drumz, photos
here are some photos from the sessions so far:
this is my new friend and producer, Andy Ellis, at Brian Paturalski’s place.
Brian’s dusty Grammy.
Andy at his studio.
real analog synth!
this is the sweet view from the roof of the studio, right down hollywood boulevard. if only the weather was so sweet.
here at clear lake we recorded drums with Mike Miley. these two pictures were taken by my friend Laura.
how many dudes does it take to record a song? my friend Patrick O Connor, the assistant, myself (with holiday kenny loggins beard), Andy, and my friend and sort-of manager Craig Barron who carefully and graciously orchestrated this whole trip.
as of a few days ago i was not totally unboard with andy’s vision for the drums. he sent me a demo made with samples and i just didn’t get it. it didn’t seem to really groove and was kind of awkward. but i went back and listened to some stuff he had me reference, and some other things that he had done and i just decided i’m gonna go with this and hope for the best. he has much more experience than me in producing and recording drums and i can’t find anything he’s worked on that sounds awkward or bad. it still wasn’t working for me as of tuesday as we were playing with samples and sounds at Brian’s studio. i was truly getting worried and he had agreed to let me play around with other ideas on wednesday before heading to clear lake. but on wednesday when i showed up at Andy’s place it sounded fucking awesome. finally the whole picture was clear for me. it’s all about the way it is mixed, delay’s, accessory percussion, et cetera that makes the whole thing work. so when we showed up to work with Miley I was confident that what we were doing was the right thing, as weird as it is.
the parts are just insanely strange and unconventional although andy keeps denying this (think stewart copeland from the police meets Tool, over a nice pop song). the whole experience has been very good for me; in the last few years i’ve really started to change how i see pop music, that it can and should be intensely musical and smart as well as accessible.
Miley said “This is the first time I’ve been able to use my afro-cuban background in a pop song”. he is classically trained and toured with an orchestra in China for a little whle. the flip side of that, is that he comes from the bonham school of rock drumming and has eyes that get little crazy like a bonham-esque drummer’s eyes should.
while waiting for the technical stuff to get working we wallowed in our frustration with major labels over pizza in the studio lounge. Andy Miley and i have all been signed and dropped at least once. it’s like the thing to do out here. wallowing is the other thing to do, and that’s easy right now with the “state of the music industry”. Miley shared some hilarious road stories with me from touring with Bird and Veruca Salt. he is a facinating dude.
well today is my last full day out here. we are going to be working on some background vocals and maybe an extra guitar part or two.
JFK reunion is fast approaching! this friday night.
