I love how the dynamics are brought out by a band, instead of when I play it solo. When it's loud, it's LOUD, so when it's soft, you really feel the contrast.

"Strawberry" was a scarier one to track, because it's a newer song, but the song just jumps out of the speakers, now, and we're pretty positive that it's the second song on the disc. Blake's been really kicking ass on the drum sounds, and the whole kit just sounds great. So many good decisions have been made along the way, and these mixes are just fun instead of a scramble to fix things. The only real setback of the day was that I fell asleep on Blake's couch because the cat mentioned in this song had actually jumped on my head at 6am, and I couldn't fall back asleep. I managed to doze for about an hour to the soothing sounds of a kick drum being EQ'ed.

We're rolling...

titles: no title? damn it...

FREE mix day


Of course I'd been up all night last night concerned about the new breakdown in the second verse of "Be Your Man". We listened to that first, and I broke into a sweat. But it's right. I really think so. Just go with the gut...and move on.

We picked "Free" next because Blake thought it would be easy. It actually ended up taking a while to get the arc of the song right. Ellinghaus basically sets the damn song on fire, and is so dynamic, that it took a lot to have Blake keep him in line. The song itself goes from very quiet, acoustic/vocal moments, to big full band moments, and creating seamless transitions was one of the tricks. Mission accomplished - it just took a while. The acoustics sound great on this. It's one of those times where I can't believe that's me playing. Wow. It really sounds like I know what I'm doing. Then, of course I have to balance the optimism with complete fear that I sound like Kermit the Frog on the first line, "They sent...me here...to rest". It's not easy bein' green... Blake had to get me over that little moment. I'm OK, now. Clearly.

Blake's favorite drum fill is on this song, after the breakdown, where you can hear Ellinghaus clicking off time on his hi hat before rolling back in. It's really good.

We had company, today. John Turner came down to the mix, to see how it was going. He's psyched. He should be. He sounds awesome. He deflects all compliments about his playing, and said something like, "Well, you guys really laid the parts out so well for me. It was like the Arthur Murray school of bass playing, where they laid out those big sheets with footprints on them so you know where to put your feet. Before you know it...you're doin' the cha cha." Of course, anyone who's seen a lousy cha cha knows that's not the story...

Lyrically, this one is a big one for the disc. The music finally matches. We win. Crime loses.

titles:

Good to go
?

shit.

Dec 28 – BE YOUR MAN mix day

Mix philosophy: Get out of the way — here comes the fun.

I love that the parts here are a great collection of the demo, the live version, and the new accidents and ideas from the recording process. For instance, we were deep into the mix when Blake solo’ed the vocal and the drums. I mumbled, “Wow. That sounds cool, with just the two of them going together like that.” He looked at me, I looked back, and we began pulling that section apart. It sounded great, and worked with the lyric, so we kept it. Another happy accident I really love occurred while tracking bass. John Turner was kicking ass, and Blake yelled out, “Whoo!” so loud, the bass picked it up. If you listen closely, you can hear it coming through the bass pickup right before the second chorus. It definitely summed up the feeling in the room while we were recording. The whole spirit of the rhythm section is kind of summed up in that “Whoo!”

The first song is completed. Rock.