November 2004 Archives
November 15, 2004 Christo'd
By which I mean "wrapped." So that's that. Yesterday, I re-did two vocals that sounded like they could be done better, and surprised myself by belting out what I'd consider two of the strongest performances of the bunch. If you'd've asked me yesterday morning whether I had two strong, loud, get-agitated vocal takes left in me, I'd've laughed in your face, but when it came time to stand in front of the microphone and get stupid, I reached down and located my inner basket case. I felt really proud afterwards; those two takes, when I'd listened to their earlier renditions, made me feel like I'd sort of let the songs down. Listening back after the re-takes, I felt like I'd treated them right.
Which is what I wanted most from this whole session, really. All these songs are kind of special to me, because they're pretty naked and open and raw, and I hoped that we'd do them justice. And though they haven't been mixed yet (JV & Scott will do that six days from today), I listened to a half-dozen of them in playback this morning, and I was really happy with what I heard. Once we get this thing mixed and sequenced, I think it's going to "wail and keen," as I wrote in an early note to myself about what I wanted this album to do.
Don't wanna get too maudlin but ending an intense eleven-day session like this was really emotional. It was hard to say goodbye to JV, who was being really funny all afternoon; if it was slightly less hard to say goodbye to Scott, that's only because he was so visibly overjoyed to be back in the company of his wife.
And so here Peter and I are at the Hyatt Regency near the airport, in what will probably be our last hotel stay together this year. As some people here inexplicably said upon seeing us enter our elevator carrying our guitars: "Whoa."
More news as it occurs to me in the days and weeks to come, I guess - see you all soon!
November 13, 2004 Winding Down
Having completely elevated everybody's game during his short stay here, and having worked so quickly and efficiently that it makes the rest of us look like turtles, Erik Friedlander left this morning. I can't even believe how much I love what he's done for the album. Yesterday, he revealed that he's also conversant with the mandolin. Now, most musician-guys, when they say "I can play a little piano," mean only that in a pinch they can follow along. Erik is a different story. When Erik said, "I also play some mandolin," what he would have meant were he not a humble and graceful man, was: "I can totally shred on the mandolin."
And shred he did. "Magpie," a song we first did on the Peel Session earlier this year, turns out like a Fairport Convention/young-Simon-Joyner mashup: young Simon's bulging-eyed octane, Fairport Convention's playing-together, for-the-sake-of-the-song feel. The vocal take is kinda crazed and I could not be happier with it. To say nothing of what a great job Solter & Vanderslice are doing with the U-47's, KM-54's, and C12a's.
Today, "cleaning up" tracks (erasing parts that no longer add to the song) and re-doing some vocals. A drum here or there. I'm having fun! Imagine that!
November 11, 2004 Bones
Yesterday, to my great delight, turned out to be a really busy day: I was in the live room within an hour of everybody waking up, and I was playing & singing from noon 'til dinnertime. We did a song that I only wrote a couple of weeks ago, one that still had that just-born feeling still crackling on its skin, and I'm really incredibly happy with it. It gave me the feeling I used to get when I recorded into the Panasonic: "There! Wow! That happened just now, and it'll never happen again!"
All told, we got three songs done yesterday; there's really only one song remaining, though there's bunches of fun stuff left to do with all the others. Including Erik, who gets here today, by whom I mean Erik Friedlander. We are all so giddy about getting a chance to work with Erik that it's not an exaggeration to say we've been waiting all week for this morning to come. Life is good, the songs are dark, and the chickens are kinda quiet. Salut!
November 9, 2004 El Capitan
Dear fellow members of the Peter Hughes Fan Club: as a charter member, I would like to advise you all to prepare your arsenal of superlatives. Peter has just knocked out a backing vocal on "Up the Wolves" that is gonna bring tears to your eyes. And give you acid reflux. In a good way I mean.
The up-down push-pull emotional scale is presently in "cheerful." Sometimes I just love recording. Backing vocals are fun city, as far as I'm concerned. Vanderslice and Peter & I all sang together at one point today. Is our glee club/swing choir tour imminent? Watch this space!
November 8, 2004 Report from the Interior
I'm sitting in the tracking room, where Franklin Bruno is getting ready to record a guitar part for "Dilaudid," a song about love & pharmaceutical-grade opiates. It's just before eleven-thirty on a Sunday evening. The intensely personal nature of the songs we're recording has made the whole enterprise totally exhausting for me, and it's been so hard to get any distance from the songs that I haven't been able to tell whether what I'm doing is working or not, but I got to hear a couple of songs in playback today and they gave me the good cold deep shock. There's a Gang of Mad Scientists feel to the whole thing, and there are still seven days of recording left to do. We haven't even gotten to the cello yet.
While still hesitant to talk too directly about exactly what's going on in the songs, I will say that if it's the Pretty God-Damned Emotional element of the Mountain Goats that puts wind in your sails, then (block that metaphor!) you'd better batton down the hatches.
November 6, 2004 Finest Winter Wheat
Two days deep & I can't sleep. I do so love the chickens here at the studio! They are so pretty! But they make a terrible racket at five a.m. each morning, and I sleep lightly anyway because I am a bundle of nerves. Between these two factors, I'm lucky to get in four consecutive hours of sleep, with the result that I'm more or less a total emotional wreck. The good of it is that the better part of these new songs call specifically for a singer who is a total emotional wreck. So, hey! At least the songs are happy.
I lose count rather quickly of what we've done, how much of it really is done & how much needs more, and so forth. Franklin's here and did an organ part last night that made my kidneys shake. I think we've got four or five songs sketched so far. Not bad, considered that we've only been working for a day and half. My goal of four songs per day remains, however, a distant & psychotic dream.
November 4, 2004 Tagamet
So I'm here at the Serrano Hotel in San Francisco, having just enjoyed another night of terrible sleep, because I have a hard time sleeping when I'm about the do something exciting. I left our room to come down to the lobby, 'cause lying around in the dark wasn't doing me any good, and had a cup of coffee while reading the rather disheartening post-election wrap-ups. Then I came downstairs to the "business center," a room with two way-ugly IBMs, and that's where I got inspired to say hello to you all. So: hello! I'm going to go make a new album today!
Just to the left of this computer is a little white pill that somebody left here. It's Tagamet. Finding anti-ulcer medication next to a hotel computer terminal at five in the morning is somehow the least filmable cinematic moment I've ever experienced.
November 1, 2004 Method Acting
I am doing my best to make myself look like my eighteen-year-old self. It's a good thing I have a sense of humor, because this is an uphill battle. Nevertheless, after the album's done I'll post some before-and-after pics of my transformation/attempts thereat. Unfortunately, there are no photographs of my eighteen-year-old self to which you might be able to compare these newer efforts, because when I was eighteen I was more goth than thou, and refused to be photographed. By anyone. Ever. I think there are three full years of my life during which I wasn't photographed once, except (and this only possibly) at Christmas-time. Present-day goths desire nothing so much as to be photographed hundreds of times each day, of course, but this just goes to show that they aren't really goths at all. No mirrors, cameras, or overhead lighting! Argh. I am beset by poseurs on all sides.
I blow kisses through time at my eighteen-year-old self: he effected a near-total erasure.
