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Post subject: Week 3: The Daily Adventures of Mixerman
- A Documentary
Day 11: Win One ForThe Gipper
Posted: August 13, 12:09 a.m. — Week 3
After three good nights of sleep and quality time with the family, I woke
up this morning in far better sprits than the end of last week and with
a renewed sense of purpose. Still, I couldn’t help but be partially
concerned with the potential of my day going downhill from here. For the
second time since this project began, I had a conversation of some substance
with Willy. The first was over sushi on Thursday night. The second, and
the one to which I am referring here, was over the weekend. According
to Willy, his marathon band-therapy-bitch-session had gone well. Being
a producer can often require a hard-knocks degree in psychology, and Willy,
no doubt, needed to make use of that degree this past Friday.
Even Willy, who has revealed himself as a man that prefers to avoid mediation
unless there is clear and present danger—sometimes referred to as
waiting until just before everything goes down the shitter—has to
occasionally resort to the role of therapist in order to keep a session
moving forward.
I could just picture Willy in his slippers, rolling fatties in a plush
crushed-velvet chair, as the band members vented for hours their disdain
for each other until they reached the point of utter exhaustion. In no
small part, the inevitable argumentus coitus interruptus would occur from
the band members’ disintegrating fighting spirit, as fatties could
turn even Ivan the Terrible into Gandhi given enough of the substance.
Then, I could imagine Willy viewing the band’s temporary inability
to discuss its insurmountable problems as some sort of therapeutic victory.
Yet, although I criticize, I can’t help but think that were Willy
to actually intervene, the results would likely be nothing short of disastrous
where the completion of this project is concerned. At least with his usual
course of action, problems are neither solved nor aggravated in the process.
Suffice it to say, Willy was confident that we would be moving forward
on Monday. I had my reservations.
Three days off on a project is an eternity. Even though I worked on Friday,
it was still a break from this project. When players are in a groove,
three days can destroy every ounce of momentum that had been achieved.
Of course, that certainly wasn’t a danger here, as we were having
the opposite problem known as stagnation. When stagnation sets in, three
days can be as revitalizing as an unreciprocated blow job.
I was truly impressed with Willy’s decision to take the time off.
Many producers would have chosen to work through the weekend, citing a
need to catch up. Catching up would have likely been the WORST decision
he could have made. From my experience, if we had tried to power through
the weekend, this session would be over. Cooked. Done. Finito. It amazes
me how many producers, both big and small in stature, don’t recognize
the value of rest and separation. Even a matter of one night’s sleep
can condense what would otherwise be a three-hour late-night task down
to only minutes come morning. That’s because after a long day’s
work of recording an album, two conflicting phenomena can occur—over-saturation
and hyper-sensitivity.
Over-saturation causes one’s brain to be incapable of discerning
and evaluating subtle and even not-so-subtle differences among such things
as timing, tuning, expression, musicality, and balances (level differences
among different instruments). It’s quite like a numbing agent of
the brain. If you could inject the part of your brain that processes hearing
with Novocain, this would be similar to the effect of over-saturation.
I would imagine that people of all walks of life have experienced this
to some degree. I sometimes refer to it as “the wall,” and
when you hit the wall, there are only two cures. Time and fatties.
Hyper-sensitivity is the function of one’s brain being so aware
and sensitive to minute changes that you are beyond any kind of “real-world”
standards of listening. It is the exact opposite of over-saturation. This
temporary condition can make differences that are normally nearly impossible
for the human ear to detect seem like enormously drastic changes. Although
this condition is generally less debilitating than over-saturation, it
can cause the wasting of inordinate amounts of time, as this phenomenon
will cause one to endlessly make adjustments that seem to make a big difference
but, in reality, make no difference whatsoever. Once again, there are
only two cures. Time and fatties.
After 12 hours of intense listening, either one of these phenomena can
occur. The best method of preventing these two temporary conditions is
to take breaks. But breaks become less effective and are required more
frequently as either of these disorders sets in, and at some point, only
a good night’s rest will rejuvenate one to the point of functionality.
Unfortunately, rest and breaks do not appear time-efficient, and they
are often abandoned for the far worse option of powering through.
Sometimes even a good night’s rest can’t prevent one from
starting the day with either one of these ailments, as the cumulative
effects of working long days on end take hold. And sometimes, BOTH the
hyper-sensitivity AND over-saturation conditions can be present and occurring
simultaneously. When this particular brain-fuck happens, WATCH OUT because
the phrase “dog chasing his own tail” is given a whole new
level of meaning. Of course, on this project, while I have experienced
all sorts of minor temporary semi-delusional states (even without the
fatties) that occur over the course of a session, over-saturation and
hyper-sensitivity have not, to-date, made the list.
What we needed today was focus and determination—a desire by everyone
other than myself to make music and have the music captured as music as
opposed to fodder for manufacturing something that resembles music. Cotton
needed the gift of confidence. Really, the whole band needed that gift.
Were I Knute Rockne, I’d likely have given the old "win one
for the gipper" speech. But I’m neither Knute Rockne nor the
producer of this session. So I didn’t.
Fortunately for everyone involved, Willy wasn’t going to allow ANY
of these disorders to enter our session this week. In fact, Willy seemed
motivated to give this session the jump-start it so desperately needed.
I knew all this from our conversation this weekend, as he divulged to
me his plan of attack.
“I think we need to record some takes of several songs and help
build up some confidence in these guys,” he said. “and we
should experiment with not using a clik,” he continued.
Thank God I wasn’t drinking a cup of coffee when he said this, as
it seems to me that’s EXACTLY what I said to him last week! Of course,
I didn’t mention any of that to Willy. I responded to him appropriately
with agreement and praise, expressing my encouragement by such great concepts
in recording.
When I arrived today, to my pleasant surprise, everyone was already at
the studio. Willy, Lance, and the band were all waiting for ME. This was
a good sign. After greeting everyone on the patio, I quickly determined
that the band was in fairly good spirits. I mean, Paulie Yore was still
Paulie Yore, and you could tell that the “girls” still didn’t
like each other, but they DID seem to be putting on an act. Although it
seemed a bit contrived at times, “Oh, I’m sorry, after you,
no, no, no, no, no, after you,” (PUKE!) it was better than the alternative
of screaming and calling each other egotistical assholes, while smoking
and passing a fatty around. In my experience, that really brings down
the vibe of a session.
Willy added another little twist to our session this morning, but fortunately
we recovered quickly. He wanted to open up all the iso booths and record
the band live—bleed and all. Bleed is the sound of the other instruments
“bleeding” into each other’s instrument mics. I pointed
out to Willy that by doing that, we would be hindered from doing super-microscopic
editing, not that I was upset at that concept! By recording with bleed,
you are adding in harmony, which is a term for chord changes or, in this
case, a tonality. In other words, I could no longer edit based on drum
patterns alone.
In the case of editing takes with bleed, I would have to take into account
musically where I was in the song when making an edit. If I needed to
replace a measure of a drum pattern in which the bass player is playing
a “G,” I have to take a measure in which the bass player is
playing that same “G” and with the same rhythmic pattern—typically
the identical measure from another take. If I don’t, then the bleed
of the bass and guitar in the drums will rub with any re-tracked bass
or guitar parts, and that can be quite distasteful. Typically, this style
of recording is reserved for bands that can play a keeper take TOGETHER,
without having to redo any of the parts—an unlikely occurrence in
the case of this band.
Recording without a clik can further reduce my editing options, as I have
to use a measure that is close in tempo to the measure being replaced—a
hit-or-miss proposition at best with someone like Dumb Ass on the throne37.
But Willy didn’t care. He had decided that we weren’t going
to be doing such aggressive editing. Not on two-inch tape we won’t
be! I thought to myself. That would be nearly impossible, and if not impossible,
certainly time-prohibitive.
So we opened up all the doors, marked the mic placements and distances
from each amp, moved the amps into the main room with the drums, and replaced
the mics. We moved the amps because, if the bass amp and the guitar amps
were too far from the drummer, Cotton would sound as if he were lagging.
That’s because sound travels so slowly.
The rule of thumb is that sound will travel one foot per millisecond (it’s
actually generally slightly faster than that, but the speed of sound changes
according to temperature and this approximation is close enough for the
distances that we deal with). Just five milliseconds can be the difference
between the drummer sounding on top of the beat or in the pocket. Since
the band wasn’t going to be playing with headphones, the players’
amps had to be a reasonable distance from the drummer.
Willy had the band start with a different song today. Wisely, Willy had
chosen a song that would be close to the same basic planned drum set-up
as we had for the last. We spent about an hour making some changes to
the drums and guitars to better match the song. Before I knew it, we started
making takes. I could hardly contain myself, as I sat in front of the
speakers listening to the band actually performing (and I use that word
loosely) for the first time during this session. It’s not the first
time that I’ve gone two weeks in a session with nothing to show
for it, but at least in those instances I felt as though SOME forward
progress was being made. It wasn’t until some time later that we
realized that those two weeks were lost. In this case, we were all too
painfully aware of our lack of productivity.
Cotton played considerably better without the clik, and although I wouldn’t
give him an award for “over-achievement in solid drumming,”
it seemed that we might come up with something usable out of the performances.
Or perhaps I’m just being optimistic. Until we tried to put something
together, we just wouldn’t know.
After six takes of the first song, I convinced Willy (and it really didn’t
take much convincing) to move onto a second song, as opposed to trying
to edit together a take. Normally, it’s best to do your editing
before moving on, because, if the band didn’t nail a particular
section of the song on any of the takes, then we can easily rectify the
problem by focusing on the section. If you move on and you have to go
back, then you spend an inordinate amount of time trying to re-establish
a sound. As it is, it takes constant vigilance to keep the snare drum
at the same pitch for each take.
Once we change over sounds, even with impeccable documentation, it’s
unlikely we could come close enough to make an insert of a section, although
there are exceptions to this rule, hence my use of the word “unlikely.”
Regardless, even if I COULDN’T edit something useable out of those
six takes, it was better at this point to create the illusion of progress
than to bring the session to a grinding halt again. Lifting the players’
spirits and having them in the groove of playing was far more important
than actually knowing we have takes at this particular moment. As far
as the band was concerned, that track was in the bag and that was all
that mattered, whether that be illusion or reality, it would have the
same effect.
After checking to be sure that Lance had all the necessary notes, which
were amended as they were, indeed, missing crucial information, we moved
on to the next song. The session ran as a good session should. We listened
to the demo of the song. Willy went over the form changes from the original
demo. We all discussed the planned sonic direction of the song. We changed
out the snare several times, changed out some cymbals, switched to a different
guitar/amp combo several times, and swapped out the bass (several times,
I think, ending up back where we started). As the band would rehearse
with Willy, I would make adjustments. Then they would all come in and
listen together to the sound of the recording.
Sometimes the processes of finding the right sound for the record can
be a bit laborious. Sometimes it can be painless. Today the change-overs
were middle-of-the-road. Willy had clear concepts in mind, and implementing
those concepts was a matter of finding combinations of instruments that
translated well. Where the process becomes laborious is when one’s
concept is not very clear or one’s original concept didn’t
work as intended.
Finding the right source or the instrument itself is the lion’s
share of work when finding an appropriate sound for a record. It all comes
down to the source. But the engineering side does come into play. Personally,
I believe in making the record sound exactly as I or the producer intend
from the very start. I will distort drums to tape, compress them to tape,
combine microphones to a single track (many people record different mics
to their own track so they can combine them later, I do not believe in
doing this), equalize, or neglect to process the instrument at all. I
will commit to tape whatever is required to make the drums sound like
they should for the song. When it comes time to mix, I don’t want
the sounds to change at all. The mix should be done at the completion
of the last over-dub.
Sadly, even with this approach, on the occasions when my tracks are mixed
by so-called famous mixers38, they try to change the sound of the record.
It is truly heart-breaking to put as much effort as I do into recording
a song, EXACTLY the way it is intended to sound, only to have it homogenized
by a mixer more interested in quantity than quality. But that is what
the record companies want.
It’s really an odd process, if you think about it. The record company
hires Willy Show, for example, to record the songs the way he is capable
of doing. Willy spends time and money getting everything to have a certain
sound that is unique and consistent with the playing of the song and the
performances. The record company then takes it from the producer’s
hands (VERY common), and has one of five mixers make it sound exactly
like everything else on the radio. Then, as if that weren’t enough,
they have a mastering engineer39 come in and stomp the last remaining
bit of life out of the production and make it sound as two-dimensional
and loud as possible. But I suppose that’s a discussion for another
time. I digress.
As we proceeded to make takes, it was important that the song at least
START at the same tempo. This way there was a chance that we could edit
sections between takes. So, before every song, I would give the band the
clik through the talkback speakers up until the third beat of the count-off.
I always have a drum machine in the control room with me, and I would
check Cotton’s tempo with my own set of headphones as he played
without the clik. Remarkably, he could actually hold a tempo fairly well.
It was not uncommon for Cotton to finish a song at the tempo he started
it. Granted he would fluctuate during the course of the song, but overall,
I was quite impressed with his ability to maintain a tempo.
When all is said and done, by the end of today, we managed to record two
songs, of six takes each onto four reels of 2" tape. I have no clue
as to whether we actually recorded something useable or not, and it doesn’t
even matter to me. At least we are getting takes down. Momentum is the
name of the game right now.
The most promising development of the day is that Cotton may be gaining
some confidence. The last take they played tonight was the best he’s
played this entire session. I’m not saying he’s miraculously
great—far from it—but I HAVE been able to put away the barf
bag.
For the moment, anyway.
Mixerman
Day 12: Girlfriend Day
Posted: August 14, 12:29 a.m.
As I was driving to the studio, reflecting on yesterday’s productivity,
I had a very disturbing realization. Although we were making takes and
progressing with the session, the band members seemed unfazed by such
events. There was no excitement, no giddiness, no enthusiasm. It was like
making takes with a bunch of robots. If the band is a bunch of robots,
then Paulie Yore is certainly the King of all Robots with his monotone,
“Yeah, I guess that’s all right.” Or if he got really
excited he’d say “That’s good enough, I guess.”
I wasn’t holding much hope out for Yore, but I was hopeful that
when we make a little more progress, the level of enthusiasm would elevate
considerably. Perhaps even I was guilty of guarded enthusiasm yesterday.
That would certainly be understandable after the two-week debacle we have
endured thus far.
When I spoke to Willy this morning, he had made an interesting decision.
He was going to hire some hot-shot Radar editor from Nashville to come
in and edit takes while we kept recording. I didn’t even know there
WAS such a thing as a “hot-shot Radar editor.” Editing on
the Radar is a piece of cake, do we really need a “hot-shot?”
I could just imagine Dude punching keys at lightning speed, as one uses
designated macro keys on a Radar as opposed to using a mouse. Perhaps
our hot-shot Radar editor was of age when Commodore 64's were all the
rage, giving him a distinct advantage over younger Radar editors who are
likely hindered by the lack of a mouse.
Since when was Willy, the consummate Luddite’s Luddite, willing
to transfer the drums to digital and edit them there? Granted, the Radar
is probably the only digital multi-track machine in the history of such
machines that I actually think sounds good (barring some serious hot-rodding).
But that was quite a leap for Willy to make in such a short amount of
time. Perhaps I had his ear and he trusted me now.
“I’m surprised at that,” I said to Willy when he told
me about the Radar editing.
“Yeah, well we need to get a move on with this session, and you’ve
already demonstrated that the Radar sounds great, so fuck it,” he
said as I could hear him sucking in heavily from what I assumed was the
first fatty of the day.
Indeed, I thought to myself.
I certainly didn’t complain about this new development. Shit, I
couldn’t have been more delighted to be relinquishing editing duties
to someone else. If Willy was a producer that enjoyed Alsihad, the session
would be paying for an Alsihah to be editing the tracks anyway. Besides,
having one person editing while we continued recording would be a far
more efficient way of working.
Then Willy further enlightened me on the subject of his great turnabout.
He told me about a friend of his that is a somewhat famous producer in
Nashville, who suggested that we quit fucking around editing 2" tape
and transfer the takes to Radar for editing, and Willy’s friend
recommended HIS guy for the editing gig. Being that Willy actually described
Dude as “lightning fast,” I’ve named him Fast Fingers
McGuilicutty, sight unseen. Fast Fingers would be arriving tomorrow to
start editing takes.
Further, I learned in our conversation that Willy had taken home a couple
of the takes of each song from the running DAT (Digital Audio Tape). I
keep a DAT recorder rolling at all times during the course of a session.
When the band is making takes, Lance’s job is to mark an ID at the
beginning of each take and log down the ID number and its corresponding
take number. That way, if Willy or I want to take home a CD of some takes,
all Lance has to do is look at his notes and transfer those takes to a
CD. Running a DAT recorder at all times has the added advantage of allowing
me to play back an idea or part that someone may have played accidentally
but forgotten, and it can potentially provide interesting and fun interlude
material for an album.
Willy had confided in me, in our phone conversation this morning, that
the takes really weren’t up to par and that the band was severely
lacking energy. This was not a surprise to me. After all, the band DID
have an obvious lack of enthusiasm yesterday. It’s not that either
of us is incapable of listening to a take go down and recognize that it’s
not totally happening, but we’re dealing in relative terms. Our
ability to listen to a take has been tainted with the comparisons of what
we had previously recorded. In comparison to our first recording with
the band, yesterday’s takes were a marked improvement. Improvement
was a step in the right direction. In cases like these, where the playing
is so hideously atrocious, knowing for certain whether takes are going
to pass muster often requires a day away from the tracks and sometimes
requires actually editing them.
Although the takes weren’t happening, Willy felt that moving forward,
as we have done, has been the right course of action We could always go
back and try to beat what we have recorded thus far. So long as there
was improvement, Willy would allow the band to record takes and move on
to the next song.
Even with the news of the takes not being up to par, I was encouraged
and upbeat on my way into the session. Perhaps the energy level would
improve today. As I was driving to the studio, I had made a decision that
I was going to be as upbeat and as positive as I possibly could. Sure,
I’m always positive at the studio. But today was different. Today,
I was going to be the specimen of good vibes, positive thinking, and overly
expressive enthusiasm. Perhaps my enthusiasm would be infectious, and
the band would start to play with excitement.
Of course, no sooner had I arrived at the studio, convinced that I was
somehow going to make a difference on the day’s work, when I was
instantly and completely deflated. There, at the table on the patio, sat
two girls with Yore and Harmon. Girls in their own right certainly were
not a bad thing, but these particular girls had two strikes against them.
They were at a recording session in which there were no girls, and they
looked suspiciously like girlfriends. A terrible, horrible feeling had
overcome me. These guys didn’t ACTUALLY bring their girlfriends
to the session. Did they?
“Hi, how’s it going?” I said coolly as I hobbled to
the table at which the crew was sitting. I stood there with what I’m
sure was an awkward little smile waiting anxiously for an introduction,
which I didn’t actually have the patience to wait for.
“My name is Mixerman,” I said like a heathen, holding out
my hand as if making an effort to show that I come in peace.
Heathen or not, sometimes my insight and ability to recognize a situation
scares me. They WERE girlfriends!
What I wanted to do was cry No! No! No! No! No! No! No!—over and
over again as I slammed my forehead against the brick wall outside the
studio. But I figured that would have been too revealing of my thoughts
on this subject, so I smiled and welcomed our newfound intruders instead.
How could these guys be this stupid? One should NEVER bring one’s
girlfriend to a session. It’s like the first rule of recording.
I think they teach this in kindergarten. Even my children know you don’t
bring your girlfriend to the studio. Guys don’t act like themselves
when their girlfriends are there. They get distracted, the girls get upset
because the guys aren’t paying attention to them, and then the guys
get all pissed off because the girls don’t understand that they’re
making a record. Then what typically happens is the girls split, the guys
get pissed, and it’s a fucking fiasco every time. My only hope was
that the girlfriends were planning to leave and go shopping together.
I clung onto that hope like it was Barry Bonds’ 73rd 2001 home run
ball, as I proceeded to the control room and prepared for the day’s
session.
Willy walked in the control room, and I gave him what must have been a
maniacally horrified look as he entered, because he actually asked if
I was sick.
“They brought girlfriends!!” I blurted out in horror, with
no thought to how that must have sounded or looked for that matter.
Willy chuckled. “I’m sure they’ll be leaving soon,”
he replied.
But they didn’t leave soon. They stayed the whole day, and for what
had been the briefest of moments yesterday, a decent, well-adjusted session
would now be destroyed by the presence of alien intruders.
Don’t get me wrong. I love women. GOD do I love women. I enjoy working
with women in studio situations. What I don’t like is girlfriends
or boyfriends in the studio. In fact, boyfriends are worse! There’s
just no room for that shit. Band members and artists have to be unencumbered
and free to be themselves wholly. Girlfriends and boyfriends only serve
to aggravate, for they don’t recognize the boundaries of concentration
and focus that go into the creative process of recording.
It seems our visitors were intent on proving that my disdain for such
things was warranted right from the start. The girls yucked it up on the
couch in the back of the room, while I was trying to get sounds. Anyone
that has done any level of engineering at all knows it’s VERY difficult
to work while people are in the room talking. The only way to combat the
noise is to turn up the volume of your monitors. However, the louder I
turned up the volume, the louder the intruders would talk, until such
a point that I was absolutely blasting the music, as the unwanted studio
guests were yelling at the top of their lungs and looking at me as if
I was doing something wrong!
“I’m sorry, but there really can’t be any talking while
I’m doing critical listening,” I would say after muting the
speakers. “You’re more than welcome to go into the lounge
if you like.”
“Oh, sorry! We’ll be quiet,” they would respond giggling,
as if making my life miserable was somehow humorous.
Less than 30 seconds of silence would go by, and the whispers would start
again. The whispers would soon turn into talking, and then yelling as
the cycle would play itself out again, and I would calmly ask them to
shut the fuck up in as pleasant a way as I could muster—perhaps
too pleasant a way. ‘Round and ‘round we’d go in an
endless cycle.
At one point, one of the girls realized that I could magically communicate
with the boys by pushing a button and just talking, and the other decided
it would be cute for HER to talk to Yore.
In an elongated and exaggerated fashion, with a light Southern accent
much like the blonde white-trash-factory-worker character that pretended
to get pregnant in the movie An Officer and a Gentleman, she screamed
“Play louder, sexy!” She made sure that she yelled directly
into the push button, as if by some miracle a solid piece of plastic with
her thumb over it could somehow act as a microphone.
MOTHER FUCKER!
“Please!” I said exasperated. “You really can’t
be playing with the talkback button, we’re trying to make a record
here,” I continued, as I held out my hand as a gesture to demand
return of the talkback remote control. Still, they wouldn’t leave.
I had thought for hours about what I could say to get them out of the
room. Many scenarios had played in my head in short little daydream sequences,
as my brain attempted to come up with a reasonable solution to my problem.
“Get me a mic and set it up for the girls over there,” I would
say to Lance in one of my daydreams, as I pointed to the back of the control
room.
“Why are you setting up a mic?” one of the girls would ask.
“So that I can record your singing,” I would reply.
“But we’re not singing,” they would respond hook, line
and sinker.
“Oh! Right! Well then, how about you SHUT THE FUCK UP!” I
would say to their horror and dismay. That would get them out of the room,
anyway!
Had this little vignette actually happened, it surely would have gotten
me in hot water with Harmon, who wouldn’t understand at all why
I was yelling at his girlfriend. I would have possibly gotten myself fired,
a thought that is not so unappealing right about now. Worse yet, I might
have to hang out for weeks with a guy whose girlfriend wants me fired.
Even if HE could somehow forgive me and understand why I snapped, his
girlfriend would make sure that he hated me by such torturous techniques
as talking about the incident endlessly.
Deciding that I was, perhaps, untrustworthy to ask the girls to leave
at that particular moment, I decided it would be best if I let Willy act
as the diplomat. I was at my wit’s end where they were concerned,
and it’s always best to get a disinterested party involved in such
cases. Willy always seemed to fill this role perfectly.
Willy was great, because when I told him my problem, he poked his head
in the door and held out a fatty and led the girls to the lounge as if
the fatty were a flute, Willy was the Pied Piper, and the girlfriends
were rats. So as the crew smoked a fatty, Willy came up with the new rule
that no one was allowed in the control room while we were working. Everyone
was agreeable, as most people are when they are smoking fatties.
Willy was very tolerant of the fact that the girlfriends were there. At
one point, when the girls were in the lounge and we were making a take,
Willy said we would just have to deal with the “bitches” for
now (his words, not mine). The way Willy figured it, the girlfriends might
actually make the boys play more inspired. This hasn’t been my experience
in studio life, and it certainly wasn’t evidenced by the band’s
uncanny ability to play a 120-beat-per-minute lullaby at that particular
moment. But who am I to argue with success?
With the girlfriends now out of the control room, the remainder of the
day went fairly smoothly. Much like yesterday, we recorded two songs today.
Willy was working very hard with the band to try and bring up the inspiration
in their playing. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the
band and Cotton were starting to perform halfway decently by the end of
the night. But I do know better. So much for being upbeat and positive!
I guess there’s always tomorrow.
Mixerman
Week 3 Page 2: The Daily Adventures of Mixerman
All Mixerman documentary copy
is presented on PSW (with permission) just as it appears in the hardbound
book, The Daily Adventures of Mixerman. © 2002, 2004 Mixerman
Multimedia, Inc. — All Rights Reserved. No part of the following
web-based document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission
from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Day 13: What-up Dog?
Posted: August 15, 12:09 a.m.
Whereas yesterday was a pain in the ass what with the presence of Paulie
Yore’s and Harmon Neenot’s girlfriends, today was a pain
in the ass times two. That’s because Dumb Ass and the singer both
decided to bring THEIR girlfriends to the sessions too. Girlfriends
were multiplying at an alarming rate. Tomorrow, could I expect the girlfriend
ratio to double again? Perhaps Willy would bring his girlfriend and
our soon-to-arrive comrade Fast Fingers could have his girlfriend flown
in from Nashville. Lance surely had to have a girlfriend that had nothing
better to do than to spend a day at the studio gabbing all day as she
ate chocolate muffins. I have always had my suspicions about Magnolia,
perhaps SHE could round up a girlfriend, and then we could have eight
girlfriends tomorrow!
For the record, I really didn’t give a shit that the girlfriends
were eating chocolate muffins, as the runner was now buying 10 of them
or more per day so as to be sure that we never ran out. I considered
requesting that the runner back off on the muffin count, but I was fearful
we’d be back down to one muffin per day, as making requests at
this studio was much akin to driving a large vehicle very fast and making
sudden direction changes while on ice.
Four girlfriends is four girlfriends too many. I had to make a sign.
I find signs to be an effective way to not only set rules but set them
in an obnoxious way without actually offending anybody—mostly
because rules usually come off humorous when posted as a sign. So I
ripped a piece of paper from a pad, and I wrote on the paper.
NO GIRLS ALLOWED!!!
“No, no, no, no!” I thought as I tore up that sign. That
wasn’t going to work. A sign like that would only serve to guarantee
that the girls would enter the control room. I needed a girlfriend deterrent,
not a girlfriend magnet. So, I tried again.
NO TALKING IN THE CONTROL ROOM!!!!
TO BE STRICTLY ENFORCED!!!
I liked that one. I was hopeful this would work, since, as it was, I
was sure that I could hear the flock gabbing from down the hall through
an airlock that is designed to prevent sound from entering or escaping
the control room. I realize that my sign was neither super inventive
nor very obnoxious for that matter. But the way I figured it, these
girls weren’t going to be coming into the control room, if they
weren’t allowed to talk. Therefore, by placing the sign, I would
be better able to enforce the rule, since the rule had been clearly
and conspicuously posted. Yeah, right.
As I was hanging my freshly written sign, out of the corner of my eye,
I noticed a stranger coming down the hall. He was a short, lanky, meek-looking
pasty-faced guy with a tiny goatee and spiked hair died pure blond.
He was wearing a parka and carrying a bag that I assumed was made out
of hemp. The stranger looked prepared for an Arctic dog-sled competition,
save the fact that he was also wearing knee-length shorts. It’s
95 degrees outside, and this clown was wearing a fucking parka!
“What-up, Dog?” the stranger said to me. “Where da
Bitch Slap session at, Yo?” he asked.
“Right here,” I replied, preoccupied with the ideal placement
of my sign and completely disinterested in pointing what I assumed was
more posse to the lounge.
“I’m here to cut takes, Yo,” the stranger announced.
With that, it became apparent whom I was talking to.
It was none other than Fast Fingers McGuilicutty, in all his glory,
standing before me, looking like a 20-year-old idiot with a parka rated
for 40 below in the middle of summer in L.A. Out of nowhere it struck
me that my Commodore 64 theory from yesterday was now shot to hell.
Dude was too young to have ever used a Commodore 64. Perhaps he wasn’t
as fast as all the hype made him out to be.
“Ah-ight,” I said, as I noticed that he was about the height
of the girls, and lined my sign up to his eye level.
“Been having problems with the Bitches?” he asked.
What’s with these guys and the “bitches” shit? I mean,
yeah, I don’t want girlfriends on the session, but it’s
not for some misplaced deep-down hatred of women.
“Word,” I replied in a language that I thought he might
understand.
My years of hip-hop sessions came in handy, as I could converse fluently
with Fast Fingers, or perhaps I should say Fingaz. I knew the lingo
and when to use it, and as far as he was concerned, I was one of the
brothers. Strangely, neither of us was one of the brothers, but I figure
that’s just a technicality.
So, I gave Fingaz the nickel tour. I showed him the room, and then the
control room, and finally I showed him where the Radar was. As I stood
there staring at the Radar, I realized that neither Willy nor I had
considered where Fingaz was going to work. Editing in the control room
was out. The iso booths wouldn’t provide enough true isolation,
and we’d likely want to reserve them for recording anyway. Willy’s
makeshift office was too far away from the control room, since we wouldn’t
want to have to keep moving the Radar. Really, the only place I could
think to put Fingaz was in the bathroom, which was a reasonable distance
from the control room. Fingaz didn’t seem too thrilled with that
prospect.
“What happens when someone has to go to the bathroom, Yo?”
he asked incredulously.
“I guess you’ll have to take a break,” I said. I could
hardly contain my laughter, and it got worse, because then I imagined
someone taking a really smelly dump during Fingaz’ forced mandatory
break time, causing considerable contamination to the editing area.
By the looks on Fingaz’ face, he was imagining something quite
similar.
This wasn’t the first time that an editor has ended up in the
shitter on one of my sessions, and I didn’t find it any less humorous
the last time it happened either. Being experienced in these sorts of
things, I brought out some extra tapestries (which were also necessary
for acoustical reasons, as large concrete bathrooms make for terrible
acoustics), a plethora of scented candles, and some incense to try and
transform the bathroom into what appeared to be a very vibey editing
space. OK, so it never quite made vibey, as we couldn’t really
cover the commode, but it was certainly much improved, and the commode
would make a very convenient seat for anyone that wanted to come take
a listen to what Fingaz was working on.
Willy loved what I had done to the bathroom after he figured out that
I was, indeed, right that there was nowhere else to put Fingaz. Cotton
pointed out that there WAS another bathroom down the hall, which I had
forgotten about—mostly because I don’t like that particular
bathroom. I call it the “Trough” with its three urinals
and three stalls. I hate using the Trough. I don’t have a phobia
or anything like that. I’m fine with the Trough at the mall or
the movies or a restaurant. But I spend 12 hours a day at the studio,
and I like having a private bathroom, much like the one I have at home.
I hate the Trough.
With our makeshift editing suite complete, we set up the newest member
of our crew in the bathroom. Fingaz had the Radar, a rack of three Dangerous
Mixers40, and some powered speakers. We ran cables to and from the Radar
between the bathroom and the machine room, and we transferred the takes
for Fast Fingaz to get to work on. He immediately got to work. And work
he did.
This guy really WAS lightning fast. He had the fastest fingers I’ve
ever seen as he hit macro buttons left and right like he was a court
reporter at a deposition. He’d cut, paste, scrub, mark, move,
slide, chop. It almost seemed fake, like a bad movie where the guy is
pretending to break into a super computer on the Internet by typing
on a keyboard really fast. He was absolutely fantastic!
Now, with Fast Fingaz furiously editing away, we needed to start to
make takes again. Occasionally girls would try to enter the room one
at a time, and I would play Mind Tricks on them, forcing them to quickly
close the door and go back to the lounge. But at one point, I was overrun
by the four of them. My Mind Tricks were useless against such numbers,
and somehow they figured this out.
Willy would let the girls hang for a while, and then he’d pull
his Pied Piper routine again, luring them to the lounge down the hall
with his fatties. Then Willy would return, and we’d continue working.
As the day went on, it got progressively more difficult to find band
members with whom to make takes. That’s because they would usually
be somewhere else with their girlfriends. The moment I’d find
a player and inform him that he was needed, another band member would
be missing. It was like the girls had cast a spell on the band, causing
them to forget that this day was probably costing in the neighborhood
of $4,000.
Whenever Lance was trying to find AWOL players, I would go and hang
with Fingaz and get to know him a little better. I found it absolutely
fascinating that this guy lived in Nashville. He would be the equivalent
of an alien in Nashville with his appearance and the way he spoke. Things
just didn’t add up, and I so desperately needed them to. I figured
I’d just up ask him.
“So, where in Nashville do you live?” I asked, as if I knew
more than one street there.
“Damn, maaan,” Fingaz responded incredulously. “I
don’t live dare Yo. Jus’ been cuttin’ takes wit da
man over dare.”
“Word,” I replied. “Well, where you from, Yo?”
I asked.
“I live in da City, Dawg” he replied, which made a hell
of a lot more sense than Dude living in Nashville.
“You know dey don’t let no Wegro live in Nashville,”
he continued.
I almost fell off the commode at that comment. Dude called himself a
Wegro! I never heard of anything so ridiculous in my life! African Americans
haven’t been referred to as Negros in 30 years, and for good reason!
But Dude decides to call himself a Wegro? What a schmuck!
But then, at the thought of such absurdity on so many levels, I found
myself laughing and unable to stop laughing. I was laughing so hard,
my gut started to hurt. (I’m STILL laughing) This guy was a fucking
classic! The fact that he couldn’t understand what I found so
funny about this statement just made my laughing fit worse. Finally,
I had to get the hell out of there, because he was starting to get mad
at me, and that was not helping me regain my composure at all.
When I went into the control room, Willy wanted to know what I was laughing
about, and I told him. The two of us sat there for about 10 minutes
laughing so hard that our stomachs hurt. At one point, when we had almost
gotten control of ourselves, we noticed Fingaz standing in the airlock
with this confused scowl on his face as he was watching us laughing.
This didn’t help matters at all. Then Willy decided to fire up
a fatty, and Dude came in to join the party.
“You bluntin’?” Fingaz asked Willy.
“Not bluntin’,” I said, “smokin’ fatties.”
I guess Fingaz found that acceptable, because he joined in.
We got one song recorded today because we could barely get the guys
in the room at the same time. Fingaz got the first song edited and was
halfway through another. Willy decided he’d listen to the edited
takes tomorrow after the second editing job was complete
As much as Fingaz is an idiot with his whole Wegro terminology and the
shtick that went with it, at least I could hang with the dude.
Which was more than I could say for the band.
Mixerman
Day 14: Up All Night
Posted: August 16, 9:45 a.m.
It’s 9:42 a.m. Friday morning. I’ve been up all night, and
I've just gotten home. I’m going to bed, but currently there is
the looming threat of having to go back to the studio this evening, although
I wonder if that's actually possible. Yesterday’s session was a
doozie.
But then, aren’t they all? Sleepytime for . . .
Mixeyman
All Mixerman documentary copy
is presented on PSW (with permission) just as it appears in the hardbound
book, The Daily Adventures of Mixerman. © 2002, 2004 Mixerman
Multimedia, Inc. — All Rights Reserved. No part of the following
web-based document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission
from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Days 14 & 15: Bring In The Posse Brigade
Posted: August 17, 10:49 p.m.
Exhaustion has set in.
I did a 72-hour session once (actually twice) with no sleep and no drugs,
and I’ve finished entire records in that time. So yesterday’s
22 hours could hardly be considered a marathon session in the grand
scheme of sessions. But it’s still a long fucking day. When you
couple a 22-hour session with three weeks of 12-hour days, the stress
of a session that was doomed before it began, the relentless documentation
of my daily events here, and a desire to actually see my family, the
exhaustion can be overwhelming. I won’t do anything this weekend
except walk around like a zombie and try to be of SOME use to my family.
I arrived at the studio at 11 a.m. on Thursday, the 14th day of work
on the Bitch Slap album. The day started fairly normally. Dumb Ass was
sitting on the patio smoking a cigarette. Harmon and Yore were in the
lounge playing video baseball, and the singer was probably in the bathroom
fixing his hair, as he was prone to do on a regular basis.
Lance had arrived, like clockwork, a few moments after me, which seemed
to be the trend these days, since he exhibited some innovation by training
the runner to turn on all the mics and the tube gear. Willy arrived
the moment I began enjoying my morning muffin and hugged everyone in
sight. My new friend Fingaz rolled in on his first-class rental sled,
which seems the appropriate terminology for his ride given his propensity
for wearing a parka. Magnolia was arranging flowers in the kitchen,
even though they make me sneeze, and I place them out on the patio on
a daily basis. Everyone was present and accounted for. That is, everyone
but the unwanted studio guests.
While I was very happy that there were no girlfriends, I was also a
bit suspicious, and I have no idea why. To my knowledge, Willy hadn’t
banned them; in fact, at one point, he had expressed the thought that
they might help matters, which they don’t. So where were they?
Did they actually work? I didn’t dare ask for fear that one of
them might take my inquiry as some sort of invitation, and the next
thing you know, we would have girlfriends everywhere.
With the obligatory morning niceties behind us, it was time to work.
Willy wanted to record one of the more creative songs. He searched through
his cases of gear and instruments and pulled out this fantastic circus
drum. It had what I can only describe as a “round” sound
as it had a front head on it with no hole. The lack of a hole causes
the front head to resonate more, supplying a very distinctive sound
much like Jon Bonham’s kik drum heard on old Led Zeppelin records.
We had to actually tie Cotton’s stool to the drum in order to
prevent the drum from migrating forward as he stepped on the beater,
as this particular drum wasn’t designed to be used on a drum set
and had no floor anchors.
With the makeshift kik drum in place, we attempted to detune the toms
to be exceptionally deep and resonant, but Dumb Ass totally fucked up
the sound of them, since he has no clue how to tune a drum set. Seeing
as I had only slightly more of a clue, I called the drum tech. That’s
not a problem, because fortunately we are right down the road from the
rental drum tech and rental warehouse.
When the drum tech arrived some 15 minutes later, he decided to put
up some very large toms that he had in his truck, and he made them super
deep. Of course, Dumb Ass, living up to my name for him, neglected to
tell or—at the very least—remind anyone that he doesn’t
hit the fucking toms in this particular song, except the floor tom once
in the bridge. Since that particular tom hit was eventually dropped
at Willy’s request, there were actually NO tom hits in this song.
Essentially, we went through all of that bother for nothing.
After a couple of hours of drum sounds and several glasses of water,
I was in desperate need of a trip to the Trough—a place that I
abhor even for such mundane routines as relieving my bladder. Normally,
a walk to the Trough would be relatively uneventful, and I assure you,
I will not make a habit of describing to you my bathroom visits. Today,
however, in my journey to the Trough, I found myself passing an inordinate
amount of strangers. It wasn’t necessarily unusual for me to pass
strangers in the hall, as there was usually another session going on
in Studio II. But the people from Studio II didn’t typically wander
this far down the hall, as the complex was set up to prevent excessive
fraternization between sessions.
Regardless, my need to take a leak had reached a high level of alert,
so I high-tailed it to the Trough. To my surprise, there were a considerable
number of people IN the Trough, as well. Normally with this many people
in a communal bathroom, I would assume there was a string session going
on in the next room. But these were definitely not string players. These
guys appeared more like wannabe rockers from the Valley, laden with
tattoos and piercing hardware. If this were a decade ago, they would
have likely been viewed as a sordid and dangerous bunch of hoodlums.
Now they’re society’s youth.
After completing my business in the Trough and feeling as though I somehow
didn’t belong (when in reality I was the ONLY one who belonged),
I headed back for the control room, which I have taken to dubbing the
“Womb,” as it is often my only place of true refuge on a
session. When walking to the Womb from the Trough one must pass directly
in front of the lounge, and as I did, I caught an unsettling image through
my peripheral vision. I stopped dead in my tracks, just beyond the entry
to the lounge. I was just a few short steps from the safe haven of the
Womb. I wanted to ignore it. I really did. But to ignore what I had
seen, or more accurately what I had thought I had seen, would be only
to put off the inevitable. Slowly, I leaned back, half cocking my head
to see more straightforwardly into the lounge, to the view of a throng
of strangers mingling.
For the record, this was not some communal lounge for anyone that happened
to be working at the complex. This was our own private lounge, or at
least it was to this point of the session. I scanned the crowd in search
of anyone that I actually knew, but to no avail. As I searched, the
lounge people began to take notice of me, and I grew uncomfortable,
as if I didn’t belong there.
It didn’t take me much more than a few seconds before I continued
on to the Womb, as I was fearful that one of the strangers might start
asking me whether he or she could help me, as if I were somehow in the
wrong place. The band members were out in the room with their instruments,
adjusting their amps, tuning their instruments, and testing guitars,
as I could hear the evidence of this coming from the speakers. Willy
seemed ready to move forward with our session, as he sat perched in
front of the speakers.
We jumped through the usual hoops of trying to find a guitar sound that
best fit the song and the sound of the drums. Sometimes this can be
like putting together a puzzle. Every instrument had to sound as if
it belonged with the others. Everything starts with the drums. If the
drums are more stylized, then it’s likely that the bass and guitar
need to be, as well. But style isn’t the only consideration. One
must also consider the frequencies that instruments occupy and how that
affects the other instruments.
The frequency range of human hearing is from 20 hertz (cycles per second)
to 20 kilohertz (20,000 cycles per second), although it is a rare person
that can actually hear frequencies as high as 20 kilohertz, just as
it is rare to find a person that is 115 years old. An instrument has
a fundamental range within that spectrum. Without going into the physics
here, and to put it as simply as possible, a bass covers the low part
of the spectrum and a violin covers the high part of the spectrum. A
tine struck with another tine would have almost no low end, and a bass
drum played with a soft mallet would have almost no high end. Achieving
separation between a bass and a tine is very easy, as they do not cross
frequencies. Achieving clarity between a bass and a kik drum can require
some attention, because they cover similar frequency ranges.
In this case, the kik drum was very round and took up a lot of low-end
space, so the bass had to have some mid-range attack to it in order
to cut through. Half the battle is finding the specific instrument that
works best for the application. In this case, we knew that this was
the kik drum sound we wanted, so we were looking for a bass that fit
with it. In other words, we were looking for a bass that had a very
pronounced mid-range. So we used an instrument that had these precise
characteristics—in this case a Hoffner bass. This particular bass
was over 30 years old and could have easily been used by Paul McCartney41,
as that was the bass he typically used through his career, although
we have no documentation proving Paul actually played this particular
bass. Not that we needed any; this was a right-handed bass, and it has
been well established that Paul McCartney plays left-handed.
Different guitars and basses made at different times throughout the
course of rock history have distinct and unique sounds. The same can
be said about guitar and bass amplifiers. That is why on high-budget
sessions, such as this, there will often be as many as 30 guitars, many
of which are very old. Older instruments are usually referred to as
“vintage.” Much like vintage wine, they are called that
because they are the cream of the crop and have aged well. Otherwise,
they are just plain “old,” which also has its place.
I’ve been on sessions where there were over 100 guitars, all owned
by the artist. It’s not uncommon to try five or six different
guitars (sometimes more), through several amps to find a guitar sound
that works best for a song. This is not entirely a hit-or-miss process,
as discussions take place, citing particular target guitar sounds. Often
times, terms like warm, biting, bright, thick, crunchy, mellow, etc.
will be used in an attempt to describe a guitar sound. When that fails,
and that fails often, then we reference CDs. It is not uncommon to send
the runner to the record store to buy specific CDs in order to demonstrate
a guitar sound concept to someone. Suffice it to say, when you are surrounded
by guitars and amplifiers of many varieties, you have many options available
to you.
After recording a few of the rehearsals and then listening back and
making adjustments, we were ready to start making takes, but the band
wanted a short break. As the band broke, Willy and I took the opportunity
to visit Fingaz and check out what he was working on.
Fingaz was almost finished with his third song, and he was more than
happy to take a break from it and play us his editing job on the first
song. Willy sat on the commode, and I sat on the sink, which wasn’t
very comfortable with a spigot in my back, not to mention the constant
concern for catching fire from the surplus of burning candles surrounding
me. Willy liked the first song’s drum tracks as the takes were
a far-cry better than our first attempts at editing Cotton. I think
abandoning the clik track and headphones was beneficial to the overall
feel of the drums. But the question was, were they good enough? That
question couldn’t be definitively answered until we attempted
to record over the edited drums.
While Fingaz certainly wasn’t doing as severe an editing job as
I had attempted on 2", there were still a lot of cuts, and the
bass and guitar parts were rendered useless as the cuts were designed
specifically for the drums. There was bleed from the other instruments
on the drums, but the large majority of that bleed was on the room mics.
I could always remake the room mics by blasting the edited drums through
the PA system and recording the room mics again. Regardless, I didn’t
think the bleed was going to render the editing job useless. Still,
this is the gamble that you take when you record with bleed.
As I said before, usually recording in one room, as we did, is reserved
for bands that can play a song together without redoing guitar and bass
parts. Still, I was fairly confident that we wouldn’t have any
problems, since Harmon and Yore were fairly consistent in what they
played, and the replayed parts that they would have to lay down would
likely work fine with the bleed that was present on the drums.
Willy and I listened to the rest of Fingaz’ editing jobs. Willy
suggested a few changes, and we left Fingaz to his work as it was time
for us to begin making takes with the band. Having briefly forgotten
the presence of strangers outside or perhaps, hoping deep down that
they had left (I’m not sure which), I made my way outside of the
Womb and into the cold cruel world of excessively tattooed and pierced
intruders from the Valley. My hope of their mysteriously vanishing was
dashed the instant I popped my head out the door, as the presence of
strangers had not diminished, but rather increased. There were strangers
everywhere!
Who were all these strangers?
As I made my way through the infestation of intruders, I was approached
by one of the band’s girlfriends that I had supposedly grown close
to. She hugged me, assuming that I actually liked her or that I wanted
her around. I didn't. I couldn’t even remember which band member
she belonged with.
There were strangers in the lounge, the kitchen, the game room, and
they even spilled out to the patio area where the band was now hanging.
As I passed through the kitchen to the patio and sifted myself through
strangers trying not to touch any, as if they were cockroaches or something
vastly more disgusting, I couldn’t help but notice that our usual
spread of muffins, bagels, veggie tray and fruit basket looked more
like the remnants of an Over-Eaters Anonymous party. There was nothing
left save the unappetizing remains of ranch dressing dip, which had
mostly been dripped across the glass table, randomly interspersed with
muffin crumbs both large and small in size. If I hadn’t realized
it before, I did now. The intruders were there for our session, and
they had absolutely no business being there other than to eat my food,
drink my beverages, and take up my space that I use as refuge from the
Womb, for one even needs refuge from Wombs occasionally. There was no
doubt about it—I was in the midst of a Posse Brigade!
Regardless of the brigade, we needed to start recording. So, I went
to the patio to get the band members, who were holding court with their
posse while holding on to their instruments—Harmon with the Hofner
bass in his lap; Yore with an electric guitar strapped to his shoulder;
Dumb Ass with his drum sticks in his back pocket; and even the singer
was holding a microphone that we would most likely never actually use
to record him.
“You guys ready?” I asked.
“Let’s get to it,” Harmon responded.
With those words, the band stood up in one swift uniform motion and,
in formation, proceeded immediately in the direction of the room. Never
before had I seen such a determined look painted on their faces as they
made their way through the crowd to the large double doors of the complex.
For the briefest of moments, I felt as though I were watching a real
rock band, a successful band, somehow making its way through the corridors
on the way to performing its last concert after a long career of making
successful records and selling out large stadiums. Like they were of
the caliber of U2. Like they were actually cool.
“C’mon, we’re playing!” yelled Cotton at the
top of his lungs almost directly in my ear as he gestured for everyone
to follow.
”WHAT????? NO!” I thought in panic.
With that summoning, the Posse Brigade became a posse parade, as they
followed the band into the room like they were being lured by Willy
with a fatty. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Everyone filed into
the recording room. It was like the lights had blinked on and off at
the intermission of a play to indicate that the show was about to resume.
But this wasn’t a show, so what the hell were these people doing?
I stood there motionless in the middle of the hall, staring in disbelief
with my mouth hanging open, as brigadiers displayed marked irritation
toward me for neglecting to provide a fully unrestricted path to the
recording room.
As the last person filed in, I was suddenly broken from my spell. I
spun around and ran to the Womb, which could be entered from a separate
entrance without going through the recording room at all. When I arrived
at the Womb again, I could hear the commotion of many people coming
through the speakers, being picked up by the many microphones in the
room. Willy looked at me wide-eyed with his mouth open, and I looked
back at Willy, as it was apparent that he was as taken aback by this
event as I was. I had not seen Willy fazed by anything until now. Since
he was still in the shock that I had just moments ago been snapped out
of, I spoke first.
“Are they going to clap when they finish the song?” I said
dryly.
At that comment Willy snapped to and immediately went to the recording
room and motioned for the singer to come into the Womb with about as
much grace as Dumb Ass had displayed when he motioned to the Posse Brigade
moments earlier.
After an extensive debriefing, it became apparent that the band was
taking Willy’s own words to heart. They were searching for a way
to get more energy out of their playing. Willy had told the band he
wanted to capture them the way they played live, so they figured the
best way to achieve said goal was to bring in an audience. Willy expressed
concern over such possible negative events as crowd noise, applause,
or screaming in the middle of the take, but the band assured him that
everyone in the room had been prepped on the procedure, and that no
one would make a peep. Willy decided to oblige, which he might as well
have done, since everyone was already in the room and ready to listen.
With that, the singer made his way back into the room.
Willy looked at me and said nothing, as he sparked up a fatty that had
been sitting on the console for some time . He didn’t look particularly
pleased at that moment.
We recorded the band, and they didn’t play any better or worse
with their manufactured audience of drones. In fact, the presence of
that many bodies in the room changed the sound that we had worked so
hard to attain. But I wasn’t going to start readjusting things
yet. Rather, I allowed the session to proceed devoid of adjustments,
because, frankly, I’ve been down this road before. After three
takes that were likely passable at this point, the band headed for the
Womb, and so, too, did the posse brigade. Willy and I looked at each
other with the sort of horror you would expect if a piano were about
to land your head from 10 stories above.
“Whoa!” he yelled out. “We can’t have the audience
in the control room. I’m sorry,” he continued, which surprised
the hell out of me, because Willy rarely seemed to want to make unpopular
decisions.
Like disappointed drones, as if there was such a thing, the Posse Brigade
filed back into the recording room.
As we were listening to the takes, I took my normal listening position
to the back couch. The band liked to be in front of the speakers when
listening to the takes, and Dumb Ass liked to sit in front of the console
and drastically change my balances.
By the middle of the second take, which was sounding awful for Dumb
Ass’ clear lack of mixing skills, I was envisioning 20 strangers
in the recording room with mics that I spent a considerable amount of
time placing and positioning. Worse yet, I was envisioning them with
NO supervision.
I was overcome by instant panic. The tiniest change in a mic’s
position can drastically change the sound that is being recorded. If
a mic is somehow moved, it can render a take useless because of the
inability to cut it together with another take. I jumped up from my
position in the back of the room, and my worst fears had been proven
true.
There, through the window, I could see a guy hanging onto the large
boom stand that I was using to hold a mic over the left side of the
drums.
MOTHER FUCKER!
Not only was he hanging on it with his arms twisted around it like it
was a barbell, but he was swiveling it back and forth over the drums
in fascination.
Another intruder was sitting on the guitar amp that we were using, leaning
back on it like it was a chair and he was in junior high. For me to
go into the room and start berating people would be pointless. The intruders
were completely ignorant of what they were doing wrong. Willy was listening
down to a take and was completely oblivious. So, in an effort to stop
the madness as quickly as possible, I did the most irritating thing
I could think of. I stopped tape as they were intently listening to
a take.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” I said, “but we have
to get all those people out of the recording room.” I finished
as I pointed towards the room.
Everyone stood up to look out the window, and Willy gasped in horror.
“I know you guys want a live atmosphere and everything . . .”
I said.
And with that Willy told the singer with a look of wild-eyed horror,
“You’ve got to get them out of there!”
The band, realizing he was right, agreed and escorted the Posse Brigade
from the room. I explained to Willy and the band that between the moving
of microphones and the removal of a large amount of the best deadening
material known to man—man himself—we would have to go over
the takes that we had done thus far.
After repositioning the moved microphones, I returned to the Womb. Willy
was on the phone. Let me tell you, it’s nearly impossible to listen
at a reasonable volume when someone is on the phone next to you, so
I sat down to wait and told Dumb Ass over the talkback to do the same
(which he didn't so I just muted the console). Once I had settled down
on the couch to wait, I realized that I was listening to Willy’s
end of a conversation with Jeramiah Weasel, the band’s A&R
rep. They were discussing the progress of the record, and Willy was
deftly spinning an account of great progress and wonderful performances.
As the conversation progressed, I could tell that Willy was being pinned
down for a time to come by, but Willy was an expert at thwarting such
attempts and finally convinced Jeramiah that he’d call early next
week to set up a time.
Shortly after Willy’s phone conversation with Jeramiah, we began
making takes again. But we could barely get a groove going as the band
was beginning to take peculiarly frequent breaks. It wasn’t so
much the breaks in and of themselves that were peculiar, as much as
it was the manner in which the breaks were being taken. Indeed, as one
band member would proclaim the need for a bathroom break, the rest of
the band would proclaim same. These guys didn’t do anything well
together, including playing music, why would they all want to go to
the bathroom at the same time?
Of course, I already knew the answer to my own question, as the tell-tale
sniffles of a session gone awry could be heard through the microphones
each time they returned and prepared for another take. I knew then that
the boys were partaking in, as Dennis Miller so brilliantly puts it,
“Columbian Marching Powder.” As if girlfriends and Posse
Brigades weren’t enough to slow down the progress of a session,
I now found myself smack dab in the middle of a gak fest.
The gak fest was like some sort of disease (as gak fests tend to be)
that everyone on this session caught except me. After the band, it was
Willy who started to leave the room, and then Fingaz was walking back
and forth through the control room on a regular basis, since he couldn't
get anywhere without walking through the Womb. Even Lance was starting
to disappear for long periods of time and on several occasions claimed
to be catching some sort of a cold out of cold season.
I tried to stay in the Womb as long as possible. I certainly didn’t
want to join in on the party, as I knew that the moment I were to do
a gak, I would want to be anywhere BUT the studio working. But after
sitting alone for some time, I decided I should see for myself what
was going on.
The party was raging. There were volumes of liquor and beer being consumed.
There was actually a tiki bar set up in the lounge where people were
ordering drinks. The entire complex reeked of fatty smoke. Even though
there weren’t piles of blow on mirrors in plain view, the consumption
of marching powder was about as clandestine an operation as an episode
of Survivor, a television game show in which cameras record a contestant’s
every maneuver. The complex was overrun with a Posse Brigade in the
partying mood. They could even be found at the pool table in Studio
II’s lounge, a faux pas of the highest order. At one point, as
I gazed in amazement at the sheer scope of this party, I was offered
a gak by the band member’s girlfriend that hugged me earlier,
but I turned her down, since I didn’t want to be up all night.
As it turns out, I was up all night anyway.
We spent the rest of the night recording relatively little over a long
period of time, as everyone that was actually supposed to be at this
session was gaked up except for me. I was surprised that I wasn’t
being pressured to join in by the band, as that is usually the case
on these sorts of sessions. By this lack of pressure, I could only assume
that there was a limited supply. Unfortunately for me, that supply lasted
the entire night through the morning.
Even with the 10 extra hours of recording time, we managed to accomplish
less than usual. To say that it was difficult to get Willy or the band
in the room at the same time would be an understatement, but to be honest,
I didn’t really try.
We did, however, manage to make a couple of takes throughout the course
of the evening. The really pathetic part about that was the fact that
Dumb Ass played considerably better gaked up then he did straight. Unfortunately,
Willy couldn’t really judge the takes very well in this condition,
and he kept listening to the same take over and over between his partying.
Perhaps what we needed to do was get Dumb Ass gaked up and Willy straight
before we did drums takes. But the logistics of that were overwhelming
to me.
I would have gone home if the session had actually broken down into
a full-on party with no pretense of trying to make a record. I even
asked Willy if we maybe should call the session for the night, but he
felt that we needed to keep going because the label was going to want
to hear some of the recording we’ve done so far.
So, I stayed the whole night, the only sober person there. I didn’t
even dare take a hit of a fatty as much as I really wanted to. I was
too afraid that I would break down and take a gak, since fatties late
at night tend to have the effect of putting me to sleep. I had to avoid
taking a gak at all costs, because I would have to face my children
in the morning. I promised myself when my first son was born that I
would never allow my children to see me in that particular state, and
to date they never have.
By 5 a.m., most of the Posse Brigade was gone, but the band and Willy
and the last remaining brigadier, who I am assuming was the supplier
of the gak, were all still up and raring to go. Willy, somehow realizing
that we had managed to get very little done through the course of the
night, decided we should record some bass and guitars on the songs that
were edited. Sadly, much like Dumb Ass, Harmon could actually play halfway
decently gaked up. I just didn't want to test out his singing, because
I was certain that no substance on earth could help that. Yore, who
was normally a fine guitar player, went to complete shit on the substance.
I spent the next four hours recording bass and guitars on two songs.
The guitars were, for the most part, useless, out of time, and generally
uninspiring.
In 22 hours, we recorded what could have been done in six. Willy wanted
to come back again Friday evening, but, as I suspected, that was cancelled.
I’m sure everyone felt like shit, and they probably still do,
as those sorts of parties tend to supply hangovers that last for two
days. Hell, it’s taken me a full day to recover, and I wasn’t
even partying. As of this moment, I haven’t heard from Willy about
Monday. Perhaps tomorrow.
Once again, I find myself in semi-poor spirits come the end of a week
of recording on this particular project.
Although, I think I’m becoming numb to the idiocy.
Mixerman
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