Nights in White Satin
The end of the first week wrapped up in the best of spirits. We celebrated by taking a dip in a tepid pool, goggles and all, fetching the blue marble in the deep end. It was nice to be together in the early evenings hot sun.
After four days, Greg & I were able to complete the basic tracking of the drums and bass, accompanied by Aaron and Mike playing scratch tracks. Some of their parts may be keep-a-ble. The tones that we have been getting are thick, right now, I have a mix down of what we did, I’d say it is at about 30% done and it sounds awesome. I couldn’t be happier with the performance and sound keeping. There will be so much layering that it is hard to contain my excitement of what the finished product will be. After being beat up by two songs, we went in fresh, large iced coffees in hand and knocked it out quick. We were able to find the zone and just live in it on the fourth day, making for a speedy ending. In no way is it rushed or forced, it was recorded at the pace I feel most comfortable with. If something is going good, just keep the tape rolling.
Friday, we ended up just listening to everything, nudging cues, connecting the dots, broadening our scope of what we want to album to look like, it was a positive experience; everyone in the control room silently nodding along. A lot of people ask, hint at or forcefully want to know about the vibe of the record. Well, at this point it is hard to say because it is not done, there is still a mountain of sound that has yet to go into it…but as far as sound goes, for those in the wondering category…ummm….I don’t want to say it is like any of our albums or use our past work as a reference point because that was a different time in life but yeah, think back to like 2007, take a quick glimpse into 2009, end up in 2011 rolling into 2012 and you have a more mwY sounding record, grooves, big bass lines, weird timings, still some acoustic guitar but more heavily emphasized MIKE leading the charge. We have recently brought our dear friend Brandon Beaver into the fold to play second guitar. His band, the Buried Beds, toured with us this past summer. Greg and I even went on tour with them to play as their rhythm section this past winter. Anyway, he is a righteous guitar player, great dude and I am sure if Chris Kleinberg was going to pass the torch, it would definitely be in Beavs hands. The last record was written kind of in a more un conventional way for us, as a four piece. This time, we had two guitar players, able to really bring out our classic sound. In no way is it a step back, it’s more finding a comfortable place to operate in “rock music”. People go through changes and they need to be given attention if you are looking to approach creating music democratically. We aren’t trying to force anything and if we made this record with where our heart and minds were at last time around, it might have felt like it…When we were writing It’s All Crazy, there was so much personal strife in our immediate domain. It seemed that something jacked was going on with all of us independently, sometimes even amongst the members, by far one of the strangest eras of life I have lived through. That record is a by product of all that was happening. With LP 5, we came together smiling and saying “yes, let’s freaking do this!”, had a few positive meetings, met with Daniel, started jamming and what is blossoming feels really organic to my ears. It is a little bit of everything thrown into a blender, lot’s of movement and dynamics, heavy drums, surprises waiting in every song to be found. It’s gonna be good.
Felt like I needed to speak about that for a moment, lots of people ask and post questions about that and while I am not going to mention anything specific, I wanted to quench some of your minds. If you liked us pre It’s All Crazy, you will probably really really like this record. If you got into us because of It’s All Crazy, you will probably dig this record. If you are holding your breath waiting for A to B life part two, I can’t help you there. That was almost eleven years ago, holy s, but yeah, maybe a few fills and hinting guitar tones but not in that realm in the slightest. At the end of the day, as someone who adores all types of music, so much so that is hard to even describe and talk about, we are happy with the product and that goes the furthest in my heart.
Be good to everyone you see today, if you are having trouble feeling happy, find new ways to smile, take pleasure in the smallest, most abstract thoughts. Love you all-rickie